A “Darksaber” in Hebrews?

In an episode of The Mandalorian, I saw a villain pull out a dark-gray lightsaber. “Cool,” I thought, and was ready to move on. My son, though, was much more excited. If I had watched The Clone Wars which takes place before The Mandalorian, he told me, I would better appreciate the significance of this “darksaber.”

Reading Hebrews can be like that.

In the first paragraph, the writer says, “after making purification for sins,” Jesus “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (1:3b). “Cool,” we might think, and move on. But to those who are familiar with what comes before Hebrews, this phrase jumps out the way the “darksaber” jumped out to those who knew what came before The Mandalorian. 

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In none of the Gospels do we find Jesus actually “making purification for sins.” This is not a surprise. “Making purification for sins” refers to the sacrificial ritual involving a “sin offering” performed by the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem. If done on the Day of Atonement, it had to be by the high priest while he walked through the curtain separating the innermost chamber of the Temple from the rest, sprinkling animal blood on various parts of the Temple. Jesus was not a priest or a high priest, and never performed such acts.

What is the writer talking about then? 

The Gospels provide a hint. Each of Matthew, Mark and Luke records how the curtain by the entrance to the innermost chamber of the Temple – signaling restricted access – was torn in two at the moment of Jesus’ death. (John gets more creative, as he often does, and records something else being torn.) From this, we infer the writer is connecting the high priest to Jesus, the animal blood to Jesus’ blood, and the innermost chamber of the Temple to…can you guess?

Notice how, if we are well-versed in the Gospels that come before Hebrews, a seemingly uninteresting phrase like “making purification for sins” takes on a deeper significance.

There is more.

Jesus descended from Judah, Jacob’s fourth son. A priest had to have descended from Levi, Jacob’s third son. How then is Jesus’ “making purification for sins” legitimate when he is not a Levite priest? The writer answers: because he is an even greater priest “after the order of Melchizedek” (6:20).

Once again, if we are well-versed in Leviticus where “sin offering” is first explained and Genesis where Abraham – Levi’s great grandfather – gives a tithe to, and is blessed by, a mysterious priest-king named Melchizedek, Jesus’ “making purification for sins” takes on an even deeper significance.

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Notice how, in the figure above, Hebrews comes after the Gospels. 

We are being invited to read Hebrews in light of the Gospels.

Notice how all of the New Testament comes after the Old Testament, inviting us to read the New Testament in light of the Old Testament. Within the Old Testament, we are to read the Prophets and Writings in light of the Laws. Within the Laws, we are to read Leviticus, for instance, in light of Genesis and Exodus.

Once we start reading the later books of the Bible in light of what came before, we will start to see the “darksabers” everywhere on the pages of the Bible. And we will find that the Bible has been inviting us to a lifetime of discovery all along.

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Sam serves as one of the elders at ODPC EC. Please feel free to contact him at sam.kwon@odpcec.org with any questions or comments. Please join him and fellow brothers and sisters for the monthly study of Hebrews by signing up here.