Why Don’t We Have to Keep All Those Old Testament Ceremonies?

Sermon Transcript

I went to the dentist this week, put a new crown on molar number 18. The old crown wasn’t working too well. It was painful. It hurt really bad when I ate tacos. Any cold beverage was shocking, made my eyes water. So I went into my great dentist, I said, “Hey, I got a problem.” And he said, “Well, we’ll fix it.” So he made me a new one and sat me in the chair and pulled my old one out. And then he put it in a baggie and he handed it to me. Weird, but I don’t know what to do with it.

 

I mean, it’s made of gold, so I’m not inclined to throw it away. But it’s in the shape of my molar, so I’m not inclined to pull it out and show it to anybody. Looks like a tooth, but it’s not good for eating, so I’m kind of stuck. My new one’s great. I love my new crown. I used it this morning on my egg McMuffin. Plan on using it for lunch. My new one’s great. Doesn’t hurt. It’s a keeper. My old one, you know, I’m stumped. I carried it around in my pocket for a while, put it on my dresser, set it on my desk. I don’t know what to do.

 

We’ve been studying the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews has been helping us to understand that the old covenant’s been replaced with the new covenant. As a matter of fact, we ended chapter 8 last week with a pretty stark and dramatic statement about the old covenant. It might be good to refresh your memory and take a look at the last few verses of chapter 8. As a matter of fact, the last verse of chapter 8 that I think is most important for us.

 

Here is a statement about the transition from the old to the new. After stating this prophecy from Jeremiah 31 in verse 13, he says, “By calling this covenant new, he,” that is God, “made the old one”—now this is hard, this is a big word—“obsolete,” antiquated, outdated, outmoded. “And what is obsolete,” he says, “is aging and will soon disappear.”

 

So the new one’s good, it’s a keeper. For the old one, well, what do we do with this? If you look elsewhere in Scripture, you find these grandiose statements about the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, when Paul wrote Timothy, one of the most quoted verses about the importance of the Bible, really, Paul had the Old Covenant and Old Testament Scriptures in view, and he says about Scripture that all Scripture’s inspired. It’s God-breathed, and it’s useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. That’s a pretty big list for something that’s obsolete.

 

So we have these conflicting ideas. Paul said that the coming of Christ, he puts it just tersely in Romans, is the end of the law. And then all of a sudden we have Jesus talking so dramatically and majestically about the importance of the old covenant—Moses, the law, and the prophets. So we got a new one and we know it’s good. It’s great. As a matter of fact, the new covenant we’ve been learning in the last few chapters is perfect. It does everything it’s supposed to do. It does exactly what God intended it to do. It’s a keeper. But the old one, you know, how do we deal with that?

 

Chapter 9, you would think after saying that the old covenant is obsolete, we’d be done with it and move on to new covenant truths. Well, he now waxes on for verses about the old covenant way of worship. Look at it with me as how he’s going off into the details of the tabernacle. For something that’s obsolete, I’m thinking, why are you taking time with it?

 

Look at verse number 1. “The first covenant,” chapter 9 of Hebrews, “had its regulations for worship. It had its earthly sanctuary.” A tabernacle was set up. Now he’s going to tell us about the rooms. In the first room, you’ve got a lampstand. You’ve got a table. You’ve got the consecrated bread. That’s called the holy place. But then there’s this curtain. The second curtain has got a room behind it. It’s the most holy place. And it’s got this golden altar of incense, or at least it’s used in the Holy of Holies annually on the day of Yom Kippur. It’s one of the most important things that the priest brings in with him to the Holy of Holies.

 

It’s also got that gold-covered box we learned about on Raiders of the Lost Ark. You don’t want to look in it, but if you want to know what’s in it, here’s what’s in it. You had a gold jar of manna. That was the stuff God fed the children of Israel in the wilderness with. You had Aaron’s staff that budded that picked him by divine providence, a miraculous budding of a stick to show that he was going to be the priestly line and the high priest of Israel. Then you had those tablets, the stone tablets of the covenant, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. All of that was in the box, but don’t look in it. Just kidding.

 

Verse 5. “Melch your eyeballs.” Do you see the movie? It’s been a long time. I’m going to watch it tonight. Verse 5. “Above the box,” the ark, “were the cherubim of the glory.” Those are angels. And they’re crafted out of gold, and they sit above, shadowing the atonement cover, which is a bit of a play on words, because atonement means cover, covering of our sin. But, for the bottom of verse 5, “we can’t discuss these things in detail now.”

 

And again, I’m thinking, why are we discussing it at all? You just said it was obsolete. I mean, you’re apparently giving us the clue here that you’re going to talk about this in depth later. This is important to you. Then he says, verse 6, when everything had been arranged like this, “The priest entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. But only the high priest entered the inner room,” the Holy of Holies, “and that but once a year, and never without the sacrifice of blood,” the animal, “which he offers for himself,” because he’s imperfect, we learned in the earlier chapter, chapter 7, “and for the sins of the people, even the sins they’d committed in ignorance.”

 

Now, the Holy Spirit, verse 8, was showing by this. Now circle that little demonstrative pronoun and put an arrow. I don’t think it’s just the curtain and just going in once a year. It’s the whole thing—the curtains, the inner room, the holies, the holy of holies, all of this. He was showing by this that “the way into the most holy place had not yet been disclosed.” And he’s not talking about the room in the tabernacle or Solomon’s temple or Herod’s temple. We’re talking about the thing he was talking about in the last chapter, entrance into the presence of God.

 

That the high priest that’s supposed to represent me is not getting me into God’s presence just because he’s getting into an inner room. And all of this stuff, all of this indicated that we’re not quite there yet. That I don’t really have full and complete access to God.

 

“This,” let’s circle that demonstrative pronoun, verse number 9 again, and point to the whole thing, “is an illustration.” Underline that word. We’ll get back to it. It’s a word that you’re familiar with. “It’s an illustration for the present time. Indicating that the gifts and the sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.” The New Testament authors like that phrase to talk about, it really didn’t take our sin away. We were still guilty. It didn’t cleanse us from our guilt. “They,” that is all this stuff, all this illustrative stuff, “is only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings.” That’s a good word to underline too. That’ll be important in our discussion. External regulations—not internal, this is external stuff—“applying until,” underline that three times. Your Bibles are getting marked up today, right? “Until the time of the new order.”

 

When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, that’s when the new order started, when he finished his earthly ministry. “He went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle,” and we’re not talking about the one made by man. “That is to say not a part of this creation.” We’re talking about he really did bring us into the presence of a holy and perfect God. He accomplished that. I need to have access to God if I’m ever going to survive throughout eternity. Either get access to God and get his favor and get his blessing or be cast away into outer darkness. I want his blessing. I want to get in with God.

 

The ceremonies didn’t do it. The priest of the Old Testament didn’t do it. The tabernacle and the temple really wasn’t the real deal. We learned that last week. And now he’s saying Christ really did that. That’s the new covenant truth. Then why all this time on the old covenant? What is this all about? And you’re telling me in verse number five, we’re going to talk about this more. He’s going to teach on this more. The old covenant. What do we do with it?

 

I mean, it’s odd. Us Christians, we believe it. We say it’s God’s word. And yet when we read through it, we see all kinds of things that we kind of pick and choose whether or not we’re going to do these things or follow these precepts. I mean, you do know as you look through the Bible, there’s all kinds of really seemingly bizarre things that God is telling his people to do.

 

Like, if you cut your sideburns, men, recently, you are in sin if you’re living under the old covenant. You’re not supposed to buy one of those things and cut off all the gray hair. Minimize the gray as much as possible. You’re supposed to let it go and grow. You’re not supposed to let the razor touch the sides of the hair on your head. You’re supposed to wear clothes with tassels, and I didn’t see many of those in the service this morning. Four tassels. You’re not to have clothing on that mixes two different kinds of fabric. Check your label. You’re in sin. Right? Most of you. You can’t eat bacon, of all things. No ham. The egg McMuffin gets really skinny, right? This is a problem.

 

God says, you want to be holy, you want to follow me, you keep these rules. And we say, well, that just for some reason, that didn’t apply to us. But you know what? I don’t know. We like the stories. Stories are good. Joshua and Moses and Aaron and David and all of that’s good.

 

I think we need to approach the Old Covenant a little bit more intelligently. We need to understand why people who say the Old Covenant’s obsolete continue to teach on it. We need to know that if he’s really done all the stuff that makes this Old Covenant really outdated and antiquated, why is it that we carry on Bibles that have all those 39 books on the left side? And why is it that we decide to teach it and you, if you follow our reading schedule, read it every single year?

 

What do we do with the Old Testament? I mean, that’s really been where we’ve gotten to if we say that didn’t work—the priesthood, the temple, all of that outdated—just Christ, then why don’t we just carry around New Testaments? Why is it we take time with the Old Testament?

 

To answer those questions well, we need to take a step back and get a really big picture of everything we’ve learned so far in the book of Hebrews. If you found your worship packet and you’ve got the worksheet out, you’ve noticed no chart this week, but the world’s longest sub-pointed outline ever in history. It’s a compromise. You don’t want a chart? Here’s what you get. In Hebrews, we get a lot of sub points. Because we need to understand this. A lot of fingers, a lot of lines, a lot of blanks. I put a lot of words down there for you, only fill in the main things.

 

But here we go. The first thing we need to get. Obviously, if we’re to summarize all to this point in Hebrews, and we’re looking about the old covenants, antiquated and outdated, but the new one’s replacing it and all of that, then we need to simply say and agree on this simple statement.

 

Number one, be assured, and we should be completely assured, that Christ fulfilled the old covenant. He fulfilled it. And when we say that, you’ve got to go back in your mind to last week. Last week he said the summary of the old covenant was this. Do right and God will bless you. Do wrong and you’ll incur his punishment. And we said, wow, that’s pretty simple, but it’s pretty hard, right? Matter of fact, it’s impossible. Do the right thing and get God’s blessing. That was the problem. We realize we can’t. We can’t always consistently do the right thing.

 

Well, here we’re saying Christ came and somehow fulfilled the old covenant. He actually did everything that was required in the old covenant to live up to all the expectations and all the rules of the old covenant. Be assured, Christ fulfilled the old covenant.

 

And didn’t Christ say that when he said in Matthew 5:17, “Don’t think I came to abolish the law.” He said, “I came to”—there’s our word—“fulfill it,” complete it, satisfy it, accomplish it. And he says there’s not a bit of it, not a jot or a tittle, a seraph or a yodh, a bump on a letter, or the smallest Hebrew character that’s going to go away until all of it is completed and accomplished. That’s the word. Then he says, until then, keep doing it.

 

And that’s the funny thing about Christ. His ministry was to set the old covenant aside and fulfill it, and yet he kept it all. Didn’t he go up for the Passover every year? I mean, he was even hanging out on Hanukkah. Remember that message a long time ago? He was fulfilling all the festivals, all the days, doing everything the Old Testament required. Circumcised on the eighth day, he did all the stuff. But the Bible says that all of that stuff was in vogue until it was completed.

 

And Christ said, “I didn’t come to set it aside and just say, well, we’re not going to do it. I came to actually do all that it says and to fulfill it.”

 

Two parts to this. And again, just a 30,000 foot view of this concept. Just theologically, thinking systematically about this. Let’s jot this down.

 

Letter A. His ministry, because this is the focus of chapter 9. His ministry fulfilled all the ceremonial rules. And here’s why he fulfilled them all. Because they were only parables of him. Now back with your eyes as soon as you get all that written down. Slow down, Pastor Mike. His ministry fulfilled all the ceremonial rules because they were only parables of him.

 

And I say parables because I made you underline that word illustration in verse number 9. “This, all this stuff is an illustration for the present time.” That’s the Greek word parabale. Parable. That’s how we translate. We transliterate that into English. A parable.

 

Two parts. Balo means to throw. That’s the main part of this. Para, the Greek preposition in front of it, alongside of. The point of a parable, and what a parable is, is when you have a truth you want to communicate, and Jesus would tell a story that would be thrown alongside of that to kind of analogize that and point your attention to the truth. The story wasn’t the truth. That wasn’t the concern of the teller. The point of the corresponding point of the actual fact and the theology behind it, that was what he was trying to communicate.

 

When Jesus talks about lost coins, he doesn’t want us to go out looking for coins and buying one of those things at the ocean where you go and look in the sand. Hey, go look for lost coins. Is that the point of the parable of lost coin? No. Some of you do it, but that’s not what it means. What it means is that Christ in his ministry is allowing, because of what God is doing and seeking us, he’s allowing God to actually find us. The lost coin, the lost sheep, it’s not about finding animals. It’s about the truth of Christ pursuing us and bringing us into his family.

 

A parable is a story told alongside the truth to correspond to it, to point to it. He says all of these ceremonies, see, they’ve all been fulfilled, not because, you know, Christ went and took the censer and the incense and swung it around in the Holy of Holies. But he fulfilled it because the censer in the Holy of Holies was a parable of him. All the truths of the tabernacle, the holy place, the outer place, the lampstand, the showbread, all of that was an example, an illustration, a parable of Christ. I mean, that’s what he’s claiming here. All of that’s a parable.

 

Therefore, by a mere ministry, an existence of doing what he’s doing in chapters 7 and 8 of Hebrews, fulfilling his calling as high priest, he has fulfilled all the ceremonial pictures, illustrations, parables of him. So in that regard, all the ceremonies, they’re done. They’re fulfilled. They’re satisfied. They’re accomplished.

 

But the real important part that we seem to focus on more often, and we ought to because it’s integral, it’s the foundation to our salvation, is he not only fulfilled that part of the old covenant, he also fulfilled all the ethical and moral demands of the old covenant. Because isn’t that what it was all about in Deuteronomy? Do the right thing and you will live and be blessed? I want to be blessed, but I don’t do the right things.

 

So not only did Christ, by way of his ministry, fulfill the parables and pictures of him, he also fulfilled all the ethical demands of the law, which is you should never lie. You should tell the truth. You should never covet your neighbor’s camel or Escalade or boat. Sorry, it’s just my neighbor. You should be content with what you have. I mean, think of all the ethical demands of the law. We don’t keep them perfectly, but Christ came in and did that for us.

 

Letter B, let’s just jot that part of it down. In fulfilling the old covenant, Christ fulfilled it all. He also by his, I put it this way, His human conduct, letter B, fulfilled all the moral rules. Now, here’s the great thing about salvation, which he can now credit to us.

 

Isn’t that what salvation is all about? “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.” A sinless one can now credit his sinlessness and his perfection to us. And all of our sin gets laid on him. Okay, did I go through that too fast? That’s 2 Corinthians 5:21. And I’ve explained this many times, that salvation is not just about Christ dying for our sins. It’s about him living in our place as well. Do you follow that?

 

You’ve got two problems. You’ve done wrong things, and you haven’t done all the right things. You’ve done wrong things that need justice to be paid for. We need God’s judgment on that for you to be able to walk free. He doesn’t just say, “Oh, just forget it.” Got to pay the penalty. Christ paid the penalty for your sins. That’s why he died on the cross.

 

But why didn’t he just show up the day before the crucifixion? That would have been handy, right? Wouldn’t have to waste all that time growing up in Nazareth. Why? He had to live the life that you didn’t live. Did you ever talk back to your parents when you’re a kid? He lived a perfect life. He didn’t do that. Did you ever burn something, you know, a little pyromaniac behind the back of your house, right? He didn’t do that. See? Did you ever fail to get up and help your parents do the chores around the house? Well, you know what? He did that when you didn’t do that.

 

He lived every perfect thing. He did everything right, and that had to be credited to you, so he had to, in his human conduct, fulfill all the moral rules. He sat around and watched the Escalade drive up and said, “I’m content with my Chevy. No problem.” See? He was cool with what he had. He was content. That was a law, a rule. He told the truth when he was tempted to twist it or to tweak it or to deceive. He told the truth. He did everything right. That was his moral conduct.

 

Now, let’s get this really clear, okay? And this is finer points of theology here. Christ just didn’t fulfill the moral law or the ceremonial law, he fulfilled them both. All the laws of the old covenant, he fulfilled. One, by virtue of his ministry, he fulfilled the picture. And one, by his virtue of his conduct and righteousness, he fulfilled the requirements, the ethical requirements.

 

Therefore, we can say this: the old covenant has been completely fulfilled. Completely fulfilled. There is nothing in the old covenant that still needs to be done when it relates to the ceremonies or the morals. It’s been accomplished. And in that regard, in that regard, we can say, hey, I can see where you’d say it’s obsolete. So I mean, it’s been, it’s been fulfilled.

 

Problem. When we read a passage like this, we got people that grew up in a, in a, in a tabernacle, the people that think, well, it’s a worship, you know, there’s got to be the candles and there’s got to be the showbread and there’s got to be the incense and there’s got to be this box in the middle of the room. And we pray to this particular direction and all that. And he says, okay, now here’s the deal. I know you all grew up with this. I know you have these experiences. We don’t, but they did. And he says, now I need to address the ceremonies. And a lot of the New Testament does that.

 

Take a look again at Hebrews chapter 9. If this is an illustration for the present time, in verse number 9, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worship, didn’t really forgive sin, then here’s what they are, verse 10. “They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings, external regulations, applying until,” you underline that three times, “the time of the new order.” The new order is here, according to verse 11 and chapter 7 and chapter 8. Therefore, they don’t apply anymore.

 

So let’s look at it from now. How do we deal with the Old Testament? It’s one thing to theoretically and theologically say, he has accomplished it all. Okay, and I’m grateful for that. He accomplished all the moral obligations so I could be saved. He accomplished all the ceremonial obligations so we know this is the person as John said, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. But what do I do with all this stuff?

 

Number two on your outline. Let’s think about it this way. We need to, as we approach the Old Testament, be very careful how we apply it. Be very careful how you apply the Old Testament. Because you’re carrying around 39 books, and I hope that you are. I hope you just don’t have, you know, half the Bible. You got all 66 books. And when you got that old covenant, I want you to have it, and I want you to understand it, but I want you to be careful about how you approach it and how you apply it.

 

Because you can read things in the Bible because, simplistically, we want to obey this book and say, well, if it says it and it’s clear and to be godly, you got to do this, then I’m thinking maybe I should do that. I got to know how to deal with the principles and precepts of the Old Testament. Okay?

 

First thing, reiteration, but let’s summarize it as you read the Old Testament. Here’s the thing, letter A. Ceremonies, all of them, all the ceremonies have been replaced with Christ. They’ve been replaced. Why? Because they were only parables and illustrations of him. And if he came and did his ministry, our attention and our focus should move from the ceremony to the person.

 

Now, that was hard for the first century Jew because they grew up looking at the ceremonies and experiencing the ceremonies. From us, it’s a distant thing until someone comes and says, well, why don’t you do this? And why don’t you eat this food? And why don’t you worship on this day? And why don’t you do all these things that they did? And then we start scratching our head. Well, yeah, I don’t know. Why don’t we do that?

 

Well, we don’t do it for this reason. Because in a big summary statement, an umbrella statement, everything that the ceremonies were about pointed to Christ. Now Christ is in the room. And if Christ is in the room, my attention moves from the ceremonies to the person.

 

We illustrated that last week. You know, if you’re desperately in love with your girlfriend and you’re looking at her picture and you’re musing about your love for her and she walks in the room, she’s going to want and you’re going to want to turn your attention away from the picture to the real thing. And that’s what we need to do when it relates to the ceremonies. At least let’s just lay that foundation. Christ comes in and replaces. Christ comes in, takes the picture, and says, okay, now I’m here. Boom. Now, implications of that.

 

Pointy finger number one. Pointy finger number one. The ceremonies themselves, let’s jot these two words down, are now two words, passé and worthless. Is that a strong word? Not my words. Let me use it right out of the text. Translation in the NIV puts it a little different, but let’s look at Galatians chapter 5. Why don’t you jot those two words down? Passé, okay, obsolete, antiquated, outdated. I mean, it’s really not useful to draw me to God in worship anymore because the real thing is here, and I ought to be drawn to worship the real God through the ministry of Jesus Christ and not the pictures of Jesus Christ.

 

So, I need to know it’s passé, but to say they’re worthless, wow, that’s a big statement. Well, these are the sentiments of the Apostle Paul. Writing under the inspiration of Scripture, Galatians chapter 5. Did I give you a chapter? Chapter 5. We’ll look at 5 and 6. Equal opportunity. Look at 5 and 6. As long as we’re talking about 5 and 6.

 

Galatians 5 verse 6. Topic here that’s really raging big in the book of Galatians is the concept of circumcision. Circumcision was one of the first and primary ceremonial things that families did, the males in their family, to show that they were part of the covenant community. Circumcision. Okay? He says this, verse 6 of Galatians 5, “for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

 

Now think about this. In the Old Testament, if you and your family didn’t have the males of your family circumcised, they could not come and eat the Passover meal. Couldn’t come. You got to be circumcised first. Get circumcised, the sign of the covenant, then you, bearing the signs of the covenant, can come and fellowship with us and eat the Passover meal, okay?

 

Now he’s saying the Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Christ is the Passover lamb, the lamb that takes away the sin of the world. He is here. The reality is here. Now when it comes to the symbol, the circumcision symbol of the covenant, you know what? It doesn’t matter anymore. That’s what he says. It’s of no value. That’s another word for useless, right? It’s of no value. It doesn’t do anything.

 

Matter of fact, look across the page or turn the next page, Galatians 6, verse 15. And I love this phrase, and I know we often think of it individualistically, but it really is the concept of the whole new covenant. He says in verse 15 of chapter 6, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. It doesn’t mean anything.” It’s worthless. “What counts is a new creation,” which is not just me. I mean, 2 Corinthians 5:17. Really, we’re talking about this whole new order, the new order of things. That’s what matters. Circumcision doesn’t matter. It’s of no importance anymore.

 

Now, that’s a major thing, because you couldn’t come and fellowship with the covenant community unless you had that. Now, he’s saying it’s not important. It’s of no value.

 

Okay. The ceremonies have been replaced with Christ. Therefore, we need to look at the ceremonies and say, really, they’re worthless. And I mean, every single ceremonial rule of the old covenant, it’s worthless. It’s passé. And in that regard, it’s just a value statement about them.

 

Whether it’s someone pounding their Bible saying, look right here, dietary rules. You can’t have that. You can’t eat those foods. And if you think that’s just silly and just a bunch of fringe cult groups, listen to Protestant radio right now. You get all these people basing their whole, you know, health kick dietary stuff on the Old Testament dietary laws. Well, this is how God really wants us to eat, you know? Pass the bacon, right? Pass the bacon. Because your rule of abstaining from the ham slab in the egg McMuffin is worthless. Okay, you want to be healthy? Great, I want bacon. So the bottom line is you don’t put that stuff out there like that.

 

As a matter of fact, don’t just say, well, it’s valuable. Let’s go even further. There are some people that say it’s required. It’s necessary.

 

Pointy finger number two. Let’s just make this super clear. You can’t require it. You can’t. You cannot require any ceremonial law of the Old Testament. You cannot require it. Can’t. And I’m talking about even the day on which we worship, for instance.

 

Let me prove this to you. Colossians chapter 1. There are those, and it’s not just a fringe, you know, people that read Ellen G. White and believe in the Sabbatarianism through that. I’m talking about people that are the, you know, the Seventh-day Baptists. I’m talking about people that say, well, the Bible says it, and it’s right there in the Ten Commandments, and so we’ve got to worship on this day. That is part of the ceremonial rules. It is part of which day.

 

I mean, we’ve talked about this throughout the New Testament that we need to say, wait a minute, if that’s a ceremonial rule, not only is it not passé, but you can’t judge me based on that, and you can’t require that of me. Colossians, what did I say? One, I was kidding. Chapter two, Colossians two.

 

Colossians two, look at verse 13. Colossians two, 13, “you were dead.” Let’s just get the context here. This is a great, really dramatic and poetic way it’s put. “You were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,” your flesh, this human sinful part of you that was rebellious against God, you were dead in that. The picture here of circumcision meaning that I’m not with God, which even the Old Testament prophets said, ultimately it’s a picture of something that should be taking place in my heart.

 

But “God made me alive with Christ and forgave us all of our sins.” “Having canceled the written code,” that’s another phrase for this old covenant code with its regulations, including circumcision and what day you worship and how you should eat, “that was against us, that stood opposed to us because we couldn’t keep it all, and that made us guilty before God.” “He took it away, nailing it to the cross.”

 

“Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross.” Therefore, here’s the actual upshot of it all, “don’t let anyone judge you by what you eat or what you drink or with regard to a religious festival or a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come. The reality, however, is found in Christ.”

 

And if Christ is your focus and you’re a new covenant Christian looking at Christ, then not only are the symbols passé, no one can say, you should be doing that. The answer is no, I don’t have to be doing that.

 

As a matter of fact, I think I would be offensive to God if I cluttered my life with all the pictures of Christ. Instead of saying, those are out of the way now. My focus is on Christ himself who brings me into the presence of God. Not these temporary structures and these symbolic parables that are supposed to direct my attention to God’s future provision. His provision is here. Focus on Christ.

 

The ceremonies themselves are passé and worthless. You can’t require them. Thirdly, and this is dangerous for those people going around saying, you’ve got to keep the Old Testament rules, you dare not do them to gain God’s favor. It’s one thing to think, well, they kind of enhance my walk with God. It’s another thing for these people to step up and say, you know what? God’s looking at me keeping his rules and his sabbatary rules or his dietary laws, and you know what? He likes me more than you because I’m keeping his rules.

 

Here’s what the Bible has to say about that. Back to Galatians. Galatians 4 and 5. 4 and 5. There are people doing this, trying to gain some brownie points with a holy God. If you try, let me say this as strongly as I can, because this is what Galatians’ message is all about. If you try to gain favor with a holy God by keeping ceremonial rules, you are not a Christian. And you are in danger of eternal damnation. There’s the bottom line.

 

You have to recognize that playing with the old covenant ceremonies is something that may get you to think, well, if I do these, God will like me. Take a look at what he says in Galatians chapter 4. Look at verse number 10. He’s preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to these Galatian churches, and he says, “you are observing special days,” like the Sabbath, “and months, and seasons, all these festivals, and years,” like the seventh year for relieving debt, or the year of jubilee. “I fear for you that somehow,” Paul says, “I’ve wasted my efforts on you.”

 

I tried to reconcile you to God. And now you’re out there trying to keep all these rules, these ceremonial rules, these days and months and all this stuff. I think maybe I wasted my time on you guys. The point of the gospel is to get these people right with God and save them from hell. And he says, maybe I didn’t do a very good job at that, I guess. Maybe I wasted my time because look at what you’re doing. You’re fixated on the ceremonies.

 

Next chapter, chapter 5, Galatians 5. Start at the beginning of that. Well, let’s just look at verse 2. “Mark my words. I, Paul, tell you,” that’s what Paul says, “that if you let yourself be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you.” Now, that’s a strong statement. Why would he say that to these people? Because he knew their heart. And look at what was going on in verses 3 and 4. “I declare to you that every man who lets himself be circumcised, that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be,” here’s the intent, “justified by the law, have been alienated from Christ. You have fallen away from grace.”

 

He was bringing them the message of the grace of God, writing into the presence of God on the coattails, on the robe hem of the great high priest Jesus Christ. And he’s saying, get on board. And you’re saying, well, I’d like that, but I’m also going to keep these rules, hoping I’ll gain some brownie points with God. And he says, can’t do that. It’s either or. Either you ride in on the merits of Christ or like the Galatians, you get distracted by the ceremonies of the old covenant. And if you in that, he says, Christ is of no value to you. Don’t mess around with that.

 

“Oh man, I got my kid circumcised when he was a little baby, man. I blew it. I messed up. He’s going to hell.” That’s not what we’re talking about. Okay. We’re not talking about the fact that you gave up bacon. Okay. That’s not the issue. The issue is people that are reading the Old Testament going, well, here’s what he says. And here’s what he, and if that’s what he says, I’m going to do this because this is going to get me right with God. That’s what I’m talking about.

 

I’m talking about adults who try to take the mark of the old covenant so that they can gain favor with God. I’m talking about people that say, well, I got to keep these dietary rules and I got to worship on this certain day because that’s not what God is asking us to do. They were pictures and symbols and illustrations of the reality, grab the reality and leave the ceremonies behind. That’s what the new covenant is asking us to do.

 

So how do we deal with the old Testament? Oh, stay away from it. It sounds dangerous. I don’t want to mess with the left side of my Bible. No. Actually, it’s good that you’re carrying around the Old Testament. Let me tell you why. Luke chapter 24, let’s turn there. Turning to a lot of passages this morning. That’s a new thing here, Compass Bible Church.

 

Luke chapter 24, you know the story, road to Emmaus, Christ had actually finished and accomplished the Old Covenant requirements. Which, by the way, is interesting. Some of you purists are going to raise your hand and say, well, wait a minute. In Matthew passage that you quoted, you know, he didn’t come to abolish the law. He came to fulfill it. But then he goes on to say, you better keep it. Yeah, he did keep it. He said, until all is accomplished.

 

When was it all accomplished? When did Christ stop saying you should go up for the Passover in Jerusalem? When he said on the cross, it is finished. And when he said on the cross, it is finished. Do you remember what God did miraculously down the street at the temple, in Herod’s temple? What happened? the temple curtain ripped open, which showed, hey, you know what? What Christ did just down the street, sacrificing himself for the people, the perfect lamb, the spotless lamb taking away the sin of the world, guess what? He just provided access to that place.

 

You can try and hide it if you want. That’s just a symbol of it. But you can’t hide the fact that Christ is taking people into the presence of God perfectly justified in their presence. He did it. And that’s when all of a sudden all the ceremonies set aside. He actually said, you ought to keep it. You ought to do what the Pharisees said. until when? Until all is accomplished.

 

When was it all accomplished? When he finished it on the cross, when he did all the ceremonial things and fulfilled those just by the virtue of his ministry and fulfilled all of the moral requirements of the law. Well, how do we deal with it now?

 

Christ now after, this is after, after the resurrection, after he said it is finished. Now I’m thinking maybe he’s not even going to look at the Old Testament anymore. Just get busy having his apostles write the New Testament. No. In the middle of this discussion, it says, verse number 27, Matthew 24, 27, road to Emmaus, he turns their attention to the Old Testament again. Now, he’s doing it after he said it is finished. That’s the big point there he’s trying to make.

 

Verse 27, “and beginning with Moses and all the prophets,” that’s the Old Testament, right? “He explained to them what was being said,” or what was said, rather, “in all the scriptures concerning himself.” That’s why the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 8, hey, the old covenant antiquated. Now let’s talk about the tabernacle again. Oh, and let’s talk about two more stuff that I don’t have time for, but we’ll talk about it later.

 

Why are we still talking about it? Just like Jesus, he’s still talking about it because it all speaks of him by way of parable, by way of illustration.

 

Pointy finger number four, very important. When we read the Old Testament, we need to look for the anticipation of Christ. We need to look for it in all the Old Testament ceremonial rules. When we look at the rules, when we look at the sacrificial system, when we look at the tabernacle, when we look at the temple, when we look at the incense, when we look at the showbread, when we look at the candles, we memorize passages of it. We meditate on it. We research it. We read it every year. We do Bible studies on the Old Testament because as we study that, we will continue to see Christ pointing people through the ceremonies to the future coming of Christ.

 

And when we read that, it validates the scripture. It gets my mind and my heart focused on the intricacies and the richness and the depth and the breadth of all that Christ accomplished on our behalf. Study the Old Testament. But when you study it, look for the anticipation of Christ because it’s everywhere. It’s everywhere.

 

I used to shy away from those books, but man, they’re interesting. You pull them out. As long as we’re not fancifully just kind of dreaming by and by in every text, as we look in those passages that discuss the tabernacle or the temple or the sacrificial system, if you look carefully, you will see the fact that all of these inextricably and without exception, all of these ceremonies lead us back to a picture, a composite of Christ.

 

It’s like those things you see now at Disneyland and other places where if you look up close, they’re pictures of people and all these things. Have you seen that? And then you step back about 10 or 12 feet and it becomes a picture of Goofy or whatever. Picture something else. Have you seen those? Up close. Yeah, ooh, look at that. And the showbread and the candle and the incense and the altar and the sacrifices and the bull here and then two goats there. And then, wow, and then you got birds can be, what’s that all about?

 

Don’t say, well, it’s old stuff. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s old covenant. Let’s just move on. Can we go back to Romans? No, no, spend time there and start looking for how all of that, as you step back and see all that, you see the picture of Christ in the scripture. All of scripture is Christian scripture. All of scripture directs us to Christ. And we ought to study it with that in mind and not just gloss over, oh, I kind of like the story. That story of David’s pretty interesting. Like that Samuel stuff. Look for the connections that lead us back to Christ.

 

Pointy finger number five. And to get this, I want to turn you first to Mark chapter seven. Mark chapter seven. In Mark chapter 7 we see Jesus taking issues of ceremonial law and helping us preparing us for new covenant realities. He’s making us think about them differently.

 

Now here’s the thing. You’re going to read the Old Testament, say, wow, it says you can’t sow two different kinds of seed in the same soil. I don’t see Christ in that. Okay, I can look at it all day and I don’t see Christ in that. You’re right.

 

And you say, well, they said, you know, an Israelite can’t touch a dead body because if he touches the dead body he’s unclean. Is that some kind of germaphobe thing? What is that all about? You know, what’s this unclean and clean and animals and these are clean and those are unclean and split hooves and chew the cud and wow it’s all—I don’t get it. Okay, I don’t see Christ in that.

 

You may not see Christ in that, but what you may see is a picture of holiness and a picture of approaching God in a way that changes how I start to look at my behavior. The apostles did this all the time. They drew some parallels.

 

Take a look at this in Mark chapter 7. Are you there? Verse number 14. Jesus calls the crowd to himself. He had something important to say. And he says, “listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him,” now is the next word in quotations? Yes. “Unclean.”

 

Now I’m thinking to myself, all I gotta do is read the Old Testament, and there’s lots of things outside the body that can make me unclean, in a Levitical sense. But he’s saying, really, in a real sense? No, nothing can make you unclean that comes from outside the body. “Nothing outside the body can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him,” quote, unquote, “unclean.”

 

After he left the crowd and entered the house, the disciples said, duh, what are you talking about? And he said, well, yeah, you’re so dull. Listen, don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean? For it doesn’t go into his heart, doesn’t go into his spirit, his soul. It goes into his stomach and then out of his body.

 

In saying this, Mark adds, Jesus declared all foods clean. He went on, what comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of a man’s heart, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly, all of these evils, they come from inside and make a man unclean.

 

Now I’m thinking to myself, I read Leviticus. Those aren’t the things that make a man unclean. It’s all kinds of lizards and snakes and, you know, all kinds of food you can’t eat and touching dead bodies and leprosy and all that. No, no, no, that’s really not the point.

 

As I read the old covenant and Jesus is training us right here, when you read those Levitical ceremonial rules about cleanness and uncleanness, make the connection. I put it this way, pointy finger number five, draw the moral parallels. Do your best to draw the moral parallels because they’re there.

 

And Paul drew them for us, for instance, when he quoted the Old Testament saying, “touch no unclean thing.” Now, he wasn’t talking in the Old Testament about what Paul’s talking about in 2 Corinthians 6. In 2 Corinthians 6, he’s talking about my behavior. And when they compromise at work to get a client, I’m not supposed to compromise. And when someone lies over here to get ahead, I’m not supposed to lie to get ahead. And all the differences between the redeemed and the unredeemed, he’s saying, is like the whole cleanness issue. Don’t touch the unclean thing.

 

But what he meant by that was, you know, draw the moral parallels for your life. And he starts talking about, what does righteousness have in common with unrighteousness? And he says, you’ve got to think about your behavior.

 

So I read those and don’t just go, well, that’s a weird one, and then that’s a weird one, and that’s a weird one. When you read Leviticus and Deuteronomy, no, slow down and say, well, you know, what are some of the parallels that I can draw in my own life about what that is a picture of? What’s the touching of a dead corpse in my life? Because there’s opportunities for you and me this week to touch the dead thing that makes me before God unclean. Ceremonially, no, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about my behavior, my values, my thought life, all the things within me that make me unclean.

 

Ceremonies, passé, worthless. Can’t require them? Dare not do them to gain God’s favor. As you read the scripture, though, don’t toss it out. Look for the anticipation of Christ. It’s everywhere. And secondly, make sure that you draw the moral parallels because it will certainly enrich the way we think about fighting the battle to be righteous people.

 

Speaking of righteousness, letter B, quickly on this. There’s not just ceremonies in the Old Testament. There’s lots of ethical rules, right? Tons of them. Don’t murder, tell the truth, honor your mother and father. What do we do with those? Okay. Are they fulfilled? Absolutely. Completely fulfilled in Christ.

 

Letter B. The moral rules were fulfilled, yet they were promoted by Christ. Christ didn’t go around promoting the fact that we should always think about coming to a tabernacle or a temple or not weaving together two different cloths for our clothes. Very little discussion about any of that. Christ kept talking about the ethical implications of the law. And when someone came to him and said, well, what about the law? What’s the greatest commandments? He didn’t say well the whole thing about you know two different kinds of clothing uh you know in one garment that’s you know—he said this is it. It’s the ethical rules.

 

It’s like loving God with all your heart soul strength and mind. It’s about loving your neighbor as yourself. These are the kinds of things that sum up the law and the prophets, the ethical teaching of the law and the prophets. And so it is that he’s pointing at these things and saying I’m fulfilling it for you, but when it comes to you reading those things, I really like you to do those and with God’s help I want you to do those.

 

But you say, well, wait a minute. When I read the Old Testament I just feel a bunch of conviction because I read that coveting thing and you know I’m not coveting my neighbor’s camel but I am coveting his you know his motorhome or whatever, so I don’t know, how do I deal with that? Well here’s the thing. You ought to let the law do its work particularly if you’re not saved. You got to let the law do its work. Romans 3:20 says the law’s purpose is to do what? To reveal sin in our lives.

 

So let’s put it down this way, pointy finger number one under letter B. Let them, that is the moral rules, let them convict you of your need for Christ. Let them convict you of that.

 

When you read the moral standards that are way up here, that if my neighbor doesn’t have a cloak and I got two, I had to take mine and give it to him. That’s a convicting verse. Because you, like me, probably are touched with this little thing called greed. And so we ought to say, wow, man, how is it? I can try my best to be open-handed and generous. But the problem is I struggle with that. I fail with that. Great. Even as Christians, we ought to say, man, that’s why I praise God for Christ. It’s not a license for sin, but man, I’m sure grateful that Christ has fulfilled every moral obligation of the law.

 

And so I keep saying, wow, my failure keeps bringing me back to my need for Christ. And that’s why you like high achieving perfectionist types who sit there and pound yourself all day long for the failure of last Tuesday. Knock it off. It’s not about you. It’s about you recognizing in your failure that that’s why we need Christ. Cling tighter to Christ. That’s the goal of working through your failure and your feelings of guilt.

 

Stop it with this. Well, I blew it. I’m so terrible. You’re terrible. Great. Fantastic. So am I. But let’s cling to Christ. That’s why he came, to take care of the ethical problems we had. Cling to Christ. That’s what it’s all about. It’s about the grace of Christ. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. And that’s the good news of the gospel. License to sin? No. Let it convict you of a need for Christ.

 

Secondly, let’s just put it down this way. With God’s help, with God’s help, seek to obey those ethical rules. If he says, do not covet your neighbor’s camel, don’t covet his stuff. He says, don’t covet your neighbor’s servants. Oh, look at his company, all those employees. Don’t covet that. Stop it. Work hard with God’s help because he’s changed you inside to keep the rules.

 

And we don’t have time to look at it, but 1 John 3, one of the best passages about the fact that New Testament believers still are to keep the moral law of God. And he says, if you sin, that’s lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. It’s breaking God’s rules. And God’s given us his ethical rules from the beginning of the Bible. And we ought to understand because God lives in us. His seed abides in us. God is wanting a changed behavior.

 

Old Testament, let’s keep them. Got a New Testament? Go into our bookstore and buy an Old and New Testament. Get the whole thing, okay?

 

I was moving some books the other day and I found my old high school yearbooks. Did you keep those? Well, I kept mine. Not so much because I liked all the people in my class, but there was someone in my class I liked a whole lot. And she was in it. And not only was my future wife at that point in my yearbook, she actually signed it. I saved a whole page for her. And she filled it up, and she saved one for me, and I filled it up.

 

I wrote all in Carlin’s yearbook, and Carlin wrote in Mike’s yearbook, and we wrote these things. And there they were. And I came across it this week, and I’m looking at that, and I’m going, you know what? I’m hanging on to this. As a matter of fact, I’ll cherish this. Not because I want to go back to high school. God forbid, I do not want to go back to high school. Okay? I don’t want to go back. But I’ll cherish that yearbook. Because as we sat there and expressed ourselves to each other in that old covenant of high school, that old dispensation of going steady, see? There was a lot in there that looked forward to the anticipation.

 

And I know our parents would be outraged with the stuff we wrote in each other’s yearbook, musing about our future together, and we even—and I know I’m a Carlin maybe—we even wrote in each other’s yearbook, but if we hear this is the truth, you look at it if you want to know. I’m not showing it to you. We said, if we ever have a little girl together one day we’ll call her Stephanie. That was over 20 years before we brought Stephanie home from the hospital, our third child. That’s why we kept trying, trying to shoot for that yearbook baby, right?

 

And I think about that, and I look at those words, and I think, man, you know, I can look at it and say, oh, what puppy love, how silly, all the romance of high school, or I can say, man, look at that, the anticipation of something that right now, I’ll go home to lunch right now, and I’ll connect with my little three-year-old Stephanie, and I’ll say, wow, all those years ago. Look at that.

 

Read that and say, look at how that—yeah, I love that. I’m not throwing those yearbooks out. And not only that, now I know they’re not marriage, you know, vows, but I read how we expressed our love to one another in high school. And I look at those things and I think, man, I want to live up to that. I mean, those are like lofty, you know, swim the ocean for you, you know. And I’m thinking, you know, I want to live that out. I want to be that kind of person to my wife.

 

And I think, you know, I’m hanging on to those. I want to live up to the standard of my high school yearbook. And you know what? I want to enjoy and cherish and even reread the fact that we look forward to a day just like this when we enjoy a home together and children together. I’m not getting rid of that.

 

The Old Testament, I know for a lot of people, oh, it’s antiquated and you’re telling me it’s obsolete. Man, you got to have your Old Testament. You got to read your Old Testament. You got to study your Old Testament. Your life will be enriched by your Old Testament. Don’t give up on it. Dig into it this week.

 

Let’s pray.

 

God, please help us to be good students of your word, to rightly handle the word of truth, to go back into the old covenant and see those anticipatory statements, those illustrations and parables of the coming Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. We can get enamored with the gospels, and we ought to be. The life of Christ, it’s amazing. We ought to read it, the teaching of the apostles. We ought to dwell on it and memorize and meditate on those texts.

 

But God, help us not to neglect your old covenant. God, we know we’re not called to engage and get tangled in the pictures. The illustrations were illustrations. The reality is Christ. The ceremonies, man, they’re almost in some ways dangerous to even think about participating. And we’re not going to. But God, we are grateful for the way that those pictures kept pointing to the reality that we now experience.

 

And God, we also are grateful for the way you set that high standard in your word for us. You defined love for us by moral and ethical terms to live as godly people. And we know we fail at that. But God, we want to look at the old covenant and say by your spirit’s help, we want to live in step with your spirit so that we might do more of what the old covenant requires of us ethically and morally.

 

God, we love you very much. We want to love your word, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end to know you better and to enrich our lives as we might be able to walk in step not only with your spirit, but with a mindset on worshiping Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We thank you for our time together in your word. Thanks for the book of Hebrews. In Jesus’ name, amen.