The Perfect Tabernacle: An Exposition Of Hebrews 9:11-28

The Perfect Tabernacle: An Exposition of Hebrews 9:23-28

When we read the Book of Hebrews, we are struck by all the comparisons made between Jesus and people, places and things in the Old Testament and that Jesus is superior in every comparisons He is greater than the angels which mediated the first covenant. He is greater than Moses, Aaron and Joshua. He has a better High Priesthood, offers a better sacrifice and is the better offering for sin, etc. Another word which describes the Book is “perfect.” Jesus is the perfect God who is the express image of the Father. (Hebrews 1:3)The Book of Hebrews upholds the equality of the Holy Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So Jesus Christ is perfectly God because God is perfect by definition as well as His being.

Jesus is also the perfect man as well. Hebrews tells us that Jesus fully shared our humanity, including his being able to tempted, to suffer, and to learn obedience. Yet, Unlike Adam, He did not yield to sin when He was tempted. (Hebrews 4:15) So Jesus is both perfect as God and as man. Both were necessary for our reconciliation.

So what do we mean when we say “perfect.” Our English “perfect” is an imprecise and insufficient translation of the Greek word “telos” and other words formed from this root. The group of “telos” words used in the New Testament has a rich meaning. “Telos” has the basic meaning of “completion.” the compound “suntelia” in Hebrews 9:26 in the passage we just read is translated this way. It can be used to describe a building which has finished being built and is working as designed. All buildings begin with a plan drawn up by an architect who has the vision to see what the finished structure looks like and how it will work. Plans are drawn up for both the big picture as well as the sub-assemblies which show the details. These sub-assemblies are then contracted out and are built. Then they are assembled together into the building until it is finished. During the building, some external support structures such as scaffolding are employed.

Often, the finished building is found do be deficient in one way or another. the mistake might be in the original plans or an error in assembly. The building is then “not complete” in the sense that it was not perfect as designed. These flaws have to be remedied before the building is truly complete and ready to be used. We must remember that this is because manmade buildings are built by flawed men. This is certainly not the case with God who is perfect in His being and omnicompetent at both the planning level as well as the execution of this plan. Whatever God plans will surely come to pass and will work exactly as designed down to the last detail. This is why Scripture can say that Jesus Christ was slain from the foundation of the world. This does not mean that He died before the creation. Jesus certainly died on a cross outside Jerusalem at Passover almost 2000 years ago. But what God has designed and willed is already complete and perfect even before it works itself out in human history.

A perfect God, complete in Himself, created the world through the Son with Cavalry in mind. Jesus did not die on the cross as the result of some chance act of cruel men who misunderstood or hated Him and decided to crucify Him. The completion of this plan came with Jesus declaring: “It is finished” which uses a verb in the “telos” family. (tetelesthai) The plan of salvation which was perfectly designed before the foundation of the world was executed perfectly.

If the plan and the execution of the plan was perfect, so were the intermediate steps as well. But perhaps we should see the Old Testament in the way we see the scaffolding. God did indeed speak in times past at various times, places and means, and He did so perfectly and it accomplished perfectly what He had ordained until the time that He spoke more completely by and in Christ. The tabernacle in the Wilderness which was built by the exact specification of God was a shadow or model of the perfect tabernacle. (Exodus 25:9, Hebrews 8:5) The offerings of the blood of animals on its altar pointed to the time that Jesus would become the perfect offering for our sin. Aaron and the priesthood worked as designed and pointed to a time that the perfect High Priest Jesus would come. Jesus perfectly obeyed the Father. Everything was done perfectly and on time.

In the previous part of Hebrews 9, the writer of Hebrews has gone into some of the details of the Wilderness Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was designed to be portable as Israel was still in the wilderness and had not yet found rest in Canaan land. It is interesting to note that Hebrews mentions nothing about Solomon’s Temple.