"The Better Sacrifice"
Hebrews 9:11-28
We often refer to the "sacrifice" of Jesus.
What does that mean?
We thank God that he sent Jesus to be "the sacrifice for our sins."
What are we referring to?
Probably you are thinking of the cross.
It is on the cross that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins.
Right?
If you mean by "the cross" the whole death/resurrection/ascension complex of events,
then it is fine to say "the sacrifice of the cross"
because it is indeed the blood shed on the cross that Jesus offered to the Father-
but it was not on the cross that Jesus offered his blood to the Father.
There is a difference between the death of the sacrifice
and the offering of the sacrifice.
Remember last week we saw how the Mosaic worship of the first covenant
foreshadowed Christ.
We looked last week at the earthly holy place and the Mosaic regulations for worship.
We saw that the earthly tabernacle had two parts,
the first (the Holy Place) symbolizing the present age and the first covenant,
the second (the Most Holy Place) symbolizing the age to come/the new covenant.
So long as the first part of the tabernacle is standing,
so long as the priests offer the repetitive day after day sacrifices,
the way into the heavenlies is shut.
Only the high priest could enter once a year.
Now Hebrews is ready to explain how the better covenant is expressed through a better sacrifice.
Hebrews 9:1-10 makes it clear that the first covenant was weak and impotent
because it had restricted access to God (7-8)
and it lacked decisive dealing with sin (9-10)
But if you want to fully understand the glory of the new and better covenant,
then you need to understand something of how the first covenant worked.
And especially, the relationship between covenant and sacrifice.
Great.
Why do we have to spend so much time talking about these OT practices?
Bloody covenants, bloody sacrifices-
What has it bloody got to do with me!
Remember that Hebrews is talking to you.
Remember that this is a word of exhortation, that is designed to help you hold fast to Christ.
There are all sorts of things going on in your lives right now
that are pulling-tugging-at your mind and heart.
And what Hebrews wants you to see....
... is Jesus
We see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus,
but now is crowned with glory and honor,
because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
And not some tame Jesus-
centuries of well-intentioned Christians have tried to tame Jesus
to make him more palatable to modern ears.
No, the Jesus whom Hebrews wants you to see-
the Jesus who sits at the right hand of God-
is a strange Jesus.
But it is only that strange, alien Jesus,
who comes to us enmeshed in these ancient Jewish rituals,
who can be that merciful and sympathetic high priest.
He can only identify with us in our sufferings,
if he first becomes the sacrifice for our sins.
Because all those strange, bloody rituals that God gave to Israel
were designed to teach them (and us) about sin, redemption,
and our eternal inheritance.
1. The Reason for the Sacrifice: Covenant and Inheritance (9:15-17)
Jesus is the high priest of the good things that have come.
He has entered, not the earthly holy of holies, but the heavenly holy of holies,
at the right hand of the Father.
And he has offered there the perfect sacrifice which purifies our conscience
from dead works to serve the living God.
Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant.
What is the point of this new covenant?
So that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
We've seen before that Adam was created as the Son of God.
He was called to enter his eternal inheritance through his faithful obedience.
As the Son of God he was to reflect his heavenly Father's righteousness,
by his perfect, perpetual obedience.
But Adam failed.
And so God established what Hebrews calls the "first covenant"-with Israel,
saying "Israel is my son, my firstborn".
And Israel was called to enter their inheritance.
As we saw in Hebrews 3-4, Israel failed miserably.
But as we saw in Hebrews 8, the problem was not solely with Israel.
The first covenant itself was faulty.
The Mosaic covenant had no provision for dealing finally with sin.
Every time the high priest comes out of the Holy of Holies,
all Israel could breathe a sigh of relief:
"All of our unintentional sins from the past year have been dealt with!"
But within days, hours, minutes-the list would start all over again.
We're going to need another Day of Atonement next year!
If the Son of God is going to enter his inheritance,
then we need a better covenant, a better mediator, a better high priest,
a better sanctuary, a better sacrifice!
Verse 15 emphasizes that Jesus is that mediator of a new covenant.
And the reason why you know that the new covenant has come,
is because a death has occurred that redeems us from the transgressions
committed under the first covenant.
Verse 15 and verse 22 open and close this paragraph by insisting that death/blood
is necessary for dealing with sin:
"Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (v22).
Verses 16-21 flesh this out in more detail.
Verses 16-17 are difficult.
That's why I've provided an alternate translation for you in the bulletin.
Most translations (like the ESV) use the word "will" or "testament"
in verses 16-17.
The problem is that the word translated "will" in those two verses
is the same word translated "covenant" in the rest of Hebrews
(including verses 15, 18 and 20).
And even the NAS, which uses "covenant" throughout,
is still thinking in terms of a "will."
"For where there is a covenant, the death of the covenant-maker must be brought forward; for a covenant is valid upon dead bodies, since it is not in force as long as the one who made the covenant is living."
Plainly in verse 15 we are talking about a "covenant."
Wills do not have "mediators."
But what about verses 16-17?
Most commentators think that Hebrews is using a play on words
(because the Greek word diatheke can mean either "will" or "covenant"),
and that is certainly possible,
but his example doesn't fit the ancient idea of a will.
In the ancient world (both Jewish and Roman),
many children received their inheritance while their father was still alive.
Even in the NT, think of the prodigal son who asked, and received, his inheritance.
Plainly, then, a will could take effect without the death of the testator.
So while the idea of a will may be present here,
we should be wary of thinking solely in terms of a will.
The solution is to pay more close attention to our text.
The translation I gave you points to one aspect that is oft-overlooked:
"the death of the covenant-maker must be brought forward."
The ESV says "the death of the one who made it must be established"
The NAS "there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it."
The word here has nothing to do with "establishing" or "necessitating"
but "bringing."
The death of the covenant-maker must be brought.
What do priests do?
They "bring" sacrifices.
What is the problem with the old covenant?
First, the people keep breaking it-so that the son of God (at that rate)
would never enter his inheritance;
and second, the sacrificial system of the first covenant could not provide a final solution.
In other words, a death needed to be brought that could deal finally with sin.
And where a covenant is involved the death of the covenant-maker must be brought.
In the OT this was done through animal sacrifice.
The death of the animal was your death.
When you brought that goat, or that bull, to the altar,
that animal died in your place.
The priest brought your death to God.
We could paraphrase verse 17 by saying,
"a covenant is only valid through the dead bodies of the sacrifices,
since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive."
The word translated "dead" or "death" in verse 17 is plural,
even though the "one who made the covenant" is singular.
This means that verse 17 cannot be talking about the literal death of the covenant-maker.
It is talking about substitutionary death through a sacrifice.
There must be a sacrificial death in order to establish a covenant.
In the OT this was symbolic.
In Genesis 15 God established his covenant with Abraham.
He had Abraham cut the animals in half,
and then God himself passed between the pieces of the animals,
saying, in effect, "may I be cut in two, if I do not keep my covenant."
But we are not kept guessing as to the meaning of this.
Verses 18-22 explain exactly what he is talking about.
2. The First Sacrifice: The Blood of the Covenant in Exodus 24 (9:18-22)
"Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood."
Again, Hebrews could have used Abraham as an example,
but the focus of his message is Moses, and the Mosaic covenant,
and the Aaronic priesthood,
so he focuses on that.
His reference here is from Exodus 24, the ratification of the covenant with Israel.
After Moses had proclaimed the law of God-the book of the covenant,
he sprinkled the book and all the people with the blood of the covenant.
In Exodus 19 God had forbidden the people to even touch the mountain.
When God proclaimed his covenant-the Ten Commandments,
the people trembled with fear and pled with Moses that they not hear God's voice.
Why?
Isn't the nearness of God a good thing?!
What you see in Exodus 19-20 is the Word of God without a sacrifice.
Exodus 19-23 is the only time in all of redemptive history
where sinful people approach the living God without a sacrifice.
And not surprisingly, the voice of God terrifies them!
Because the Word of God without a sacrifice can only strike terror into the human heart.
The book of the covenant reveals the purposes of God,
while the blood of the covenant reveals the power of God for salvation.
Think of what Paul says in Romans 1:16
"I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation"
And what is the gospel?
It is the revelation of the righteousness of God
in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The gospel is nothing less than God's final solution for sin and death.
And as we've seen before,
the book of the covenant and the blood of the covenant need each other:
without the book of the covenant, the blood of the covenant is meaningless
the word of God interprets and explains the sacrifice;
without the blood of covenant, the book of the covenant is powerless
the sacrifice is after all, the good news.
Without the sacrifice, the Word of God condemns us.
Without the Word, the sacrifice has no meaning.
And Hebrews shows us this by reminding us of how Moses sprinkled both the book
and the people, saying, "this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you."
The same book that terrified them in Exodus 20,
now becomes good news, through the blood of the covenant in Ex 24.
This is why the shedding of blood was so pervasive in the OT.
There was a sacrifice for everything!
Everything had to be cleansed by blood.
"Shedding of blood" is a fine translation,
but the point is not the death of the sacrifice,
but the application of the blood of the sacrifice.
It is the sprinkling of the blood that is in view.
It is not simply the fact that Jesus' blood spilled out of his body on the cross that purifies us,
but the fact that he presented his own blood in the heavenly Holy of Holies.
(And, as we'll see in the next chapter, the fact that his blood is applied to you-
you have been sprinkled with the blood of Christ's sacrifice)
Without the sprinkling of blood, there is no forgiveness.
3. The Better Sacrifice: Once for All at the End of the Ages (9:23-26)
So if the pattern or copy-the OT sanctuary-had to be cleansed with the "worse" sacrifices,
then we see the necessity of a better sacrifice to cleanse the heavenly things.
What?
The heavenly things had to be purified? Cleansed?
What does that mean?
We saw last week that the earthly sanctuary-the tabernacle-had to be cleansed annually,
because the earthly tabernacle was God's dwelling place among an unclean people.
And the uncleanness of the people contaminated the earthly sanctuary.
And now Jesus is about to bring all of these unclean people into the heavenly holy of holies?!
How can God dwell with all these unclean people?
This is why the Son of God became a man.
This is why the very radiance of God's glory became one of us.
Because only the power of an indestructible life could cleanse once-for-all.
In the OT, the unclean contaminated the clean,
but in the resurrection of Jesus, this is reversed.
In Jesus, the power of the holy cleanses the unclean.
Christ has entered-not the copy-but the true holy place-into heaven itself,
now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly-
this was a once-for-all sacrifice.
Please understand the implications!
It is not just that Jesus died once.
It is not just that Jesus suffered once.
It is also that Jesus presented his blood before the Father once!
Notice well when Jesus came to the Father.
It was "once for all at the end of the ages."
Jesus, after all, is the eschatological Son-the last Son-
the one who brings about the end of history in the middle of history.
Why is it important that this is the end of the ages.
This means that your sins have been definitively dealt with.
There is nothing left to be done!
There is not some future sprinkling.
You have been cleansed by the blood of Christ,
and your conscience is now purified from dead works to serve the living God.
This is why we administer baptism only once.
There is one cleansing, one sprinkling with the blood of Christ.
4. The Point of the Sacrifice: Are You Eager? (9:27-28)
And just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment,
so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,
will appear a second time, not to deal with sin
but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Tuesday night Andy talked about the death of Aaron,
and pointed to Numbers 35, where we are told that at the death of the high priest,
those who had fled to a city of refuge were set free.
The high priest was the sin-bearer of Israel,
and so his death was reckoned the death of those guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Are you still bearing the guilt of your past?
The death of Jesus is the death of the great High Priest.
In his death, you are set free.
Yes, you will die one day-and after that will come the judgment.
Do you look forward to that?
Are you eagerly waiting for him?
Because he will appear again-not to deal with sin (that's already dealt with),
but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
You're not saved yet!
There is a sense in which we've been saved
(purified conscience from dead works to serve the living God in verse 14)
There is that definitive work of Jesus Christ at the end of the ages 2000 years ago;
but there is also a sense in which we look forward, longing for our salvation.
-longing for the day when faith will be made sight,
when God will right all the wrongs of this age-
as he has promised in Jesus Christ.
You see, in the midst of the everyday struggles at home, at work, and in your community,
you need to see Jesus.
And when you see him as he is, in his glory and majesty,
then you are finally able to put everything else in perspective.
You are not the center of the universe.
Jesus is.