Christ in Heaven For Us – Hebrews 9:23-24

Kootenai Church

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Let's pray before we begin. Father, we are grateful for your word. We thank you that you have spoken to us, that you have revealed yourself, that you have revealed your redemptive purposes and plans.

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We thank you that you have revealed to us everything we need for life and godliness. And we pray now that you would send your

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Holy Spirit to be our teacher, that we may see and apprehend with our spiritual eyes the glories of Christ, and that we may honor you, our great triune

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God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We ask this in the name of your Son. Amen. One of the battles that we fight as Christians in nearly every area of our life is trusting in the sufficiency of what

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God has provided. And whether we're talking about scripture or the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, there is this constant desire inside of the human heart, because our hearts are idle factories, to begin to suspect or to pull back our trust in the sufficiency of what

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God has provided. There's a battle going on in our own day over the sufficiency of scripture. And really the question that arises in so many areas of Christian theology and church polity and philosophy of ministry is, do we honestly believe that scripture is enough?

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Or do we need more? Do I need something beyond what is in scripture? Whether it is a whisper, a still small voice, or whether it is private revelation, or whether it's a modern day prophet, do

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I need something beyond what God has provided in scripture? Or is scripture all that I need for life and godliness?

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And we constantly have to battle that temptation to be looking for something outside of God's written revelation for assurance or comfort.

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In fact, I was just recognizing this morning how prolific this false doctrine is amongst the church today.

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I can think of dozens of issues that the church faces that all go back to a lack of belief and trust in the sufficiency of scripture.

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And another thing that we lack belief in the sufficiency of is the provision of God for our salvation in Jesus Christ.

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Now we confess, obviously, that the death of Christ is sufficient to atone for our sin, and we believe that, we place our faith in it, we trust that, and that is all part and parcel of being born again and the work of regenerating grace in the heart of the

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Christian. But really that is not an intellectual assessment to the sufficiency of scripture that we lack.

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It is a settled relief and trust in, a sense of relief that this is true, and a trust in the fact that God has provided everything we need in the person of Christ and in the work of Christ.

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And so one of the ways that we doubt the sufficiency of the work of Christ is we begin to say or think in our minds, this is the temptation at least, yeah,

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God has provided everything that I need for my salvation in Jesus Christ, and that's all good and well and it's fine, but that only goes so far.

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Because I have to persevere, or I have to keep believing, or I have to keep serving, or I have to keep being faithful, or I have to keep doing

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X, Y, and Z, otherwise I will lose my salvation. Just the general Christian belief that salvation can be lost, that it can be given back, that it can be forfeited, that belief itself is a denial of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and his work to save his sheep.

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Do we believe that Jesus, in that one death, that one sacrifice, the shedding of that one blood with that one offering, actually fully and forever saves, sanctifies, and secures his people everlastingly without any human contribution, without any human work, or without any human endeavor whatsoever?

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Do we honestly believe that? Reformed doctrine is the belief that in the death of Jesus Christ, through that one sacrifice,

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God has done all that is necessary to save all that the Father has given to the Son.

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That is the confidence of Reformed theology. The belief that that sacrifice of Christ paid for my sin and secures me everlastingly, and that no human work or contribution is necessary to complete it, to effectuate it, to make it effectual, to make it mine, that God has, in the death of Christ, done everything necessary to guarantee the salvation of all whom he has desired to save.

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That is the heart and soul of Reformed Reformation theology. That is the heart and soul of the doctrine of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

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And it is just that exact portrayal of the sacrifice of Christ and his death on the cross that the book of Hebrews makes so evident, as the author describes the totality of his

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Christ's work through that one sacrifice, comparing it to the Old Testament sacrifices, the animal sacrifices.

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What Moses and Aaron and the Old Covenant and the animal sacrifices could never do, Jesus Christ, in that one sacrifice, has done permanently and everlastingly.

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That's the confidence that the author of Hebrews wants his readers to walk away with. So we're picking up today at verse 23.

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We looked last week, and we've actually been comparing the difference, there's something of a transition now, a little bit of a conclusion to the author's argument in verse 23, which you'll notice is why he begins with the word therefore.

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He's beginning to change, he's changing the argument just a little bit. He's gonna start focusing on the once -for -all nature of the death of Christ, something he has mentioned up to this point on a couple of occasions.

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But for the next chapter or so, it's really going to be about the one -time, complete sufficiency of that one sacrifice on the cross.

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That's gonna be the emphasis of it. So we left off with verse 22, where the author says that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

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And we looked at how total that forgiveness is, how sufficient the death of Christ is to purchase our salvation, and to atone for all of our sins, complete sufficiency.

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And in comparing the old covenant with the new covenant, we see that the mediator of the new covenant has done what the old covenant could never do, what

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Moses could never do, he has actually provided for salvation and put away sin entirely.

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That one death, complete sufficiency. So now we come to verse 23. Let's read verses 23 and 24, and I want you to notice an admittedly difficult concept that is raised in verse 23.

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See if you see what it is. 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.

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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.

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Nor was it that he would offer himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that's not his own.

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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.

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And inasmuch as it is appointed unto man, 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.

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Did you notice the repetition of something in that passage? Did you notice the contrast of often with once?

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How many times did we read the word once? It's in verse 25, it's in verse 26 twice, it's in verse 27, it's in verse 28.

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And that's contrasted with the idea of Christ doing something often, once versus often.

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The repeated nature of the Old Testament sacrifices, the something they had to do often, demonstrated its insufficiency.

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It actually could not put away sin. But now, the author says, now, once at the foundation of the world, he has, at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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That one sacrifice puts away sin entirely, does away with it, complete sufficiency. In that one work, that one sacrifice, that's the emphasis of this passage.

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So today we're looking at verses 23 and 24, and we're gonna see, as he concludes his argument, therefore, he's making a statement here that kind of concludes what he has said before.

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But then in verses 23 and 24, our focus shifts ever so slightly to Christ's ministry now in heaven.

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And you'll even notice that verse 28, he speaks of Christ appearing a second time. He is coming again.

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So verse 23 through 28 really describes the complete sufficiency of this one work, and now

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Christ has gone into heaven, and he appears now in the presence of God for us, and we are waiting for him to come again with salvation to those who eagerly await for him.

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Not to deal with sin, verse 28 says, but to give us salvation. So now the emphasis, as he concludes it, the emphasis is now upon what is

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Christ doing now, and for whom is he doing that work? And we're gonna see that that also helps describe the sufficiency of Christ.

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There is a difficult concept in verse 23 for us to grasp. Just nod your head if you noticed what you think that difficult concept might be.

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Nobody? Anybody? Okay, maybe I invented a difficult concept in verse 23. No, I didn't.

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The difficult concept is this, that things in heaven needed to be cleansed by the blood of Christ. Did you see that?

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The copies of the things on earth needed to be cleansed by animal sacrifices. The tabernacle, we've looked at that.

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The ceiling in the ceremony that accompanied the inauguration of the first covenant was animal blood, sprinkling of the altar, the sprinkling of the people, the sprinkling of the book, applying blood to the altar, to the

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Ark of the Covenant, to the lampstand, to the table of showbread, to all that, to tabernacle, all that, everything that pertained to the old covenant.

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It was fine, it was necessary for those things to be cleansed by the sacrifices of animals, the blood of those.

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But, verse 24 says, the heavenly things with better sacrifices than these. The better sacrifice is the sacrifice of Christ.

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So, in what way, how, and why did the sacrifice of Christ, was it necessary to cleanse something in heaven?

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That's a bit of a difficult concept. And you'll see, I think, why that is as we work through that. But we need to get something of the context here so it helps us to understand exactly what the author is saying here.

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So, before we answer that question, how could heaven not be cleansed, or why did, better put, why did heaven need to be cleansed?

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What was in heaven that required cleansing? And how does the death of Christ cleanse something in heaven?

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How can anything in heaven be defiled? That's really a mystery. And what, then, does that mean, that the heavenly things themselves needed to be cleansed by the blood or the sacrifice of Christ?

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So, before we wrestle with that, let's look a little bit at the context. I want you to notice the parallelism, verse 25. He mentions the copies of the things in the heaven.

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Now, this is not a new idea. The author has mentioned this back in chapter eight, verse five, you can turn back and look at that if you want, where he speaks of those who serve a copy in the shadow of the heavenly things.

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Same kind of phrase there, of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle for sea, he says that you make all these things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.

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So, back at the beginning of chapter eight, we noticed, when we went through all of the furniture of the tabernacle and the construction of the tabernacle back in the book of Exodus, that at some point, before the construction of the tabernacle,

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Moses received a vision, some sort of a revelation, of something in heaven, after which he made the tabernacle.

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The tabernacle itself was a copy of heavenly realities. What did that look like? What exactly did

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Moses see? That we don't know, but we do know that according to Exodus, chapter 25, verse 40, God gave to Moses instruction saying, make the tabernacle after the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.

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Moses saw something on the mountain, he built the tabernacle according to that pattern that was shown to him, those heavenly realities, so that there is a correspondence of sorts between the earthly tabernacle with all of the vessels and furniture and the heavenly realities that those things correspond to.

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So that's the parallelism that's drawn there in verse 23. It was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens.

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What are the copies of the things in the heavens? The tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, table of showbread, the lampstand, the brazen altar, the altar of incense, the tabernacle itself, all of those things, those were copies of heavenly things.

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Well, those things needed to be cleansed. And so, we've seen that according to the law, the symbolism of the

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Old Covenant with the blood was that those things would be cleansed or purified by blood. So this is what he refers to in verse 22, up in verse 22, and he says, one may almost say that without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins.

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There's no cleansing without blood. Blood had to be shed and sprinkled on all of those things in order to cleanse them, so that that shedding of blood and that application of blood brought cleansing from ceremonial defilement and the defilement of sin because these things were made with human hands.

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They needed to be purified or cleansed or at least ceremonially set apart and sanctified before they could be used for the worship of God.

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Well, those copies of things were sanctified or set apart and cleansed by animal blood, but it was necessary for the heavenly things themselves.

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The true sanctuary, verse 23 seems to suggest, for those to be sanctified or cleansed with better sacrifices than these, namely the sacrifice of Christ.

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So the tabernacle on earth represented spiritual realities in heaven or spiritual things in heaven.

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Heavenly things is how the author puts it. The tabernacle on earth represented those heavenly things, and so there is a correspondence between those two things, and then there is a parallelism between the animal sacrifices.

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The animal sacrifices did something for the earthly tabernacle, set it apart, sanctified it, consecrated it, cleansed it.

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The blood of Christ does something for these heavenly things. Namely, it cleanses those.

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Look again at verse 23. This is befuddling, to use a big word that I can't spell.

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This is befuddling. It was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens, that's the tabernacle, to be cleansed with the animal sacrifices, but the heavenly things that the tabernacle corresponds to, those with better sacrifices than these, and the parallelism is the animal sacrifices cleansed the earthly temple.

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The sacrifice of Christ has done something greater. It hasn't just cleansed an earthly tabernacle, an earthly altar, or the earthly Ark of the

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Covenant. It has cleansed heavenly things. What are these heavenly things?

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Why did they need to be cleansed? How were they defiled? That really is the question.

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How is it that heaven itself could need to be cleansed? How could the presence of God, the most holy

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God, righteous, perfect, infinitely perfect in all of his attributes, just, holy, pure, spotless, and sinless, how could those things in his presence in heaven itself, what are these heavenly things are, how could they need to be cleansed?

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How could something in heaven become defiled? That's what verse 23 seems to suggest, does it not?

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If the tabernacle represented heaven itself, and the tabernacle needed to be cleansed by animal sacrifices. Verse 23 says that those things, the heavenly things, they were cleansed with a better sacrifice, that is the sacrifice of Christ.

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So how could the place of God's dwelling be defiled? What defiled it? Was it guilt? Was it sin?

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Was this a ceremonial uncleanliness? Was it some sort of unspecified defilement?

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Or does the heavenly things refer to something else? That's the conundrum. There are three possibilities that have been suggested over time.

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I'm gonna give you these three. None of these are heretical, all of these are orthodox explanations of this, and you can find good, solid, conservative, orthodox brothers in Christ who will teach any one of these three answers to this dilemma.

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So none of these are heretical, keep that in your mind. One of them I think, two of them, two of the three I think are,

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I don't know which one I would take of number two and number three, depends on what day of the week it is, I could be convinced either way, so I'm not sure which of two and three

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I would choose, but one I'm not really certain about, and here's the first one. Here's the first of the three possibilities.

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And this is taught by F .F. Bruce. If you know F .F. Bruce, he's no theological liberal, he's no wackadoodle.

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Wackadoodle's another theological term. F .F. Bruce is no wackadoodle, but here is what F .F.

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Bruce says. F .F. Bruce says that the heavenly things refers to our conscience, that it refers to the conscience.

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Now here's the case that he would make. He would say heaven cannot be defiled. Obviously the presence of God cannot be defiled by any kind of sin that would go on there.

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God is separate from sinners, he could never be in the presence of that sin or that defilement for thousands of years waiting for the death of Christ.

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So since heaven cannot be defiled, this heavenly things must refer to something that is not actually in the presence of God, that is not an actual heavenly reality.

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So he would take heavenly things to refer to the conscience. Now the author here in Hebrews chapter nine has already referred to the conscience and how the cleansing of Christ, that the blood of Christ cleanses the conscience, something that the

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Old Testament sacrifices could never do. So he would say that the heavenly things there refers to the conscience because the conscience has already been mentioned, so it's familiar with the readers there.

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And since we as Christians are the body of Christ, the dwelling place of God in the spirit, since God dwells inside the believer, we therefore become the dwelling place of God in a spiritual sense.

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And so since we are the dwelling place of God in the spiritual sense, the heavenly thing that is cleansed must be the conscience part of us which dwells with God in that spiritual sense.

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Does that make sense? Now all F .F. Bruce is trying to do, that's not convincing to me, I think that that destroys the parallelism of the passage because the parallelism of the passage is not

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Old Testament tabernacle human conscience, it's Old Testament tabernacle certain spiritual heavenly realities in the presence of God itself.

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That's the parallelism of the verses, not only these verses but back at the beginning of chapter eight. So to say that heavenly things refers to the human conscience, the conscience of the believer because God dwells in us,

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I think that that ruins the parallelism that is intended by the author. So I don't think that that's an explanation, a viable one.

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But F .F. Bruce in proposing that, he's not trying to, all he's trying to do is preserve the idea that heaven itself cannot be defiled which

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I think is a noble intention. So you have to come up with some way of explaining what the heavenly things are that are cleansed by the blood of Christ if heaven itself cannot be defiled by sin, follow me?

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Okay, so I don't think that that's convincing, it's not heretical but it was a nice try I think. The second explanation for it, and this one

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I think is a little bit closer to it but I struggle with this one and I'll explain to you why here in a second. The second option is that heaven actually was cleansed from a certain kind of defilement by the death of Christ.

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That heaven actually was cleansed from a certain kind of defilement by the death of Christ. What would that defilement be?

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What was the scene of the very first rebellion? What was the scene of the very first sin?

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Where did it take place? It was in heaven, wasn't it? And whose rebellion was it? It was

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Satan's rebellion. So it has been suggested that Satan with his sin, his pride, his act of rebellion in heaven by which he and a third of the angels were cast out and cast down to earth, that Satan in that act of rebellion defiled in some sense, in some way, heavenly things, the very court and the presence of God.

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And that the death of Christ was necessary in order to deal with that defilement in heavenly things.

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But of course, the death of Christ doesn't just do that. It deals with our sin and reconciles all things on earth to God as well.

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This is why Paul in Colossians chapter one would say that through Christ, God reconciled all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

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Through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. So Paul seems to suggest that there is a reconciliation that has taken place in the heavenly realm because of the death of Christ.

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The death of Christ has dealt with not just sin on earth, as it were, and the defilement and the depravity of that.

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It has not just put away all of that sin, but that the death of Christ has also, in some sense, cleansed heaven of its defilement since Satan was there and defiled it by his first act of rebellion.

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That would be the second explanation of that passage. It's a viable one. It's a good one.

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And I think it is probably the most widely held view of all of them. I'm not opposed to it.

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I think that the weakness is this, that in Scripture, the emphasis or focus on the death of Christ is not how it deals with the sin of demons and fallen angels, but how it deals with human sin and depravity and our access to God.

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That's the emphasis of it. So if this is talking about Christ removing a defilement from heaven that was caused by Satan's rebellion, if that's what's in view here, then this,

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I think, is probably the most surest the only place in Scripture where it is mentioned that I can think of.

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I don't know of any other place in Scripture where that is said to take place other than here in Hebrews, if that's what this is talking about.

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So that, I think, is the difficulty of that position. And that the death of Christ in the

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New Testament, the emphasis of that is really not on how it resolves God's anger against demons and fallen angels, because demons and fallen angels are in no way reconciled to God.

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They are unredeemable. There is no salvation for fallen angels. They will be punished. So there is a third option.

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And the third option is that heavenly things refers to the spiritual realities that the tabernacle represented.

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This is a bit more complex. But this would do the work that F .F. Bruce was trying to do by suggesting that heaven itself was not defiled by sin, but that the tabernacle, instead this would say that the tabernacle itself represented not actual furniture in heaven, but heavenly realities.

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There's a one -to -one correspondence between the role that the tabernacle played in allowing access to God and allowing men to approach

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God. There's a one -to -one correspondence between that and the heavenly realities themselves that are in play when men are reconciled to God and approach

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God. So that we would draw parallelisms or parallels between the tabernacle in this way, that the

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Ark of the Covenant really represented man entering into God's presence and approaching God. And doing so, recognizing that the law had been broken and that God would give mercy when we draw near to his presence.

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We can approach the mercy seat where God dwells with people, but we can do so on the basis of blood or a sacrifice.

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And so the Ark of the Covenant and the application of blood to that really represents God's presence and man drawing near into God's presence.

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Even in spite of the fact that a broken law is there represented as well. That the lampstand represented

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God providing light to men and shining the light into the men who are loved darkness and live in darkness.

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That we get to enjoy the light that comes from God as a gift of grace. Before God can draw men near to himself, he has to illuminate our minds and our hearts and our eyes.

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He has to allow us to see the light of the glory of God in Christ Jesus and draw us to that light through that means.

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And the lampstand would represent man approaching God for that light and God shining that light and drawing men to himself.

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The third thing would be the table of fellowship or the table of bread. Inside the tabernacle on the right hand side were those 12 loaves that were placed there refreshed every week that were made fresh every week to represent the 12 tribes of Israel.

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Well, that table represents God communing with man, having fellowship with man, sitting down and enjoying man face to face like we would one with another over a meal.

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That was what that would symbolize. And then the altar of incense itself, that constant ascension of the smoke of the altar of incense, that incense that would burn represented the prayers of man to God.

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So those would be the spiritual realities of man's relationship to God that would be represented by the physical furniture of the tabernacle.

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Man approaching God, God giving light to man, man approaching God, man praying to God, God having communion with men face to face.

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Those spiritual realities are really what is symbolized by the furniture of the tabernacle and by the tabernacle itself.

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So according to this third view, since that is what in view, that is what is in view, that is what is the intended parallel between these things, that the heavenly things themselves are not physical things in heaven that needed to be cleansed, but rather it is the application of the merits of Christ's sacrifice to those spiritual realities so that because of the blood of Christ and what

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God has done in him, God can give light to those who are lost in darkness and God can draw men to himself into relationship with himself and we can stand before the mercy seat of God and have access to God because of the blood that was shed by the

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Lord Jesus Christ and we can come into God's house and we can pray to God and we can approach him boldly before the throne of grace, having access to God and communing, fellowshipping with him face to face.

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All of those spiritual realities are secured for us by the blood of Christ. So those would be the heavenly things.

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The earthly things would be the tabernacle. The heavenly things would be the actual application of the merits of Christ's sacrifice to those things that pertain to our reconciliation with God and our relationship to him.

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Those things, our fellowship, our prayers, our sacrifices, our worship, our approach to God, our access to God, the light that he would give to us,

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God drawing men to himself, those are the heavenly things that had to be cleansed, secured and paid for and purchased by the sacrifice of Christ.

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That would be the third explanation or possibility. Now do any of those make sense?

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You prefer one over the other? Should we take a vote and see who wants number two, who wants number three, who goes with F .F.

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Bruce? Really the main point is this, that just as the animal sacrifice has cleansed the symbols of our reconciliation, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has actually brought true spiritual cleansing and actually reconciled us to God.

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That's the main point. Whether there's a defilement in heaven or not, I don't know, it'll be curious someday to see that that's what was being described.

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But I think right now today, mark this date and this time, right now I think that number three is probably the one

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I would prefer. Yesterday I was in number two, today I'm in number three. I think it refers to God cleansing those aspects that deal, those realities that deal with our reconciliation to God.

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Those things needing to be dealt with. Ultimately, sin had to be removed and put away, which is what the author says in verse 26.

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Otherwise, if he had not entered the holy place, not made with hands, in verse 26, Christ 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 what?

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Put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The sin issue is dealt with. That's the point of the passage.

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Animal sacrifices could not do that. Old Testament priesthood could not do that. The tabernacle could not do that.

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The sin issue has been thoroughly and completely and permanently dealt with. He has put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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Therefore, we can be reconciled to God through the death of his son. That's the point. Christ has done what animals could not do.

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Christ has done what the Aaronic priesthood could not do. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, did what

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Moses could never do. Reconcile men to God. The complete sufficiency of the death of Christ.

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Christ has cleansed heaven for us, that's verse 23. And second, Christ has entered heaven for us, verse 24.

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Look at verse 24. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands. That is an earthly tabernacle like the Old Testament priest would do.

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But he has entered into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us. When he says Christ has entered into heaven itself, he is referring there to the ascension of our

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Lord after his resurrection. 40 days after his resurrection, 10 days before Pentecost, when he was with the disciples,

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Luke records, in Luke chapter 24, verse 50, he led them out as far as Bethany and he lifted up his hands and blessed them.

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And while he was blessing them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they, after worshiping him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising

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God. And then the book of Acts picks up with that same scene. Acts chapter one, after he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on and a cloud received him out of their sight.

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And as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them.

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They also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.

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So now the author of Hebrews here is referring to the ascension of our Lord, that he has gone into heaven. Heaven itself, again, the tabernacle, the thing that the tabernacle was intended to picture or portray, the dwelling place of God in the spirit, that's where heaven is actually at.

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The tabernacle is a copy of that. Heaven itself is the very presence of God, not a symbol of that presence of God.

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And when the Old Testament priest, and again, here's the parallelism, when the Old Testament priest would go in to that holy of holies, enter into the tabernacle, and step behind the veil that one day out of the year to apply the blood to the mercy seat, the blood of the sacrifice to make atonement for the children of Israel, he would immediately come out of that and come back outside.

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Well, here's the picture. Our Lord, our high priest who has offered that sacrifice has gone into the real holy of holies, not the one made with ants, but he has entered into heaven itself.

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Now to appear in the presence of God for us. And there, unlike the Old Testament priest, he has taken his seat at the right hand of the father, the majesty on high.

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And there, unlike the Old Testament priest, he has stayed and he is then going to come back again.

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But he has stayed there, he has not left the presence of God, and he appears there, look at the last couple words of verse 24 if you're reading it in the

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NASB. It's for us. He has gone into heaven, gone into heaven, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

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Those are two beautiful words. He has gone into heaven to appear in the presence of God for us.

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For whom? For those who are his. This describes his current ministry in heaven. He's really dealing with the issue of what is

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Jesus doing now in heaven? He's referred to this before, he's talked about Christ interceding for us, taking a seat at the right hand of the father until all of his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.

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And when death, that final enemy is conquered, and he will return victorious. In heaven right now, he is there for us.

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Imagine if you will, coming out of a Jewish background, where you're used to going to the temple and seeing the high priest, seeing the sacrifices, seeing the blood, seeing the tabernacle, the temple, all of that.

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You're used to seeing those things, you're used to maybe even being on a first name basis with the high priest himself. Knowing the name of the high priest, who it was.

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See him out in the streets in Jerusalem on his days off. Meeting his family, sitting down and having dinner with him or something like that.

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And then imagine that you are confronted with Christian doctrine that says, no, the real, true, genuine high priest who has done a better work than the

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Old Testament high priest could ever do, he has left and he has gone to heaven. What is he doing there?

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You might even begin to wonder, explain to me how it is that a high priest somewhere else that I cannot see, who has gone away, whom

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I can never sit down and have a meal with, I can never refer to them by their first name, I can never see them or touch them or pat them on the shoulder or thank them for their intercession or thank them for their prayers, how is it that a high priest that I can never do that with is better than a high priest that I can walk across the courtyard and go shake his hand on a

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Saturday morning? How is it better to have a high priest who is in heaven than a high priest who is here on earth? The high priest on earth

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I can talk to, I know him, I know his name, I can have conversations with him, we've been good friends.

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How is having a high priest in heaven better? See, that's really the underlying question that the author of Hebrews has to answer because there are a lot of Jews who would be wondering that.

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Our high priest has gone away, so now what does he do? Now what do we do, are we just sitting here and waiting?

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Why did he go to heaven? What is he doing in heaven? Is there any benefit to me that he is in heaven?

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And the answer to that is yes. He now appears in the presence of God for you and for you and for you and for you and for me.

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He's in the presence of God for our sake. He is doing something, the

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Lord is not sitting in heaven at the Father's right hand, wondering who's going to come to him, wondering if anybody is going to believe, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for things to unfold to a point where he can return.

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He has an active ministry even right now in the presence of God where he appears for our sake, for our benefit, for our blessing, for our continued preservation.

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Scripture says he is praying for us even right now. For whom does

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Jesus intercede and for whom does he appear in the presence of God? It's for us. It's not for his enemies.

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It's not for those who will die impenitent in their sin. It's not for those who are hostile against God and engaged in wicked works and persecuting

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Christians. The Lord's entire ministry in heaven, his purpose of appearing in the presence of God right now is for you,

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Christian, for me. And he is doing something actively. He is doing something purposefully even while he is in heaven right now.

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And that is that he is interceding for us. Hebrews 7 .25 says he is able to save those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for us.

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The intercessory work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we're gonna see this unfold in chapter 10 in a marvelous way, the intercessory work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ for his people is one work. It is part of his priestly work.

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The Savior who has offered the sacrifice for sins prays and intercedes for all those for whom he has made the sacrifice.

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So if you are included in that sacrifice, if he has paid the cost of your sins, if he has purchased your atonement, he also actively intercedes for you.

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He appears in the presence of God for you. So we don't divide up the priestly work of the Lord Jesus Christ and say that he offered a sacrifice for one group and he's interceding and praying for another group and he's securing yet another group and he will finally glorify even yet another group.

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It's all one group. It's all one priestly work that one high priest has offered a sacrifice for his people, those whom the

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Father has given to him and those he has secured, those he intercedes for, those he will carry through all the way to the end and those he will glorify.

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That is what he says in John chapter six. All that the Father gives me will come to me. The one who comes to me, I will give eternal life to him.

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I will not lose him. I will raise him up at the last day. I will lose none of those whom the Father has given to me because the

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Father has given them to me and this is the will of the Father that of all that he has given to me,

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I'll raise them all up on the last day and not lose one. That priestly work that he has done in his sacrifice is commensurate with, it is one same work that he does now with his intercession.

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Our Lord appears in the presence of the Father for us. For us. Robert Murray McShane once said, if I could hear

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Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies and yet distance makes no difference.

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He prays for me still. That was Robert Murray McShane. If I could hear Christ praying for me right now, you would fear nothing.

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You would never fear anything if you could hear that intercession. For he prays now for you that you will be kept from trials and temptations that would overcome you.

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He prays even right now that your faith will not fail. He prays for you even right now that you would be sanctified by the truth, that you would be kept.

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He prays for you even right now that you may be glorified with him and see the glory that he shares with the

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Father and that you would be one with him just as he is one with the Father and that you would see his glory and enjoy that glory on the last day.

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That is what the Lord Jesus Christ prays for you. The only way that a Christian can be lost and perish in eternal flames is if the intercessory work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ should fail or if the Father should deny the request of the Son.

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But all those whom the Father has given to the Son, the Son has paid the price for their salvation. And then the

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Son has gone to heaven to appear in the presence of God for us, for those whom the

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Father has given to him, where he constantly makes intercession for them day and night, praying for our faith, praying to secure us, praying to bring us safely through so that we might receive and know and experience and delight in the glory that the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share for all of eternity. And if you could hear that prayer, you would never doubt your salvation, you would never doubt your security, you would never question the authenticity or the sufficiency of what

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Christ has done for you if you could just hear him pray. You can't hear him pray. That's no detriment.

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His scripture says he's praying for you and if you want a glimpse of the type of things that Christ prays for his own, go to John chapter 17 and read the high priestly prayer of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And you get some idea of what he's praying for you even right now. Luis Burkhoff in his systematic theology says this, it is a consoling thought that Christ is praying for us even when we are negligent in our prayer life, that he is presenting to the

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Father those spiritual needs which were not even present in our minds and which we often neglect to include in our own prayers, and that he prays for our protection against the dangers of which we're not even conscious and against the enemies which threaten us though we do not even notice it.

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He's praying that our faith may not cease and that we may come out victoriously in the end. And believer, you shall and you will because Christ appears in the presence of God for you.

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Everything he does right now is for you, his people. I should encourage you.

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That is our security and that is our sufficiency. In him we are blameless, we are righteous, we are forgiven, we are adopted, we are secured everlastingly.

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I love to say it, we are saved, sanctified, and secured eternally. Nothing can alter that.

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Why? Because Christ appears in the presence of God for us or he currently prays for us.

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In that is our sufficiency and in that is our security. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank you for so great a salvation, for so merciful and kind a

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Savior who everlastingly loves all his own, who everlastingly secures all his own, prays for us even now.

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We're so grateful for this ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ that in him we have all of our sufficiency, all of our security, all of our joy and delight.

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We thank you for him and his ministry and his sacrifice on the cross for us and all that is secured for those who are his, who belong to him by faith in your son.

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And so we rejoice in this and we pray that you would encourage our hearts together with these truths that we find here in this passage in Jesus' name, amen.