New Ministry
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 27 October 2024
Hebrews does teach us the superiority of Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews is, in writing to this Jewish community, endeavoring to show them that they can leave Judaism, that they can abandon all the sacrifices, the priesthood, and all of those rituals that went along with the covenant and they can come to Christ. And He must prove that Christ’s sacrifice was superior to all the others.
Hebrews presents first the superiority of Christ as a person, then the superiority of Christ as a priest, then the superiority of Christ as the maker of a new covenant, then the superiority of Christ as a sacrifice. The Old Testament was unable to bring access to God. It only provided a limited relation between mankind and God. Everything is designed in the New Testament to bring people to God.
Jesus comes along and brings a better covenant that gives full access to God on an eternal basis. The old sacrifices were not able to wipe away sin, they only for a time covered it up and thus, the sacrifices had to be repeated all the time. Jesus brought a perfect sacrifice that was only done once, and it took care of an eternal redemption, covering and removing, blotting out all sin.
Now, that’s what we’ve been studying. In Hebrews 4, He began to talk about his better priesthood. Then in Hebrews 8, He began to talk about his better covenant. Now as we come to Hebrews 9, He is moving from the covenant to the better priesthood, and it’s all tied together. Now He’s going to talk about a better priesthood and continue where we left off last time as an introduction.
Verse 15, “Therefore, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.” Now, for this cause, because of the sacrificial death of Christ, He has become the mediator of a new covenant. That’s the only way He could provide what He wanted.
The word “mediator” means to be a go-between. Jesus, by the act of death, became the go-between from God to mankind. Now, God made certain standards which said “the soul that sins shall die,” and the only way that somebody could come to God was if they paid for their sin. Jesus’ death was payment for sin, which became a bridge to God. His death was the mediation that opened the way for believers.
Jesus Himself said, “I am the way.” Do you know that when Jesus died, He redeemed those under the Old Testament? How were people in the Old Testament saved? They were saved by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. By His death, He brought redemption to those under the Old Testament. Christ became the mediator that payed the penalty of sinners who lived long before the cross.
When Jesus died, He gathered up all the sinners from the beginning of time to the end of time in that one sacrifice. He’s preaching to Israel to give them the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ. Romans 3:24-25, “they are justified freely by His grace 25 God presented Him as the mercy seat by His blood, through faith, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.”
When God sent Christ to be the satisfaction, He declared His righteousness in forgiving sins in the past. And it was only God’s patience. Christ’s blood then satisfied forever the just requirements of God’s holy law, which mankind broke. How can a just God let sinners go is answered by the death of Christ. He can’t. He was merely patient and He forgave them until Jesus made the final payment.
God had provided the sacrifice that even reached backed and gathered them up who were believing Jews. This was not true of all of Israel. All of Israel, says Paul, is not Israel in the spiritual sense. Believing Jews had their sins covered by the death of Christ, which from mankind’s viewpoint was yet to come; but from God’s viewpoint was done from before the foundation of the world.
For mercy is available since justice has been satisfied by Christ. So the sacrifice of Christ then, is retroactive, as is the day-of-atonement sacrifice in Jewish history. You know, on Yom Kippur when they went through the ritual of symbolic sacrifice that atoned for sin, that was retroactive for the sins of the past year, and so the death of Christ was retroactive clear back to Adam.
Ephesians 4:8-9 says, “When He ascended on high, He took the captives captive; He gave gifts to people. 9 But what does “He ascended” mean except that He also descended to the lower parts of the earth?” When Jesus died, He went down to Sheol, to gather the Old Testament spirit saints, and ushered them into the presence of God. So they had to wait until the perfect sacrifice was made by Christ.
The death of Christ has always been a stumbling block to Israel. A dead Messiah never fit their theology. And so proceeding from there, in verses 16 - 28, He gives three great reasons why Jesus had to die. One, a testament demands death. Two, forgiveness demands blood. Three, salvation demands a victim. And that can be stated several ways. Judgment demands a substitute.
Verse 16, “Where a will exists, the death of the one who made it must be established.” If there’s going to be a will, the guy who gives the will has got to be dead or the will isn’t any good. Verse 17 says, “For a will is valid only when people die, since it is never in effect while the one who made it is living.” God made a legacy to all believers, and the legacy was eternal inheritance.
But you cannot receive the legacy of God in inheritance until the one who gave the legacy dies. A will cannot operate until the one who made it dies; therefore, Jesus had to die. The kingdom of heaven is given to all believers. Such is God’s will and testament. And Jesus’ death released it to our possession. Some of it is ours now, and it will be ours in its fullness when we go to be with Him.
The second reason for the death of Christ: forgiveness demands blood. Now, this takes a different shade of meaning, however. Verse 18 says, “That is why even the first covenant was inaugurated with blood.” In other words, there’s got to be the death of somebody because it has always been that covenants are ratified by blood. Blood was a part of the ratification of covenants, even the old covenant.
There is still somebody who is a living mediator of a covenant, then you’ve got to have a resurrection. So when you put these things all together, they have to allow for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He had to die to release His will; He had to live to make it operate. He had to die to ratify the covenant; He had to live to keep the terms of it. And so the resurrection is implied in all of it.
Verse 19-20 says, “For when every command had been proclaimed by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll itself and all the people, 20 saying, this is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.” And He gives the Ten Commandments. That’s the beginning of the Mosaic covenant.
Now covenants, historically, have been always ratified by blood. Even the Abrahamic covenant was sealed by blood. So this is what happened in the Mosaic case. And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, all the ordinances, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has said will we do.’” Great intentions, but they did not do it.
Now, it’s interesting that the writer of Hebrews adds for us certain detail that’s not included in Exodus 24. For example, he adds the goats. There aren’t any goats in Exodus 24. Perhaps they were a special sin offering. He adds water there, and water was not in Exodus 24, either, but is used in Leviticus 14:6 and in Numbers 19 to mix with blood in order to prevent it from coagulating.
Then he mentions also scarlet wool and hyssop, and they are also used in Leviticus 14 to sprinkle. They were dipped in, and they were the things that were used to sprinkle. And then he indicates, too, at the end of verse 19, that he sprinkled not only the book but all the people. And in Exodus 24, it says he sprinkled the altar and the people. So he sprinkled the altar, the book and the people.
We cannot say that the physical blood of Jesus atones for sin. It is His death that atones for sin. His bloodshed was an act of death. It is by His death that we are redeemed. So when Jesus died and shed His blood, this is nothing for Israel to get all bent out of shape about. This ought to be proof that God was instituting a new covenant, which had to be ratified by blood.
Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 26:28, when He, at the table with the disciples that last night before His death, picked up the cup and said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you.” He ratified the new covenant, and it would come through His blood. The shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ, His atoning death, is the confirming sign of the new covenant.
Verse 21 says, “In the same way, he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the articles of worship with blood.” The tabernacle, the vessels of the tabernacle, every bit of divine service was sprinkled with blood. It was all sprinkled with blood because God wanted people to know that every covenant He ever made with them was a covenant that had to bypass sin, and the only sin bypass there is death.
Verse 22, “According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Wherever there is forgiveness, there is bloodshed. That’s God’s way. Now, there were some exceptions. If they were so poor that they couldn’t even afford a couple of turtledoves or pigeons, they could bring one-tenth of an ephod of fine flour.
The only way you’ll ever enter into God’s presence and into participation in the new covenant is by the death of Jesus Christ and your faith and belief in His shed blood on the cross in your behalf. And all over the Old Testament, He splattered blood in order that they might be constantly made aware of the fact that bloodshed was the only expiation for sin. Forgiveness is a costly thing.
The infinite cost that God went to forgive my sins. And I’m so ready to sin, knowing that it’s forgiven. That’s why Paul, in Romans 6, faces the question, “Shall we sin that grace may abound?” And he throws his hands up in the air and says, “God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer in it?” Consider the cost of your forgiveness, God cannot violate the moral laws of His nature.
Verse 23, “Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than these.” If your earthly system had to be purified with a sacrifice, then you know that the heavenly one must be purified with a far better sacrifice. Jesus is infinitely superior to any goat, bull, ram or sheep.
Verse 24, “For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one) but into heaven itself, so that He might now appear in the presence of God for us.” And He did it for us. Because we’re in Christ, we are ushered into the presence of God with Him. Verse 25, “He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the Jewish high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another.”
Verse 26, “Otherwise, He would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now He has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself.” It’s better because Jesus, when He finished it, entered into God’s presence. When Jesus died, it was the end of the age. Did you know that messianically speaking, this is the last time?
1 John 2:18 says, “My little children, it is the last time.” 1 Peter 4 says, “The end of all things is at hand.” There were a lot of ages. There was the age when Satan fell. There was the age when Adam sinned. There was the age when God saw the wickedness of man and destroyed the earth by flood. There was the age of the prophets and the kings. But the consummation of ages was Christ at Calvary.
Verse 27 says, “And just as it is appointed for people to die once, and after this, judgment.” We see the thought in relation not only to Christ in verse 27, which is the primary meaning of the verse, but in relation to everybody else. All men have to die, and our death is appointed. That’s one appointment everybody’ll keep. And immediately after death comes what? Judgment.
Verse 28 says, “So also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.” Jesus will return a second time, not to die for sin but with salvation. He became sin for us who knew no sin. He died that one death that judgment demanded. Christ will appear the second time to bring salvation.”
Three crosses were prepared by the Romans for three criminals. On two of the crosses, thieves were to hang. On the third cross, one guilty of treason against the Roman Empire whose name was Barabbas. But Barabbas never made it to the cross. You see, sentence was passed on Barabbas. He was found guilty by the Romans. But Barabbas never got to the cross. Jesus Christ took Barabbas’s place. Let’s pray.