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We turn once again to the Word of God this evening and Hebrews, chapter 10. Hebrews, chapter 10. And before we look to the Word of God, let us once again beseech our Lord for his mercy toward us. Our Heavenly Father, as we look into your Word, as we hear great words of encouragement this evening, we would ask that you would help us to hear with hearing ears, open and obedient hearts, all to your honor and glory.
We pray in Christ's name. Well, I feel like this morning was one of the longest introductions that ever turned into a sermon that I have ever heard in my life. And we've already given the background for where we are this evening, but if you weren't here this morning, we are at a transitionary text in our study of the book of Hebrews.
We have seen the conclusion of the theological arguments and now we have the application and it's going to be in two parts. The part that we'll be looking at this evening we won't complete, I assure you, though we will do at least one verse.
The part that we look at this evening is the encouragement, the exhortation, and then very frequently, as we've already seen in the book of Hebrews, connected with the encouragement and exhortation afterwards will be a warning passage.
Probably, I'm not sure which is the more famous warning passage, whether it's Hebrews 6, 4 -6 or Hebrews 10, 26 and following, 26 -29, but they are both very well known as warning passages, which, of course, would be a very fitting thing in light of the truths that have been enunciated, the finished work of Christ, to explain all of that to someone and then not inform them that that brings a moral obligation upon them.
That the possession of the truth is not something that can simply be set aside. We cannot simply go against that and there would be no response to that. It would be irresponsible on our part and it would be irresponsible on the writer's part.
And so, that is indeed what will take place. But before then, before the warning, comes exhortation, very positive exhortation from which we have much to learn. So once again, beginning at verse 19,. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place, it's actually literally places, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, the veil of the temple it is, that is His flesh.
And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a, literally it's true heart or sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another, to exhort one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
And so here you have words that are very familiar to us. We quote from them many times, but we want to look very carefully and try to understand what God's Word would have for us this evening. Therefore, brethren, turning to the brethren, those that He is going to express confidence not only now, but at the end of the chapter, saying I am confident that you are not amongst those who shrink back, etc., etc.
Therefore, brethren, since... Or really, the verse starts off saying, therefore, having, brethren, confidence. There isn't any doubt being expressed here. Given what we have seen God has done in Jesus Christ, there is of necessity as a result confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus.
Since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh. Now, if we just jumped in here, we might wonder what in the world is this man talking about?
But we didn't just jump in here. We have already been thinking much over the course of the preceding chapters of the arrangement of the tabernacle. And we know where the holy place is. The holy of holies.
As it has come to us in the King James Version, which is really just a Hebraism. Holy of holies just means the holiest place. And we know that it was separated from sinful men by that veil. The veil in the temple.
That woven structure which in Solomon's temple became so large, which we know was torn from top to bottom at the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so we know how the arrangement is and what the author is saying is there has been a fundamental change.
Whereas under the old covenant, only one time a year the high priest enters in. Jesus has now done that and He now has created a new and living way. He has inaugurated. He has begun. He was the first one to enter in in this special way.
And through our union with Him, and only for those who have that vital union with Him, He has inaugurated a way for us through the veil. There had been no way under the old covenant for each and every believer to enter into the presence of God except by representation of the high priest.
And that only once a year. And that only temporarily just as a picture of what was to come. But now, through the blood of Jesus, through His sacrifice, He has entered into the holy of holies. And He has provided a new and living way.
Let's look at each one of these terms. Let's make sure that we don't rush past what is being said here. Not like we were really rushing today in trying to get through great chunks of text. First of all, He inaugurated this new and living way.
It is a way into the holy place and it is by His own blood. Notice it says the blood of Jesus. It doesn't say by the blood of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, or any of the lengthy titles. Isn't it interesting that we just simply have Jesus?
A man who walked the streets of Galilee. A man who was called by that name and there were other people who had that name as well. He was a historical figure. He was the oldest brother of many others that we read of in the New Testament despite various odd dogmas as it developed at a later time.
The point is it was a true sacrifice. This was a true man. Even though we're talking about exalted spiritual things in the heavenly places, notice the connection between history and the reality of history and what has taken place in the spiritual realm.
There is never a place in Christianity for this creation of a theology of just all this spiritualizing. It just all takes place spiritually. We don't need to worry about the historical. We don't need to worry about whether Jesus was a real man.
If Jesus as a man did not exist, there is no Christianity. And yet, you need to understand, in so many schools in our land today, that's not the case. In so many schools in our land today, what is taught would be, well, the details of Jesus' life are really rather irrelevant.
Whether He really existed, the reality of the cross or resurrection really doesn't matter. This is all spiritual. It has nothing to do with the faith of the writers of the New Testament. This was a historical person.
The blood of Jesus means He truly existed and He truly gave His life. And in that self-giving, He inaugurated. This is not something that ever happened before. There is something new here. This is where the newness of the New Covenant needs to be allowed to be new.
It needs to be something that is fresh. It needs to be something that is different than the blood of the sacrifices of the Old Covenant. He has inaugurated a new and living way. It is not something that was present under the Old Covenant.
It is a new way and it is a living way. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean a new and living way? Are those just words that are meant to sound nice to us? No, I think we need to recognize that in the midst of all of the death that one saw in the old temple, the shedding of blood, the bleeding of the lambs and the goats and the calves and the bulls, in the midst of all that, we don't hear that anymore.
The way that we have into the presence of God is a living way because this is the way that Christ has inaugurated. And who is He? He is the resurrected One. He is the living One. Not only the source of life, but the very fact that He is Himself the way and our entrance into the presence of God is intimately connected with our union with Him.
We must be united with Him to enter with Him into the presence of God. I've used the illustration many times and it's just as appropriate here. When Paul talks about the wrath of God, it says we shall be saved from the wrath of God in Him.
And I remember many years ago when Altenebagen Ministries was very, very small. It's not much bigger now, but there were only a few people that knew about us. We sometimes would have Bible studies at our apartment where we lived off of Camelback.
And I remember I was teaching through Romans and I encountered that text. And if I was on that channel that I never mentioned between 20 and 22, I would say I had a vision, but I didn't have a vision.
I was just thinking about this situation, being saved from the wrath of God in Christ. The only place I can be saved from the wrath of God is in Him. I sort of pictured the seashore and this huge wave of the wrath of God is coming.
And there's all of mankind and it's going to be swept away in this wrath. But in the midst, there's one huge person and it's Jesus. And you know that when that wave of wrath goes by, He's still going to be standing there.
He's the only one who is going to be able to survive that massive tsunami of the wrath of God because of who He is. Now, I might think if I'm seeing this coming, well, maybe if I get next to Him and I hold on real tight.
Or maybe if I'm behind Him, then the force, the water won't hit me as hard. But the reality is we know how tsunamis work. The only place that you're going to be safe is in Him. You can't be next to Him.
You can't know about Him. You can't just have a casual relationship. You need to be united to Him if after that wave of wrath has passed, you want to abide. And that's what's so important about recognizing we can't just have a head knowledge of this Jesus.
There needs to be a union with Him. We have to be in Him. And so, this living way which He has inaugurated for us through the veil, He has provided a way. The high priest, he only brought the blood of a dead sacrifice.
And then he had to leave. He just sprinkled the blood. Now we have one who appears in the presence of God. Remember how Hebrews has already said it? In our behalf. For us. Now this way is open for us to enter into the very presence of the Holy God.
He has inaugurated it. It is a new and living way because He Himself is the Living One. It is through the veil which has been torn apart. It has been torn from top to bottom. Now I guarantee you man has sewed it back up again.
I've always wondered what it would have been like to have been the first Jewish priest to have walked into the temple the day that that took place and to look up and see what happened. We aren't given any more information than that.
But what must they have done? All the scrambling to undo what God Himself has done. But then, we have a difficulty here. Not the first difficulty we've encountered in trying to work through Hebrews, have we?
It says, A new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is His flesh. What does that mean? Is it saying His flesh is the veil? Or is it saying His flesh is the new and living way?
And whichever way you take that, what does it then mean? Well, I'm going to give you some options and see what you think. We're not going to take a vote, but we will look at some of the options that have been given, some of the ways of understanding.
First of all, Calvin understood the concept of Christ's flesh as the veil of His deity. The veil over His deity. And he said His flesh is not to be despised because it conceals like a veil the majesty of God.
And since it is that which directs us to the enjoyment of all God's benefits. And so, he sees the understanding of this being that that human flesh is not to be despised, but it conceals like a veil the majesty of God and it is that which directs us to the enjoyment of all of God's benefits.
That's how Calvin understood it. Now, more modern interpreters have understood it to be a way through the veil. That is, a way consisting in His flesh, His true human nature. And so, for example, the New English Bible, which is not generally an overly reliable translation, but at this point it says, the new living way which He has opened for us through the curtain, the way of His flesh.
And then there is an offering by F .F. Bruce. And many of you might be familiar with F .F. Bruce. He was a brilliant scholar, an English scholar. And he often had very excellent insights, despite the fact that he was British.
And he gives a very interesting explanation. He says, the veil, which from one point of view kept God and man apart, can be thought of from another point of view as bringing them together. For it was one and the same veil which on one side was in contact with the glory of God, and on the other side, with the need of men.
So in our Lord, Godhead and manhood were brought together. He is the true daysman or umpire who can lay His hand upon both because He shares the nature of both. So when you think about the veil and how it stood, the one side of the veil, always facing toward the glory of God, the mercy seat, never seeing the sinfulness of man, with the exception of when the high priest comes in, but what the high priest had to do right before he came in, he had to offer sacrifice for himself.
So there is no impurity being brought into the holy place. The other side, constantly facing outward to where the sinfulness of man exists. And so the idea being that the veil is being connected to the flesh of Christ.
The flesh of Christ, which in Himself, sinless, pure, perfect. And yet what does He do? He walks amongst sinners. He is in the face of the Gadarean demoniac in the presence of sickness and death and even to the point of giving Himself in self-sacrifice on the cross.
That's another understanding. And in my studies, one of the commentaries that I have frequently consulted, other than F .F. Bruce, is that of Philip Hughes. And Hughes said the significance then of the analogy between the curtain of the tabernacle and the flesh of Jesus is, and what does he do?
He defaults back to John Owen. That's always a safe place to go. John Owen, whose massive seven-volume commentary on Hebrews, remember when I quoted 17 points in one sermon from Owen? That's like every other page for Owen, if you've ever read Owen's work on Hebrews.
Is only this, to quote Owen, that by virtue of the sacrifice of Christ, wherein His flesh was torn and rent, we have a full entrance into the holy place, meaning, as the context shows, the most holy place, such as would have been of old upon the rending of the veil.
So I think he's saying something very similar to what Bruce was saying, is that he's making a connection between the flesh of Christ, which was torn and given in sacrifice, and the veil, which likewise is opened up.
And yet, that very same torn flesh is raised to life. So that instead of just death, you now have death bringing about life. And when, as we remember earlier in Hebrews, we talked about that anchor of our soul that is in the holy place, here you have another picture of that.
In that we are assured by the resurrection that Christ has entered into the very presence of the Father. And if we are vitally united with Him, if our faith is in Him, if His Spirit is in us, then just as Paul could say in Ephesians, we have been seated in the heavenly places in Him.
We have a surety. And that is why we have confidence. That's what it all started with. Brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, our confidence is not in ourselves.
The confidence comes from the fact that the Father raised the Son from the dead. You must understand, that resurrection is the divine stamp of approval upon everything that Jesus did, but especially upon His self-giving.
Especially upon His own teaching that by His self-sacrifice, He was fulfilling God's will. That it was necessary that He go to Jerusalem. You see, if we had a grave, if we had a tomb that we could make pilgrimage to, then we would have no confidence.
Have you ever thought of that? I mean, we rejoice in the empty tomb. Why? Because that is the very assurance of our own resurrection. But that's not the only reason. You see, we rejoice in an empty tomb because if we had a filled tomb, we would not have this confidence.
We would not know that Christ has entered into the holy place in our behalf, in our place, and as we are united with Him, we therefore then have access by grace into this faith in which we stand as Paul expresses it in Romans 5.
I think of my Muslim friends and the fact that they have a tomb. And they're constantly having to fight because there is this tendency because Muslims don't have a mediator. They don't have one to do what Jesus has done.
They've got a holy God. And they've got the wrath of God, but they don't have a mediator. And so it's really a very difficult situation they find themselves in. And there is this tendency to exalt Muhammad and many, many people will go to his tomb and they will try to pray to Muhammad and leave gifts to Muhammad and seek Muhammad's intercession because they feel the necessity for that mediator.
But they have a tomb. Now, they happen to believe that if you were to open that tomb, you would see Muhammad exactly looking as the day he was buried there. Did you know that? Muslims do not believe that prophets' bodies decay.
So if you find any prophet and open his tomb, he's going to look as fresh as a proverbial daisy. I don't think that's what you'd find if you went to Muhammad's tomb this day and I can guarantee you they're not going to let you look.
But the reality is, they have a tomb and they therefore do not have this confidence. The confidence that we have to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil.
For us. Now, the beautiful truth would be there, whether the writer had included that little pronoun there or not, it still would have been a beautiful thing if it said, by a new and living way which He inaugurated through the veil, that is His flesh.
And we probably could have read that in there, but I don't know about you, I'm awful glad that that little pronoun is there. It's easy to become so focused upon what God has done and the focus is certainly there.
The focus certainly isn't upon us and our addition to what God has done in any way, shape, or form. But, even in the midst of speaking of the accomplishment of Christ, He inaugurates it. He is the one who accomplishes it.
It's found in His flesh, and yet, even in the midst of that, part of the confidence that is expressed comes in the personal aspect of what Christ has done. And we've discussed it before, but let me emphasize it yet once again because we always have new folks who come to be with us.
Sometimes we forget what's been said before. But the specificity, the personal nature of the atoning work of Christ is not something you and I should ever be ashamed of. It should be something that is so often upon our lips and upon our tongues and upon our mind.
What do I mean by that? Much of evangelicalism holds to a merely theoretical atonement. Christ dies for a nameless, faceless group. It's up to you whether you're going to be in that group or not. I mean, there's one group that takes this to the logical conclusion, the open theist.
They don't even think that God knew when Christ died who was going to believe in Christ and who wouldn't. At least the historical Arminians go, well, at least God knew who was going to believe, all based upon looking down the corridors of time.
But the open theist goes, God didn't even know you were going to exist when Christ died. Now, there's a real theoretical atonement. But even then, the Arminian, it's not a specific uniting of a specific people to Christ in His death because there's no specific election.
God's election is whoever believes in Jesus will get this from God. You see, we have seen over and over again in the book of Hebrews that when we talk about atonement, it is intimately connected with substitution.
And the only way for substitutionary atonement to work is if there is an elect people given by the Father to the Son, united with Him so that His death is their death, His burial is their burial, His resurrection is their resurrection.
And so when it says He has inaugurated for us, there is a purpose. Yes, there is the purpose of the triune God to glorify Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the redemption of a particular people. But you see, that is applied to us.
God wants us. God wants me. God wants you. The Father wants you as a disciple of Christ to enter into His presence with confidence. To boldly come before the throne of grace. And He has purposefully and personally made the way for you to do so.
Not just, you know, sort of like I was talking with a friend this past Wednesday. He's my bike mechanic. He and I got together and I'm old enough to be his dad. He's a very good bike mechanic. And we rode together.
We did 109 miles together on Wednesday. And at some point we were talking and he was saying, hey, have you ever seen this? I guess there's a bridge they've put in over the 101 out near, I think, 67th Avenue or something.
And it's specifically for bicyclists to get over the 101 because some of those crossings, they're just not a whole lot of fun on a two-wheeled vehicle. He said at night you can tell what it is because they've lit it up with purple lights.
And I'll have to, next time I'm on the 101 at night, have to look for a purple lighted bridge, I guess, or something like that. But the point is, a way has been provided if you happen to be on a bicycle, or I suppose a pedestrian, which would make it a really, really bad thing.
If I'm going over that, it's narrow and I run across a pedestrian that has a big old dog that doesn't like me coming the other direction, that's not gonna work out very well at all. But it's just a generic way.
It wasn't made for me. The people who designed it didn't say, oh, we've seen that one guy and he comes up here a lot and so we're gonna make a specific way for him. No, it's just a way. And I haven't yet chosen to use it.
I might, just for the fun of it, just see what it looks like, you know, alter my route one morning and I know exactly how to get there and just see what I can find. And then I will go over it, because I choose to go over it, but it's not personally my bridge.
It was just put there for people who choose to use it. That's not the new and living way that Jesus inaugurated. When Jesus inaugurated this new and living way, He did so personally. He did so in His person and He did so for a particular people, not just a nameless, faithless group.
And I'm thankful for that. Because that means for me and for you, that the one who knows your heart and your mind knows all your failings and sins and depravity. Knowing all those things fully better than you can know them yourself, still gave Himself to open up this way into the presence of the Father.
It's an incredible thing to consider. That's amazing when you know yourself. That's amazing to think that before you ever came into existence, fully knowing who you were going to be, He gave Himself purposely to inaugurate a new and living way for us.
It is His purpose that we enter into His presence. It is His purpose that we have communion with the triune God. And He has provided the perfect way. And so you see the confidence. The confidence we should have.
And can you see how this is so important to the people to whom it was originally written? Confident access into the very presence of God. Or you can go back to that temple where you never even see into where God is supposed to be.
Confident access into the holy place. It's a fact. It's the foundation upon which a strong warning is gonna come in a moment, yes. But it's also the foundation upon which the writer's gonna say, we're convinced of better things.
You're not amongst those who shrink back. You are gonna have that confidence. It's a living confidence. It is brought into your life by the work of the Spirit of God. And that's why Jesus could say, he who endures to the end shall be saved.
It's not my enduring to the end that saves me. But if I've truly been saved by Him, I will endure to the end because the faith that is mine is produced by His Spirit within me. And it's grounded not in my own accomplishments, but in all this we have seen.
What Jesus Christ has done. What the Father has done. What the Spirit has done. The accomplishment of the triune God. So we will pick up next time, Lord willing, whenever that is, with the assertion that we have a great priest over the house of God, and then the exhortation.
Since we have this confidence to enter in, let us draw near. And once we recognize that it's God who's accomplishing all these things, then we see this list of a sincere heart. Literally means a true heart.
Full assurance of faith. When we don't have the doctrinal foundation, we think these are things we have to work up within ourselves. It brings despair to people. We have to follow the scriptural pattern.
Of first understanding the truth, and then on the basis of that, saying now that you understand that, now that you see that, let us draw near. I love the Word of God. I love its balance. The more we examine it, the more perfect it is seen to be, the more challenging it is seen to be, the more we realize there's so much more we need to know.
What a treasure is ours in the Scriptures. And what a treasure is ours in the recognition that this evening, no matter what our week has been like, no matter what trials and difficulties we face in the coming days, we have confidence.
We have confidence to enter the very holy place by the blood of Jesus who has inaugurated a new and living way for us through the veil. That is His flesh. What a tremendous message. And what a tremendous faith is ours.
Let's pray together. Oh, Heavenly Father, we do thank You that the Gospel is so complete, so beautiful, so perfect, that we can never add anything to it. Oh, Lord, so often the world has succeeded in causing us to complain and for us to not be content, to not be filled with thanksgiving because the world has drawn our attention away from these glorious truths and the fact that we participate in them.
That we've been united with Christ. We've been seated in the heavenly place. Oh, what You have done for us draws out our hearts and love and thanksgiving to You. Lord, we desire to live in light of that.
We desire this day, this coming week, that our service to You would be filled with joy because we know the new and living way. And we know that it's been opened up for us. That Your love was set upon us in eternity past.
What a tremendous truth this is. May it encourage us. May it give us joy even in the midst of sorrow and difficulty. Lord, if there be any in this place or in the sound of my voice that do not know what it is to bow the knee in repentance and faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be united with Him, to find in Him our all in all, may this glorious presentation of who He is found in Your Word be used to draw them by Your Spirit to that confession of faith.
We love You. We thank You for the provision You've made for us even when we were sinners, even when we were reprehensible in Your sight, yet You provided for us perfect atonement. We thank You for it.
We pray in Christ's name, Amen.