Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2698
“He takes away the first, that He may establish the second.” Hebrews 10:9.
THE way of God with men is to go from good to better and from better to best. In the creation, “the evening and the morning were the first day.” “And the evening and the morning were the second day.” And so on to the sixth day. God often gives us darkness before He gives us light and He gives us some measure of light in the rising sun before He gives us the full glory of noontide. And this, I suppose, is not because God needs any such rule for Himself. He can give the best, first, if He so chooses, but I imagine that this arrangement is necessary because of our infirmity. It would never do for weak eyes to have the full light of the sun pouring down upon them. Often, when men are faint, and nearly dying of hunger, they would be killed outright if strong meat were at once set before them—they must be gently fed as they are able to bear it. So God, knowing the feebleness of His creatures and especially the feebleness of His sinful creatures, is pleased to bestow His mercies with great wisdom and prudence. Little by little, first a very little, it may be, and then rather more, and then still more, and then much more, and then most of all until He does exceedingly abound in mercy towards us according to the riches of His Grace.
It often happens that the lesser blessing is a sort of preparatory school before the greater favor. The Law of Moses acted as an education for men to prepare them to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The types and shadows of the twilight of the tabernacle and temple services helped men, by-and-by, to appreciate the substance when the True Light began to shine among the sons of men. We have need to be continually educated and trained for that which lies before us. We are not fit to enter even Heaven, itself, until we have learned something of the heavenly things here below. There is a first in order that there be a second—and the first has to be taken away, when it has fulfilled its design, in order that we then may enter upon the second. Some lower good precedes the higher and when the lower good has educated us for the higher, then it is removed, and the greater blessing fills its place, even as it says in our text, “He takes away the first, that He may establish the second.” I am going to sever these two sentences from their connection, just for the time being, because they seem to me to contain a valuable general principle which may be used for comfort and instruction in many ways.
I. I shall ask you to notice, first, THE GRAND INSTANCE of this rule given in the chapter from which our text is taken, the instance which was the occasion of the utterance of the rule. “He takes away the first,” that is, the sacrifices and offerings of the Ceremonial Law. “He takes away the first,” that is, the blood of bulls and of goats—“that He may establish the second,” which second is Christ, Himself, the one effectual Propitiation for sin, the great Burnt-Offering which the Lord accepts and by which He is reconciled to all who trust in it.
The taking away of “the first” involved the removal of instructive and consoling ordinances. Let us never forget that “the first” was given for the wisest possible purposes and was, itself, exceedingly useful. God forbid that we should ever find fault with the first dispensation, for it was the means of great comfort and of much instruction to the people of God who lived under it. Though it was, in itself, little better than a piece of glass, yet the Old Testament Believers saw much through it. Those of them who had clear vision saw the same Christ through it whom we, by faith, see at this day. So that window was to them a very precious thing because of the future Glory which they were able to see through it. I can un-
derstand how David enjoyed the ceremonies of the holy place in his day and how, when he was obliged to be absent, he longed once more to stand within the tabernacles of God and envied the very sparrows and swallows that could fly or build their nests around the courts of the Lord’s House! I can realize how earnestly he desired to stand again and see the priests presenting the holy offerings before the shrine of the Most High. And I can easily comprehend that to tell him that all these observances were to be put away, would give him some cause for disquietude—but when he understood that they were to be removed in order that a second, and a better dispensation should be established in their place, then his disquietude would altogether cease!
Brothers and Sisters, we ought, this day, to be far more happy than the Jews ever were when God had accepted their richest sacrifices, for what, after all, were holocausts of bullocks, what were thousands upon thousands of lambs compared with the only-begotten Son of God who has sacrificed Himself on our behalf? Of what use were all the rivers of blood that were shed and the seas of oil that were poured out? What comfort could they bring to Jewish Believers compared with that which we derive from the flowing wounds of the Christ of Calvary and from the fact that He who suffered on the Cross, that He who was dead and buried, has risen again, and gone back into Glory and is there pleading, on our behalf, the merit of His one finished, perfect Sacrifice? Yes, Beloved, let “the first” go! We need not drop a single tear over its departure, seeing that “the second,” which is established in its place, is so infinitely superior to it!