The Blood & The Covenant

Hebrews 9 and the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood

Well, I don't think it will surprise anyone that we need to turn to the 9th chapter of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 9, I would only add to what the pastor mentioned, that you might get a wealthy husband and a nose ring.

I think I would have passed up on that personally, but it was a different culture at a different time. Especially one weighing half a shekel, that would be a very large nose ring. 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 together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you once again with our Bible's open desirous of hearing from you and understanding your truth.

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. 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 and 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.

And 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, 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 enforced 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 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 the ministry with the blood. And according to 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.

The Meaning of Covenant and Testament in Hebrews 9

So here we have the continuation of the argument, 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've got to 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 in force 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 berith 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, dfak, 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 covenant. 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 that 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 and 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, and 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, popular traditions at 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 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 calves 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 earliest manuscripts 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, and 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've run into a problem, so I'm 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. Now, I went back and I read that in Exodus 24, 8, and it says, behold the blood of the covenant.

Now, you might say, well, that's a very, very minor difference. But I'm not certain that this isn't purposeful on the part of the author. This is 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, the sprinkling of the blood. It's behold the blood. Why the different terminology? So 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 our 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 the 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 suffer 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. But 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. In the same way, and this is why we've heard this so many times before, in 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 the 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 Standards says, and one may almost say. So they 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 pointed to the fact that they were supposed to have, but they could not afford and so God would make a means for them. But they were supposed to have 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.

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, 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.

Two portions of the verse. Need to understand this. Need to understand this. Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things 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 of down through the centuries, they've read Leviticus.

I mean, 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 in a year. Everybody sometime toward 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 are going to make it through Exodus.

It's Leviticus. Especially if you're reading first thing in the morning. I did this. 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.

And I was working until midnight. And getting up real early in the morning and making it through Leviticus was an act of grace. It really was. That was tough sledding. And you get to, you know, the priest is supposed to do this.

And you break the bird's neck and then you pour out the blood. A lot of folks struggle with that. But there is a reason for it. There is 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. You think, 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 effect 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 sprinkling 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.

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.

And so they had to be cleansed with these kinds of sacrifices. But the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. Why does anything in heaven need to be cleansed? Why does anything in heaven need to be cleansed?

Well, a lot of suggestions have been offered in regards to that. Some people have said there needs to be a cleansing in light of God's wrath. God's holiness against sin results in a situation where you have this need for a cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary in light of the wrath of God.

Well, 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 and the love of God. And the wrath of God comes from His holiness.

One author, I think, put it very, very well. So much so that I took down his words. And this is not only relevant to this text, but I think it's relevant that this has wide application. Listen, this was a very good insight.

For it 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 and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Important insight. We never, never need to put the wrath of God in opposition to the love of God. That is the very error that modern liberalism has made, which leads inevitably to universalism and a denial of the uniqueness of the sacrifice of Christ.

We need to avoid that. And so, that's not what is being talked about. 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 in heaven. But when this one mediator enters into that holy place, remember, he does something that the high priest on earth could never do. Remember what it is?

He has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. There is no place to sit in the holy place. We're going to see that in verse 24. But keep that in mind. There is a fantastic statement there. Because the old high priest could never sit down.

There's something else about this 23rd verse that I hope caught your attention. Some of you have listened to some of the debates that I've done in the past. And I have some friends, poor people, who have listened to all of them.

I have this one friend. His real name is Paul, but I don't know him by that because he's one of my friends in my chat channel. And we call him Algo. Algo has listened to all of my debates many times. In fact, I think Algo has listened to every dividing line program I've ever done, and that's a lot of programs.

And so, he would be one of the few people on the planet. I'm afraid Jamie's getting into that mode himself, the poor man, where he's listened to everything as well. And if you're one of those poor people who have listened to all of that material, you might remember a debate I did with a Roman Catholic.

One of the points he brought up was the plural of the word sacrifice in this verse. Did you catch that? Did you notice what it said? Therefore it is 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.

Sacrifices! Not just one sacrifice. Sacrifices, and under that plural, brings in all the repetitious work of the mass. See, it's sacrifices. Now, what was funny is, Rome's own theology says there's only one sacrifice.

It's just numerous representations of that one sacrifice. And I really doubt that Dr. St. 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 it? Are we talking about sacrifices here? Well, I think it was very well said by one of the better commentators on the book of Hebrews. There is a tremendous commentary by Philip Hughes.

Philip Hughes is one of those reminders that God has a remnant even in denominations that have gone far, far astray. Today, when we hear the term Anglican, we can almost always go, oh, liberal. And 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 the world. When I go down to Sydney, Australia, as I will in October, I will be speaking. Not only this time. I think I might get a chance to speak at a Reformed Baptist church down there.

But last time I was down there, every church I spoke in in Sydney was an Anglican church. And they wanted me to preach justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ 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, thinks. Anglicans. And I love those guys down there. They're great. 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 rites 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 as a demonstration of their weakness rather than 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 that cleansed in the old covenant and all the different kinds and the sprinklings and the goats and calves and bulls and rams and all this repetition and the one sacrifice that cleanses in the heavenly places.

All this time we've spent. I wonder how many hours now I've been preaching from Hebrews. I should have added it up. It wouldn't be difficult to find. We have them all up, don't we, Jamie? They're all on Sermon on Goliath.

I may have to go back and look, but all the hours. And we've now laid the foundation. We've now laid the foundation. Oh, we've covered important things. The deity of Christ and the Trinity and the priesthood and all these things.

Very, very important. We've laid the foundation. And now we're ready to start thinking about it. We're not going to cover it tonight. Not even going to try to cover it tonight. But can we for just a moment sort of, it's sort of like the trailers they use in the movies.

Open the curtain for just a moment and think about where we get to go now that we've laid the foundation. Now we've done all this hard work. And folks, I know it's hard work to follow this. I mean, I'm violating every rule I was taught in my undergraduate studies.

In homiletics. How to preach. You don't do it this way. At least that's what we're told. Which is probably why Hebrews hardly ever gets preached through. But you see what's next? 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, nor was it that he would offer himself off 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, when? At the consummation of the ages. He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

I'm not going to rush through that. I'm not going to rush through that. Because here you have the very essence of the work of Christ. The foundation's been laid. The issues have been dealt with. Now we are ready to sit down in the heavenly places.

And ponder and consider. Yes, what was done and accomplished 2 ,000 years ago. And yet what remains an absolute present reality right now. This evening we had just a little glimpse of it. Remember that phrase earlier on in Hebrews?

It talked about that anchor of the soul in the very holy place itself. It goes beyond the veil. That was sort of just a tease of what we're now going to be able to consider in its fullness. And so there is a reward for working hard in working through these texts.

Just as we're preaching through Romans. And we're going through the bad news right now. I mean, all the way through to the 18th verse of chapter 3. It's the bad news. Universal sinfulness. The depravity of man.

But you see, you've got to go through that before you can get to chapter 3. And the gift of justification that keeps building and building until we get to chapter 8. And you know, I'm sure it would be a whole lot easier on Pastor Fry if he just skipped all this stuff.

Just jump to the fun part in chapter 8, right? But you see, if you don't do the foundational stuff, you just jump to the good stuff. You don't really enjoy it. You don't really understand what it's based on.

You don't really see its richness, its fullness. And that's where we are now. We've worked through a lot of hard stuff. We've seen some great glimpses of what's coming. Now we're ready to enter into this incredible discussion.

And let me say to all of you who either have come out of works-oriented systems. You have friends and family in works-oriented systems. And yeah, I'm including Romanism in that. You don't want to miss what's coming up.

Because I honestly believe it is the next literally number of sentences in this epistle that make it absolutely impossible for us to ever join hands and say, Well, you know what? We all believe Jesus is Lord.

That's enough. The reason we have to proclaim the Gospel to Roman Catholics will be laid out with clarity in these verses. Important stuff, exciting stuff, glorious stuff. But we've had to work to get there.

Now we're ready to do so. So I hope you look forward to it as much as I do. But certainly, as we consider what is before us this evening, all the Old Testament laws, all their sacrifices, they point us forward to something that you and I get to celebrate every day.

Especially in the Lord's Supper. Especially thinking about the New Covenant. We have so much to rejoice and be thankful that we see the fulfillment of these things from these divine... Oh, indeed, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this book.

And we thank you for the argument it presents to us about the finished work. The very foundation upon which we stand, by which we have peace with you. Oh, as we enter into these things, may they be precious to us.

If there be any here this evening who have not entered in, have not bowed the knee, do not with the rest of us see that this work of Christ, His entering into the holy place, this is our life. This is all we can plead.

We have nothing of ourselves to plead. It 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.

May they cling to Him by faith and know their sins have been forgiven. They have eternal life. That eternal inheritance is there. Oh, show yourself powerful this night in the salvation of your people.

We pray in Christ's name, Amen.