WWUTT 1847 The Superiority of the New Covenant (Hebrews 9:11-14)

The Old Covenant Could Sanctify the Flesh but Not the Conscience

The things of the old covenant had the power to sanctify the flesh, but it could not sanctify nor could it purify the conscience. But we are purified in Christ when we understand the text.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in Hebrews chapter 9 and looking at the next 10 verses. So I'm going to start reading in verse 11 and go through verse 20 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. This is the word of the Lord.

Christ Our High Priest in the Greater Tabernacle

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 places 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?

And for this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the trespasses 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 in force while the one who made it lives. Therefore not even the first covenant was 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.

Now yesterday I mentioned that there are two parts to chapter 9. We have verses 1 -10, that was our reading yesterday, where we re-examine the old covenant and the types and shadows that were pointing to something greater.

And then the second part of chapter 9 is verses 11 -28, the rest of the chapter, which is talking about the new covenant. And that will continue on into chapter 10. There's also kind of a middle part that I didn't mention, but verses 11 -14 talk about the exalted sanctuary and the superiority of the new covenant, and this kind of leading into the new covenant explanation.

So again, with verses 1 -10, we had the earthly sanctuary and the symbolism of the old covenant worship, and now in verses 11 -14, we have the exalted sanctuary, the sanctuary that's in the heavenly places, and the superiority of the new covenant worship.

And that's probably as far as we're going to get today, just looking at verses 11 -14. As we attempt to finish up chapter 9 tomorrow, then we'll be reading about the necessity of a sacrificial death in the ratification of a covenant.

You probably picked that up in some of those extra verses that I read to you. That will be verses 15 -22, but that really continues on into chapter 10. The theme of what we're reading about here in chapters 9 and 10 is understanding that the new covenant is affected in a better sanctuary with a better sacrifice.

That better sanctuary is in the heavenly places, and that better sacrifice is Christ. So we read about Christ here in 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. This is the contrast between this tabernacle, the heavenly tabernacle, and the one that we were reading about yesterday in verses 1 -10, that tabernacle that Moses was instructed to build.

All of that was temporary, and it was meant to be a type or a shadow of something greater that was to come. So now that we are in the new covenant, Christ is our minister, and he ministers as a high priest in a superior sanctuary.

Now just as we read yesterday in chapter 9, verse 1 was kind of the lead into everything else that came in verses 2 -10, and so verse 11 here is that way, and everything else that's going to come in verses 12 -28.

So here we have the lead into the new covenant. 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.

It's also not a temporary tabernacle. It is permanent. It is eternal. The tabernacle that is in the heavens will never be torn down. And this is great for us to consider, because we recognize that the salvation that we have in Christ will never be taken away.

There's not a plan B. There's not going to be some other plan that God is going to affect in order to draw men to himself. This is all through Christ. He did this once for all. We don't have to wait for anything else.

And so what Christ has accomplished has been done once for us that we may have confidence. We are God's children, and we're never going to lose that status. He does not disown us. He does not cast us out.

All who are in Christ, who are genuine in their faith, who endure to the end, we are the children of God, who gives us good things, who gives us blessings even in the heavenly places through Christ our Savior.

We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, even as it says in Colossians 3, 1 through 4. So Christ appeared. He is our high priest. He ministers in a superior tabernacle, one that is not made with hands, one that is not going to pass away.

And verse 12, it says, and he entered into that place. He entered into the more perfect tabernacle, not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood. He entered the holy places once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

The Sufficiency of Christ's Once-for-All Sacrifice

I was asked an interesting question on Sunday, and I hope the person that asked this question of me doesn't mind that I use his question here on the broadcast, but he asked me, does God love us so much that Jesus would be willing to die again for us?

And I said, I understand the nature of the question. You want to know, does God love us with such a great love that he would die again and again and again, if necessary, in order to redeem us? The problem with the question, though, is it presupposes that Christ's death was not sufficient enough.

The time that he did die and shed his blood on the cross for our sins was not enough that he would have to die again in order to redeem us. And that diminishes the superiority of his sacrifice, and that there is no greater sacrifice.

God himself can't even offer a greater sacrifice, because he did offer the greatest sacrifice. God in human flesh, living a perfect life, dying on the cross for our sins, and then rising again from the grave for our justification, as it says in Romans 4.

So there would not be another sacrifice. This would not be a demonstration of a greater love for us. It would actually be a demonstration that the first sacrifice was not sufficient. And then I said to him, this question really is answered in Hebrews, because the nature of the sermon that's being preached in Hebrews is so that the hearers know Christ is our great sacrifice.

He is our great savior, and there is no one greater. He died once for all, and the death he died, he will never die again, because as it says in Romans 6 .9, death no longer has mastery over him. If he were to have to die again, then death is still superior to Christ.

But Christ is victor over all. So he enters the holy places once for all, for all of his elect, for all who will come to know Jesus Christ. Jesus enters into the holy places for us, having obtained eternal redemption.

Now again, if he were to die again, then the redemption that he's obtained is not eternal, because he would have to die again in order to obtain it again. But he dies once, and Christ is the superior sacrifice.

He is a perfect sacrifice, unlike the blood of bulls and goats. Bulls and goats were not perfect sacrifices. They were types and shadows of a perfect sacrifice that was to come. Because his sacrifice is perfect, then he only needs to do it once.

So Christ dies once for all, having obtained eternal redemption for us, all who are in Christ Jesus. We don't have to have any worry or concern that our redemption will be lost, that Jesus will have to die again for us.

We don't have to worry about that. Because the superior sacrifice has already been made once for all, the perfect sacrifice. So all who are in Christ, our sins are forgiven, our redemption is secure, the place for us with God in his eternal heaven is promised.

And no one will snatch us out of his hand, as Jesus said in John 10. So verse 12 here really does give us the superiority of Christ's sacrifice and the ministry of redemption. The next couple of verses, verses 13 and 14, are the superiority of Christ's cleansing in regard to the worshiper.

Christ Cleanses the Conscience and Renews the Heart

So in verse 13, 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?

Now that was a lot, that was kind of a mouthful there, so let me come back through that and do that a little more slowly. If the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, now what is that in reference to?

Well, surely you understand the whole thing with the blood of goats and bulls, and those were the regular sacrifices that were offered in the tabernacle on behalf of the sins of the people. But how about this reference to the ashes of a heifer being sprinkled on those who had been defiled?

Well, the statute of the red heifer is in Numbers 19. Now understand, as the preacher is talking about these things, as we understand Hebrews being a sermon and he's preaching to Hebrews, when he talks about this stuff, they knew exactly what he was talking about, because they understood well these laws that were written down in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

But we have never lived in a time where we've had to be concerned with the sacrifice of bulls and goats, or thinking that, you know, hey, is Christ a good enough sacrifice? Do I need to go sacrifice a bull or a goat too?

We don't think about those things as much because, hey, we're under the covenant of grace now. We have the grace of God upon us by faith in Jesus Christ, so what do we need to be concerned about with these sacrifices of bulls and goats?

But so you have an understanding of what the Hebrews were hearing when the preacher was preaching these things, let's bring these things back to our mind, even the statutes as we find them in the law.

So this is Numbers 19. I'm going to read a pretty good portion of it here. Starting in verse 1, then Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel, that they take to you a red heifer without blemish, in which is no defect, and on which a yoke has never been placed.

And you shall give it to Eliezer the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence. Next Eliezer the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times.

And the heifer shall be burned in his sight, its hide and its flesh and its blood with its refuse shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer.

The priest shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening. The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening.

Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity.

It is purification from sin. And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the sojourner who sojourns among them.

Now that's the statute of the red heifer. And again, a heifer being a female cow, it specifically had to be red. So it had to be red in color. And when you're talking about a red, a red heifer, it's not, you know, like red, like the red stripes on the American flag.

It's red as in a reddish brown hue. If you're familiar with cattle, that would have been the color of the animal. This next section, still in Numbers 19, this talks about now application of the statute of the heifer.

So we've read some application there or the proper preparation of the red heifer. And now there are other ways in which that sacrifice can be applied. So let me pick up here in verse 11. 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 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.

Now recognize this was the water, the water that was prepared with the ashes of the heifer that was mentioned earlier. So now going on to verse 13, anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died and does not purify himself makes the tabernacle of Yahweh unclean, and that person shall be cut off from Israel because the water for impurity was not splashed on him.

He shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him. 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, and every open vessel which has no covering tied down on it shall be unclean.

Also, anyone who 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 shall be unclean for seven days. Then for the unclean person, they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin, and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel, and a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave.

Then the clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day he shall purify him from uncleanness, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and shall be clean by evening.

Are you getting the gist of all of this here? All of the different things that they had to go through in order to be pure before God because they were the people of God? I mean, there was so much more to purification laws than simply the sacrifice of animals that was going on in the tabernacle.

There was very specific qualifications that the animals had to meet. And in this particular case, it had to be a red heifer. Very specifically, that animal burned in the ashes used for this kind of purification.

And this had to go on all the time. This wasn't something that happened on an occasion. So it was like, OK, well, let's go find a red heifer now because somebody touched a dead corpse. There were a million and a half people in this Israelite camp.

So, of course, this was happening on a pretty regular basis. There had to be the regular sacrifice of this animal in the preparation of these ashes for this particular purpose. And so here in Hebrews 9, 13, it says, if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, think about all the things that went into the preparation of that heifer and the ashes and what they were used for.

If those things sanctified for the cleansing of the flesh. Now, verse 14, 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?

Are you getting it now? Do you understand? So these purification laws that were in the old covenant, those things, all they did was purify the flesh. Remember that we read previously that these things did not perfect the conscience.

They only purified the flesh but did not perfect the conscience. Now we are in a new covenant in which Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness and even our consciences are made new. The law of God is written on our hearts that we may know what God requires of us and we may do it in a way that is pleasing unto the Lord, where previously before we were in Christ, before we were indwelt with the Holy Spirit, we could not live in a way that was pleasing to God.

That's laid out plainly in Romans 8. So these things under the old covenant, they could purify the flesh. So 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?

That you may no longer walk in uncleanness but you walk in cleanness. Your mind would not be committed to sinful things but your mind and your heart, the very desires of yourself would be for God and for righteous things, for heavenly things, for eternal things.

This is what we have in Christ. And here we see how the new covenant, which has been brought in through Christ, how it is so much greater, so much more superior to the old covenant, which did not have the power to cleanse the conscience, but Jesus does.

We are forgiven our sins. We are given a new conscience that we no longer walk in dead, filthy works, but we are given new life to live righteously before him. And so in light of these things, if you are a follower of Christ, do not commit yourself to sinful things anymore.

Repent. Do not desire those things that God does not desire for you. Even desiring sin is sin because you desire to have something that God has said is unholy. In your heart, desire holiness, desire God and to live for him today.

Even in your heart and your mind, may your thoughts be purified, that you would be righteous even in the things that you think as well as the things that you do. And you may have already struggled with this today.

I have not had pure and holy thoughts. Hey, brother and sister, I'm right there with you. I get it. I understand. But commit those things unto the Lord. May your mind be conformed to Christ's mind. As Paul said in Philippians 2 .5, have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

And those places where you fall short, commit those things unto the Lord. For it says in 1 John 1 .9, if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this new covenant that we have in Christ, that we do have to have the yoke of slavery of all of those laws that were given in the Pentateuch. The sacrifice of animals we would have to be doing today, this whole statute of the heifer that we just read, all of these things have been completed in Christ.

He has fulfilled the law. He has offered a greater sacrifice himself that we don't have to go back to these old statutes anymore, those things which could not cleanse our conscience anyway. We have something greater.

One who gives us a new mind and a new heart, Jesus Christ. So help us to live for you today in light of what he has done for us. It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .utt .com.