The design of the Tent of Meeting (or Tabernacle) and its implements was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 25:9, 40; 26:30). The Letter to the Hebrews invokes this event too (8:5). The Ark of the Covenant was chief among the ritual artefacts that Moses made in obedience to God’s instructions.
Once the Tent had finally been dismantled, the Ark was unlike any other structure on earth: it realized at first hand a heavenly prototype.
In Judaism the court of heaven was the home of God and of his indefeasible purposes. Once the Temple was built, there was one fixed point of almost perfect intersection between the divine and human worlds, eternity and time, heaven and earth: the Temple’s Holy of Holies. It was a perfect cube.
Ever since the Babylonians sacked the Temple in 586 BCE, the Holy of Holies lay empty; only a low platform marked the spot where the Ark of the Covenant had once stood. To pass from the blazing sunlight of Jerusalem into this windowless sanctuary was to pass through two vast, double veils. One of them was decorated with the sun, planets, and stars on a dark blue background; to pass through it was indeed to pass through the heavens to God’s throne-room beyond. The High Priest alone came in here, and only on the Day of Atonement.
The High Priest entered three times: first with a tray of burning incense; then with the blood of a bullock; finally with the blood of a goat. He sprinkled the blood on the front of the platform, to atone for the pollution with which the sins of the priests and the sins of the people had infected the Temple over the preceding year. As the Holy of Holies represented heaven, so the Temple as a whole represented, in microcosm, the whole earth. On the Day of Atonement, in this one building, the whole of creation was cleansed and re-purified.
When I celebrate the Eucharist in Wren’s sanctuary, I am in a new Holy of Holies; as is every celebrant of every Eucharist in the Christian world.
9 Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. 2For a tent was prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence; it is called the Holy Place. 3Behind the second curtain stood a tent called the Holy of Holies, 4having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, which contained a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; 5above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
6 These preparations having thus been made, the priests go continually into the outer tent, performing their ritual duties; 7but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people. 8By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing 9(which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, 10but deal only with food and drink and various ablutions, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, 14how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant. 16For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18Hence even the first covenant was not ratified without blood. 19For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” 21And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; 26for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Christopher Wren
Reredos, The Temple Church, London, Church built 12th century; interior 17th/18th century, Architecture, London, UK, Photo: Christopher Christodoulou
The Blood that Intercedes
The design of the Tent of Meeting (or Tabernacle) and its implements was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 25:9, 40; 26:30). The Letter to the Hebrews invokes this event too (8:5). The Ark of the Covenant was chief among the ritual artefacts that Moses made in obedience to God’s instructions.
Once the Tent had finally been dismantled, the Ark was unlike any other structure on earth: it realized at first hand a heavenly prototype.
In Judaism the court of heaven was the home of God and of his indefeasible purposes. Once the Temple was built, there was one fixed point of almost perfect intersection between the divine and human worlds, eternity and time, heaven and earth: the Temple’s Holy of Holies. It was a perfect cube.
Ever since the Babylonians sacked the Temple in 586 BCE, the Holy of Holies lay empty; only a low platform marked the spot where the Ark of the Covenant had once stood. To pass from the blazing sunlight of Jerusalem into this windowless sanctuary was to pass through two vast, double veils. One of them was decorated with the sun, planets, and stars on a dark blue background; to pass through it was indeed to pass through the heavens to God’s throne-room beyond. The High Priest alone came in here, and only on the Day of Atonement.
The High Priest entered three times: first with a tray of burning incense; then with the blood of a bullock; finally with the blood of a goat. He sprinkled the blood on the front of the platform, to atone for the pollution with which the sins of the priests and the sins of the people had infected the Temple over the preceding year. As the Holy of Holies represented heaven, so the Temple as a whole represented, in microcosm, the whole earth. On the Day of Atonement, in this one building, the whole of creation was cleansed and re-purified.
When I celebrate the Eucharist in Wren’s sanctuary, I am in a new Holy of Holies; as is every celebrant of every Eucharist in the Christian world.
Read next commentary
Hebrews 9
Revised Standard Version
9 Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. 2For a tent was prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence; it is called the Holy Place. 3Behind the second curtain stood a tent called the Holy of Holies, 4having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, which contained a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; 5above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
6 These preparations having thus been made, the priests go continually into the outer tent, performing their ritual duties; 7but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people. 8By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary is not yet opened as long as the outer tent is still standing 9(which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, 10but deal only with food and drink and various ablutions, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, 14how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant. 16For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18Hence even the first covenant was not ratified without blood. 19For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” 21And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; 26for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
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