Hebrews 9:16-23, PRBC March 27, 2011

But it's a different culture at the same time. Especially when we're weighing half a shekel, that would be a very large difference. Hebrews chapter 9, we began it this morning. We will do some review and then dive back into this extremely important text, but let us ask the Lord to bless our time.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you once again with our Bibles open, desirous of hearing from you and understanding you. We would ask that as we deal with this section of Scripture, that by your Spirit you would give us understanding and insight that we might be conformed ever closer to the image of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In His name we pray. Amen. Well, we didn't get very far this morning. We covered exactly one verse. I suppose that's not the shortest amount of space we've covered in the past. I think in the Hebrew study it is, but we took the time to look at Hebrews 9 .15 this morning and this summary statement about Christ as the mediator of the new covenant, that those who have been called will receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

And now we press forward because honestly, I would say probably 9 .24 through 10 .14 is one of the richest sections of this book. And so we want to at least get to where we can dive into that the next time that we are together, the next time that we open this text of Scripture.

The Death Required for a Covenant

So we want to cover more than one verse this evening. So let's begin reading at Hebrews 9 .15. For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that since a death has taken place in redemption of the transgressions that were committed in the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

For where a covenant is, there must a necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never enforced on 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 law, he took the blood of the calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the book of the covenant which God commanded you.

In the same way, he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of ministry with the blood. And according to law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood. Without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

The Earthly Copies and the Heavenly Reality

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.

So here we have the continuation of the arguments, and we immediately enter into another area where there is great discussion in the commentary literature about exactly how our author is presenting his arguments.

It's another one of those places where you gotta dig in deep and get a firm seat in the saddle and try to work through some of the questions that are raised at this particular point in time. The most obvious question that is raised immediately is the statement by the author 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 enforced while the one who made it lives.

And as soon as you hear that, you go, well, what kind of covenant is being discussed here? Because we all are familiar, for example, with the covenant that was made between God and Abraham. If you remember that particular situation, in Genesis chapter 15, you have the division of the body parts and the flame going between the body parts and so on, so God made a covenant with Abraham, but Abraham wasn't dead and I don't think God was either.

And so, there is a tremendous amount of discussion in the scholarly literature about what kind of covenant is being discussed here. Now, the term in Hebrew, that is the normal term for covenant, can refer to covenants such as the one made between God and Abraham or can also refer to what we would call as a will or a testimony.

And the term, the Greek term that is used here translates both that Hebrew type of concept as well as the Greek type of a testimony or a will, which would be more technically what is being referred to here.

We know that these type of testimonies or wills, we're familiar with them in our own culture. If you have made a will, when does it come into power? When does it become something that is relevant? Well, upon your death.

If you have a will in a safe deposit box someplace, and no one would come along and say, well, I want his property because it's in that will. Yeah, but he's not dead yet. But it's in the will. Well, but the will doesn't become effective until someone has died.

And so some would say the author is utilizing the term covenant here in two ways because he clearly has made reference to other kinds of covenants. And so that here he's making reference to the kind of covenant that is a will or a testimony.

Others would try to say, no, no, no, it's all the same kind of covenants. And the death being spoken of here would either be that death of Christ where he, as God's representative or as the God-man, is the one by whom that death takes place.

And then even in those other covenants, there was the death of the animals or in the case of the first covenant, the sacrifices that were made in the establishment of the first covenant. There's all sorts of argumentation that takes place as to exactly how you're supposed to understand this.

But it does seem, to me anyways, that in verses 16 and 17, the author is using the specific concept of a will or a testimony in that particular context. And then when he says, therefore, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood, there he's making reference to the broader concept of the offering of the sacrifices that were involved.

And you see that in verses 19 and following when he talks about, for when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to law, he took the blood of the calves and 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 so the overall point is that in God's dealings with men, he has engaged in this type of dealing with men through the manner of sacrifice, through the shedding of blood. The specifics however, become rather sticky.

Because when we go back and look at what happened in the quotation in verse 20, comes to us from Exodus 24 8. And Exodus 24 8 says, so Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.

But if we go back and look at the specific incident, there's nothing there about water and scarlet wool and hyssop. And in fact, calves and goats? No, that wasn't the sacrifice that was going on there.

So once again, entire pages of the commentaries are filled up with discussions of, well, is the author following a particular tradition amongst the Jews that's no longer extant in anything? We've found some other places where he certainly shows a knowledge of traditions amongst the Jews that we do have knowledge of from the extant writings, but were there discussions going on of popular traditions of the time that haven't come down to us today?

Well, I suppose that's a possibility. But I think in all of this the best approach to take is that he's not talking about a specific incident and limiting himself solely to what the law reveals about a specific incident, but what he's talking about is taking all of the sacrifices together.

When it talks about the blood of cows and goats, there's actually a textual variant there. Some of the earliest manuscripts don't say, and goats. In fact, interestingly enough, it certainly caught my attention anyways, one of the, well, the earliest manuscript we have of Paul's writings, and Hebrews is included in it, is manuscript P46.

And I got to see a number of pages of P46 up close and personal in Dublin just a matter of a few weeks ago. And that does not have this. Well, the earliest manuscripts don't, but some might say that's because the copyist looked back at Exodus and said there weren't any goats there, so I'm not going to include it.

So it can go either direction at that point. It just seems to me that what the author is doing is gathering up the entirety of the first covenant means of sacrifice. And we know that the water and scarlet wool and hyssop, that was used in purification ceremonies under the old covenant law.

And his point is that even Moses, at the time when the establishment of the covenant is being made, that he did, in fact, take blood in the giving of that covenant there in Exodus 24. And he sprinkled it says both the book and all the people.

The only thing that's mentioned there was the sprinkling of the people, but of the altar. The altar is a specific thing that is sprinkled there. And here the author says sprinkled both the book itself and all the people including in it the book of the covenant that even the covenant itself was under the blood.

Now why would he make this kind of an assertion? Well certainly when you're sprinkling all the people and the establishment of the covenant is being made it's not much of a stretch to say that the book itself in the making of the covenant is sprinkled as well.

But notice something that I had never caught. I was working on this text last evening and I called my wife and I said, well I was expecting to be home by now, but I was all working on it. And so she was patient with me about that.

But notice something in verse 20. This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded. This is the blood. And I went back and I read that in Exodus 24 8 and it says behold the blood of the covenant.

Now you might say that's a very minor difference. But I'm not certain that this isn't purposeful on the part that they offer. It's the blood of the covenant which God commanded you. This is the blood.

Does that sound familiar to anybody? It's not behold the blood. It's sprinkling the people. Behold the blood. Why the different terminology? I started thinking about it. And my mind went to for example what Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 1 where he's talking about salvation according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.

May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. There you have a Trinitarian discussion of the Gospel. You have foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.

Remember Wednesday evening we noted that use of obeying the Gospel. Those who did not obey the Gospel in 2 Thessalonians they suffered punishment away from the presence of Christ. And then you have this phrase and be sprinkled with His blood.

With whose blood? With the blood of the one that we are to obey. That is Jesus Christ. There is a sprinkling by His blood. If you do not participate in the sacrifice of Christ you have no life. You have no salvation.

So I thought about that. But then I thought about the very words of Christ Himself in Luke 22. And the same way and this is why we have heard this so many times before. And the same way He took the cup after they had eaten saying this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

This cup. This is the blood of the covenant. This. There is a connection being made I think between this blood of the covenant and what Jesus Himself did in the establishment of the new covenant. This is the blood of the covenant Jesus says.

Which is poured out for you. This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you. There is a connection between what God is doing in the old and the new. And so just as under the old you had this well the writer is going to summarize it.

Notice it says in the same way He sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with blood. Well again we don't have any narration of this in the old covenant scriptures at all. We do have the old covenant saying that the high priest had to put blood upon the horns of the altar and things along these lines.

But we don't have a narration of this. Why is that? Well I think it's found in the summary of what the argument is. According to law one may almost say it depends on what translation you have but you have the word let me render it literally from the Greek and almost by blood all things are cleansed according to the law and so you say and almost how do you understand almost?

Well New American Standard says and one may almost say so you take that term almost recognizing that there were some things for example that were cleansed by fire sometimes there was oil that was used even though I think there is an appropriate understanding of where blood was the taking away of impurity and oil was a positive sanctifying act but I think it's simply the author recognizing some things were purified by fire some by water but one might almost say given the fact that blood was placed upon the horns of the altar and blood was used in the holy of holies in the offering of the sacrifice one might almost say that all things are cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

I think he's making an overarching argument that when we look at the means by which forgiveness was promised under the old covenant it is through the shedding of blood yes the very very poor the destitute that didn't even have enough money to bring a living animal for sacrifice even a bird could bring a meal offering a grain offering but even that was only due to their extremely destitute state and even that point of the fact that they were supposed to have but they could not afford so God would make a means for them but they were supposed to have that that means of having the animal that would have the blood within it.

There is a giving of life. There is life giving involved in the bringing about of forgiveness. That is the argument that he's making not that. Well at this one particular point in time Moses did this and I think by bringing together the hyssop and the wool and all these purifying sacrifices in one place he's making the argument that almost according to the law all things are cleansed with blood and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness that becomes the background then of the assertion.

The Better Sacrifice of Christ

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 of these two portions of the verse need to understand this need to understand this.

Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in heaven in the heavens to be cleansed with these. Hopefully we understand this language by now. He's talking about the earthly tabernacle. The earthly tabernacle are the copies the shadows the things here on earth that are but copies.

Remember he had made the argument beforehand. This is why God said to Moses make sure you do this exactly in accordance to the way that I've shown you because the earthly tabernacle and then later the temple become the earthly shadow the copy sort of the things made by blueprint of what's up in heaven.

It's what's up in heaven that is more important than what's on earth. And so he's saying therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in heaven the heavens to be cleansed with these. What are these?

All these sacrifices all these things that you know people people down through the centuries they've read Leviticus. I mean let's let's be honest I bet you there's somebody sitting here this evening that sometime in your life you started a bible reading program.

You're going to read through the bible. You're everybody sometime December 31st January 1st you know you get bitten by the bug and I'm going to read through the bible this year in an organized way and you did pretty good right up to Leviticus.

Or maybe there's a couple sections of Exodus. But most people can make it through Exodus. It's Leviticus especially if you were reading first thing in the morning. I did this when I was 16 and I had an honors class in high school that I had to be there by.

I think it was 7 .20 in the morning. I was working until midnight and getting up real early in the morning and making it through Leviticus was an act of grace. And you get to you know the priest is supposed to do this and folks struggle with that.

But there was a reason for all these things and if we're not instructed in it it can be really difficult to understand. And you know think back they say wow they really had to do a lot of stuff that seems strange to us today.

Well there was a reason for it these things were pointing forward. They had an act of pointing away from themselves to something else. And here the writer is saying it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with all these sacrifices and all the sprinklings of blood and all the purification.

If you touched a dead body then you had to take the hyssop and the wool and the water and the cleansing. And what is all this pointing to. Well it points to the reality of sin and the holiness of God and the fact that God is the one who has to make a way.

And they were pointing away from themselves to a greater fulfillment so they had to be cleansed with these kinds of sacrifices but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. Some people have said in light of sin results in a situation where you have this need for a cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary in light of the wrath of God.

I can see how someone might at first take that but that's a serious misconception because it seems to place in opposition the wrath of God so much so that I took down his words in this text. But I think it's relevant that this has wide application.

Listen this is a serious misconception to imagine that the wrath of God is opposed to the love of God or that these are two mutually exclusive motions or emotions in the deity. God's wrath no less than his love is the expression of his holiness and purity.

Nor does he set aside wrath in order to display love. Indeed the cross is the supreme manifestation of the love and the wrath of God meeting together. For there the love of God absorbed the wrath of God as the incarnate son enacted the love of God by taking both the sinner's place and his punishment.

Moreover the unapproachability of heaven to sinful man argues the need for the purification not of heaven but of the sinner to redeemed mankind cleansed from sin and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Heaven previously closed now lies open.

I think there's something to be understood something we need to understand in the relationship of the holiness of God the necessary reaction of the holiness of God being wrath against sin and the necessary reaction being the very means by which he provides the forgiveness of that sin in his own self giving in the incarnation, death, burial we never never in opposition to the love of God.

That is the very error that modern liberalism which leads inevitably and so it is not a purification of heaven as if heaven itself has become impure. Instead there is a setting apart a sanctifying of the holy place in heaven by God's own act that illustrates his holiness.

It's not a removal of some type of defilement. This one mediator enters into that holy place where he does something the earth could never do. He has sat keep that in mind. This 23rd verse some of you his real name is and so he would be one of the few and if you're one of those poor people who have listened to all that material you might remember a debate I did with a Roman Catholic.

One of the points he brought up was the poor but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these sacrifices not just one sacrifice. Sacrifices under that plural brings in all the repetitious work see it's sacrifices now what was funny is Rome's own theology says there is only one sacrifice.

It's just numerous representations of that one sacrifice and I really doubt Lucian Genes would be able to point us to too many modern Roman Catholic theologians who would want to try to sneak the mass in under a plural of sacrifices but then again you never know.

But what about sacrifices here? It was very well said by one of the better commentators a tremendous commentary by Philip Hughes that God has a remnant even in denominations that have gone far far astray we can almost always go in the Church of England that's certainly the case but some of you might know that there are still a few Anglicans left kicking in.

Specifically, not only this time, I think I might get a chance to speak at a former Baptist church down there but last time I was down there every church I spoke in in Sydney by grace alone, through faith alone the Sydney Anglicans are the old J .C. Ryle inerrancy believing, evangelical we're still alive we don't care what the Archbishop of Canterbury he's a nut anyways, thanks Anglicans and I love those guys and Philip Hughes I believe was an Anglican and he commented on this he says, the plural better sacrifices is not a precise but a generic plural corresponding or accommodated to the plural these rights in the first clause of the verse.

The inferior sacrifices of the Levitical system called for better sacrifices it is an abuse of the book of Hebrews to take that parallel where it says the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these but the heavenly things themselves are better sacrifices than these and say, oh there's many sacrifices because what is it that the writer of the Hebrews repeats over and over and over again.

He's already said it and he's going to repeat it ad nauseum over the next few verses there is only one sacrifice of the Messiah one time he enters in one time and in fact the whole argument of chapter 10 verses 1 and following is what the plural repetitions of the old sacrifices is a demonstration of their weakness whereas the one time sacrifice of Christ the illustration of its power and its finished nature and so all that is being said is there is a difference there is a fundamental difference between the sacrifice goats and cats, this repetition and the one sacrifice the priesthood and all these very very ready to start thinking as they use itself presence of God for himself off here with blood that is not needed to suffer off and since the foundation of the world but now once a sin the one sacrifice essence, yes what was done and accomplished 2 ,000 years ago and yet what remains an absolute present reality, this evening remember that phrase earlier that was sort of a, so there is the 18th chapter of 18th verse of chapter 3 we get to chapter 8 and you know I'm sure it would be a lot easier, just jump to the fun part of chapter 8 right you see if you don't just jump to the good stuff you don't really see it, we've seen some great glimpses of what's coming let me say to all of you a number of sentences but certainly as we consider what is before us this evening especially in the Lord's Supper especially thinking about the new covenant we have to rejoice that we see the friendly Father we thank you for this book we thank you for what it presents to us, the foundation upon which we stand, by which we have peace with you here this evening, may the rest of us see that entering into the holy place this is our life, this is this is all we can plead, we have nothing of ourselves to plead, this is solely His finished work we look to oh would you draw them to yourself would you reveal the glory of the Savior to them the glory of the mediator the high priest, their sins have been forgiven, that eternal inheritance is theirs in Christ's name.