The Blood of the Covenant, Part 1 (Hebrews 9:18–22)

And now in your copy of God's Word, will you please open to Hebrews chapter nine. Hebrews chapter nine, we're gonna begin reading at verse nine, sorry, verse 11, and we're gonna read through the end of verse 22.

Hebrews nine, beginning at 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? For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

For where a covenant is, there must, of necessity, be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never enforced while the one who made it lives.

Therefore, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to 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 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, we are so grateful for your word. This book lives, it is the living word of God, and we pray that you would make it to live to us, that we may perceive its power because it changes our lives, that we may understand the truth of Scripture, that we may see your redemptive plan and purposes unfold in the pages of Scripture, and we pray that you would help us to obey what we see written here.

We thank you that we are not saved by our obedience, but we are saved and redeemed unto obedience.

And help us to see that and understand that today and give us understanding here in some difficult passages of Scripture as we look at them this morning.

For the glory of Christ our Lord we ask, and in his name, amen. Well, when we observe communion together, which we're not doing this morning, obviously, there's no elements here before us.

We'll do that next week. But when we observe the ordinance of communion together, we reflect upon the words of the

Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 25, when he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink in remembrance of me. Now, Paul wrote that, but it's not he that said that. He was quoting the words of the

Lord Jesus from either Matthew chapter 26 or Mark chapter 14. But it was on that occasion of the

Lord's last supper, his last meal with his disciples, when Jesus said, after he took the cup of the

Passover meal, and said, for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

You see that in Matthew 26, 28, also in Mark chapter 14, verse 24. And that phrase, the blood of the covenant, is something that we associate with the blessings and benefits and provisions of the new covenant.

We look back upon the initiation of that new covenant, and we associate the blood of Christ and what he shed and did on our behalf, what we would call the doing and dying of the

Lord Jesus Christ. We associate that with our forgiveness, the atonement of sins, for our sins, the full and complete payment, and all, actually, all of the physical blessings that have been bestowed upon us and granted to us under the new covenant.

And we understand that we are participants of that new covenant, even though the covenant was made with the nation of Israel.

God still intends and will carry out his promises and his purposes for the Jewish nation.

But we have been brought in, incorporated, or grafted in, as it were, into those covenant and redeeming promises, and now we enjoy salvation.

So when we observe the Lord's Supper, we are not thinking in terms of Old Testament sacrifices or priesthoods or tabernacles or animals or anything like that.

We're thinking in terms of a new covenant and the blood that was shed to initiate or inaugurate that brand new covenant.

Now last week, we looked at how the Old Testament saints looked forward to a sacrifice that was to come which would pay for their sins and to redeem them from their transgressions that they committed while under the first covenant.

They looked forward to that. As New Testament saints, on the other side of that event, we look backward to that event, but we are both looking at the same event.

So that Old Testament saints and New Testament saints, we are all saved, as it were, by the same sacrifice.

It is that one blood which was shed, even to redeem those who were under the old covenant from their transgressions, that one blood also initiated the new covenant and saves us as we look to the merits of that same sacrifice that they looked to.

But those Old Testament Jews, looking forward to that, and understanding the promises of the new covenant that was to come, there is something that they would not have necessarily understood as clearly as we do.

And that is that under the new covenant, or sorry, that at the beginning of the new covenant, there would be blood that would be shed to inaugurate the new covenant.

Now that is something that we, looking back, we have the advantage of hindsight, as it were. We can look back and see new covenant,

Jesus' promise of the new covenant, he shed his blood, he died on a cross, he indicated that that new covenant drink that we observe in the

Lord's Supper was a symbol of a sacrifice that would atone for sin, that would inaugurate that new covenant, and that that new covenant would be inaugurated by the blood of Christ.

That we understand, looking back at that, through the advantage of hindsight, as well as the revelation of the

New Testament. But from the perspective of an Old Testament Jew looking forward, that's not something that they necessarily would have understood as clearly as we do.

It's not to say that the death of the Messiah and the blood that he shed and the sacrifice that he gave was not mentioned in the

Old Testament, but it is to say that their understanding of how that would tie in with the New Testament was not exactly as clear as it is for us.

For instance, we went back, when we were studying the new covenant in Hebrews chapter eight, we went back to Jeremiah chapter 31, and we looked at the promises of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31.

And as you read through Jeremiah 31 and God's promises to the nation of Israel to make with them a new covenant, you will notice that there is no mention of a sacrifice and there is no mention of blood in the context of Jeremiah 31.

And when we look at the places where the blessings of the new covenant are mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, like Ezekiel chapter 36, where there is the pouring out of the

Holy Spirit and the blessings of the land and the blessings of forgiveness and security from the enemies and all of that that is tied in with the new covenant, there's no mention of a sacrifice or blood.

And again, it's not to say that the death of the Messiah was not foretold in the Old Testament, it was. It was graphically described in Psalm 22.

And it's atoning and substitutionary aspects were described in Isaiah chapter 53. His death is all over the

Old Testament, not even to mention in all of the symbols and the prophetic sort of anticipatory functions of the old covenant that looked forward to that death, that sacrifice.

And it's possible that some Jews might have been able to put the pieces together. Some Jews might have been able to say, old covenant required animal sacrifices and the blood of a sacrifice.

There is the promise of a new covenant, that would be sort of another puzzle piece. And then there are these references to the

Messiah who would die in our stead, who has shed his blood, who would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, who would give his life as a ransom, who would be buried with a rich man in a rich man's tomb.

There are these references to the death of the Messiah and these references to the new covenant and the understanding that covenants were initiated with blood.

And some Old Testament Jews might have been able to put all those puzzle pieces together and conclude that the

New Testament would also involve an inauguration by blood. They might have been able to put all that together, but it wasn't explicit.

Now the author of Hebrews makes it explicit that that old covenant was initiated or inaugurated with blood and so would be the new covenant.

And that brings us to our passage this morning here in Hebrews chapter nine. Hebrews makes this connection as the author is comparing and contrasting the old covenant with the new covenant.

He draws a number of distinctions, ways in which they're very dissimilar, very opposite in many ways.

And then there are other elements of these two covenants which are very similar. And the similarity rests upon the factors due to the fact that one is a fulfillment of the other.

One looks forward to the other. The old covenant looked forward, anticipated a fulfillment in a greater way and to a greater degree in the new covenant.

So there's gotta be certain elements between these two covenants which are very similar. There's a continuity between the two in the sense that one is a symbol of the other and one fulfills the one that came before it.

Just as if I say, if you say, let me back up for a second. There always has to be some sort of similarity between a symbol and what the symbol represents.

If I say this pulpit, this pulpit is a symbol of wind. Now immediately in your mind you're thinking in what ways is a pulpit similar to wind?

There has to be some corollary, some similarity here, some point of contact in which the pulpit is similar to wind.

Can you think of any? Other than that I put out a bunch of wind when I'm standing in the pulpit? I'll say that because some of you are thinking it, so that's okay.

But when it just, I mean, pull me out of the pulpit, that piece of wood is a symbol of wind. Are there any similarities? Is it a good symbol?

No, but when we say the old covenant was a symbol of something that was to come in the new, then we ought to be able to find all of these similarities between the two covenants.

And we see a lot of them. Both of them involved a tabernacle. The old covenant, an earthly tabernacle made with hands.

The new covenant, a heavenly tabernacle into which Christ has gone and entered and pleads the merits of his sacrifice for his people.

There's also a high priest with both covenants, there's sacrifice in both covenants. In the old covenant was animal sacrifice, in the new covenant is

Jesus' sacrifice. There's a priesthood in each of those covenants, there's intercession involved in each one of those covenants.

So there are these similarities. Well there's another similarity between the old covenant and the new covenant, and that is that both of these covenants were inaugurated with blood.

And this is the author's point in verse 18 when he says in chapter nine, verse 18, therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood.

Now, here's our outline for this morning. We're gonna break verses nine, sorry, verse 18 through 22, we're gonna break this into two messages, part one today, part two next week.

And the reason for this is I want you to see all of this as one whole, there's one argument that the author is making in verses 18 through 22.

And the argument really is summed up in verse 22. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

That's his main point. And so if the new covenant involves forgiveness and the total absolution of sin for those who are in that covenant and for those who have trusted in the sacrifice of that covenant, if there's forgiveness there, it can only be because blood has been shed.

So without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. That's the point of the whole argument. But we need to look at two things, that is, number one, how blood inaugurated the old covenant, the centrality of blood to the old covenant, and then the centrality of blood to the new covenant.

So that's what we're looking at today. We're looking at the first of those, the centrality of blood to the old covenant, and then next week we'll turn around and consider these verses again from the perspective of the centrality of blood to the new covenant.

It shouldn't have come as no surprise that the new covenant would require a sacrifice since the old covenant required a sacrifice.

That's what the author is saying. Now, he's already mentioned a death here, verse 15, since the death has taken place, for the redemption of the transgressions committed under the old covenant, under the first covenant, there is this death that has taken place, the death which has secured our eternal inheritance, so all the blessings and the promises of our eternal inheritance have been given to us because the one who promised them has died in our stead, thus initiating that new covenant which pours all of those blessings into our lap and grants them to us as ours.

We are secure in those blessings, those blessings are secured on our behalf. All of that because of the death of Christ.

So it should come as no surprise to a Jew whom I otherwise object to the idea that their Messiah would die, that if the

Messiah was to initiate the new covenant, that just like the old covenant, that new covenant would require an inauguration with blood.

That's the point, it should come as no surprise that the Messiah would have to die since not even the old covenant was inaugurated without blood.

So let's look first here at the necessity of blood with the old covenant. You'll see verse 18, he begins with therefore, which is a conclusion word that tells us that he is drawing upon what has come before, namely the mention of a death and the mention of a will or an inheritance that is in verses 16 and 17.

Therefore it was necessary for the new covenant is the idea of verse 18, it was necessary for the new covenant that it also be inaugurated with blood since the old covenant was also inaugurated with blood.

Since that first covenant involved the shedding of blood at the initiation of it, it should come as no surprise that the new covenant would require the shedding of blood at the initiation of it.

The difference, of course, is that the old covenant was the blood of animals and the new covenant is the blood of our Savior. And he, look at verse 19,

I wanna read verses 19 through 21 with you and I want you to notice, he is referencing here the covenant ceremony that is mentioned in Exodus 24.

Read beginning with me at verse 19. 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 which

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

So that in verse 22, according to the law, one may almost say that all things are cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.

Now if the new covenant is forgiveness, then it has to have a blood element. As much as we might not like to talk about it, as much as it might disgust us, as much as it might make us uncomfortable talking about blood, some of you don't even like the sight of blood or even me talking about blood, as uncomfortable as it might be, it is necessary for the forgiveness of sins.

For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins, since one may almost say that all things are cleansed with blood.

Now that sealing covenant of the first, that sealing ceremony of the first covenant that the author alludes to here, something that would have been familiar to every

Jew. They would have been as familiar with what he is describing here, as you and I are as familiar with a wedding ceremony or a funeral ceremony in our own day.

It was something that was near to the heart of every Orthodox and pious Jew. They would have looked back upon that ceremony as when

God made the covenant with the nation of Israel. And so they would have been very familiar with it. And he is really, in verses 19 through 21, summarizing the aspects of the cutting of that old covenant.

He is just simply describing in the briefest terms to remind them, remember what Moses did at the mountain with the animals and the blood and the sprinkling of the people?

That's what he's talking about. That old covenant and the initiation of that sacrifice. Now as we've gone through the book of Hebrews, we have managed to keep one of our feet in the

Old Testament and one of our feet in the New Testament. One of our, yeah, that's right. I got a plural, singular, okay.

A foot in each testament. We had a foot in the Old Testament and a foot in the New Testament. And we've tried to balance those.

And any time that we have seen in our New Testament study in the book of Hebrews, that the author alludes to or cites back to something that is essential for our understanding of the passage in the

New Testament, what do we do? We go back into the Old Testament. So that's what we're gonna do today.

Turn in your Bibles back to Exodus chapter 19. Exodus chapter 19.

We're gonna see today what it is that the author of Hebrews is alluding to and describing here with this ceremony.

Exodus 19. I always love our little excursions back into the Old Testament. For me, they're fun. I'm not necessarily thinking that they're fun for everyone, but not everyone's in the pulpit today.

I am, so we're going back into the Old Testament. Exodus chapter 19. The opening chapters.

I'm just gonna set the context for you here a little bit. The opening chapters of Exodus are probably familiar to you. The book of Genesis ends with Joseph and the nation of Israel, all the descendants of Abraham in Egypt.

They've been provided for and cared for by Pharaoh and by Joseph there. Eventually, Abraham, sorry,

Jacob dies and his 12 sons are aged. Eventually, Joseph dies and they keep his bones there in Egypt.

And then the book of Exodus begins with those same Israelites several hundred years later in captivity to the nation of Egypt and they are slaves there.

And some of what I'm gonna be describing here is familiar to you if you've read Exodus or watched the Ten Commandments with Charlton Esten. It's kind of the same story.

The Lord calls Moses to deliver them in Exodus chapter three and while they were in bondage to Egypt, they were slaves there, but they were still

God's people and God had still promised to Abraham and remembered his promise to Abraham that he was gonna bring those people, his people, into that land that he had promised them.

And the time came for God to fulfill that and to bring them into that land. So God called Moses to lead them out of the nation of Egypt and that, of course, accompanied the 10 plagues that fell upon Egypt and destroyed it, the parting of the

Red Sea, the destruction of Pharaoh's army and they come through all of that in chapter 14. Then there is, I think it's in chapter 14 or chapter 15.

Well, I can tell you real quick. It's chapter 15 is Moses' song of deliverance and chapter 16 is they observe the

Sabbath and chapter 15, the Lord provides manna for them and he is sustaining his people. He's brought them out with a strong arm.

That kind of all sets up the context there. The water from the rock, remember they grumbled about being thirsty and the Lord provided water for them out of the rock.

So all of that is the opening chapters of Exodus. God's miraculous and magnificent deliverance of the people out into the

Sinai Peninsula. Now, eventually the Lord brings them all up to the mountain at Sinai. That brings us to chapter 19.

So Exodus chapter 19, I wanna read together. Gonna do this, sorry.

Begin reading at chapter 19, verse one. In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai.

When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness and there Israel camped in front of the mountain.

So now they had been brought there, notice that it is three months since they had come out of the land of Egypt. It's only three months into their wilderness sojourning.

During that time, God has been providing for them manna, he has been providing for them the water when they needed it and now

God brings them to the Mount of Sinai where you remember that's where he gives them the Ten Commandments. We're gonna cover that in just a second. That's in the next chapter.

But when he brings them to the Mount at Sinai, three months after their miraculous deliverance, the

Lord is going to reveal his purpose for the people. Verse three, Moses went up to God and the

Lord called to him from the mountain saying, thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel, you yourselves have seen what

I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my possession, my own possession, among all the peoples for all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel. Now there you get some insight into why it is that the

Lord brought them out of Egypt. He brought them out of Egypt, brings them to the mountain and says to them, I'm gonna make with you a covenant.

You are going to be my people. You're gonna be my nation. You are my people. I'm gonna bring you into this land that I have promised you and I'm gonna enter into a special relationship with you as my nation.

That was his purpose. He brought them out to himself and his purpose for doing that, his reason for doing that was to make a covenant with them as a nation.

This is the old covenant. This is the first covenant, the Mosaic covenant that we're talking about and this would involve special privileges.

They would be his people. They alone out of all the nations of the earth would belong to him. So they alone out of all the nations of the earth were intended and designed and purposed to be a vessel of honor and glory for the

Lord to display his name to all of the nations. It was a missionary endeavor and God later on in the book of Deuteronomy would say to them,

I'm not choosing you because you're mightier or better or smarter or more beautiful or more wise or in any way superior to any of the nations, the rest of the nations on the face of the earth.

In fact, you were the smallest and the most insignificant of all the nations. In fact, they weren't even a nation when

God called Abraham, not even a nation at all. So therefore God's choosing purposes were by nothing but grace.

And so Moses then says to the Lord, the Lord speaks to Moses and Moses is giving this message to give to the people and I want you to notice something here.

Moses is gonna be acting as a mediator. God does not come directly to the people. There's a mediator between the people and the

Lord and that mediator is Moses. Remember, we have a mediator in the new covenant, don't we? New covenant, our mediator is the

Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the old covenant also has a mediator. Moses is acting as a go -between between the people and between the

Lord. Between the Lord and the people whom he has chosen and brought out for this covenant, Moses is the one who is standing between them.

So now look at verse 10. No, sorry, we skipped for some there. Verse seven.

So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, all that the

Lord has spoken we will do. Yeah. I'm not sure that that's gonna work out quite like they planned it.

Everything that the Lord has spoken, you will obey me, you will keep my covenant, I will bless you, you'll be my people,

I will give you the land, I brought you out for this purpose, I'm gonna give you the law, I'm gonna give you my commandments and you must obey them.

And all of the people say, we got it, chief. We can handle this. All that the

Lord has spoken we will do. We will leave none of his words undone. We will obey the Lord in all of it.

We'll see how that works out. Beginning in verse nine.

Verse, sorry, middle of verse eight. And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord as if the Lord needed Moses to say, hey, here's what they said.

Verse nine, the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud so that the people may hear when

I speak with you and may also believe in you forever. Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments and let them be ready for the third day for on the third day, the

Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. You shall set bounds for the people all around saying, beware that you do not go up to the mountain or touch the border of it.

Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through.

Whether beast or man, he shall not live. When the ram's horn sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.

Now notice that the people were called or summoned to draw near, but they couldn't come all the way up to the mountain. They were to draw near to the mountain, but they couldn't actually approach

God. We see this all the way through the Old Testament, even in the context of the tabernacle. The people could come near to God in the sense of bringing him a sacrifice and they were commanded to draw near, but they couldn't actually go into the

Holy of Holies or into the tabernacle. They couldn't actually perform the duties or the obligations of a priest and draw close to God, but they were summoned to draw near.

So verse 14, so Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people and they washed their garments.

He said to the people, be ready for the third day. Do not go near a woman. Now that needs a comment, which

I will do in another day because that's really not the point today. So verse 16, so it came about on the third day when it was morning that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound so that all the people who were in the camp trembled and Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet

God and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Then verse 18 through the rest of that chapter describes the thunder and the lightning and the sight of that and how the people were in dread of that.

So the people who approached God with a mediator, they have sworn and said, all the Lord has commanded us, we will do. Now, starting in chapter 20, the

Lord starts to give them the commands. You have the 10 commandments in chapter 20 and we're just gonna fly by the next couple of chapters so you can see how all of this unfolds because we're not even to the part yet that Hebrews mentions.

So chapter 20 includes the 10 commandments. Chapter 21 is a list of ordinances for the people regarding slavery and masters and buying and selling and providing for slaves.

There's ordinances beginning in verse 12 of personal injuries and people who strike a mother or father and what should happen to them.

There are laws, capital punishment laws mentioned in chapter 21. Chapter 22 deals with property rights and a man, how he owns his own field and how that brings certain responsibilities and obligations to his neighbor and to his neighbor's safety.

Then there are various laws mentioned at the end of chapter 22 about marriage and sorceresses and sexual immorality and other gods.

Chapter 23 involves bearing false witness and issues of justice and perverting justice and judges.

Chapter 23, verse 10 mentions the Sabbath and how the land was to enjoy a Sabbath and how they were to enjoy a

Sabbath in the land and what the Sabbath observance should look like. And then verse 14 of chapter 23 gives three national feasts that they were to observe.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the Harvest of the First Fruits and the

Feast of the Ingathering. Three national feasts that everybody was to observe. And then in verse 20, there is a promise of conquest of the land beginning in chapter 23, verse 20.

God promises that he was going to give them the land and that his angel would go before them and conquer the land on their behalf and he was gonna give the land just as he had promised to Abraham.

All of that goes through chapter 23. Now we come to chapter 24. So we have in chapter 20, 21, 22, 23, there are four chapters that give the law.

The moral law and what's known as the 10 commandments. Then there's civil law, there's some ceremonial law mixed in there.

Those four chapters contain these commandments that the people were given while Moses was on Sinai. Then we come to chapter 24 and here is the covenant that God makes with the people.

This is the passage that is cited and in mind by the author of Hebrews. Chapter 24, verse one. Then he said to Moses, come up to the

Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel and you shall worship at a distance.

Moses alone, however, shall come near to the Lord, but they shall not come near nor shall the people come up with them.

So the people were to stay down at the base of the mountain. 70 elders,

Nadab, Abihu and Aaron were to come partway up the mountain. They were to worship there. Moses was to enter into the very presence of the

Lord himself and only Moses. And again, you see that division in the old covenant with the tabernacle, right?

You had priests, people were outside of the tabernacle. The priests were allowed to come into the tabernacle and in the courtyard, but only one man, the high priest, once a year was allowed to come into the

Holy of Holies. There's sort of a threefold division there even in how this covenant is given that symbolizes what was going to be the future reality even surrounding the tabernacle itself.

So in this passage, this is the passage that is mentioned here by the author of Hebrews. Verse three. Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the

Lord and all the ordinances. What words of the Lord and what ordinances? Chapter 20, 21, 22, 23.

That's what he's talking about. These four chapters became what was known as the book of the covenant. These were the foundational laws of the nation of Israel.

Now after this, in the book of Deuteronomy, those would be expanded upon, Leviticus would expand upon these, more laws would be given.

But at the initiation of this covenant, Moses went up, the Lord gave him the 10 commandments and all those other commandments and laws that we kind of described here in those chapters, this was put together into a book.

And when Moses came down, he gave this to the people. Verse 23. And all the people answered, or sorry, chapter 23, verse three.

And all the people answered with one voice and said, all the word which the Lord has spoken, we will do.

Again, they reiterate it. But this time they had the advantage of at least seeing the commands of God, right?

Back in chapter 19, they didn't have that advantage. God said, you're my people, I'm giving you the law,

I'm gonna enter into covenant. People said, whatever the Lord says, all of it, we will do.

Now Moses has gone up and collected all of the commands of God, the 10 commandments, as well as the other laws, he's brought them back, he reads them all in the hearing of the people and what do they say?

They don't deviate from it at all. All that the Lord commands, every last bit of it, we'll do. I'm just as sketchy as I was back in chapter 19 about their ability to fulfill the commands of the law.

But that's what they swear to. And the people give this promise, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

Look at verse four. Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Then he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with 12 pillars of the 12 tribes of Israel.

He sent young men of the sons of Israel and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the

Lord. Moses took half the blood and put it in basins and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and they said, all that the

Lord has spoken, we will do and we will be obedient. So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant which the

Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Now back in Hebrews chapter nine, verse 20, the author of Hebrews quotes chapter 24 verse eight when he says, this is the blood of the covenant which the

Lord commanded you. He's paraphrasing what Moses said there but that's what the author of Hebrews is alluding to. This ceremony where Moses came down with the book of the covenant, they sprinkled the blood on the covenant, the book of the covenant on the altars and then on the people.

Because the people have agreed to keep the terms of this covenant. So God now is inaugurating this first covenant with blood.

And so they sacrificed the animals and you'll notice that there's no mention of the priest sacrificing the animals. This is some young men from the nation of Israel, the institution of the priesthood would come much later.

There were no priestly garments, there was no tabernacle, there was no altar of incense, no ark of the covenant, none of that even existed yet.

This is before all of that. So there is no priesthood. Aaron has not been ordained and he has not been sealed as a priest.

There's no Aaronic priesthood, there's no high priest, none of that. So they take some men from the congregation and they are the ones who sacrifice these animals and they collect the blood in the basins and they use that to sprinkle the altars.

And then it says that they sprinkled all the people verse, yeah, verse eight. So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant which the

Lord has made with you in accordance with these words. All that the Lord has spoken we will do, they said.

Moses said, all right. They sacrificed the animals, collected the blood and then they sprinkled the altar, they sprinkled the book with the law itself and then they sprinkled the people.

He sprinkled the people with blood. The blood of the sacrifice was applied to the people. Now there's a reason for this.

And that is because blood that is not applied to something does not avail for anything. Right, blood could be spilled.

They could have spilled all the blood of those animals but that was not enough to seal the covenant. The blood of those sacrifices had to be applied to the people, that's the symbol there.

If the blood was not applied to the people there was no forgiveness of sins. The people needed to be cleansed by the sprinkling of that blood.

In the same way, somebody can know that the blood of Jesus Christ was shed for sinners and they can know that the blood of Christ was shed to inaugurate the new covenant and they can understand that the blood of Christ itself is able to forgive sins to all who will repent and believe.

They can understand intellectually all of those things but if the merits of Christ's sacrifice and his blood are not applied to your account, it does not avail for anything, you will perish.

The blood of his sacrifice and the merits of it must be applied to you. And if it is not applied to you, you are not in the new covenant and you are not saved and your sins are not forgiven.

It is not enough to simply know that blood was shed, that blood has to be applied to your account.

Otherwise your sins cannot be forgiven and you cannot have any righteousness. Righteousness comes when the merits of his sacrifice are imputed to us, a spiritual sprinkling if you will.

The merits of his sacrifice are imputed to us so that we become righteous and he takes all of our sin.

And if the merits of that sacrifice and that blood are not credited to our account, we are not saved and our sins are not forgiven.

And so just like under the old covenant where the blood of that sacrifice was sprinkled on the people, so it is that the blood of the new covenant,

Christ's blood has to be applied to you. It is applied to you in repentance and faith. On the merits of repentance and faith, when you turn from your sin and believe, the merits of his sacrifice are credited to your account and your sin is imputed to him so that he takes all of your sin and you receive all of his righteousness.

That's the great exchange over which all of scripture is written. Our sin for his righteousness. But if the blood of that sacrifice is not sprinkled on you, you have no part in him.

I promise you that. There's something odd here in verse eight. It says that Moses took the blood and he sprinkled it on the people.

And as I read that and was studying through this, I asked myself a question. How did he do this?

How did he do this? How many people were there? According to most estimates, conservatively speaking, at the

Mount Sinai in the nation of Israel that came out of Egypt, remember this was only three months after the Exodus out of Egypt. Conservatively speaking, there's 1 .5

million people that came out of Egypt. 1 .5 million, because Exodus says there were 600 ,000 males.

I think it would be fair to take that number and double it for females and maybe add a smidgen for children.

That's how you come up with a conservative estimate of 1 .5 million. More realistically, it could have been upwards of three to four or five million

Jews who came out of the nation of Egypt. If they had big families, if they're like the

Hills and the Razors and the Stevens that are there, it could have been 12 million people that came out of Egypt.

So how many people was that? That's a lot of people. Let's just go with the conservative estimate of 1 .5 million, or let's just say 2 million people.

How do you sprinkle all those people with blood? What's going on there? How do you accomplish that?

There are a few answers to it. There's a few ways that I think that the author might be describing, a few things

I think the author might be describing here. And I don't know specifically which of these it is. But it is possible that they did actually sprinkle blood on everyone who came out of Egypt.

That is possible. You have basins of blood. You take it, you distribute it amongst the 70 people. Everybody splits it up a little bit.

They walk around with hyssop and they literally sprinkle everybody who came out of Egypt. It would take a while to accomplish that with 2 million people.

But if everybody sprinkles 10 and you hand it off to 10 more people and they sprinkle 10, it's a multiplier effect. That very well could be done.

It's also possible that, and this is what one commentator suggested, that the altars that they built at the base of the mountain, that they sprinkled the altars and the altars represented the people because there were 12 altars for the 12 tribes of Israel.

So by sprinkling the blood on the altars, that represented sprinkling the blood on the people, that is a possibility. It is also possible that they sprinkled blood on all the people who had gathered there to represent the nation of Israel.

I've said before when we looked at this generation of people that came out of Egypt who grumbled even seeing all the signs of the

Lord that not everybody who came out of Egypt was a believer in Yahweh. Not all of them were believers. And so not all of the people who came out of Egypt would have been even interested to go up near the mountain and have anything to do with whatever, you know, wacky religious ceremony is going all over there by Uncle Bob and his friends.

They wouldn't have been interested in that. So it's possible that at the Sinai, it is the representatives of the people, the 70 elders,

Moses, Nadab, Abihu, Aaron that are mentioned at the beginning of chapter 24. It's possible that they and probably the heads of the families of the tribes of the nation of Israel that they gathered at Sinai.

So it might have been several hundred or a couple of thousand people that were gathered there. True, pious, saved

Yahweh worshipers who understand who Yahweh is and they, representing the nation, are entering into a covenant with Yahweh.

In which case, you're probably talking about thousands of people and not millions of people who were actually gathered at the mountain and there for that.

So any one of those would have been possible. And I just wanted to bring that up in case you're wondering, how is it that they would actually sprinkle two million people?

I don't think it's impossible for them to sprinkle two million people. What does this symbolize, sprinkling all these people and the sprinkling of the people?

Why was that necessary? Because it symbolized cleansing, being set apart, being covered by the blood of the covenant, being included in that sacrifice that was made there and the covenant that is being made.

This, by the way, is the only time in all of the Old Testament where people were sprinkled with blood. Mark that down.

It's the only time in all of the Old Testament where people were sprinkled with blood. In the Old Testament, people were sprinkled with water for cleansing.

It's a symbol of cleansing. There are times when people were anointed with oil in the Old Testament. This is the only time when people were sprinkled with blood.

And Peter alludes to this in 1 Peter 1 in his opening verses when he says that we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the

Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to, listen, obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood.

Obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood. Do you hear what Peter did there? He used the language of Exodus 24.

We will obey all that the Lord has commanded us to do. That was the people's part of the covenant. And then they were sprinkled with the blood of the covenant.

The only time in all of the Old Testament where people were sprinkled with blood at the initiation of this covenant. Peter borrows that imagery.

He borrows that language to describe us as those who are chosen, just like Israel was chosen out of all the families of the earth.

We are the chosen ones. And we have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the

Spirit to do what? To obey him. We will obey all that the Lord has commanded us to obey him and to be sprinkled with the blood of Christ.

Now, you and I have not actually been sprinkled by any physical blood, but as those who have repented of our sins and trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation and been born again, we have been sprinkled symbolically by his blood because his blood of the covenant covers us.

We can't be sprinkled physically by his blood, but the people were covered by the blood of the covenant and we are covered by the blood of the new covenant.

His blood, the blood of the covenant, the blood of the Lamb of God is applied to us by repentance and faith, by our faith at the moment of our salvation, that blood is applied to us.

And we are sprinkled with that, why? So that we might be obedient to all that he has commanded us to do. Isn't that what

Jesus said? Go into all the world and preach the gospel, right? Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the

Son and the Holy Spirit, what? Teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. We're not saved by our obedience, we are saved unto obedience.

Obedience is the purpose, the reason, the goal of us being sprinkled by his blood. It is an anomaly, it is a contradiction in terms to talk about somebody who is disobedient to the blood of the covenant, but covered by the blood of the covenant.

We have been chosen by the sanctifying work of the Spirit so that we may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood.

And our obedience does not merit our sprinkling, our obedience is the fruit of our sprinkling.

So how did this turn out then for the children of Israel? We'll obey all that you've commanded us to do.

All right, they're sprinkled with the blood, the blood of the covenant is initiated. Let's go through a few more chapters. Chapter 25, you'll notice that Moses commands there the people to take up an offering for the building of the tabernacle.

Oh, now here's some stuff that we're familiar with from recent weeks here in chapter nine of the book of Hebrews, chapter eight and nine.

The construction of the tabernacle, verse 10 of chapter 25 is the ark of the covenant. Beginning of verse 23 is the table of showbread.

Verse 31, the golden lampstand. Remember this, we had the pictures up on the wall, this is the stuff now. Moses goes up into the cloud again.

After doing this initiation of the covenant ceremony and the Lord shows him and reveals to him what the tabernacle was to look like and he's given him all of these instructions about how the tabernacle's to be built.

Chapter 26 includes instructions for the curtains of linen, the curtains of goat's hair, beginning of verse seven of chapter 26.

Chapter 26, verse 15, the boards and the sockets and all that fun stuff that you trip over when you start reading through your

Bible once every year. Beginning of verse 31, there's a veil or a screen that we talked about behind which the high priest was to step once a year, was behind that, that the ark of the covenant sat.

Verse chapter 27 is the bronze altar. Chapter 28, chapter 27 verse nine is the court of the tabernacle and what that was to look like.

Chapter 28 is the garment of the high priest and so there's the reference there to the breastplate, to the breast piece and the ephod and how the priest was to dress himself and how those garments were to be sanctified and consecrated.

Verse chapter 29, the consecration of the priest and the sacrifices that were involved in the consecration of Aaron as a high priest and the consecration of his duties and then the food that the priest were to eat, chapter 29 verse 31.

Chapter 30 is the altar of incense, another piece of the tabernacle that we've talked about and looked at in recent weeks and then verse 22 of chapter 30 is the mention of the anointing oil and how that was to be made as well as the incense and how that was to be used and for the lamp stand inside the tabernacle as well as for the altar of incense.

Verse 31, these skilled craftsmen come together and they begin to build the tabernacle which God had commanded them and the sign of the

Sabbath is, or sorry, chapter 31 verse 1 is not this craftsman engaging in the work, it's a description that God would gift those craftsmen and it was craftsmen who were to do this.

Chapter 31 verse 12 is the sign of the covenant and now you come down to chapter 31 verse 18. When he had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, he gave

Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written by the finger of God and there you go. Here's the covenant, you're my people,

I brought you out, I'm gonna make a covenant with you, we'll do it all. We'll obey everything that the Lord has said.

All right, here we go, here's the book of the law, the book of the covenant. Moses goes up, gets that, the 10 commandments and comes back down and the people are, we can do that, we got the book of the law, we can abide by that, we will do all that the

Lord has commanded us to do. So they make the sacrifices and they sprinkle the people with blood and they sprinkle the book of the covenant with blood symbolizing the cleansing of all those people and that law and the anointing of those people for the keeping of that covenant and the covenant is initiated there in the presence of all the people.

Then Moses goes back up and all the instructions are given for the construction of the tabernacle and the priesthood, all of the essential elements of the old covenant now are given.

They're all laid out and given for the people to see, the law has been given, they've agreed to it, God has entered into a covenant with them, the blood has been shed, the blood has been applied to the people and they all lived happily ever after.

Chapter 32, now when the people saw that Moses is delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled around Aaron and said to him, come, make us a

God who will go before us for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we don't even know what's become of him.

It was 40 days, 40 days. Okay, she went to Clark Fork School, that's just over a month, 40 days.

And what did the people do? Make us a God, here's our gold, make us something to worship, a calf,

I don't care what it is, just make us something to worship. Make us the God who brought us up out of the land of Egypt and we will worship him.

They're already 40 days later breaking the terms of the covenant, before Moses even has a chance to get down off of the mountain.

You know how this story goes, right? It's at the end of the Ten Commandments, the movie. You've seen the end, you know how this turns out.

Moses comes down and the people are involved in all of this riotous revelry at the foot of the mountain, violating the very covenant that 40 days earlier they said all that the

Lord has given. All that the Lord has said, we will obey all of it. Now what do we learn from the initiation of the first covenant?

We're running out of time, so let me just summarize two things. Number one, we are far too eager to pledge our obedience and our ability to the

Lord and what he commands, far too eager. I think we far too easily overestimate our own ability to be obedient to him.

We get down on our knees and pledge our obedience. I will never commit this sin again. I will never do this again,

Lord, from here on out. I'm your man, I will do this. I will be yours, I will obey every last thing that you've said that I will do.

And then we get up and as we're dusting the dust off of our knees from kneeling down and confessing all of that to the

Lord, we're already bowing down to the idols of our own hearts. We are far too easy, far too quick to overestimate our own ability to keep all of the terms that God gives to us and obey him in everything.

The second thing I think we can learn from this, this is something we talked about before, that old covenant could not secure or guarantee the fulfillment and the obedience to it.

These people who wanted a golden calf to bow down to, they're the very ones sprinkled with blood. They stood at the base of the mountain, they saw the lightning, they heard the thunder, they observed the smoke, they heard the audible voice of God, they heard the noise of that, and they were terrified, absolutely terrified at the sight of that God.

And the initiation of that covenant, and they were the ones sprinkled with blood, and they are the ones bowing down to a false

God. That old covenant could not guarantee the obedience of anybody.

It didn't provide for obedience, did it? Because the very ones who were sprinkled with blood bowed down to the golden calf.

What we really needed was a new covenant where the law of God is written on our hearts and the

Spirit of God indwells us. And the God who made the covenant fulfills the covenant in us by giving us the power to obey.

They had no power to obey the terms of that covenant even though they pledged it. They pledged that they would.

They swore that they would. They entered into that covenant with God saying we will be obedient. But that old covenant did not change their heart, it could not change their heart.

It didn't make them obedient, it couldn't make them obedient. Really what we needed was somebody else to obey on our behalf.

That's what we needed. We needed somebody else to fulfill all of the demands of God's righteousness, to keep all of God's law in our place so that all of his righteous deeds and his doing, his life, his perfection could be credited to our account.

Because we by nature are covenant breakers. We by nature have no ability to fulfill the terms of the covenant.

What we needed was somebody else to fulfill the terms of the covenant on our behalf and to live a perfect life and then to give us, credit us with that perfect life and then take all of our sin away from us and pay the price for it so that in the presence of God and in the sight of God you and I can be seen not just as forgiven but as if we had actually done all that the

Lord has commanded us to do. That is the righteousness of Christ. It's not just that our sins have been forgiven but in the sight of God he sees us as if we have obeyed every last command that he has given because Christ obeyed in our stead, on our behalf.

The blood of the new covenant covers us. It grants us forgiveness. It grants atonement.

It promises all of the blessings. It draws us near to our God. It secures all of those graces for us and it credits us with the perfect obedience of the son of God who did obey all that God commanded him to do and he did it in our stead.

He did it in our place. Let's bow our heads. Father, we are grateful for the atoning work of the

Lord Jesus Christ who died in our stead and again we are reminded that the demands of your law were too great and too high for us to fulfill, to us to obey and in ourselves we have no obedience to, we have no ability to obey anything that you have commanded to us even though we might think that we have the ability to do so and to please you but by the works of the law and by the keeping of the law, no flesh shall be justified and so we thank you that our forgiveness and our justification comes from another source, from Jesus Christ and him alone, from his doing and dying in our stead.

Thank you for what he has done and we thank you for the salvation that we enjoy because we are under the blood of that new covenant.