Hebrews 9

Even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and an earthly place of holiness. Wesley: ordinances of outward worship, and a worldly—visible, material—sanctuary or tabernacle. Of this sanctuary the apostle treats in vv. 2–5; of those ordinances, in vv. 6–10.

Both camps begin here together: the old covenant had a God-appointed cultus. Arminian interpreters hear no scorn for Moses, only the frank admission that the sanctuary was earthly and the regulations outward. The contrast coming is—earthly tent toward heavenly reality.

Calvin: after speaking of the abrogation of the old covenant, he refers specially to the ceremonies. Under the old covenant there was a specific form of divine worship annexed to it, consisting of sacrifices, ablutions, and other symbols, together with the sanctuary. He calls it worldly because there was no heavenly truth or reality in those rites as such.

The first covenant's worship was no illusion, God-given, and temporary. "Earthly" names its sphere and limitation, not a pagan invention. Both camps refuse to despise the shadow while insisting the shadow is not the substance.

A tabernacle was prepared. In the first section stood the lampstand, the table, and the show bread; it is called the Holy Place. Wesley: the outward tabernacle; the shewbread shown continually before God; this candlestick and bread seem to have typified the light and life more largely dispensed under the gospel by Him who is the Light of the world and the Bread of life.

For the hearer: the furniture is typology pointing to Christ, not a ladder of works. Both camps can preach the lamp and the bread as gospel shadows without inventing a fight over the extent of the atonement in a verse about sanctuary layout.

Calvin: as the Apostle touches lightly on the structure of the tabernacle, so we need not be detained beyond the subject. In the first sanctuary contiguous to the court were the candlestick and the table of shewbread; he calls this place the holies.

The description is sober. The Holy Place is the middle chamber of a threefold arrangement—court, sanctuary, holy of holies—preparing the contrast with Christ's greater tent. Furniture catechizes; it does not justify.

After the second veil was the tabernacle which is called the Holy Place. Wesley: the second veil divided the holy place from the most holy, as the first veil did the holy place from the courts.

Shared truth: access is graded and restricted under the first covenant. The double veil is the Spirit's visual theology. Classical Arminians and Reformed alike hear that heaven's nearness was not yet openly granted to the people in the way the gospel will grant it.

Calvin: after the first sanctuary is mentioned the most secret place, the holy of holies, still more remote from the view of the people, and even hid from the priests who ministered in the first sanctuary. As by a veil the sanctuary was closed to the people, so another veil kept the priests from the holy of holies.

Distance is pedagogical. God was teaching Israel—and us—that nearness on our terms is impossible. The Most Holy Place awaits the once-for-all entry of a better high priest.

Having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold, with the urn of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Wesley: the golden censer used by the high priest only on the great day of atonement; the ark so called from the tables of the covenant; manna the monument of God's care; Aaron's rod the monument of the regular priesthood; the tables the most venerable monument of all.

Both camps: these are monuments of grace and order under the first covenant, not instruments that cleanse the conscience. Arminian hearing stays with the typology—care, priesthood, law—fulfilled in Christ rather than contested as a soteriological weapon.

Calvin: there was the altar of incense or fumigation, then the ark of the covenant with its covering, the cherubim, the golden pot of manna, Aaron's rod, and the two tables. Apparent tensions with 1 Kings 8:9 about what lay in the ark are resolved by noting different arrangements in tabernacle and temple eras.

The Apostle describes, then refuses curious over-reading. The holy things testify to covenant, provision, and priesthood—all pointing beyond themselves. We need not force limited-atonement debates onto inventory of the ark.

Above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, of which things we can’t speak now in detail. Now is not the time to speak of these things in detail. Wesley: over which the glory of God used to appear; with outspread wings shadowing the mercy-seat—a lid of gold covering the ark.

Pastoral: the mercy seat is where blood meets glory—already a gospel silhouette. Both camps refuse to digress into speculation when the argument drives toward conscience and access. We cannot now speak in detail is apostolic restraint we should imitate.

Calvin: as nothing can satisfy curious men, the apostle cuts off every occasion for refinements unsuitable to his purpose. To philosophize beyond just limits is not only useless but dangerous. Discretion and sobriety ought to be observed, lest we seek to be wise above what God has been pleased to reveal.

The mercy seat matters; endless allegory does not. Hold the cherubim and the propitiatory cover as witnesses to atoning nearness, then follow the argument to Christ's blood.

With these things prepared, the priests go continually into the first tabernacle to carry out their services. Wesley: always—every day—accomplishing their services: lighting the lamps, changing the shewbread, burning incense, and sprinkling the blood of the sin offerings.

Both readings: regularity is the point. Daily ministry in the first section never opens the second. Wesleyans hear a merciful but incomplete system—duties, limits—awaiting the high priest who enters once for all.

Calvin: omitting other things, he handles the chief point: the priests who performed sacred rites entered the first tabernacle daily, but the chief priest entered the holy of holies only yearly with the appointed sacrifice. The very form of the ancient tabernacle reminded the Jews that they were to look for something else.

Daily access to the first section is not gospel freedom. It is the standing reminder that the way into God's presence remained closed under that arrangement.

Into the second the high priest goes, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people. Wesley: errors—that is, sins of ignorance, to which only those atonements extended.

Both camps: blood is required even for the yearly entry; the high priest needs covering for himself. The limits of Day-of-Atonement blood ("errors") already confess the insufficiency of animal sacrifice for the whole burden of sin—driving us to Christ's better blood, not to a fight about the camps' later atonement theories.

Calvin: into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people. The word includes more than bare ignorance; no sin is free from error, for men are entangled in Satan's deceptions. Yet the yearly, bloody, solitary entry is the hinge of the argument.

Restricted access plus repeated blood equals a system that cannot be final. The type is holy; the antitype must be better—once, and with blood not another's.

By this the Holy Spirit is indicating this, that the way into the Holy Place wasn’t yet revealed while the first tabernacle was still standing. Wesley: the Holy Ghost evidently showing by this token that the way into the holiest—into heaven—was not made manifest while the first tabernacle and its service were still subsisting and remaining in force.

Shared glory: the Spirit Himself interprets the architecture. Arminians catch a sincere pedagogy—God showing Israel and the church that heaven's way awaited clearer revelation in Christ. The standing first section is a closed door with a holy purpose.

Calvin: the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was yet standing. While the tabernacle under the Law was standing, the sanctuary was closed up; only through that being removed could the way be open to the kingdom of God. Foolishly did they act who, retaining the shadows, willfully obstructed their own way.

The Spirit's indication is doctrinal, not merely emotional. Access to God on gospel terms requires the end of the first section's standing force—fulfilled when Christ opens the way by His own blood.

This is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshiper perfect. Wesley: the tabernacle with all its furniture and services is a figure of good things to come which cannot perfect the worshipper—neither priest nor offerer—as to his conscience, so that he should be no longer conscious of the guilt or power of sin. Observe, the temple was as yet standing.

Both camps: conscience is the issue. Animal gifts cannot perfect it. The gospel that will perfect the conscience is sincerely held out in Christ; the old arrangement was never meant to be the last word for the guilty heart.

Calvin: which was a figure for the time then present, in which gifts and sacrifices were offered that could not make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the conscience—they did not reach the soul so as to confer true holiness. All these rites were of the flesh; earthly symbols that led the faithful by the hand to Christ, that they might obtain from him what was wanting in the symbols.

The conscience is not perfected by cultus repetition. The symbols were true testimonies, yet they did not contain or convey the holiness they signified. Christ alone perfects the conscience.

Wesley: they could not so perfect him with all their train of precepts relating to meats and drinks and carnal, external ordinances; and were therefore imposed only till the time of reformation—till Christ came.

Held in common: "until" is mercy. The regulations for the body had a sunset clause. Wesleyan Arminians preach reformation as Christ's coming that opens conscience-cleansing worship—not as permission to invent a new sacrificial system, and not as a limited-vs-general atonement quarrel in a verse about food, drink, and washings.

Calvin: which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation. He alludes to Jeremiah's new-covenant promise; the new covenant succeeded the old as a reformation. By these trifling observances a more certain opinion may be formed how far short the Law was of the perfection of the Gospel.

Reformation is eschatological arrival, not endless revision. When Christ comes, body-regulations yield to conscience-purifying blood. Both camps stand here against returning to shadow as if substance had not appeared.