A More Excellent Ministry

Hebrews 8 and the Main Point of Christ’s High-Priestly Ministry

We continue this morning in our studies from the Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter 8. Hebrews, Chapter 8. We have been working through this epistle for quite some time now, and it's not as long as the Synoptic Gospels, so we will get to the end eventually.

But we are pressing forward into a very important chapter, Hebrews, Chapter 8, where we will be studying today. Before we begin, let us ask the Lord's blessing upon our time. Indeed, our gracious Heavenly Father, we do ask for Your Spirit's presence amongst us to minister to us the very Word of Life.

We know that apart from His ministration amongst us, we can accomplish nothing. So we would ask that You would bless Your people through the ministry of Your Word, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. It is a common element of teaching to have reviews.

Some of you are teachers, and hopefully not any of us are so far out of the experience of learning that we do not remember that the good teachers would provide us with an opportunity to review, especially before a big test.

It was always my practice to listen very carefully at that time. Many of my compatriots never quite got the idea that probably the teacher was going to reemphasize the very same things that might end up on the test.

Now, I don't recall any particular teacher that had a dead giveaway, but there were some teachers you could just simply tell by how they handled a review where you need to be focusing your attention for the test.

And I never could understand my fellow students who found that time period to be a time to goof off or play around or draw pictures or anything else. They always wondered why I did so well on the test, and they didn't.

It really wasn't rocket science, even in the science class. And so when you come to a section where a writer of scripture says, now let me explain what the main point of what I've been saying is, you might want to listen up.

You might want to recognize that probably there's a shift coming. There's a situation coming where you sort of need to understand the argument of this point because there's going to be some application, there's going to be some new presentation, whatever else it might be.

And that's what we have here at the beginning of Chapter 8. Chapter 8 starts out with our author saying, let me give you the main point, the main thrust of what I've been saying so that as I make a new application, you will be able to understand and you will be able to follow along with the argument that I'm making.

The Better Covenant and the New Covenant Promise of Jeremiah 31

So let's read together Hebrews Chapter 8. Now the main point of what has been said is this. We have such a high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man.

For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to law, who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle for sea, he says, that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.

But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

For finding fault with them, he says, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

For they did not continue my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For all will know me from the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

When he said a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. Amen. And so here we have what should be to all of us a text of Scripture that we are familiar with, especially as Reformed Baptists.

But I don't want to rush to that issue. You know that the citation of Jeremiah chapter 31 and the discussion of the new covenant is exceptionally important to us as Reformed Baptists in light of our beliefs and in light of our regular, proper, necessary interaction with our Presbyterian friends.

Some of you may remember many, many years ago we've kept these sermons posted on the website. We did a brief survey of a couple chapters in the book of Hebrews. We did a whole chapter at a time. And then we made application, especially having gone through chapter 8 in two sermons, the subject of paedo-baptism.

And so when we get to that section of chapter 8, it is important to recognize that we need to handle it especially fairly. What I mean by that is, obviously, we recognize when we're talking with someone who has, shall we say, a pet text of Scripture.

You may have talked with someone, maybe someone in your family, someone you know at work or school or wherever it might be, and they have, well, it's their pet subject. It's their pet topic. I know some people, I know some people even call themselves Reformed, and I cannot help but say that, well, that guy is a one-string banjo.

Now, what's a one-string banjo? I had a banjo once. I'm not sure why my parents got it for me, but it was sort of fun to pluck around on a little bit. I had taken some guitar, so I learned how to play dueling banjos on it, and that was about as far as that ever went.

I don't even know what happened to it, come to think of it. It was a nice one. But it had more than one string on it. You can't do much with a one-string banjo. There's not too many notes you can play on just one string on a banjo.

But there are some people that are well described as one-string banjos. They've got one subject. They don't have any balance in their theology, they don't have any balance in their study of the Word of God.

There's just one topic that they just, that's all they ever talk about. And after you've talked with them about that subject two or three times, you start avoiding them. Because you don't want to talk about that subject anymore.

You've gone as far as you're going to go, especially if you disagree with them. What more is there to say? They don't seem to want to talk about any of the rest of the Word of God. They're a one-string banjo.

Well, we don't want to be a one-string banjo. And I'm very thankful that in this church we are not. A lot of people think that, well, you all are a bunch of Calvinists. Every single sermon, you've only got five sermons.

You start off with total depravity and you finish with perseverance of the saints. You start all over again. That's all you do in a Calvinist church, right? Well, obviously that's not the case. We believe in handling the entirety of the Word of God.

But we need to recognize that if we recognize imbalance in others, we need to be especially careful when we are approaching a text that has special importance to our particular understanding of certain identifying traits of the Christian faith.

And so we will seek to be extremely fair with the context and with the words of Hebrews chapter 8 because we recognize the necessity to do so. But before we get to the New Covenant, remember that the term covenant had first popped up just before this in Hebrews chapter 7.

Specifically in verse 22 when we read,. And so much the more also, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. Jesus is the guarantee of a better covenant. And so here we have this introduction of the term covenant, and this is going to become extremely important here in chapter 8.

And so the writer says, now, the main point in what has been said is this. If you've been confused up until now, the writer's going to say, well, what I'm saying is this. We, the Christian people, we, the Christian congregation, have such a high priest, high priest after the order of Melchizedek, Psalm 110, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man.

So he wants to emphasize, here's the main point. Remember, people under pressure to go back to the old ways. In fact, if you were listening carefully, we're going to see an evidence in just a verse or two that this book, once again, just logically had to have been written pre -70 because it makes reference to the continuing offering of the sacrifices in the Jewish sacrificial system.

But that's what people were being drawn back to. Come back to the old way. Commit that act of apostasy, the act of apostasy that was considered to be the greatest act of apostasy, denial of Jesus Christ by the offering of the old sacrifices.

Now, that bothers a lot of people today. That bothers many, many, many people today in what might be called the mainline denominations. I don't know why they call those groups the mainline denominations because they're the mainly dying denominations today.

They are losing people by the droves because they don't actually believe anything anymore. But if you listen to the leaders of those dying denominations, they just cannot conceive of how anyone would believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, the only way, the Bible sufficient.

And this idea that once you have knowledge of who Jesus is, then those old covenant sacrifices, to engage in them is to reject who Jesus Christ is. Oh, no, no, we just all need to get along. And don't say that there has to be this strong split.

Don't say that kind of thing. That's not loving. Well, I suggest to you that someone who would say, oh, you can go along and you can worship any way you want to. If you want to offer sacrifices and believe in Jesus and do this self-help methodology and this kind of spiritualism, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. I suggest to you that shows no love whatsoever for God and for His truth and for His revelation and for His gospel. It's a very man-centered way of thinking. And so here, you have these people that are being drawn back.

And so what is the main point? Well, you see that high priest on the Day of Atonement, and he is so regally decked out in his priestly garments. But, you see, we have a high priest, and he's not like that high priest.

He's no longer under the dominion of death. He conquered death. He's risen from the dead. And, in fact, unlike your high priest who goes in only once per year, and then he has to come back out, and then he has to go in the next year, and he has to come back out, we have a high priest, and he has taken his seat.

That means his work's finished. He's not continually moving about in the holy place, sprinkling the blood and then leaves. He has taken his seat. And notice where it is. At the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

Right hand, the position of authority, the position of exaltation. Remember, the disciples asked Jesus, Who gets to sit at your right hand? Could we sit at your right hand? We don't want to be at your left hand.

We don't want to be lower position. We want to be at the position of authority. We have such a high priest. And he's taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. The position of divine authority.

He's a minister in the sanctuary. A minister in the sanctuary. He is one who does not have to go in and out and in and out. He's a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man.

Now here we need to understand something. Again, drawing upon our knowledge of the Old Testament. We know the temple was not the first place of worship that was built. When God brought the people out of Egypt, he revealed to Moses the plans for the tabernacle.

And the tabernacle was a mobile place of worship. In fact, if you've read through the giving of the instructions, you know that it was in essence a tent. It was mobile. It was set up when the people would stop.

It represented the presence of God with them. But it also represented the fact that God wasn't limited to one place. The ancient religions would very frequently have temples. But the God became associated with just that location.

And frequently that temple would be at a place where allegedly something very special had happened in the past. And in pagan religions that became very important. And unfortunately we see that once the temple itself was built in Jerusalem, well, it was pretty difficult for the people of Israel to avoid the temptations toward idolatry.

And eventually what happens is you have God having to send prophets to stand outside the temple and say, you boast in this place, but the glory is going to leave this place. Because you have rejected God's law and you've rejected His will for your lives.

And so many people kept being very religious. And they'd come to the temple and they thought that coming to that temple somehow made themselves right with God. God would never allow this place to be destroyed.

The tabernacle didn't have that problem. The tabernacle moved with the people of God. And so this is that sanctuary here on earth. But notice the contrast is made here in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man.

They're using the language, once again, the writer of Hebrews wants to focus on the tabernacle, not on the temple. Which had become so much a focus. He instead says, well, look, what was given by God in the law was the tabernacle.

And so he even used the term pitched. See, man would pitch the tabernacle. There were certain people who were entrusted with certain activities in erecting the tabernacle. And certain people had to carry certain parts of it and the priests were all involved in all these things.

And so there was a very complicated process that was gone through. But that's not where our high priest is. He's not in a tabernacle that is pitched by man. He is in the true tabernacle, which is in heaven.

You see, the point that the writer is going to make is, the earthly sanctuary was simply meant to be a shadow, a representation, a lesser picture of the reality which is in heaven. And so his assertion is, we have a high priest.

He has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary, in the true tabernacle. So God is there. His presence is still amongst his people in that way.

Which the Lord pitched, not man. See, the supremacy of being a high priest in the true tabernacle? What he's saying is, look, if you go back, you're going back to something that is not the true tabernacle.

It's merely an earthly, man-made representation of the divine. And Jesus has gone into the divine. Your high priest can never go there. He then sort of spells that out for us. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices.

So it is necessary that this high priest also has something to offer. Hey, we know, high priest, he has a task. He has a job. The great respect that was shown to high priests was not just simply because, well, that's who he is and he gets to wear cool clothes and things like that.

No, he has a function in the worship of the people of God. He is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Sacrifices for sin, the free will offerings, the gifts that people would bring in thanksgiving to God for his bounteous mercy to them.

So, this high priest, the high priest after the order of Melchizedek, it would be necessary that this high priest also has something to offer. But what does he offer? Well, now if he were on earth, verse 4 says, he would not be a priest at all.

Since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law. And think about that, of what tribe is the Lord Jesus? Is he of the tribe of Levi? Is he one of the sons of Aaron? No, he's of the tribe of Judah.

And so, there is no pretension on the part of Jesus in his teachings to be a priest after the order of Aaron or Levi. He never goes into the temple to offer sacrifices, does he? If he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all.

Since, and here's that indication, did you catch it? Since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law. Now, I can't say that it proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. But the use of the present tense there most naturally would refer to the fact that this is something that's going on.

There are those who offer the gifts according to the law. Well, let me guarantee you something. After Titus got done with Jerusalem in A .D. 70, there was nobody offering the gifts according to the law in the temple in Jerusalem.

Because it had been raised to the ground. And so, it would seem that the natural reading of this text would tell us this was probably written no later than the 60s. Prior to the surrounding of and destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

While the temple worship was still a regular ongoing thing. But the point is, of course, Jesus did not claim this priesthood. He would not be a priest at all. There is no question that there were those who had been appointed as the children of Levi to offer the gifts according to the law.

But, where they are offering it, notice, who serve a copy. A copy, a shadow of the heavenly things. Do you see how this fits the argument, once again, of the book of Hebrews? It could have been really impressive.

I am sure it was. The apostles were impressed. Remember Matthew 24? They are on a hill outside Jerusalem. And, oh, what you would have seen. How the temple precincts would dominate what you would see as you looked at that ancient city of Jerusalem.

Just as now, what dominates the skyline? The dome of the rock. The Muslim mosque there. They were so impressed. Ah, look at the temple. It would have been very impressive. When people come and seek to bring Christians into apostasy, to fall away from the faith, yeah, they normally have attacks upon the faith, but they always try to present something positive, some alternative for you to go to.

And yet, the writer is saying, shadows, copies. Now, we've got photocopiers today that are pretty good. We've got a photocopier at the office, and when it's working right, and I think if you were to go examine Brother Rich's fingers under his fingernails someplace, you'd probably find some evidence that it doesn't always work right.

We've got all these different colored things you've got to stick in there, and it goes poof all over the place, and it's great. But when it's working right, it does a pretty good job. It looks a lot like the original, even in color.

It's pretty nice. Most of you remember the days when photocopiers were not that good. I remember when I was in school, we'd get photocopied stuff, and if there was like a picture or something in it, it was just a big black blob.

Remember those kinds? And then some of you, and I'm not going to name any names, I'm not going to look at anybody in the eye, but some of you remember those days when you made photocopies. They weren't even photocopies.

You made copies by cranking this thing off, and they came out blue. Remember those things? Oh, yeah. I'm old enough to remember that kind of stuff. And those copies, they just didn't. You weren't fooled.

If someone said, here's the original, you went, really? And there's a sense of that here. You have your high priest, but you know, he's only serving in a shadow. It's just a copy. It's an earthly copy made by men.

There's a heavenly reality that's so much greater. You see, that's a continuation of the argument. Because, yeah, if you lived in the environs of Jerusalem, and you saw all the people streaming toward the temple, and you see the sun shining off that magnificent building, oh, have I been deceived?

Have I been led astray? Beware of the various approaches that the enemy of our soul has to get us to question his truth. But see, quotes from Exodus 25, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to wreck the tabernacle, not the temple, the tabernacle, see that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.

You see, there's a pattern. God gave it. God's the one who created it. God said, make it this way. And the point is, it represents something else. It's just a pattern. It's a copy. There's a greater reality than the physical tabernacle.

And the Jews understood that that tabernacle, the plans had been given by God, and that then became the pattern for the temple. And so it's a lesser ministry. So notice verse 6, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises.

Now, we cannot rush by a statement like that. We might well say, well, we all agree with that. But we need to understand the importance of this statement. It's only a few words, but a lot is packed into it.

Notice what it said. But now, he has obtained a more excellent ministry. That term, ministry, again, the danger is that we as Western-thinking, modern Christians will read that word and we'll go, well, you know, James up there is in the ministry.

Well, true. But that's not what the original readers of this text in their context would have seen. In fact, the term that is translated as ministry there has the specific application in the Old Covenant understanding of that priestly ministry, a ministry that had to do with the worship of God.

And that is found, the very same term is found in verse 2 when he is called a minister. Very same term. This has to do with priestly ministry, sacrificial intercessory ministry, ministry having to do with the worship of God.

Now, there was the Old Covenant ministry. In fact, by the way, for those of you that are interested in these things, this is the term in the original languages from which we get the term liturgy. Now, Reformed Baptists as a whole tend to develop a rash when you use the term liturgy.

For many proper reasons, we are very concerned about the abuse of the term liturgy, especially in sacramental systems. But we have a liturgy. And it's easy to recognize what our liturgy involves because liturgy simply means the form and method of worship.

And so for us, what is the central act of our liturgy? Proclamation of the Word of God, what we're doing right now. Focused upon hearing God speak in the presentation of His truth, upon public prayer, upon the singing of sound, God honoring hymns, and all doing so in a context of reverence toward God.

That's our liturgy. Whether we call it that or not doesn't really matter. It goes back to this very term that refers to this form of worship and ministry, worship and ministry in the worship of God. Now, there are different kinds of this type of liturgy or ministry.

Jesus is said to have obtained a more excellent ministry. Well, immediately we have to stop and we have to face a reality, a difficulty. And this would have been one of the realities and difficulties that the early Christians faced as well, especially in dealing with what we would call today Jewish evangelism.

But in that day, when the vast majority, especially in that first generation of Christians, are Jewish, there were natural objections that the Jewish people would raise to the Christian faith. And clearly one of them that has been addressed over and over again, and will be addressed in the next number of chapters repeatedly again, is simply this.

How can you say that Jesus has, for example here, a more excellent ministry when you also confess that the ministry of the priests had been ordained by God? How is, well, let's use another example we're about to encounter here.

How can you say that there is a new covenant when the old covenant was given by God? It's divine. It's in the Scriptures. Moses, Abraham. How can you say these things? And this, of course, raises all the issues of the relationship between the old and the new, the themes of fulfillment, and, of course, all the big questions about continuity and discontinuity between the old and the new.

What is similar? What are the areas of continuity? And what are the areas of discontinuity between the old and the new? How can we say that Jesus has obtained a more excellent ministry if the ministry that we're comparing it to was divinely ordained?

Well, that question also will influence our understanding of the term better. Notice they use the term better twice in verse 6. Jesus is described as the mediator, not a mediator, the mediator of a better covenant, and that has been enacted on better promises.

Now, we dare not fail to confess immediately that the covenant to which this is being compared was divinely given. The promises upon which that old covenant was given, divine promises. But it really isn't that much of an objection to raise this issue if we just think for a moment.

Because the idea that because God has established a covenant, that means that's it. Nothing more. There can't be anything greater. There can't be anything more ignores the very function of what that covenant was.

The whole point of the author is, look, these things were shadows. They were types. They were copies. They were pointing to something greater than themselves. And that greater thing would be a better thing.

Now, when we say that one thing is better than another, sometimes you get into arguments. Some of you, and at this point I hesitate to use this example because I know that I'm going to leave our dearly beloved pastor out of the example.

But many of us in this room might get into certain arguments about what the best or better phone is. Pastor Frye doesn't have to worry about that because I have a feeling he picks his up and goes, So to raise issues about, well, I have a Droid.

Well, I have an iPhone. Well, I'm a Sanya guy myself. It just doesn't really apply to just a few people. But for everybody else, we all hear all the time about arguments about, well, my phone can do this.

And, well, my phone's 4G and yours is only 3G. Yeah, but my battery lasts for three days and yours lasts for three seconds. And, you know, there's just all this kind of stuff. Well, I've got this many apps on mine.

Well, I've got this many apps on mine. And this kind of argumentation goes on all the time amongst people that we generally call geeks. But the reality is you're still arguing about phones. And you can argue that my phone is better than your phone.

And today it might be, and next week it won't be. That's just the nature of this particular way of how things are right now. But you're still talking about betterness within a certain kind of things. Some phones are better than other phones.

There's no question about that. I mean, I personally think if you can't hold the phone in this hand but you have to hold it in that hand, that causes a bit of a problem in saying that's the best phone you can have.

But they're all phones. And you're arguing betterness within one spectrum. But there is also a way of talking about something that's better than something else where you are differentiating on the very level of being.

It is a simple statement to say this diamond is better than this cubic zirconium. Now you're not saying that they are the same type of thing. They may look like gems. But on the level of being, there is a superiority of being.

Now when we look at the term better, as the writer of the Hebrews is using it, are we simply talking about the droid being better than an iPhone better or a diamond being better than a cubic zirconium better?

When we talk about better sacrifices, the sacrifice of the Son of God in comparison to the sacrifice of a bull, is that better in the same continuum better or is that better in a completely different level of being better?

I think it's obvious. And so when we talk about a better covenant, better promises, what are we talking about? Well, notice just one thing. I'm not going to have time to get into this because we need to look at the term mediator and we're going to need to jump out of Hebrews briefly this evening to even look at this term.

But notice when we talk about a better covenant, notice what the very next verse says, for if that first covenant had been faultless. Literally it says, for if the first, for if that first had been faultless.

It doesn't repeat the term covenant in the original language. But that's what it's referring to. If that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. In other words, if it had been God's intention that that first covenant stand forever, never to be changed, if it's not pointing to anything greater than itself, despite the fact that we see evidence throughout it that it's pointing to a greater fulfillment, we ignore all that and say, look, Moses gave it.

That's it. There can be nothing more. Can you hear the Jewish apologists of that first century arguing like that? I can. We see it in the New Testament itself. How many times in the arguments with Jesus?

Well, Moses said to us, or we follow after Moses, that we believe in sola scriptura. They believed in sola Moses. And you can just hear how they would have argued. And so the idea would have been, how can you believe in this Jesus?

How can you follow after him? How can you put your entire trust and walk away from the religion of your fathers? Which, of course, they wouldn't say they were. Remember Paul's strong words to Philippians, we are the true circumcision which worship God in the spirit.

And yet, here you have the direct assertion. It was not faultless. And it was not faultless because that's what it was designed to be. It was designed to function, to point towards something else. And I would argue that its faultedness was not that God tried to do something but couldn't.

Its faultedness is that God did not give to it a power that he intended only to demonstrate in and through the establishment of the new covenant. In other words, there were great men who lived under the old covenant, who experienced God's forgiveness, and they experienced the spirit of God, and they experienced regeneration and the whole nine yards.

There were also all sorts of men who bore the covenant signs, who were a part of that old covenant, and their heart was not changed. For every one David who goes out and weeps in repentance of his own sin, you've got a dozen Ahabs who don't care.

Bearing that covenant sign did not change the heart. It could, but it wasn't the function of just those covenant signs to do that. And so there's been an occasion sought for a second. There's something about this betterness that we have to take seriously.

Better covenant. That doesn't mean the old isn't divine. It doesn't mean that we're somehow anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic or anything else. But there's a better covenant, which has been enacted legislatively, legally by God on better promises.

Now, on the one hand, the one danger that we have to walk, we have to be balanced in this study. Reformed Baptists, I think, have put out a lot of energy to be balanced at this very point. On the one hand, you have those utter discontinuity.

Cut it off. There's no connection here whatsoever. Old covenant, it's all back there. And on the other side, you've got people who are so strong on continuity that they get a little bit nervous when you talk about better covenant, better promises.

And so they want to emphasize the continuity of God's purposes from the beginning till now. The balance is found in between the two extremes. There is no question that God enacted the old covenant. There is no question that God gave promises, the temple worship, everything.

But there has to be a recognition of the function of those things and the fact that we now have a better covenant and that it was prophesied back in Jeremiah chapter 31. So keeping that in mind then, what we need to focus on this evening, and I invite you back for the ministry of the Word this evening, is the term mediator.

By as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant. What does that mean? What is Christ's role as mediator? You'll only find it found here in the book of Hebrews. You'll find it once in a single passage that we'll look at this evening when Paul writes to Timothy.

And you'll find the term used in a general sense of a mediator of a covenant in Galatians without making direct application to Jesus. So we'll be looking primarily at the utilization of this term in writing to Timothy.

And then here this evening, we need to understand how is Jesus mediator of this new covenant. What does that mean? What does Jesus mediate? This is where it starts getting not only deep, but really foundational to our understanding of why we have peace with God, what the gospel is.

So many Christians will tell you, well I have peace with God because of Jesus. Why? Well it's because of Jesus. Now if that's where you start off at, great. But we should never be complacent and happy to just stay there.

If the word of God has revealed to us the why's and wherefore's, should it not be our glory to dig in to what God has revealed to us about how it is that we have peace with him. We've already seen so much of it.

There's so much more yet to come here in this tremendous passage of the word of God. Let's pray together. Indeed our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word once again and this promise that we do continue.

Even though it has been so many generations since these words were penned, we continue to have such a high priest. A minister in the sanctuary and he's still there. His blood still avails, his work is still perfect and that is why we, so many years later, so far, far away, confess the same faith as this writer from long ago.

Ah Lord, you have been faithful to your promise. We thank you for that. We ask that we would find precious the teaching of your word. That our relationship to you, our forgiveness, that which we know we need so badly, but we know our own heart, that that forgiveness has in no way compromised your justice.