“To be fair, much of the Bible is not
systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically
cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised,
translated, distorted and ‘improved’ by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors
and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine
centuries.”
I trust that
got your attention. It is a quote from
Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is an English
evolutionary biologist and one of the leading architects of the modern anti-God
movement to discredit the Bible and eliminate even the notion of God from the
collective consciousness of mankind.
That particular quote is from Dawkins’s 2006 book titled “The God
Delusion.”
I open with
this sobering statement from Dawkins not primarily to focus upon him. Rather, my point is that Dawkins is not on
the fringe of societal perceptions of God and the Bible. I would argue that his perspective is rapidly
becoming the normative attitude of our world.
In 2017 the Gallup company reported that 47 percent of Americans view
the Bible as consisting of fables and legends.
That is compared to only 14 percent in the early nineteen nineties. In the fifteen years or so between those two
dates, the number of people in our country who think the Scriptures are a bunch
of fairy tales has more than tripled, to the point that now almost half the
population is firmly in the camp of Dawkins and his ilk. They believe the Word of God is a collection
of myths and fictional stories that is not capable of providing answers for
today’s problems.
I hope that
most of the people reading this do not share that opinion. I trust that many of us do hold fast to the
authority and inerrancy and sufficiency of the Scriptures. But, even if that is true, the reality is
that people like us, who take such a position, are increasingly in the minority
of culture today. And, in the face of
such opposition I believe we, as Christians, need to be ready and willing to
formulate intelligent, considerate, and reasoned responses to the criticisms of
our opponents, rather than simply being content with our beliefs and writing
off the culture as a lost cause.
One of the principle objections
that God’s enemies level against the Scriptures, as highlighted in Dawkins’s
quote, is that they are full of contradictions.
And, while solid Bible believing Christians may dismiss such notions and
hold fast to their faith that the Bible is inerrant, I am convinced that we
need to openly confront apparent paradoxes when we come across them. This is obviously not for the purpose of
discrediting the Bible. Rather, it is
founded upon the conviction that the Scriptures are in fact perfect, what may
appear at first glance to be a problem does have a rational and truthful
explanation, and if we seek a resolution in good faith then God will help us
find it.
In the words
of Jonathan Edwards, as one of his resolutions, “Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved,
immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances do not
hinder.”
It is in
this context that I would like to draw your attention to a puzzle in Hebrews
9:3-4. There is one of these apparent
contradictions in this passage. And, I
would suggest to you that not only is there a perfectly reasonable explanation,
but that in exploring a solution to the dilemma we will find an amazing pearl
of wisdom that will inform, enrich, and transform our lives.
First, we
need to acknowledge the context of Hebrews 9 before diving into the details of
verses 3 and 4. This entire epistle has
one singular over-arching purpose – to conclusively prove the superiority of
Christ and the New Covenant in His blood to the previous system that God had
instituted as the means by which man could interact with Him. This consisted of the Mosaic Covenant and the
Levitical priesthood that went along with it.
The author
has made several arguments prior to chapter 9.
He has argued that Christ is superior even to the angels, let alone to
men. The point has been made that Christ
is like us, therefore He is eligible to be our high priest. Not only that, but He is the perfect high
priest. He is superior to any man in his
priestly office. Furthermore, His
priesthood is greater than Aaron’s, which came before it, because it has a
better minister to perform it, a better ministry to accompany it, and a better
covenant backing it.
However, the
author of Hebrews is, as the name of the book implies, writing to the
Jews. He knows perfectly well that they
have 1,500 years of history, lineage, and tradition backing their conviction
that their way of life is superior to all others. They will not simply take at face value
unsupported claims that something and someone has eclipsed their religious
practices.
So, in chapter
9 we see some of the specific regulations and customs of the Mosaic covenant
contrasted with what now exists in Christ.
The chapter opens with a description of the original Tabernacle. Verses 2 through 5 read: For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one, in which were the
lampstand and the table and the sacred bread; this is called the holy place. Behind the second veil there was a tabernacle
which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the
ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar
holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod which budded, and the tables of the
covenant; and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat;
but of these we cannot now speak in detail.
Here is the
problem. Verse 4 says that the golden
altar of incense was in the Holy of Holies.
But, it was not. If we take the
description from those verses, we can see that the tabernacle, also known as
the tent of meeting, was composed of two compartments that were divided by a
curtain, called the veil. First was the
holy place. In this room were the golden
lampstand, to provide light, and the golden table of showbread, for the priests
to eat. Behind the veil was the second
compartment, called the most holy place or the Holy of Holies. Here were placed the golden altar of incense
and the ark of the covenant.
Everything
in that description from Hebrews matches with the original design that God gave
Moses in Exodus, except for one thing – the altar of incense is out of
place. We can see this clearly in Exodus
30:6, where God, describing the altar says: “You shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the ark of
the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the ark of the
testimony, where I will meet with you.”
What we have
here is what appears to be a blatant contradiction between two passages of
Scripture. As stated, the world would be
quick to highlight this as yet another reason to distrust the Bible. We, who hold to the inerrancy and inspiration
of Scripture, would reject such a notion.
Yet, there still remains the question of how to resolve this paradox. To attempt it, we have to get into the
original language and translations a bit.
This will get a little technical, but hang with me, because I am
convinced the payoff is going to be worth it for you.
Two
primary explanations for the discrepancy in Hebrews 9:4 have been offered by
theologians over the years, revolving around how to translate the Greek word
that is used to refer to the altar of incense.
The word in Greek is thumiasterion
(thoo-me-ah-stay-ree-on). The
translators of the King James Bible chose to use the English word “censer” in
place of the Greek. A censer is a small
metal firepan used to carry hot coals.
The ancients would use a censer to literally transport fire from one
place to another. So, for example, if
someone had a fire going and they wanted to start a second blaze at a different
location, they would gather some of the hot coals in a censer and transport
them to the other spot to use as an ignition source. The translation team of King James thought
censer was the best English word to translate thumiasterion. In contrast
to the KJV, most modern English translations use “altar of incense” instead, as
seen above. The difference in
translation stems from a couple of factors.
First is that this is the only
place in the entire New Testament where this word is used. The word only shows up twice in the
Septuagint, which is an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. This makes cross referencing other uses of
the word to gain context particularly difficult. Failing to find much help from the Bible
itself, scholars have no choice but to seek out extra-biblical Greek sources to
see how this word is used in the wider culture.
But, this leads to the second
problem. Thumiasterion, like many other words, has multiple
definitions. Herodotus, a Greek
historian, used it to refer to a censer. On the other hand, Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish
philosopher, tended to have altars in mind when he wrote thumiasterion. Adding to our
difficulty, Josephus, the great Jewish historian, used the word both ways, for
altar and censer.
So, we have two completely
different yet apparently equally valid ways to translate thumiasterion. And, either path we take gives us problems of
interpretation. The difficulty with
using altar of incense is obvious, as mentioned above. So, I will focus on the legitimacy of censer
as the correct translation first.
Lending support to censer is the
fact that the aforementioned Septuagint does use thumiasterion to clearly refer to a censer rather than an
altar. 2nd Chronicles 26:19
is an example of this: But Uzziah, with
a censer in his hand for burning incense…
Another place thumiasterion is
used this way is Ezekiel 8:11. Moreover,
adopting censer as the correct translation is a clear and obvious way to
resolve the dilemma of the discrepancy between Hebrews 9:4 and Exodus 30:6. Put simply, if the author of Hebrews was
referring to the censer that the high priest would carry inside the veil of the
tabernacle on the Day of Atonement once per year (more on that later), then it
would indeed be correct to attach it to the Holy of Holies. Thus, there is no contradiction at all.
However, there are a number of
problems with this approach. First, the
censer of the high priest is nowhere described as golden, yet the author of
Hebrews deliberately uses that adjective.
In fact, the material to be used for the high priest’s censer is not
specified by God directly in the Torah.
Solomon had one constructed out of gold for the first temple, as
recorded in 1st Kings 7:50.
And, the utensils for the bronze altar were all to be made out of
bronze, which we find in Exodus 27:3.
But, the firepan for the altar of incense is only described in its
function, rather than its construction, and that not until Leviticus 16 where
the rituals for the Day of Atonement are described, which is the only time this
particular censer was used. Therefore,
given a lack of any other evidence, and with the related detail of the bronze
workmanship of the other utensils in the Tabernacle, I would conclude that the
censer for the Day of Atonement was made out of bronze rather than gold.
Second, it seems unlikely that the
author of Hebrews would have neglected to mention one of the central pieces of
furniture in the Tabernacle. This was a
man clearly versed in Jewish religious rituals, who was writing directly to the
people group most familiar with them. To
suppose that he would have chosen to mention the priest’s censer rather than
one of the critical pieces of furniture in the Tabernacle seems to strain
credulity.
Third, as stated, thumiasterion is used twice in the
Septuagint to translate one of the Hebrew words for firepan, miqtereth. But, that is not the usual word the Hebrews
used in their writings. Instead, the
word machtah was the prevalent term
the authors used when they wanted to refer to a firepan. A different Greek word, pureion (pyur-ay-on) is used in the Septuagint to translate machtah
nine of the times it appears. So,
although thumiasterion is a
legitimate Greek translation for firepan, it is not the norm. Therefore, if the author of Hebrews had a
censer in mind, it is more likely that he would have used pureion instead of thumiasterion.
Now, at this point your head is
probably swimming with hard to pronounce words from ancient languages. So, let me recap the arguments thus far and
then dig just a little deeper, because I think we are very close to hitting pay
dirt. In Hebrews 9:4 the author uses a
word to describe an object in the tabernacle.
He places this object in the Holy of Holies. We know from the Old Testament that the Holy
of Holies only had one piece of furniture in it, the Ark of the Covenant. So, a question of both translation and
interpretation arises to avoid a contradiction of Scripture.
Some have chosen to solve this by
making the writer of Hebrews mean the censer that the High Priest took into the
Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.
While there is a legitimate warrant for this approach, it presupposes
that the author would have neglected to even mention one of the pieces of
furniture that God clearly instructed Moses to make. Furthermore, it has him replace this piece of
furniture with an item of secondary importance, which God did not think was
important enough to even specify the material it was to be made out of. Not only that, but, although the writer of
Hebrews could have used the word he did to refer to a firepan, it is unlikely,
based on the word occurrences we see in the Greek translation of the Hebrew
Bible.
Clearly, I do not think censer is
the right way to translate Hebrews 9:4.
Yet, if we place altar of incense in the verse we are still left with
our original dilemma. How are we to
understand the fact that Hebrews places the altar of incense in the Holy of
Holies, yet Exodus places it in the holy place?
I think a solution will emerge if
we examine the roots of the two Greek words we have been discussing – thumiasterion and pureion. The root of pureion is pur, a noun simply meaning fire.
The root of thumiasterion is thumiao (thoo-me-ah-oh), a verb meaning to
burn incense. Suddenly, with this
additional clue, I think the author’s intent in Hebrews 9:4 becomes crystal
clear. He deliberately used a word with
the verbal connotation of the act of burning fragrant incense. And, he used an adjective, gold, that is
definitely linked to the altar of incense.
Therefore, I think he did in fact mean the altar itself, but he is
referring to its functional use in the ritual of atonement rather than its
spatial location within the tent of meeting.
Taking that understanding raises an
interesting question with a fascinating answer.
Namely, why was it so important for our author to place such an emphasis
on the act of burning incense? What is
the significance of the burning of incense, specifically on the golden altar of
incense in the Tabernacle, in the Jewish religious system? Was it just part of the ritual? Or, was there a legitimate functional purpose
and/or a symbolic point God was trying to make?
There are two clues that will provide us with an answer. Here is where things start to get really
interesting.
The first clue is found back in
Exodus 30, this time in verse 8. In
referring to the altar of incense, Moses writes out God’s instructions: “When Aaron trims the lamps at twilight, he
shall burn incense. There shall be
perpetual incense before the LORD throughout your generations.” God specifically instructed the priests to
burn a special blend of incense upon this altar. They were never to let this flame go
out. The altar itself was situated
directly in front of the veil that separated the holy place from the most holy
place, where God Himself placed His physical presence. So, what we have is a continuous cloud of
fragrance that was never to die out, that was positioned between the presence
of God and the Levitical priests.
Adding to that, we have the
detailed instructions in Leviticus 16 that God gave for the high priest on the
Day of Atonement. This was the
consecrated day once per year, when the high priest was permitted to enter the
Holy of Holies and make a special atonement for the sins of himself and the
whole nation of Israel. It is a rigid
series of 20 different steps that had to be carried out with exact attention to
detail. The Lord was imposing upon His
priests a clear image of how serious it was to enter the very presence of God
and how vast a gulf existed between them and Him.
In this strict procedure detailed
in Leviticus 16, there are only two infractions mentioned for which the high
priest might die. One is in verse 2: “Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not
enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat
which is on the ark, or he will die; for I will appear in the cloud over the
mercy seat.” The other criteria for
death is found in verse 13: “He shall
put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of incense may
cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, otherwise he will
die.”
So, the fragrant aroma from the
altar of incense was to hang in the air of the tent of meeting at all times, 24
hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year. The high priest was never to enter the Holy
of Holies where the Lord’s presence was, except on the Day of Atonement. And, on that day, when he did enter by invitation,
he had to be very careful to carry the aroma of the incense with him in a
censer, so that the cloud would surround him within the most holy place, when
he was in direct proximity to the very presence of God.
Do you see what is going on
here? Do you catch what God was trying
to communicate to His servants? To put
it bluntly…they stunk – quite literally to high heaven. In Scripture the Lord takes great pains to
communicate to men how distasteful their sin is to Him. In order for us to understand Him better, God
often does this through human concepts and images. So, although God has no physical form he
refers to Himself as having eyes that see man’s wickedness (Prov. 15:3), ears
that do not hear the prayers of wicked men (Prov. 15:29), or, more to our point
here, a nose that smells man’s stench.
Consider just one example. In Isaiah 65 the prophet writes from the
perspective of God as he describes the Lord’s opinion of Israel. He calls them a rebellious people in verse 2
and a people who continually provoke Him to His face in verse 3. Then in verse 4 we read that the Jews sit
among graves, eat swine’s flesh, and have unclean meat in their pots. The implication of this is the rottenness of
the dead, the stink of wild animals, and the foul smell of rancid food. Finally, in verse 5 God says that these
people “are a smoke in My nostrils, a
fire that burns all the day.” The
noxious odor of the Israelites was like acrid smoke searing the tender flesh on
the inside of the nose.
In contrast, we see God use the
concept of “pleasing aromas” as a method of soothing Him and providing a
respite from His wrath. The first
occurrence of this is in Genesis 8. Noah
built an altar to God after leaving the ark.
On this altar he sacrificed some of every clean animal and bird. We find God’s response in verse 21: The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and
the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of
man.”
Again, in Leviticus 26 we come
across the idea of soothing aromas. Only
this time it is in the context of God refusing to be mollified by them because
of Israel’s rebellion. In verse 31 He
says: “I will lay waste your cities as
well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your
soothing aromas.”
The point is this. God wanted His sinful people to understand
just how reprehensible they were to Him because of their sin
contamination. The filth of it covered
them like a repugnant skim of foul slime.
This pungent stench could not be removed even by the washing of the body
with water. It clung to them like a skin
tight suit of decay that could never be removed. And, if any of the Hebrew priests ever dared
to enter the room where the presence of God resided without the aroma of incense
to cover and mask their stench, God’s consuming hatred of the sin that infused
them would instantly kill them on the spot.
Into this
arena of odorific symbolism steps the God-man Himself, Jesus Christ, the Son of
God and Messiah of Israel, the seed of Abraham, and the focal point of the
epistle to the Hebrews. What no mere man
could ever hope to accomplish in appeasing the wrath of God and providing a
pleasing perfume in the nostrils of the Lord, Christ did. Paul makes exactly this point in Ephesians
5:2, where he writes: Christ also loved
you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a
fragrant aroma.
This is
precisely the point that the whole book of Hebrews is trying to make. That is, Christ is superior to everything that
has come before. He is a superior
prophet. He is an eternal perfect high
priest. And, He is the greatest of all
sovereign kings. The Levites previously
had to carefully follow God’s regulations to avoid being put to death, and had
to repeat their efforts without ceasing.
On the Day of Atonement, they had to carefully and with great
trepidation enter the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God. They had to use the blood of animals to
satisfy the wrath of God and the aroma of incense to mask their stench.
But now, coming full circle back to
our original passage, consider what Christ has done in Hebrews 9:11-12: But when Christ appeared as a high priest
of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not
through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered
the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
I think the
reason the author of Hebrews wrote 9:4 the way he did was not because he made a
mistake. It was not because he did not
know the proper placement of the altar of incense. Rather, it was because he was trying to draw
our attention to the extreme difficulty with which human priests had to perform
their duties. They had to be exceeding
careful not to offend God’s holy sensibilities.
Thus, the altar of incense, while positionally in the holy place, was
functionally attached to the most holy place.
Its purpose was to shield the priests from the holiness of God, which
they could not be in the presence of and live.
In contrast to all that, I think
the author of Hebrews is saying, the work of Christ is all sufficient, perfect,
singular, and eternal. Christ needs no
respite from the holiness of God, because He is the perfect image of God in the
flesh. As John writes in Revelation,
Jesus, or the Lamb of God, is the only person in the entire universe worthy to
be given the keys to God’s kingdom.
More than
that, the person of Christ and your union with Him, if indeed you are truly in
Him, is the only thing that gives you the right to stand unashamed and with
confidence before God. After having
explored how difficult it was for Levitical priests to enter God’s presence, do
you appreciate the significance of the veil of the temple being torn from top
to bottom when Jesus died on the cross? There
is no longer a separation between God and anyone who is united to His Son,
Jesus. Are you taking advantage of this
divine access? Or are you ignoring God,
in favor of the hustle and bustle of your life?
If you are a born-again Christian,
you can commune in prayer with God any time of the day or night. Can you conceive of the unimaginable
privilege you now have to approach God with confidence in prayer whenever you
want? The omnipotent Creator God of the
universe allows you to set your own schedule of interaction with Him. It is utterly ridiculous that we have been
given such freedom. We do not deserve it. Are you guilty of overlooking the honor given
to you? Are your prayers infrequent and
insincere?
We, as a
species, are so quick to take for granted what is dear to us, forget what is
important, and neglect what is valuable.
God gives us the record of His interaction with mankind in the
Scriptures. He expects us to diligently
read and tirelessly seek to understand it.
He wants us to see both the tremendous effort required to commune with
Him prior to Christ and the unbelievable ease of communion facilitated by the
sacrifice of Christ.
For a Savior
who has given us so much, how can we give Him anything less than all of
ourselves? If you already know the
living Christ, then please examine your life.
Determine right now to eliminate anything that would distract you from
God. If you have never known Jesus,
God’s offer of salvation through Him and the VIP access to your Creator stands
open for you today. Will you accept
God’s invitation?
Furthermore,
for those reading this who are in Christ, I hope you see the value of diligent
Bible study. This passage in Hebrews was
a difficult puzzle. But it yielded such
rich reward for me personally, and I hope for you as well. 2nd Timothy 2:15 tells us to: Be diligent to present yourself approved to
God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word
of truth. I plead with you not to
“throw your hands up” the next time you come across a challenging passage. Stick with it, ask God for help, lean on
other Christians, and I am convinced you will be amazed at how much deeper your
knowledge, appreciation, and love of God will grow.
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