It's All About Him: Hebrews -- Lesson 33

To start at the beginning of this series, click here.

The Better Mediator of the Better Covenant

How many ways can you say that Jesus carried His own blood to the God as an eternal offering for the sin of mankind? The Writer of Hebrews has already stated this once. He now states it again:

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives.

Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you." And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. (Hebrews 9:15-28, NASB 95)

The point, of course, is that the New Covenant is superior to the Old by virtue of:

• A better Mediator
• A single effective offering vs. multiple symbolic offerings

And that becomes the important thing: a single offering that is able to do the whole job and "put away sin."

There is an interesting play on words at the beginning of this section, "For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives." Covenants are often just contracts between individuals or groups, and not all contracts require the death of a party to become effective. But a will is a covenant is a contract between a person and his heirs--and is changeable up to the moment of death--after which it becomes permanent. The New Covenant is, then, closer to a will, and the Old was closer to a contract between parties. In the Old Covenant, if the people obeyed blessings would follow; if they disobeyed curses would follow. But this New Covenant was promised, and became effective when Jesus, the Son, died. Furthermore, since Jesus took on our flesh and blood, we became His heirs. By His death, we came into the inheritance of the Son.

And finally, for today, I see a verse often quoted to different purposes than that of its author. How often have you heard it said, "it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment?" How often has it been used to instill fear in the hearer. When the Writer of Hebrews says these words, there is no fear, because "Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." I like these words "without reference to sin." When the Lord, through Jeremiah, spoke of the coming New Covenant, He said, "I will ?forgive their iniquity, and their ??sin I will remember no more. "

How many ways can you say that Jesus carried His own blood to the God as an eternal offering for the sin of mankind? The Writer of Hebrews is not done yet.

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Test everything. Cling to what is good.

It's All About Him: Hebrews -- Lesson 32

To start at the beginning of this series, click here.

The Current Age

What does the Writer mean by this?

The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation. (Hebrews 9:8-10, NASB95)

He just described the arrangement of the tabernacle: an outer tabernacle and the Holy of Holies. How does he get from the physical description to "a symbol for the present time"? Why does the Writer refer to the tabernacle and not the temple?

First, I believe the Writer refers to the tabernacle over the temple in order to connect his words to the Scriptures. The tabernacle is what Moses built from what he saw in heaven and the Writer wants to connect everything that he says to that model. The temple is not an improved tabernacle, it is a tabernacle that cannot be moved and one that has been embellished by kings. The Writer of Hebrews wants his readers to concentrate on simple basics.

Second, the Writer is making the case that the Holy Spirit will imbue the Scriptures with multiple levels of meaning. I have discussed this before, and written about it at length in "Hints, Allegories, and Mysteries: The New Testament Quotes the Old." Here he is saying that among other things the tabernacle in Exodus is to be seen as a picture of the unfolding of mankind coming into a restored relationship with God. The outer court represents the separation between God and man. It represents the need for intercessors and a blood atonement. It represents the time of a privileged priesthood--no one could enter the tabernacle.

When Jesus died, He took, spiritually speaking, His blood into heaven and poured it at the base of the mercy seat of substance--just like the earthly high priest poured the goat's blood at the base of the shadow. The real has come, the outer tabernacle, as a symbol of the present age, no longer stands. This is the great and wonderful aspect of the New Covenant--We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The inner place, where God dwells, is in the heart of the believer.

The magnitude of the change can be illustrated by comparing the events of Exodus 19 with those of Acts 2. It is not well known that the Feast of Pentecost celebrates the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai--the birth of the Old Covenant. We do know that Acts 2 celebrates the birth of the New. We are, therefore, lead to compare the differences between the two events.

Here is a very brief summary of the flow of events when the Law came forth from Mount Sinai. The Lord told Moses that He desires to have a Â?nation of priestsÂ? (Exodus 19:6). A few days later, the Lord descended on Mount Sinai with fire, smoke, the sound of a trumpet, and other manifestations (Exodus 19:16-25). On the mount, the Lord spoke out loud the ten commandments to the people (Exodus 20:1-17). The people responded by drawing back and asking Moses to be a mediator. In the end, the people did not become a nation of priests. Rather, that responsibility fell to the descendants of Aaron.

LetÂ?s compare those events with the Day of Pentecost. Whereas a single fire descended and landed on the top of the mountain and before a barrier keeping the people away, when the Holy Spirit came, the fire separated and alighted on individual believers. This is an incredible statement of the new access to the Father in the New Covenant. The presence of God no longer must be remote and terrifying, but is now individual and within. Whereas the Lord spoke from Mount Sinai, it was the believers, filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit, who spoke. Whereas the ancient Israelites withdrew, on the Day of Pentecost, the people came close and 3,000 were saved. Indeed, all became priests (Revelation 5:9, 10). When Jesus died and took His own blood into the Holy Place in heaven, He established the New Covenant. Because the hearts of men could now be cleansed and healed, the Holy Spirit could now indwell every believer.

I will say this strongly. It is the Holy Spirit who is the key distinctive of the New Covenant over the Old. You might say that we are saved by faith. That is not new, because Abraham is the father of justification by faith (Genesis 15:6). Blood has provided a covering for sin since the Lord clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins. The LordÂ?s lovingkindness and mercy are expressions of His grace. Faith, blood, and grace are active principles in the Old Covenant. The new thing in Acts 2 is the indwelling, sanctifying, and empowering effect of the Holy Spirit made possible by the cleansing blood of Jesus the Messiah.

So we live in a new age. The age of access and the age of indwelling. My challenge to you and my challenge to myself is this: make this truth operational in your life. We bandy about terms like "we are a new creation." And we live the lives of non-believers. We live weed-choked lives. We must seek the continually filling and empowering of the Holy Spirit and recognize the unbelievable preciousness of that gift and what it cost to give it to us.

The outer tabernacle is gone.

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Test everything. Cling to what is good.