The Blood of the Covenant, Part 2 – Hebrews 9:18-22

Turn now please to your Bibles to Hebrews chapter nine. Hebrews chapter nine.

We're gonna read together verses 18 through verse 22 and then we'll open in prayer. Hebrews nine, beginning of verse 18.

Therefore, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood, for when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the covenant in which

God commanded you. And in the same way, he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood.

And according to the law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

Let's pray together. Our Father, it is our desire that we would understand your word and the significance of all that is here.

We pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to receive from you truth this morning. We pray that you give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts that are quick and ready to obey.

It is in your word that we see truth. It is in your word that we see the wisdom of God in our salvation. And we pray that you would help us to see that this morning and to see all that Christ has done for us and the forgiveness that has been purchased by him for us.

We thank you for your grace and we thank you for the ministry of your spirit, which is able to, that he is able to make us to understand these things.

And we pray that you would do so for the glory of Christ our Lord. In his name we pray, amen. Well, the proclamation of a crucified

Messiah was a stumbling block to the Jews. The gospel which we take for granted was not an easy message to preach in the first century, particularly to a

Jewish community, to a Jewish audience. It is very offensive to a Jew to suggest that their

Messiah never established a Jewish kingdom but instead was crucified and executed by a pagan nation.

And that was the message of the gospel, to go to the Jew and to say, you know the Messiah that you've been waiting, the long expected one, the son of David, the king of the nations, the one who will rule everything, that Messiah, well, the

Romans crucified him and hung him on a cross and he died and rose again. That is such a stunningly offensive message to a

Jewish person, simply because a Jew would have never expected anybody to suggest that their

Messiah would be crucified and executed by a pagan nation, particularly the Romans. This is why the

New Testament refers to the gospel of our salvation as a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to those who are

Greeks. In 1 Corinthians chapter one, the apostle Paul says, in verse 18, the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

To both the Jews and to the Greeks, that is to Jews and to Gentiles, the message of the gospel is foolishness.

Sometimes if you follow me online, sometimes you'll see me have interactions with atheists who are with me on Facebook on one occasion or another.

And you'll notice that some of them mock. If you have your own interactions with atheists, you'll notice that they tend to mock the truth.

Why is it that they mock the truth? Because they think the truth is foolishness. They don't have eyes to see it.

They don't have ears to hear it. They don't have a heart to respond to it. The message that God would come down and take upon himself a human body and unite himself with human flesh and then suffer and die on a cross and rise again, that is utter foolishness to those who are perishing.

Really, the message of the gospel is the aroma of death to those who are dying in their sins.

But, Paul says, to those who are the called ones, to the saved, to those who are regenerated and to those whom

God has saved, it is not foolishness, it is not the aroma of death. It is the aroma of life itself.

It is the smell of life. It is the message of the power of God. It's the message of the wisdom of God.

It is a message of the mercy and the grace of God. You and I have eyes to look at the gospel message and to say, now that is wisdom.

That God himself would condescend and unite himself to humanity, die in their stead in order to save that humanity so that they may honor and glorify him for all of eternity.

That is the wisdom of God. That is the power of God. At some point in your life, your response to the gospel message went from hatred and hostility, from mockery and thinking it is foolishness to understanding that it is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe.

At some point, that change happened in your life if you're saved. If that's never happened in your life,

I promise you, you are not saved. If the message of the gospel sounds like foolishness, it is because your eyes cannot see it and your ears cannot hear it and your heart cannot receive it and you do not understand the things of God.

That's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter two. Paul says, for indeed, Jews ask for signs and Greeks want wisdom.

But we preach Christ crucified. He didn't give to the Jews the signs. He didn't give to the Greeks the wisdom that they desired.

Instead, he preached this message that he calls a stumbling block, that the New Testament calls a rock of offense, foolishness.

But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. That's 1 Corinthians chapter one, verses 22 to 24.

The notion of a suffering and dying Messiah to a Jewish person was utter foolishness.

It was offensive. Offensive that you would suggest that our Messiah would suffer at the hands of that pagan, idol -worshiping, godless

Roman nation, that you would suggest that is foolishness. It's offensive. They hated that message.

That was the message that the apostles were called to preach to the Jews without softening it down, without watering it down, without trying to make it palatable to them in any way, without trying to satisfy their desire for signs.

They were simply to preach and to proclaim that message, the message that is a stumbling block and is offensive to us.

And some explanation to a Jew as to why their Messiah would have to die, some explanation was necessary.

Now the author of Hebrews gives us that explanation in connection with the new covenant. He says concerning the old covenant that the old covenant and the inauguration of the old covenant required blood.

So it should come then as no surprise that the inauguration or the initiation of the new covenant would also require blood.

Now the Jews were anticipating, or at least they should have anticipated, that a new covenant would come because they were promised a new covenant even while living under the old covenant.

That old covenant law with all of the law of Moses and the ceremonial aspects and the priesthood and the tabernacle, while living under that system, they were looking forward to a time when

God would fulfill his word in Jeremiah 31 where he promised them that a new covenant would be given and that he would make a new covenant.

And they shouldn't have expected that the new covenant would be without blood because if the new covenant is supposed to wipe away sin so that he will remember our sins no more, then that sin issue has to be dealt with.

And if we learn anything from all of the structures and the ceremonies of the old covenant, all of the sacrifices and the bloodletting and the dying under the old covenant, if we learn anything it is this, that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

That is God's decree. And that is what the author, that's the argument that the author's making in Hebrews chapter nine.

Last week we looked at the inauguration of that Mosaic covenant. It symbolized the forgiveness that would be available under the new covenant, the shedding of the blood of those animals that were sacrificed, symbolized the shedding of the blood of the

Messiah who is to come and to inaugurate and initiate that new covenant. And if the new covenant was to provide remission of sins, then it had to deal with the sin issue because all the sacrifices could not take away sins.

All those sacrifices could not perfect the worshiper. All those sacrifices could not cleanse the conscience. They could not deal with the sin issue because the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins.

A better blood had to be shed. A better sacrifice had to be made. And that sacrifice is the sinless and perfect son of God.

So our passage here in Hebrews chapter nine recounts the salient details that we looked at from Exodus 24 last week.

And I told you that I want you to think of chapter nine verses 18 through 22 as one whole argument that he is making.

And the argument is very simple. It should come as no surprise that the removal of sin would require the shedding of blood.

The new covenant promises the removal of sin, not the covering over of sin, but the actual removal of sin, the atoning for it, the payment for it, and that is paid for in Christ.

And so if the old covenant required blood, most certainly the new covenant would require blood as well. And so blood is the theme of this passage.

In fact, it is mentioned six times in these five verses, once in each verse and twice in verse 22.

And verse 22 is the culmination of the argument. One may almost say that according to the law, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

All things are cleansed with blood. That is the rule of God, that is the law of God, that if sin is to be forgiven, blood must be shed to atone for it.

So without the shedding of blood, then there can be no forgiveness. The New Testament offers forgiveness. The new covenant,

I should say, offers forgiveness. Therefore, the new covenant must be inaugurated and initiated and provide a sacrifice that would shed better blood than the blood of bulls and goats.

So we're picking up at verse 18, and we're gonna notice here that the author in chapter nine is, he is describing the same ceremony that we read in the scripture reading in Exodus 24.

He's describing the same ceremony that we looked at in all of its bloody detail, gory detail last week, and the context that we looked at.

He's alluding to that ceremony here, but I want you to know ahead of time that there are differences in the details that are given in Hebrews 9, between the details given in Hebrews 9 and Exodus 24.

There are some differences. The author here includes some details that are not mentioned in Exodus 24, and we're gonna talk about what we should make of that and why that is here as we go through it.

I want you to notice, first of all, verse 18, he says, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood.

And I want you to notice, first of all, that he mentions the commandment of God in verse 19, for when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law.

Now he mentions commandment again down in verse 20. We're gonna talk about why that is here in a moment, but I want you to notice that the giving of the law was foundational to the old covenant.

The old covenant involved the giving of the law of God to the nation of Israel, and that was in chapter, you remember that was in chapter 20, with the 10 commandments, in chapter 21, 22, 23,

Moses took all of those commandments, and there were three different kinds of laws given in what was called the book of the covenant.

It was basically the brief outline of the law of Israel that Moses wrote down in a book, and you remember when he read it to all the people, what did they say?

We will obey all that the Lord has commanded us to do. If ever there was an overstatement or a bitter presumption in all of human history, that was it.

We will obey all that the Lord has commanded us to do. We will be obedient to what God demands of us.

That was their promise. Didn't last long, about a month later, they were worshiping a golden calf, but that was their promise at the outset.

Of all that God has commanded, these things we will do. And what God had commanded broke down into three different categories. And I wanna give you a way of looking at the law of God because this will help you understand what parts of the law we no longer follow and why, and what parts of the law we still try and at least look to as a moral compass for the nature and character of God.

There is a threefold division of the Old Testament law. There is the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the civil law.

Now, there is no verse in Scripture, no place in the Old Testament where I can go to and say, see, here you go, it says moral, ceremonial, and civil.

This is, in some sense, a bit of a construct that we put upon the Old Testament law. As we look upon it, we look through the grid of this, and we recognize that there are different kinds of laws that God gave, and they basically fall into these three different categories.

Now, there are some people who would quibble with this just a little bit, and they would say, really, there are two different categories, or really, you can't divide them at all.

You give them all, or you take them all. They all go together. Three different categories, and here they are, civil, ceremonial, and moral.

The moral law of God, we understand what that is. Thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Sorry, that was the lying part. Thou shalt not commit idolatry, honor your parents, don't covet, don't murder, don't commit adultery.

Those are the moral aspects of God's law, and though it's not listed in the Ten Commandments, the prohibition against homosexuality is also a moral demand that is part of God's moral nature and character.

The moral law of God, those moral elements reflect God's unchanging nature, but then there are elements of the

Old Testament law that do not reflect, necessarily, God's unchanging nature. The law against eating shellfish or pork.

Those are not reflections of God's moral nature. So there were other kinds of law that was given to the nation of Israel, not just the moral law, which we see enshrined in the

Ten Commandments, an expression of God's moral, transcendent, and unchanging nature, but there was also a ceremonial law.

We're most familiar with those in the laws that regulated the priesthood and the way that the priests were to conduct themselves and the sacrifices and the feasts and the festivals and those things related to the worship of the nation of Israel, those were the ceremonial laws.

Then there were civil laws. Remember, ceremonial laws also would include the ceremonial uncleanliness laws. Then there were civil laws regarding if your ox gores someone, he is to be executed, or if your neighbor loses his sheep, you're supposed to return the sheep, or if you steal something, you're supposed to return it, plus a little bit extra, and there were civil laws that regulated the nation of Israel.

Moral, ceremonial, and civil. Now, atheists will object sometimes to you as Christians because they'll say, well, you

Christians, you don't have any problem eating pork, but you still condemn the practice of homosexuality.

So you just pick and choose what laws of the Old Testament you wanna follow, which ones you wanna obey. You have no problem eating shellfish, but you still condemn homosexuals like the

Old Testament does? Why isn't it that if you're just gonna disregard part of the law, why don't you disregard all of the law?

The answer to that is very simple. The laws regulating shellfish are not moral laws.

They're not laws that reflect God's unchanging nature. They are laws which regulated the nation of Israel and its relationship, its uniqueness, and their covenant with God.

There are parts of that law which have been completely abrogated. In fact, all of that covenant has been abrogated, but there are laws, moral laws, that were part of that covenant that are also preexisted that covenant.

Adultery did not become immoral when Moses got the 10 Commandments. Adultery was immoral before that.

Adultery was immoral in the Garden of Eden. Lying was immoral and wrong and sinful in the Garden of Eden.

The giving of the 10 Commandments didn't make lying immoral and sinful. The moral law of God always existed.

It's unchanging. It always is still the same, or it has always been, and it's still the same as it always was, and there are moral aspects of that law which have not been abrogated.

They've not gone away. God's nature, his moral demands have not changed, even though his approach to the ceremonial and civil aspects of that law, which regulated the first covenant, have changed.

They have been abrogated, so part of those have been entirely done away with. Well, that Book of Commandment that we talk about in Exodus 20, 21, 22, and 23, those four chapters, they contain ceremonial law, civil law, and moral law.

They contain the 10 Commandments. They contained instructions for the priesthood, and they contained different aspects of how the nation of Israel was to govern themselves in a civil sense.

They were all combined, and they were all mixed together in that Book of the Law, to which the people said, all that the Lord has commanded us, we will do.

Those were the laws of the covenants, and the laws of the covenant required obedience. That was God's demand.

Be holy as I am holy. Obey all that I have commanded you to do. Now, the law can provide us information and understanding about the moral character of God's nature, that he is a holy

God, that he is righteous, that there are things which violate his nature. The law can inform us as to the ceremonial aspects of the old covenant.

The law can tell us what the civil law should have been for the nation of Israel, but there is one thing that the law cannot do.

It cannot make us obedient. You notice that? Every time you go through the

Ten Commandments, have you ever said to yourself, regarding any of the Ten Commandments, all that the

Lord has commanded, I have done? Have you ever said that? I hope you haven't.

If you have, and you think you have, I could walk through a few of them. I won't do it, but I could walk through a few of them.

Just lust is a violation of the adultery commandment. Hatred in your heart is a violation of the murder commandment. All of us are liars.

Every liar will have his part in the lake that burns with fire. I mean, those Ten Commandments, they pronounce us undone.

They pronounce us guilty. Criminals before a holy God. The law can tell us what we ought to do, but the law cannot motivate us to do it.

We have a horrible problem, and the horrible problem is that we are unable to obey that law.

The demands of that covenant, we are unable to obey them. This is what Israel did not understand when they said, all that the

Lord has commanded, we will do. In less than two months, they figured it out.

We cannot obey what the Lord has commanded us to do, because 40 days later, they're throwing their golden arrow and saying, make us a golden calf that we can bow down to.

Make us an image of the God who brought us up to the land of Egypt. They didn't keep that covenant, because the law can tell us what we ought to do, but the law cannot motivate us to do it.

In fact, because we are sinners, and because we are wicked at heart, because we are spiritually dead, because we are hostile in our mind and in our works against God, not only are we unable to obey the law of God, we, in our natural state, do not even want to obey the law of God.

We hate those standards of righteousness. We love sin. We love the things we should hate, and we hate the things that we should love.

So the law can show us what righteousness looks like, but it cannot create righteousness for us, because we are unable to obey the law in letter or in spirit.

We might be able to say, well, I've never committed adultery on my wife, which I have not, but is there any man or woman here that can say

I've never lusted after somebody that is not my husband or wife, or had an immoral thought? Nobody can say that.

So even though we might try and keep the letter of the law, we fail to obey the spirit of the law. And even if we could, even if we could not lie for a long period of time, we would hate the fact that we could not lie for a long period of time, because our heart does not desire to submit itself to the law of God.

That's how hostile against the law we are. So we have violated the law of God. We don't like the law of God.

We hate the law of God. We cannot fulfill the law of God, and all the law does is condemn us.

Thou shalt not lie, and all of us say we're guilty. Thou shalt not commit adultery. And Jesus said if you lust, you've committed adultery in your heart, and we have to say we're guilty.

Thou shalt worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. Our hearts are idol factories. We produce idols one after another and bow down to them in our hearts.

We're guilty at every count. So when they stood up and said, all that the Lord has commanded, we will do.

I got to wonder in my mind if even Moses thought to himself, that might be a bit rash.

I know these people. I live with these people. I'm not sure that we can abide by this, but that's what they swore to do.

Galatians 321. Paul asks, is the law contrary to the promises of God? May it never be. For if the law had been given, which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law.

Did you hear that? But the law could not do. The law pronounced us guilty and showed us that we are dead, but the law could not produce life.

There is no amount of trying to obey the demands of the law that could make us spiritually alive. Because if righteousness and life could come by keeping the law, then

God would have just said, obey the law. Keep the 10 commandments and you shall live. But we can't keep the 10 commandments, and therefore we are sentenced to death.

And because we are sentenced to death, we can have no righteousness. There's no righteousness which we can offer to the

Lord and say, see, here are all the righteous deeds that I have done. And all these deeds which I have done in righteousness, they warrant eternal life.

They warrant your heaven. We can't stand before the throne of God or before the gates of heaven and say, look at all the good things that I have done, because every last one of those good things is done by a heart that rests in hostility against the

God who gave that law. So it cannot impart life and it cannot give righteousness. All it can do is show us that we are unrighteous and condemn us to death.

Romans 3, 19 says, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.

Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in God's sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

All the law gives us is a knowledge of sin. It doesn't free us from sin. It shows us that we are sinners.

It shows us the depth of our sin and the depth of our depravity, but it does not release us from that sin. That's why

Paul says, by the works of the law, by fulfilling the law, and by the way, it would be all of the works of the law, all the works of the ceremonial law, the civil law, and the moral law, by the works of that law, no flesh will be justified or declared righteous in God's sight.

Why? Because if a law could be given which could give righteousness, then righteousness would have been by the law, as Paul says in Galatians.

But righteousness, the law cannot give righteousness. Therefore, no one can be declared righteous or made righteous by that law.

This is important for us to understand here at the outset of verse 19 because when we talk about being forgiven by sin, we have to understand what it is that condemns us as sinners.

We have to understand why it is that we need forgiveness. This is the purpose of talking about the law and the commandments.

The new covenant, however, provides all of those things which the old covenant failed to provide. Obedience has been provided for us by another.

Righteousness has been provided for us by another. One who obeyed all of the stipulations of that covenant and obeyed the law and did righteousness and only righteousness, that had to be done on our behalf.

It is not enough just to have our sins forgiven and our slate wiped clean. We need a positive righteousness. We need a positive credit of merit and righteousness by which we may stand before God and be accepted into his presence.

And we can never acquire that by the works of the law. We can never acquire that by any acts of obedience because we are sinners.

So every act of obedience is itself a sinful act of obedience unless and until we embrace

Jesus Christ and trust him. And then and only then is that act of obedience, in that act of obedience, all of the obedience of Christ is imputed and credited to our account.

And that is how we have life, that is how we have righteousness, and that is the means by which we have forgiveness. So you'll notice verse 19 says, every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law.

What he had done? Give him the 10 commandments, give him parts of the ceremonial law, some of the civil law. And when he had done this according to the law, acting as their mediator, giving to them what

God had said, verse 19 says, he sprinkled both the book itself and all the people. Now, it is in the sprinkling of the blood that here we come across some of the differences, the distinctions between the account in Exodus and the account here in Hebrews.

There are three things that are different in the Hebrew author's description of this account and the author of Exodus 24's description of this account.

There are three primary differences. I'm gonna go through each of them quickly and explain a little bit about why it might be different, and then at the end we're gonna talk about whether differences actually constitute contradictions because some people would say, well, see,

Hebrews' description here is different than Exodus 24's description, therefore that's a contradiction. It's not a contradiction.

It's a difference, but not all differences are contradictions. Okay, here's the first difference. Look at verse 20.

Sorry, no, verse 19. He took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people.

Now, the last part of verse 19 has all three of these differences, all three of these details that are different here than we have in Exodus 24.

Here's the first one, the animals that are mentioned. Exodus chapter 24 only mentions young bulls.

Hebrews, the author, mentions calves and goats. So why does he put goats in there? Exodus doesn't mention goats.

The reason that he probably adds goats here is because under the law, it is allowable to offer goats, according to the law, for different sin sacrifices.

So Exodus simply mentions young bulls.

Hebrews mentions goats and calves. The author of Hebrews is probably citing some sort of a tradition that was attached to Exodus 24 where he had a piece of information about what went on at that covenant -cutting ceremony in Exodus 24 that he is giving us some extra detail here.

It's not that, well, hold on, I'll get onto that later. Second one, the second difference, water, scarlet wool, and hyssop are mentioned in Hebrews, but they're not mentioned in Exodus.

Notice verse 19. He took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop. Now Exodus doesn't mention any of those.

Exodus mentions sprinkling the people, but doesn't mention how it was done. And so some means obviously had to have been used for sprinkling the people with blood in Exodus 24, and the author here is giving to us that means that was used.

He had already mentioned earlier in chapter nine, verse 13, the ceremony of the red heifer and the purification and how red scarlet was used and hyssop was used in that.

Hyssop was also used to apply the blood of the Passover lamb to the doorpost of the house in Egypt when the children of Israel were passed over on that night in Egypt before their

Exodus. So the author is here probably drawing upon those two ceremonies and saying this is what happened at the covenant cutting ceremony in Exodus 24.

The third difference, you'll notice that Hebrews mentions that the book of the covenant was sprinkled with blood, but Exodus doesn't mention that the book of the covenant was sprinkled with blood.

The book of Exodus mentions that the altars were sprinkled with blood, the blood was poured on the altar, and the blood was sprinkled on the people.

There's no mention of the book that Moses wrote containing the law which was sprinkled with blood, but the author of Hebrews mentions it.

So what do we do with that? Are those contradictions, by the way? I want you to think carefully about this. Are those contradictions? They're differences of description, but they're not contradictions.

Now if Exodus said he sprinkled all the people and Hebrews said he didn't sprinkle any of the people, that would be a contradiction.

Do you understand that? But if Exodus says he sprinkled the altar and the people and the book of Hebrews says he sprinkled the altar and the people and the book of the covenant, that's an added detail, but it's not a contradiction.

Differences of description are not contradictions. These things can both be true. It's possible that Exodus gives us less detail than the author of Hebrews includes.

In fact, I would argue that by inspiration of the Spirit of God, we're given more details about that covenant -cutting ceremony in Hebrews 9 than we're given in Exodus 24.

We're not given contradictory details, but we are given different or additional details. Now where did the author come up with this?

Where did the author come up with these extra details? The short answer to that is nobody knows. Do you think it's possible that people who lived 2 ,000 years ago might have had information or books or resources that we don't have today?

Do you think it's remotely possible? So the skeptic who says, I don't know where he came up with this, he's obviously inventing this.

Could we give the benefit of a doubt to a man who's probably smarter than any of us in this room here today and suggest that he might have known more about the actual history and events of Israel's founding and Israel's ceremonies, etc.,

than we might know today? He might have had some tradition that was rooted in Scripture and well -established and absolutely true that he might have been drawing on.

There might have been a book that he had access to which included those things. Not an inspired book, not a lost book of the

Bible, but a book full of information about those ceremonies that you and I might not have. Is that possible? I think it's possible.

So before I charge the Holy Spirit with error in screwing up the details in Hebrews 9, let's give the author the benefit of the doubt and thank the

Spirit of God for these additional details. Because here we find out that Moses sprinkled the altar and the people and the book of the covenant.

Notice he says in verse 20, and this is paraphrased from Exodus 24, verse 20, he said, and he sprinkled the blood and said, this is the blood of the covenant which

God commanded you. Now that is a paraphrase, it's a summary of what Moses said, but it's not a direct quotation.

I'll give you the direct quotation. While you're looking at verse 20 and what he cites there, I'm gonna read you the words of Moses from Exodus 24, verse 8.

So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, here's what Moses, here's what Exodus 24 says, behold the blood of the covenant which the

Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. And what does the author of Hebrews do with that? This is the blood of the covenant.

But he has a different phrase there, which God commanded you. Why the difference? The author of Hebrews is, he is emphasizing something all the way through this passage.

And what is it? The commandment of God. He mentions it up in verse 15 when he talks about those who transgressed under the old covenant.

He mentions commandment in verse 19. He talks about the commandment here in verse 20.

All the way through this passage, he is emphasizing something about that old covenant, namely the commandments that were attached to it.

Because one thing that we have to understand before we can long for and appreciate the forgiveness that we have in verse 22 is just how far short of that commandment we have fallen.

And so he is emphasizing the commandment and he is doing so in order to emphasize our fallenness, our sinfulness, and what it is that we need to be forgiven of.

And we can't understand the depth of our sinfulness until we understand fully the commandment of God and the law of God and how badly we have violated that law.

It is only in light of the law of God that we understand our sinfulness. This is what Paul means in Romans chapter 7 when he says,

I would not have known sin except by the law. I wouldn't have understood how sinful coveting was if the law had not said, thou shalt not covet.

I wouldn't have understand how sinful lying was if the law had said, thou shalt not lie. I wouldn't have understood how sinful idolatry was and worshiping the wrong

God and thinking wrong thoughts about God was if the law had not said that doing such a thing deserved death.

I wouldn't have understood those things. I didn't understand the depth of my sinfulness when I first trusted Christ, did you?

Is your understanding of your sinfulness the same today as it was back when you first trusted Christ? I hope it's not because the more we grow and the more we understand of God's righteousness, the more we realize how much we need forgiveness.

He wants to tell us that without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. And he wants us to understand how badly we need that forgiveness because we will never come to the solution for our problem unless we understand just how deep and abiding and serious our problem is.

It was so serious that it required the shedding of blood to atone for it. Verse 21, in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with blood.

Now, this is in another detail that's not mentioned in Exodus 24. In fact, this is a detail that is something out of the chronology of the book of Exodus, out of the chronological order because it says in the same way he sprinkled the tabernacle.

But do you remember last week what we looked at that came after the covenant made in Exodus 24?

Do you remember what was in Exodus 25? It was the instructions for the construction of the tabernacle.

So at that covenant cutting ceremony, they didn't sprinkle the tabernacle with blood because it was after that the instructions for the tabernacle were given and all the details were given and then they built the tabernacle.

But the author here is combining that first covenant cutting ceremony in Exodus 24 with a ceremony that would happen later on when the tabernacle was anointed.

So he sees them together as sort of forming the same thing with the people. The people said, all that the Lord has said we will do and he sprinkled the blood to seal the covenant with blood demonstrating that that covenant was sealed with blood and the forgiveness of sins would require that blood.

He did that. On a later time, he also sanctified and set apart all the vessels of that covenant.

The tabernacle, the altar of incense, the Ark of the Covenant, the lampstand, the vessels, the vestments of the priests, all of that was anointed with blood, sprinkled with blood.

In fact, Aaron himself had to have blood applied to him before his priesthood was valid. If you read through the book of,

I think it's Leviticus, mentions Aaron needing blood on his right thumb and the right toe of his foot and on his vestments.

All of those things were set apart and sanctified with blood. The Old Testament worship was a bloody religion.

And every time a Jew would come up to the temple or approach the tabernacle, that is something you could see, it is something you could smell, it was something that was everywhere.

They were never allowed to think of worshiping God, approaching God, or having their sins forgiven without also thinking sacrifice, bloodshedding.

Why that? Why so much blood? Were they just sadistic tribal people who had some sort of a sick infatuation with bloodletting?

Is that what they were? They weren't at all. There's a purpose for the blood. The reason is because blood is a powerful reminder of sin.

See, every time they stepped up to the temple or the tabernacle and they saw that blood and they saw those sacrifices, it would remind them of the cost of their sin.

This is what, this is what sin is, this is what sin brings. It brings death. Isn't that what

God said in the garden? The day you eat of that tree, you will what? You'll die. And Adam died that day.

Spiritually, he died. And he started dying until he finally died at an old age. So we look around us and we see that death is the result of sin.

The soul that sins, it shall die. The wages of sin is death. That's what God promises.

The reason we live in a world filled with death, the reason that all of you are dying, some of you are going to die soon, some of you are going to die later, all of you are going to die, the minute you were born you started to die and you're continuing to degenerate and die until you'll finally die.

Why is that? Why does that happen to all of us? I've never in my life not been on a trajectory that's going to end in death.

Never, for one moment of my existence, from conception till today, never once have I not been on a trajectory that is not going to end in death.

Never once. Why is that? Because we live in a fallen and cursed and sinful world. Because Adam died, we all died in him.

We all died spiritually in him. And all of us are going to die because of what Adam did. All of us are going to die because of what we do.

Because we are sinners. Physical death, spiritual death, is the just judgment of God on us for our sin.

And the bloodiness of that religion and the death that was involved in those sacrifices was a reminder continually of the cost of sin, the seriousness of sin.

That the soul that sins, it must die. And the death of that animal, imagine coming up to worship

God and knowing I have to give an animal that is going to die in my place, it's going to shed his blood, it's going to cease to exist because of the sin that I have committed.

And it is by this that I come. I offer this in faith, trusting that on the basis of this, God will overlook my sin and accept my worship and accept my sacrifice and grant me life and forgive my sin.

That was the hope and the expectation. But walking up to offer that animal sacrifice, you were reminded all the time, this is the cost of my sin.

Something else has to die in my place so that I can live. That was the lesson.

For 1500 years, that was the lesson. Over and over again, day after day, year after year, that was the lesson.

Why so bloody? Why so much death? It's the cost of our sin. And second, because that in that lesson was a symbol of the sacrifice that was to come.

It was a 1500 -year -long object lesson to prepare them for the sacrifice that was to come.

To show them that no matter how many animals were offered, no matter how sincerely you offered the animal, no matter how frequently you offered the animal, you'd still have to do it again next year, still have to do it again tomorrow.

And it would make you long for a day when someone would offer a sacrifice that would take away that sin entirely so that no more sacrifice would ever have to be offered.

No more death would ever have to be rendered. No more blood would ever have to be shed. Those animal sacrifices were a picture, a symbol, that a death would have to be made to atone for sin, that that death would have to serve as a substitute, and it would have to be a sacrifice that would shed its blood.

And so on the day that the Lord Jesus Christ died, while he was hanging outside the city on a cross, shedding his blood and giving his life for his people, inside the temple, they were still executing

Passover lambs. They were still going about the business of offering sacrifices, not even knowing that the ultimate sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice, and the final sacrifice was being offered outside the city on a

Roman cross. Does that sound like a foolish message to you? I hope it sounds like a foolish message to you.

It's a glorious truth of salvation. Like the power of God, and the wisdom of God, and the love of God, and the grace of God, and the stunning mercy of God all rolled into one, because that's what it is.

Why so bloody a religion? Why so bloody a covenant? To show us that there needed to be a death, it needed to be a substitutionary death, and it needed to be a perfect sacrifice.

Not the blood of bulls and goats, not the blood of one person for one person, but the blood of an infinitely righteous, infinitely perfect, infinitely holy, infinitely glorious one, on behalf of not just one other person, but of an unspeakable multitude of all from every tribe, and kindred, and tongue, and people, any and all who will come to that substitute, and lay down their arms of rebellion, and bow the knee, and repent of their sin, and their law -breaking, and their lawless deeds, and trust in that one sacrifice that God commands, if you trust in it, you shall live.

No more sacrifice is necessary. You can have forgiveness. Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins, but with the shedding of that blood, there is forgiveness for any and all sins.

Every sinner that will come to him will be forgiven of their sins. I promise you that. No matter how deep your sin is, no matter how dark your sin is, no matter how long your sin has been going on, there is atonement, and there is provision in that one sacrifice.

Come to him, and your sins are forgiven, washed away, remitted, taken away, totally and utterly forgiven, for all of eternity.

No turning back. Do not come to him, and you will bear the wrath of your sin for all of eternity.

That is God's promise to you. He always keeps His word. You can come to Christ by turning from your sin, and trusting in that sacrifice.

God commands you to do that this day, if you have not. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you have the full confidence that all of your sins have been remitted, forgiven, taken away, because of that one sacrifice.

This power of His. Father, we thank you for so glorious the truth of the gospel, not foolishness to us, but the wisdom of God and the power of God.

In that one sacrifice, all of your mercy, all of your love, and all of your grace is given to us. And we thank you for it.

We thank you for your kindness. We thank you that we cannot be made perfect by the works of the law, for we would be expected to keep that, and we never could.

We thank you that righteousness comes on the basis of faith, not by keeping the law, not by doing good works, but by simply entrusting ourselves entirely, solely, and only to your

Son, and to His sacrifice on our behalf. I do pray that if there are any here who have never trusted

Jesus Christ for salvation, who have never repented of their sin and trusted Him, that you would draw them to yourself today, show them their need for a

Savior, so that they may trust in Him fully, and wholly, and everlastingly. We pray that you would grant the mercy and grace of repentance and forgiveness to wayward sinners, and draw them to yourself, so that you, our

Lord, our God, our King, Jesus Christ, may receive the full reward for all your suffering, both now and forever.