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Heb. 9
Contrast worship under the old covenant with worship under the new covenant secured by the blood of Christ. The blood and ashes used in the worship rituals of the old covenant served to make the people and things involved outwardly clean. But they had to be used over and over again because they did nothing to make anyone internally clean. “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Heb. 9:14).
The NIV translation gives an alternate translation for the phrase “acts that lead to death”. The note says this could also mean “useless rituals”. Several other translations use the phrase “dead works”. Together, these phrases clearly express the idea that the rituals and rules of the Old Covenant do not offer life. God commanded the early Jews to follow these things as an expression of faith through obedience. It was faith in God’s promise that saved, just as it is now with the New Covenant. Because the promise had not yet come, however, they were subject to the external law.
I love that, with the coming of the New Covenant in Jesus, we are now free from our continuous, futile efforts. Instead of focusing on all the things we are supposed to do, we are free to focus on God. We are free to rest in relationship with Him. That doesn’t mean that we stop working, per se – relationships take effort. But it does mean that our effort can now be spent on doing good rather than on trying to hold ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Rather than being useless and futile, our efforts are now a burden of love, taken up out of enthusiastic gratitude for the one who loves and saves us.
SoS. 5-6
The Bible Project’s video on the Song of Songs offered several interpretations for the underlying message of this book. Perhaps it is a depiction of God’s love for Israel. Or perhaps one of Christ’s love for the Church, which I would argue would essentially be the same thing, as one represents the other. Another option is that it is simply a collection of cultural love poetry reflecting on the divine gift of love. The Bible Project takes it one step further, to say that the book presents an image of perfect love, undefiled by human selfishness, that offers hope in the gift of God’s perfect love that will one day overcome the curse of man and restore His beloved creation.
I suppose I can see a little of all of that in this odd book. I can certainly see images of our relationship with Christ in it. Take, for example, the repeated use of the phrase, “my sister, my bride”. That sounds a little off-putting to me, but when I think about it, I see that it applies to me in relation to Christ. As believers, we are joint heirs with Christ; children of God. That makes me a sister to Christ. Yet I also know that the Church is Christ’s bride. So, as part of Christ’s Church, that makes me His bride. Kinda interesting.
Another example is how the woman’s beloved is there and then isn’t. So, too, Christ came and then left us anxiously waiting for His return. Thus we, like the woman, fervently seek Him, even when we encounter abuse at the hands of others, until we are physically together again.