A Superior Sacrifice, Part 1 – Hebrews 9:13-14

Leads to Hebrews chapter nine. Hebrews chapter nine.

When you find your place there, we're gonna read verses 11 through 14 of Hebrews nine. All right,

Hebrews nine, beginning of verse 11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

God. Let's pray together before we begin. Lord, we come now to your word, and it is in your word that we find the full and complete and perfect revelation of you and your saving purposes and your son and your will for us.

And we ask that you would grant to us illumination and understanding in your word as we talk about things that are difficult to understand and to grasp, things not natural or normal to us and to our experience.

We pray that you would help us to understand those things and to see in them pictures and images of the

Lord Jesus Christ. It is our desire that you would be honored through your word this morning and our understanding in it.

We know that when your word is accurately preached, your voice is truly heard, and we pray that that may be true of us here today, that we may understand these things and that your spirit would illuminate them to our hearts and to our minds for the glory of Christ our

Lord, in whose name we pray, amen. The symbols and shadows of Hebrews chapter nine that we have been confronted with in the last few weeks have offered some similarities, some parallels to the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

And we've been noticing some of the symbols and the parallels to Christ. And a picture is something of a representation of another reality, and that's what some of these things, the ark and the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrifices, these were pictures of a greater and later to come reality.

And so just as a picture of a person or a place or a thing is something of an inferior representation of that person, place, and thing, so it is with the tabernacle and the altar and the sacrifices, the priesthood, the ark of the covenant, the blood, et cetera.

These things were pictures of Christ and they waited for, anticipated, looked forward to some greater and later fulfillment.

And we've noticed a number of similarities. That's one of the benefits of the pictures of the Old Testament. It allows us to look at those things and then notice the striking similarities.

See this is like this and that is like that and we can draw those parallels from the Old Testament to the new.

That's helpful, it helps us to understand who Christ is and what he has done and what God intended in the sacrifice of Christ and his work.

And we've noted a number of those similarities as we've worked our way through Hebrews chapter nine so far. We've talked about the high priest who makes intercession for his people.

So it is with Christ. He intercedes for us and represents us before the Father. We talked about the blood sacrifice and how that was necessary to approach

God and atone for sins. So it is with Christ. His sacrifice has taken away our sin and cleansed us from our sin.

We've talked about Christ stepping behind the veil and so, or sorry, the high priest stepping behind the veil and so it is with Christ.

He stepped behind the veil but not an earthly veil made with hands and not into a tabernacle made with hands but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

And just as the Old Testament priest walked into the place where God dwelt so it is that Christ has entered into the place where God is and there he makes intercession for us and there he is seated at the right hand of the

Father. So we learn a lot just in noticing the similarities. But we learn equally as much and I would say almost more so from the differences.

From the dissimilarities between the type or the picture of the shadow and the reality that came later. There's a lot of things that are dissimilar and the author has mentioned a number of those things.

When he compared Christ to the Old Testament priests and under the Old Covenant back in Hebrews chapter seven it was, when he compared

Christ to those priests he noted a whole bunch of dissimilarities. For instance, the old Aaronic priest died.

Christ never does. He died and then he rose again and now he lives with the power of an indestructible life.

So he is always able to make intercession for those who come to God and he never dies. That's a dissimilarity.

Another one was that the priest existed in greater numbers, he said. Whereas the Melchizedekian priesthood has one high priest.

That's the Lord Jesus Christ. The Aaronic priesthood, they retired and so eventually they would stop interceding. Our Lord Jesus never ceases to intercede and he never retires.

The Aaronic priests were sinful. Jesus is sinless. Those are the dissimilarities. So we notice the similarities, we notice the dissimilarities and we learn certain things from both of them.

Well, as the author now in Hebrews chapter nine talks about the sacrifice of Christ, he has noted some of the similarities.

There is blood, there is an offering, there is a sacrifice, there is a mercy seat, there is sin that's being atoned for.

It happens at a tabernacle, there's a priest who does it. Those are all the similarities. But the author is very specific to note also the dissimilarities.

For instance, he will say things like, Christ has entered not a temple made with hands but into the heavenly temple.

That's a dissimilarity. Or he says he has entered not with somebody else's blood but with his own blood, not with the blood of bulls and goats.

That's another dissimilarity. He doesn't go in yearly like the Old Testament priest did. He has gone in one time, once and for all.

In fact, he doesn't offer multiple sacrifices like the Old Testament priest did. He has offered one sacrifice, one time for all sin.

That's a dissimilarity. He has not exited the holy place. The Old Testament priest had to go into the holy place to stay there only long enough to do what they were sent there to do and then they were to exit immediately.

But our high priest has gone into a temple not made with hands and he has not exited. In fact, he has sat down at the right hand of the

God, the Father, something that the Old Testament priest could never do. And the sacrifice of Christ cleanses the conscience, something that the

Old Testament sacrifices could never do. The Christ sacrifice has initiated and brought, purchased really, the blessings of the new covenant.

The old priest could never do that. Their work was external, his is internal. And his has accomplished eternal redemption.

That is something that the Old Testament priest could never do. So those are just all of the similarities, dissimilarities actually that we've noticed here in Hebrews chapter nine.

And we can learn as much from those contrasts as we can from the ways in which they are the same. So as we're here in Hebrews nine now, we're starting at verse 13.

We've noticed a couple of the dissimilarities and we're gonna notice some more today. In fact, there are five things about the sacrifice of Christ down in verse 14 that are dissimilar to the

Old Testament animal sacrifices. Ways in which it is different. And that's in verse 14. What I want you to notice now is that there is a lesser to the greater argument between verses 13 and 14.

So read 13 and 14 with me again. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

God? There is a from the lesser to the greater argument. If this lesser thing accomplished

X, then this greater thing must accomplish Y, which is greater than X.

That's the idea here. If the sacrifice of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of a heifer could cleanse the flesh, how much more the greater thing, the offering of Christ, shall cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

God? And his argument is really simple. The sacrifice of Christ has done everything necessary and all of the things not done by the

Old Testament priests and those animal sacrifices. It is that far superior. It is that much greater.

So it is a lesser to the greater argument in verses 13 and 14. And we need to understand this comparison that's going on here because in the mind of the author, he is comparing the work of Christ to what is mentioned in verse 13.

The blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer. He's comparing Christ to those things.

So if we are going to appreciate the point of comparison, if we're going to appreciate what it is that Christ has done, we have to understand what it is that he is comparing it to in verse 13.

Namely, the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of the heifer. And so today, as we are going through our passage today, we're gonna spend a few minutes talking about the ashes of a heifer and the sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer.

Actually, that was not entirely true. We're gonna spend the rest of the sermon talking about the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer.

So that when we understand all of that, then next week we will get to the five ways, the five qualities of the sacrifice of Christ that make it far superior to what was offered under the

Old Testament. I want you to notice the five qualities, the five things about the sacrifice of Christ in verse 14. Just notice them quickly.

First of all, in verse 14, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit, it was a Trinitarian sacrifice, all three members of the

Trinity were involved in the sacrifice of Christ. All of them had a role. All of them were doing something at that moment.

So it was a Trinitarian sacrifice. Second, it was a voluntary sacrifice. It says in verse 14, he offered himself.

It's a voluntary sacrifice. Third, it was a blameless sacrifice. He offered himself without blemish to God.

Fourth, it was an effective sacrifice that it cleanses your conscience from dead works. And fifth, it was a fruitful sacrifice.

It accomplishes us serving the one living and true God. It was a Trinitarian, voluntary, blameless, effective, and fruitful sacrifice.

Those are the five qualities of the death of Christ. None of those things could be said of any of the Old Testament sacrifices.

But that's for next week. So during this coming week, just memorize those five things if you wrote them down, and you'll be ready for next week.

Today, just the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer. And this is, I think, far more fun and far more interesting than you might at first.

You might at first think. I mean, if we read Numbers 19 and you were thinking, this has gotta be fantastic and phenomenal, then you need to lower your expectations just a little bit.

But if you read Numbers 19 and you thought to yourself, this is gonna be horrible, you can raise your expectations just a little bit, because I think it's somewhere in the middle.

I actually think that this is a fascinating subject. And it does teach us something about Christ and his work.

So verse 13. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh.

Now, there's something, there's two sacrifices that are mentioned there. The blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer. We're somewhat familiar with the reference to the blood of bulls and goats, because we've talked about that a lot in recent weeks.

It has to do with the day of atonement. Remember those two sacrifices on the day of atonement. The high priest would offer a bull for himself and for the sins of his family.

And he would go and he would take the blood and he would put it on the altar of incense and then behind the veil on the

Ark of the Covenant, he would sprinkle that and then he would go back out and there would be two goats chosen. One of them would be chosen by Lot as the scapegoat and the other one would be the blood sacrifice.

And so they would offer the blood sacrifice of the goat, this time for the sins of the people, the nation of Israel. And he would offer that blood behind the veil on the mercy seat and on the altar of incense as well.

And he would do that work back there and then he would come out and the priest and would lay his hands upon the scapegoat, a symbol of putting the sins, transferring the sins onto a sacrifice.

And that scapegoat would then be released off into the wilderness, sort of picturing the idea of the removal of sins from the camp, going out of the people of God, the taking away of sin.

So that's a reference to the bulls and the goats. But that sacrifice did not remove sin and it did not cleanse the conscience.

But then the author throws us something of a curve ball in verse 13 because it is as if he mentions another sacrifice that doesn't seem at first to be connected to this first sacrifice.

The offer of the blood of bulls and goats and then the second one is the sprinkling of ashes, the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled.

That is something that we are not familiar with in our New Testament Christianity. It is not something that has any direct parallel to anything that we do in our fellowship, really one with another.

In fact, unless it is something that you have studied out yourself, you've gone to Numbers chapter 19 and you've read this and then read some commentaries on it to study it for yourself, it's probably not something that you're overly familiar with.

I doubt that any time in the last week you sat in your morning quiet time and meditated upon the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who are defiled.

I doubt it, unless you happen to be reading through Hebrews 9 or Numbers chapter 19. It's just not something that we're familiar with.

Well, you're gonna be familiar with it before the end of the day, that's my promise to you. What was this describing?

We read chapter 19 of the book of Numbers at the beginning of the service and I'm going to just describe to you what that was describing and then we'll talk about the significance of it and what was going on in that context, okay?

Numbers chapter 19, here was the ordinance of the red heifer. They were to take a red heifer without defect, without any kind of a blemish, perfectly red, not one white hair on the whole animal.

They were to take this red heifer and bring it to the high priest. They would take it outside of the camp, away from the children of Israel, outside of where they were dwelling together.

This was given, remember, out in the wilderness when they would camp together around the tabernacle in the 40 years wandering in the wilderness.

That's when the ordinance was given and that's when it started to be practiced. So they would take this heifer outside of the camp and they would slaughter it there in the presence of the priest.

The priest would slaughter it and him, in offering that sacrifice, would himself become unclean. And then they were to take this animal and they were to burn it, the entire animal, the refuse, the innards, everything.

They didn't butcher it, they didn't cut it up, and they'd take the entire animal, everything, blood and everything, and they would burn it whole there in the wilderness.

And they were to add to that burning heifer were scarlet and cedar and hyssop. Now, I don't know if you have ever burned a corpse.

I have. And in the, it was an animal, by the way. You should clarify that, it was an animal.

I can see the sheriff's deputy reaching for his handcuffs. That sounded like a confession to me. It takes a lot of wood to burn a corpse and it takes a long time to burn a corpse.

And so they would burn the corpse outside the camp and then once all of the, and the person who burned it then would become unclean.

That's what we read in Numbers chapter 19. Then they would take a clean person, and you say, what is the clean and the unclean?

We'll deal with that in just a second. A clean person then would gather up all the ashes of that burnt sacrifice outside the camp and they would take it to a clean place where they would store the ashes.

And that person who gathered up the ashes would also become unclean. So the person who killed the animal, the person who burnt the animal, the person who gathered up the ashes of the animal, all three of them were rendered unclean in the offering of that sacrifice.

Which, just for a second, I want you to catch the parallel here. The people who made the sacrifice that brought cleansing to others were made unclean by that.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That's the parallel.

The people who offered the sacrifices were made unclean in the sight of the people by the sacrifice that they offered, right?

And they did this on behalf of others so that they could provide purification for others. Okay, so then the ashes of the heifer were gathered up and they were placed outside the camp and they were stored there.

Now later on, history tells us the children of Israel went into the land of promise, into the land of Israel.

They would mix up this mixture that they would make and they would send it throughout the 12 tribes so it could be used in various locations for this act of cleansing.

Those ashes then, if somebody became ceremonially unclean, they would take those ashes, they would mix them in running water into a vessel and then they would sprinkle that on somebody that would make them clean.

So it was the act of the ashes mixed in the water. What ratio? I don't know, it's not given in Numbers chapter 19.

But the act of taking that water that had the ashes of the red heifer in it and sprinkling somebody who was ceremonially unclean, that would make them clean.

Numbers chapter 19 verse 20 says that when a man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of Israel, from the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the

Lord. The water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him, he is unclean. So a person who had been rendered ceremonially unclean could not approach the tabernacle and offer a sacrifice to the

Lord. They had to be cleansed by this ritual first before they could come up before the Lord. They had to be made ceremonially clean.

And then they could offer their sacrifice. Then they could approach the Lord. That was what was required. And if anybody did this unclean, he would defile the sanctuary of God by his very presence there.

So every Jew knew that before he went up to worship, he had to be made clean. He had to be cleansed from his ceremonial uncleanness.

Now what then is the ceremonially, it's gonna be a long day. What then is the ceremonial uncleanness?

It is not something that you and I are familiar with because we don't think in these terms, we don't practice this. There's not things in our day -to -day life that we do every single day that communicates to us the idea of ceremonial uncleanness.

I'm gonna stutter over that the whole time. All right, ceremonial uncleanness were defilements, ceremonial defilements.

They were symbols of the uncleanness caused by sin, symbols of the uncleanness caused by sin.

This was, if you read through the Old Testament, through the law, the first five books of Moses, the

Pentateuch, if you read through that, you will find all kinds of mention of being unclean and made clean, needing the water of purification, being cleansed from the impurity, the ceremonial uncleanness.

This is referenced over and over again. Woven throughout the life of the Old Testament Jew were these constant reminders of their uncleanness.

In what they did, in what they taught, touched, in where they went, in their movements, in their day -to -day activities, there was always the danger of being made unclean or impure because of something external that could defile them.

And it was woven all the way through all of their feasts and their sacrifices. It was woven into the daily, the ritualistic law, the ceremonial law, the civil law.

There were all of these ways that they could become unclean. In Numbers chapter 19, the emphasis or the focus on what brought uncleanness was death.

That's why we read a number of illustrations of ways that one could be made unclean in Numbers 19. I'll remind you of them.

If you touched a dead body, you would be made unclean. Numbers 19, the one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

That one shall purify himself from uncleanness with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and then he will be clean.

But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean. Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the

Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him. He shall be unclean.

His uncleanness is still on him. Or if you came into a tent in which somebody had died, Numbers 19, 14 says, this is the law.

When a man dies in a tent, everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.

Every open vessel which has no covering tied down on it shall be unclean. If you were out in a field just tending to your crops or plowing or working out in the field somewhere and you leaned up against a sepulcher or a grave, you'd be made unclean.

If you stumbled across a grave and you touched that grave, you would be made unclean. If you touched a bone of somebody who had been killed or died naturally out in the field, you would be made unclean.

So there's all kinds of ways that you can be made unclean. Touching a bone, for instance, Numbers 19, verse 16. Also anyone who is in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died naturally or a human bone or a grave, he shall be unclean for seven days.

Now why were so many of these laws of uncleanness and cleanness associated with death? What does death result from?

Sin brought death. Do you see the connection here? You are made unclean because of sin.

Sin is that which pollutes and corrupts everything. And the most graphic example of our sin, the most demonstrable reality of our sin is death.

And so if you were in a field and you touched something dead basically the way to say it is anything, all of the tokens of death, anything associated with death, the presence of death, the corpse of a person, a bone from somebody who had died, all of these things would render you unclean because sin brings uncleanness.

That was the parallel, that's the point. Now there are other things that would make you unclean as well that are not mentioned in Numbers chapter 19.

There was uncleanness associated with the birth of children. The woman would be unclean for a number of days. Certain times of the month, the woman sat on things, those things were unclean.

Or if she laid down on a bed, that bed was unclean. Or if she touched something during her time, she was unclean.

Basically there are a lot of ways that a woman can make you unclean. That's the gist of that. That might be the main takeaway for today's sermon.

Actually it might be the main point of the passage here. Did I go too far with that one? There were diseases that would make you unclean.

Being exposed to certain diseases, being around a leper, touching things that a leper had touched. Somebody who had a discharge in their skin or an open wound, touching that could make you unclean.

While working, you could step on a grave or a bone, as I said, and become unclean. Or come in contact with someone else who was unclean because somebody who had been made unclean by touching one of these things could make you unclean by touching you.

And in fact, you could be made unclean without even knowing it. If somebody touched you, they might make you unclean because they themselves were unclean and you might not even know that they had made you unclean.

You could be made unclean without even being aware of it. Now again, we don't think this way, right?

When you walk in here today, you shake hands with people and your last concern is whether they're ceremonially clean or unclean. You're not concerned about that.

Why? Because we understand that our cleansing from sin and our cleanness or uncleanness does not depend upon what we touch or where we go or what we do.

But back then it did. You could actually become ceremonially unclean by doing something good like burying a body.

It wasn't sinful to bury a body, was it? And if somebody died in a tent or in a home, what did you have to do?

You have to remove the body. And the Jews would prepare the bodies for burial and then they would bury the bodies.

So there the act of doing something gracious and good and noble would actually render you unclean for doing it.

Those who disposed of the body of Jesus would have been made ceremonially unclean by touching the corpse of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And what they did was noble and good and loving and devout and honorable and yet they would be made ceremonially unclean even in the midst of doing that good work.

They could be made unclean by it. And uncleanness could be communicated to others. Numbers 19, 22, furthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.

If I'm unclean, I can touch the pulpit and it becomes unclean and if you touch the pulpit, you become unclean. That's almost maddening, isn't it?

It would just drive you nuts if that's all you had to think about. But woven into the fabric of everything was this reminder.

Sin pervades everything. Sin touches everything. Sin affects everything.

It's all unclean. We are all unclean. Everything we do, everything we touch, everywhere we go, everything we think, every act of service is unclean.

And it was always a reminder of that one thing, that being made clean ceremonially by the sprinkling of the ashes in the water, this was a temporary thing because immediately

I could come in contact with somebody else who would make me unclean or I could do something even without knowing it that would make me unclean.

It seems as if no matter what you did and no matter where you went, you could be made ceremonially unclean and you would be fearful of that.

You would be thinking of that and yes, you would and that was the point. Spurgeon said this. The rules were very minute and all pervading so that a man could scarcely move abroad or even remain within his own tent without incurring uncleanness in one way or another and becoming unfit to enter the courts of the

Lord or to be an accepted member of the congregation. He could be made unclean without even realizing and so it is with us and our sin.

See, that's the parallel to being made unclean. You can be made unclean without even knowing about it. Are you aware or conscious of every single sin you have committed today?

I promise you, you're not. I promise you, you're not but your conscience doesn't condemn you and you can stand here before the

Lord and sing with a full heart of adoration and praise even though I'm certain that you have committed sins that you're not even aware that you committed them.

You didn't think the right thing. You didn't do the right thing. You didn't sacrifice enough. You didn't pray fervently enough before you came here.

There's some inadequacy, sin of commission or omission of which all of us are guilty before we even come here on the

Lord's day and yet we're not even aware of it. We don't even know it and yet it would make us unclean if it were not for Christ.

It would make us unclean and the only reason that we don't feel that uncleanliness is because our conscience is seared.

Our conscience is not sensitive enough. We are dumb to our defilements, dumb to them.

Just don't realize how polluted and sinful we are and all the ways that we are polluted and sinful or you could be made unclean from somebody else.

It's like leaven in a lump of dough. It can make you unclean and it can make you unclean quickly.

We can be made unclean in this way. I should say this. Sin has a way of affecting other people around us.

Our sin has a way of affecting other people around us in the same way that one person could make another person unclean. If you ever have a conversation with somebody and you walk away thinking, eh, that wasn't quite right and there's just something about that that was wrong and you almost felt like the person that you talked to,

I'm not talking about your brothers and sisters in Christ, but the person that you talked to kind of defiled you by what they said and did. They affect you by what they do.

That's the effect that sin has. Just one person can come in the presence of somebody else and make them feel dirty just by being there.

Sin has that effect upon us. It can be made unclean or sin can affect us, one person to another.

Righteous Lot was vexed or oppressed by the conduct of the unprincipled men around him in Sodom and Gomorrah. What he saw going on around him vexed him.

It oppressed Lot in that city. We can be unclean even in our good works. Even in our good works, they are tainted and touched with sin.

I am aware, and I'll use myself as an example, I am aware every time that I step into this pulpit to preach that not all of my motives are pure.

I'm aware of that. I stand up here, I don't want to look like an idiot. In fact, that's one of my prayers on a

Sunday morning. Lord, don't let me look like an idiot. I don't want to look like an idiot. I don't want to stand before you and say something stupid, something that we remember for generations to come.

I got up here, not up here, it was over in the school one Sunday, and I was talking about Paul being bitten by a viper.

How many of you remember this, right? What did I, yes, a few, raise your hands. Everybody, everybody remembers it because I said Paul was bitten by a sniper.

I started with snake, I tried to transition to viper, and it came out sniper, and everybody remembers that who was there for that sermon, right?

So it will haunt me for the rest of my life. It will be engraved on my tombstone. He said one time from the pulpit that Paul got bitten by a sniper, bitten by a sniper.

So I stand up here, I don't want to look like an idiot. I don't want to sound like a fool. I don't want to look like somebody who's not prepared or say something that is wrong or misrepresent the

Lord or misrepresent the truth or fumble over my words and have my kids tease me about it over dinner later on today.

I don't want to do any of that. That's an impure motive. That's not a right motive, and it's present within me. I know that it's present within me.

Listen, it's not the only motive. It's not even the biggest motive that I have. All the other motives that I have that are pure and honorable, they're more pressing motives than that motive.

But I cannot escape the fact that not every motive that I have here on a Sunday morning is pure. I can't get away from that.

You know why? Because I can't run from the clothes that I'm wearing. My impure motives are part of me, and I can't escape that.

And I don't know any preacher who can say that they can step into the pulpit with absolutely pure motives every single time. But the best thing that I can say about myself in preaching or teaching is that I hate the impure motives that are there inside me.

I hate that. But everything that we do and everything that you and I do is polluted by sin because it comes from us.

Do you see why it is that we can never be saved by our good works? Because no matter what we could do for the Lord, what would it be tainted with?

It would be unclean. Why? Because we have touched it. Cleanness and uncleanness, that ceremonial thing in the

Old Testament, that's what it demonstrated. Sin is everywhere. Sin has affected everything. And even the best things that we offer to the

Lord in and of ourselves, they are polluted because they come from us. It's always unclean.

We are always unclean. That was the point of the ceremonial uncleanness laws. It was a symbol of the defiling effects of sin, and it reminded them that they always needed to be cleansed by God before they could come to God.

So God provided an ordinance, the red heifer, to cleanse them from their ceremonial defilements, their uncleanness.

And the red heifer was a blameless one. It had to be without default. It had to be without any kind of defect in it.

And so the blameless thing was sacrificed to bring purification to another people.

Now as I describe this, I want you to notice the similarities or the symbolism. The blameless one was sacrificed in order to bring purification to those who were under blame.

It was killed outside the camp, which was an image of being cut off or excluded from the children of Israel.

By the way, Jesus was taken outside the city, and he was crucified outside the city. He went outside the camp, and that's where he bore our sin.

The sacrifice was consumed in fire, which was an imagery or a symbol of judgment. And then the ashes of that sacrifice were mixed with water, which was an image of cleansing in both the

Old and the New Testament. And then that water was applied by one who was clean to those who needed ceremonial cleansing.

And I would just remind you that all of the people offered in making the sacrifice and providing for the cleanliness of others, or the cleanness of others, all of those people were made unclean by the sacrifice that they offered.

The priest was made unclean until evening. The person who burned the animal was made unclean. The person who gathered the ashes, he was made unclean.

And he was doing a noble thing, something that God commanded. And yet even in the midst of that, he was made unclean by participating in that sacrifice.

So can you see the symbolism? We are the unclean ones. Sin has rendered us defiled in the presence of God so that everything that we touch and everything that we do is tainted in some way by our pollution and our sinfulness so that there is nothing that we can do that can commend us to God.

There is no sacrifice that we can make. There is no work that we can do. There is no good deed which we can perform.

There is no amount of penance. There is no amount of effort. There is no amount of merit. If it comes from us, it is always tainted by sin.

It is always impure. It can never be acceptable to God. We needed to be cleansed by somebody else who was taken outside of the camp for us and who offered a sacrifice for us.

And by that, our uncleanness was transferred to him so that we can receive his righteousness so that when we are washed by the ashes of a heifer, as it were, symbolically, that that sacrifice does something that the actual red heifer could never do.

It cleanses the conscience. The sacrifice of Christ does something that the heifer could never do.

All of it was external. All of it was external. You might say, why is it that it was a red heifer and ashes?

Why that? Is there something magical about red heifers? Is there something magical about the ashes of a red heifer?

Why a red heifer and not a red llama? Why not a black steer? Why not a white sheep?

Why not a pure, undefiled goat? Why a heifer and why a red heifer? Do you know the answer to that question?

And neither do I. I don't, there's nothing magical about it. You know why that brings purification?

Because God said, the one who does this, he shall be pure in my sight. That whole thing was designed for this one purpose, to remind us everything we touch is sinful.

We need cleansing. God provided cleansing. You may not understand how it works, but the pious

Jew could go and he could get sprinkled, become ceremonially clean, and then he could approach

God. And if as he was walking up to the temple, if you asked him, how is it that you, being unclean yesterday, can now approach the presence of God?

That Jew could not say, well, there's some magic in the red heifer. There's some magic in the water. It contains some properties that make me pure in the sight of God.

None of that would be a satisfactory answer. The only satisfactory answer would be, God has provided this for my cleansing, and I have applied it, and therefore

I am clean in his sight. That's it. That's why the red heifer. Now, all of it was external.

None of it was internal. The sanctifying for the cleansing of the flesh, the verse says in verse 13, it sprinkles those who have been defiled, it sanctifies for the cleansing of the flesh.

This was applied externally, and all it did was remove ceremonial external defilement.

It didn't do anything to cleanse the heart. It didn't do anything to sanctify the believer. It didn't do anything to grow them in holiness or to make them pure.

It didn't accomplish any of those things. It didn't remove sin, and it didn't cleanse the conscience at all. All it did was provide for ceremonial cleanliness in the sight of God, and it removed the defilement and made one physically, outwardly pure, as it were, so that they could approach

God. That is all that that provided. The defilements were all external, the ceremonial defilements.

Remember, it was what you touched. It was what you sat on. It was where you went. It was the thing that you did. You were defiled.

All the ways that you were defiled were external, and so the cleansing that was provided was external. They sprinkled on you the water with hyssop.

They sprinkled on you the water that was mixed with the ashes, and that brought the cleansing from it.

So just as the defilement was external, the solution was external, none of these things could affect the heart because they weren't internal, and so this would raise for the

Jew a question, and it should raise for us a question, and it is this. What about, then, the inner man? How is the inner man cleansed?

I touch something that's unclean, and I'm rendered clean from my defilement by simply being sprinkled with water, but nothing has happened to my heart.

Nothing has happened to my conscience. Nothing has taken away my sin in any of that. So what, then, about the inner man?

What about the conscience? What about the guilt that still rests upon me for my defilement?

What about that? What about the guilt of my sin? What about the wrath of God for my sin? What makes the guilty clean?

What makes the sinner pure? What actually deals with the sin? That is what our passage here deals with in verse 13 and 14.

The blood of Christ accomplishes all of these things. You'll notice that the two things that are mentioned, the ashes of a heifer in verse 13, the ashes of the heifer and the blood of goats and bulls, that these two things were two sacrifices.

One of them was a reminder of your sins yearly, in the case of the atonement, daily, in the case of the morning and evening sacrifices.

The blood was a reminder of your sins, and the ashes of a heifer was a reminder of the defiling prevalence of sin in everyday life.

One of those sacrifices reminded me, yes, my sin needs a blood atonement, but these animals can't provide it.

And how come the animals can't provide it? How do I know that? Because we'll be back here next year doing the same thing, or tomorrow doing the same thing.

Those sacrifices could not take away sin. They covered over sin. They satisfied the wrath of God so that he would be appeased until the sacrifice came that would take sin entirely out of the way.

That is what Christ has done. You see, our need is not for external purification. Our need is not for water and being sprinkled with water, for the sanctifying of the flesh.

We have a far deeper need because we are not just ceremonially defiled, are we? We are defiled in the inner man.

In the deepest, darkest recesses of our being, there is sin, and it never escapes us.

As I said earlier, we cannot run from the clothes that we are wearing. It's always with us everywhere we go.

Sin is there. We bring it to the party, as it were. We sleep with the enemy, we live with the enemy, we commute with the enemy, we are the enemy.

We're living with the enemy every day. The enemy is within, and it is us. And all of this reminds us that we are the enemy because sin is there, and sin dwells with us, and it is present with us in every recess of our being so that my will is sinful, my motives are sinful, my intentions are sinful, my thoughts are sinful, my desires are sinful.

All of those things are sinful. Every aspect of our being, the way that we think, our logic, our reason, our rationality, our intellect, our emotions, all of them are affected by sin.

If sin were the color blue, every fiber of my being would be some shade of blue. Sin has affected everything we do and everything we touch.

It is absolutely pervasive, and this sacrifice and this ceremony was intended to remind us of that. In fact, it was intended to remind the

Jews every single day of that fact so that they would end up coming to God for that cleansing.

Our defilement is not external, and our defilement is not ceremonial. Our defilement goes much deeper than that because our conscience is defiled.

You see, we've sinned, and we know we've sinned, grievously so. We've sinned, and we deal with the weight of that.

We know that if God were to punish even one of our lies, it would be more than we could bear, and yet we have lied countless times, and we've stolen things, and we've lusted in our heart, and we've hated in our heart, and we've blasphemed

God's name, and we haven't honored our parents, and we've coveted things that don't belong to us, and we've worshiped other gods, and we are idolaters at hearts, at our heart.

So all of those things defile us. It's not external. It goes to the very core and the center of our being.

Our conscience is defiled, and until sin is dealt with, and until sin is taken away, we deal with that guilt, and we need cleansing from that guilt, and there is something that can bring cleansing for that guilt, and it is the work and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Because when you trust Christ, he pronounces you forgiven and not guilty.

That pronouncement, that justification, that declaration from God, that cleanses your conscience so that you and I can stand before God and know that if I were to die today, even though sin inhabits my being and pervades everything

I do, if I were to die today before the bar of God's justice, I'm not just declared forgiven,

I'm righteous. Forgiven and righteous and not guilty. That is the eternal decree, the eternal judgment that rests over every person who is in Jesus Christ.

Not guilty. And what we need to do if we struggle with a guilty conscience is to grasp that truth of our justification and rest in it, and to know

I have trusted Christ. He has borne all of my sin. Before the bar of God's justice,

I am not guilty. I am righteous. He has decreed it so. How can I stand in the presence of God and know that God accepts me?

Not because there's anything magical in anything that we do. Just as there is nothing magical in the ashes of a heifer or the water that sprinkles the flesh.

There's nothing magical in that. How could a Jew know that he was pure before God if he had had that ceremony done to him for his purification?

He could rest on this one fact. God has decreed that I am pure because I have done this. In the same way, you and I can trust fully in the righteousness of Christ and know that if we stand before God, that we are clean, we are not guilty, we are forgiven, we are righteous.

Not because we have done anything magical, but because God has declared it so. And if God has declared it so, your conscience is clean.

You may not feel it, but if you don't feel it, you need to bring your feelings into alignment with truth.

Your conscience is clean because God has said, if you are in Christ, you are not guilty. And therefore, there is nothing but imaginary things that should plague your guilty conscience, your conscience.

Your conscience has been made pure, and listen, only the blood of Christ can do that. So if you're not in Jesus Christ and you're here today,

I beg of you, come to the one source for cleansing. It's not water, it's not ashes, it's not the blood of bulls and goats, it is the blood of Christ and Christ alone.

He will forgive your sin, he will make you righteous, he will cleanse your conscience. He will do what all of the pictures and the types and the shadows of the

Old Testament could never do. He will do what the blood of a million bulls and goats could never do.

That is his promise. Come to him in repentant faith, believing upon him, and he will declare you righteous and forgiven.

Christian, here's what you and I should walk away with. We should remember that without Jesus Christ, we are unclean in everything we do and everything we touch.

But we can praise God that we don't have to deal with the uncleanness because he has made us accepted in the beloved.

And because we are in Christ, we are clean. And we can approach God with a conscience sprinkled with pure water, with that cleansing effect, knowing that we can stand before God forgiven and righteous because of what

Christ has done, and we praise him for it. Rejoice in it. Let's bow our heads.

Father, we thank you for your precious mercy and your goodness and grace which you have showered upon those who believe. We thank you for the cleansing that is available in Jesus Christ and for that full forgiveness of sin and unblemished and imperishable righteousness that is credited to the account of all who believe in your son and trust in him.

And it is our prayer that if there are any here today who have never trusted Christ for salvation, that you would draw them near to Christ and show them that there is cleansing in him and through his blood and that sacrifice and make them to know the reality of it.

For those of us who struggle with guilty consciences here, we pray that you would make us and give us grace to conform our thinking and our conscience to the truth revealed in scripture, that we are made clean because of what

Christ has done, and therefore we are not guilty. Help us to trust in that and to rest in it. You may be glorified through our obedience and the joy and adoration of our hearts toward you, our great

God and savior. We ask this in Christ's name, amen. Please stand.

There is a redeemer,

Jesus, God's own son, Precious lamb of God, Messiah, Jesus, my redeemer,

Name above all else,

Lamb of God, Messiah, hope for sinners slain.

Fame us, your

Son, our

Spirit, till the work on earth is done.

When I stand in glory,

I will see his face,

There I'll serve my King forever in that home.

Fame us, your Son, our Spirit, till the work on earth is done.

Thank you, O my Father, for giving us your

Son, And leaving your

Spirit till the work on earth is done.