21  The New Covenant-  part 3 (9:15-28)

And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order 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 in force 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 shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. (9:15-28)

And for this reason refers back to what has just been said—namely that Christ, because of His sacrificial death had become the mediator of a new and better covenant. By God’s standard of righteousness and justice, the soul that sins must die (Ezek. 18:4). The only way a person could come to God was to have the penalty of his sin paid. This payment Jesus has provided for everyone who trusts in Him. In so doing He became the bridge, the mediator—the only mediator—between God and men. He accomplished in one act what the work of the old priests only symbolized in many repeated acts. Jesus’ supreme act of mediation was His own death on the cross.

People often wonder how Old Testament believers were saved, since salvation is only through Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). They were saved on the same basis as believers today are saved—by the finished work of Christ. Part of Christ’s work as mediator of the New Covenant was the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant. One of the first accomplishments of Jesus’ death was to redeem all those who had believed in God under the Old Covenant. After Christ died, they saw what had only before been a promise. It was a certain promise, a guaranteed promise, but until the Messiah’s atoning death, it was an unfulfilled promise. The point being made here to the writer’s original readers—who were Jews, both saved and unsaved—is that Christ’s atoning death was retroactive. Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) also pictured symbolically what Christ’s atonement did actually. It, too, was retroactive. When the high priest sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat, the unintentional sins of the people were covered for the previous year.

Paul presents this same truth in Romans 3. He teaches that we are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed” (Rom 3:24-25). God is satisfied when a man puts his faith in the shed blood of Christ. Because His blood was not shed until hundreds or even thousands of years after many Old Testament believers died, their salvation was, so to speak, on credit. By their obedient faith in God they were credited with what Jesus Christ, their promised Messiah, would one day do on their behalf and on the behalf of all sinners who have ever lived and who will ever live. Knowing this, God was forbearing and patient, and, until the true sacrifice was made, when He saw a true heart of faith, He passed over their sins. In a deeper sense, the sacrifice had already been made in God’s mind long before it was made in human history, because Christ’s “works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb. 4:3; cf. 1 Pet. 1:19-20; Rev. 13:8). From the human perspective, however, the Old Testament saints could only look forward to salvation.

So the Old Testament sacrifices were not means of salvation, but marks of faithful obedience and symbols of the one perfect sacrifice that would be the means of salvation.

The eternal inheritance that the Old Testament saints could not receive without Christ’s death was salvation, the total forgiveness that alone could bring total access to God. The New Covenant was ratified by the death of Jesus Christ and provided the full salvation that Israel had been hoping for since the very beginning.

This truth introduces the subject of the death of the Christ, the Messiah, the idea of which had always been a stumbling block to Jews (1 Cor. 1:23). Despite the predictions of His death in their own Scriptures (see Ps. 22 and Isa. 53), it was a truth that they preferred to ignore, if not actually deny. They had constructed their own ideas about the Messiah. Many of the ideas were scriptural, some were partly scriptural, and some were unscriptural altogether. They could not be faulted, of course, for having a limited understanding of the Messiah, for God had only given limited revelation. The problem was that they had ignored some messianic truth and had tried to “fill in the blanks” on their own, and a dying Messiah simply did not fit into their theology.

NECESSITY OF MESSIAH’S DEATH

Being very much aware of that theological blind spot, the writer of Hebrews proceeds to give three reasons it was necessary for the Messiah to die: a testament demands death, forgiveness demands blood, and judgment demands a substitute.

A TESTAMENT DEMANDS DEATH

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. (9:16-17)

A testament, by its very nature, requires the death of the testator. Covenant, or testament, is from the Greek diathk, the basic meaning of which corresponds closely to that of our present-day will. A will does not take effect until the one who made it dies. Until that time, its benefits and provisions are only promises, and necessarily future. The point being made in verses 16-17 is simple and obvious.

Its relevance to the Old Covenant, however, was anything but obvious to the Jews being addressed here, so the writer briefly explains how it applies. Building on verse 15, he is saying that God gave a legacy, an eternal inheritance, to Israel in the form of a covenant, a will. As with any will, it was only a type of promisory note until the provider of the will died. At this point, no mention is made of who the testator is or of how Christ fills that role in life and death.

FORGIVENESS DEMANDS BLOOD

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 shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (9:18-22)

The second reason for the death of Christ was that forgiveness demands blood. This truth is directly in line with the previous point, but with a different shade of meaning. Blood is a symbol of death, and therefore follows closely the idea of a testator’s having to die in order for a will to become effective. But blood also suggests the animal sacrifices that were marks of the Old Covenant, even, in fact, of the Abrahamic covenant. In the Old Covenant, the death of animals was typical and prophetic, looking forward to the death of Christ that would ratify the second covenant. Even before the old priestly sacrifices were begun, the covenant itself was inaugurated, or ratified, with blood.

As explained in verse 19, Moses sprinkled blood on the altar and on the people (see Ex. 24:6-8). “Look at your great Moses,” the writer is saying, “He himself inaugurated the Old Covenant with blood.” It is hard for us today to understand how bloody and messy the old sacrificial system was. But among other things, the great amount of blood was a continual reminder of the penalty of sin, death.

When He sat with the disciples on that last night before His death, Jesus picked up the cup and said, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). He was to ratify the New Covenant through His own blood, just as the Old Covenant was ratified by Moses with the blood of animals.

It is possible to become morbid about Christ’s sacrificial death and preoccupied with His suffering and shedding of blood. It is especially possible to become unbiblically preoccupied with the physical aspects of His death. It was not Jesus’ physical blood that saves us, but His dying on our behalf, which is symbolized by the shedding of His physical blood. If we could be saved by blood without death, the animals would have been bled, not killed, and it would have been the same with Jesus.

Since the Tabernacle was not yet built when Moses ratified the covenant, his sprinkling the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood is obviously meant to be anticipatory. The blood he sprinkled at the initiation of the covenant continued, in a sense, to be sprinkled by the priests in the Tabernacle and Temple as long as that covenant stood.

The purpose of the blood was to symbolize sacrifice for sin, which brought cleansing from sin. Therefore, without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Again, however, we need to keep in mind that the blood was a symbol. If Christ’s own physical blood, in itself, does not cleanse from sin, how much less did the physical blood of animals. It is not surprising, then, that the Old Covenant allowed a symbol for a symbol. A Jew who was too poor to bring even a small animal for a sacrifice was allowed to bring one-tenth of an ephah (about two quarts) of fine flour instead (Lev. 5:11). His sins were covered just as surely as those of the person who could afford to offer a lamb or goat or turtledove or pigeon (Lev. 5:6-7). This exception is clear proof that the old cleansing was symbolic. Just as the animal blood symbolized Christ’s true atoning blood, so the ephah of flour symbolized and represented the animal blood. This nonblood offering for sin was acceptable because the old sacrifice was entirely symbolic anyway.

Yet this was the only exception. And even the exception represented a blood sacrifice. The basic symbol could not be changed because what is symbolized could not be changed. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement” (Lev. 17:11). Since the penalty for sin is death, nothing but death, symbolized by shedding of blood, can atone for sin. We cannot enter into God’s presence by self-effort to be righteous. If we, on our own, could be good, we would not need atonement. Nor can we enter His presence by being model citizens or even by being religious. We cannot enter His presence by reading the Bible, by going to church, by giving generously to the Lord’s work, or even by praying. We cannot enter His presence by thinking good thoughts about Him. The only way we can enter into God’s presence, the only way we can participate in the New Covenant, is through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, made effective for us when we trust in Him as saving Lord.

God has set the rules. The soul that sins will die. The soul that is saved will be saved through the sacrifice of God’s Son. For this sacrifice there is no exception, no substitute, for this is the real thing. Because they were symbols, God provided a limited and strictly qualified exception (flour) to the old sacrifices. But there can be no exception for the real sacrifice, because it is the only way to God.

Forgiveness is a costly, costly thing. But I often think to myself how lightly we can take the forgiveness of God. I have come to the end of a day and put my head on the pillow to say, “God, I did this and this today,” listing off the things I had done that I knew were not pleasing to Him. I know He knows about them, so there is no use trying to hide them. I also know He forgives them, because He has promised to forgive them, and I thank Him. I fall off to sleep in a few minutes, accepting but not fully appreciating the marvelous grace that made such assurance and peace so easily available to me.

At other times, as I study the Word of God, and look more closely at the great cost that was paid for my salvation, I am overwhelmed. When I meditate on the infinite cost to God to forgive my sins, I realize how often I abuse my loving Father’s grace.

Paul tells us that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom. 5:20). Then, anticipating how some might distort this truth, he goes on to say, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (6:1). To realize and rejoice in God’s boundless grace is one thing; to presume on it by willfully sinning is quite another. How can we, as forgiven sinners, take lightly or presumptuously, the price paid for our forgiveness? We become so used to grace that we abuse it. In fact, we are so accustomed to grace that when God brings down just punishment we may think it unjust.

God does not forgive sin by looking down and saying, “It’s all right. Since I love you so much, I’ll overlook your sin.” God’s righteousness and holiness will not allow Him to overlook sin. Sin demands payment by death. And the only death great enough to pay for all of mankind’s sins is the death of His Son. God’s great love for us will not lead Him to overlook our sin, but it has led Him to provide the payment for our sin, as John 3:16 so beautifully reminds us. God cannot ignore our sin; but He will forgive our sin if we trust in the death of His Son for that forgiveness.

Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. (9:23)

The copies of the things in the heavens were the things of the old economy. They were but sketches, or outlines, of the realities of heaven. It was necessary for these copies to have sacrifices. It was therefore necessary for the better covenant, the better economy, to have better sacrifices. All the blood of the Old Covenant was just a copy, a faint picture, of the shed blood of Jesus.

God was so satisfied with what Jesus did that He “highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11). God is immeasurably satisfied with Jesus.

God is not satisfied with us, however. That is the very reason we have to come to Him through Jesus. Jesus is the only one who satisfies the Father, and therefore no one comes to Him except through Jesus. The idea that God accepts us as we are is utterly unbiblical. We come to Jesus just as we are, since there is nothing worthwhile we can bring. But He does not present us to the Father just as we are. We are totally unpresentable as we are. Otherwise we could present ourselves. When Jesus presents us to His Father, He presents us in Himself, as He is. When we enter into God’s presence, God sees Jesus instead of us. He sees Jesus’ righteousness instead of our unrighteousness. He sees Jesus’ sacrifice instead of our sin, His payment for our sin instead of the penalty we deserve for our sin. Jesus recognized the indebtedness of sinners. He recognized that God had to be satisfied, and He offered His own blood—His own self—on our behalf.

Jesus told the story of two men who went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, a member of the most religious and orthodox group of Jews. The other was a tax collector, despised almost as a traitor by fellow Jews. The Pharisee gave thanks that he was not like other people, “swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer.” Then he mentioned his faithfulness in fasting and tithing. But Jesus said this Pharisee was praying “to himself.” In other words, he was not really praying at all, only congratulating himself in God’s name. The tax collector, on the other hand, felt so unworthy that he would not even lift up his eyes toward heaven, as the prayer posture often was. He beat on his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” This man, Jesus said, “went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:10-14).

When the tax collector said, “be merciful,” he used the same word used of Christ in Hebrews 2:17 (“to make propitiation”). He was asking God to be propitious to him, to look favorably on him, though he did not deserve it. He was saying, “I confess my guilt. I have broken your law. I have sinned against you, and I am putting myself under the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat. God, please be satisfied. Let your attitude be toward me as it is toward those who are covered by the blood of the sacrifice. Be satisfied with me because of the sacrifice, and forgive me in your love and mercy.” He did not deny his sin, as the Pharisee did in effect. He recognized his guilt and put it under the blood of the sacrifice. He offered God nothing of his own—no good works, no good habits, no good intentions, not even good excuses. He simply threw himself on God’s mercy, God’s propitiation. For this he was justified, counted righteous by God.

No person can be justified before God until he is placed into the death of Jesus Christ and says, “God, I am a sinner. I place myself into the death of your Son. Be satisfied with me for His sake.”

For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (9:24-26)

Christ did not go into an earthly Holy of Holies. He went into the presence of God—the heavenly, real Holy of Holies. And He did it for us. How beautiful to realize that when He went in, He took us with Him! He has ushered us into the very presence of God. Nor did Christ have to offer Himself often, as did the earthly high priests, who had to make the offering of atonement every year. Jesus’ sacrifice was better because He takes His people into the heavenly Holy of Holies with Him and because He had to make an offering only once.

If Jesus’ sacrifice had not been once and for all, He would have had to suffer from the foundation of the world, that is, from the beginning of humankind. He would have had to die continuously, as it were, since the time Adam first sinned. Like the work of the Levitical priesthood, His atoning work would never be finished. But, praise God, His sacrifice does not have to be repeated—not even once. It is finished, completely finished.

His one sacrifice of Himself was made at the consummation of the ages. The epistles confirm this. “Children, it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18); “For the coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:8); “The end of all things is at hand” (1 Pet. 4:7). The consummation of the ages was Christ at Calvary. It is no wonder the apostles expected Jesus to return at any moment and set up His kingdom—to establish the final messianic age, “the age to come” (Matt. 12:32). Until that age, His promise is to be with us through the present age (Matt. 28:20). He was the consummation of the ages because of His once and for all sacrifice. He put away sin. He did not simply cover sin, as the old sacrifices had done; He removed it.

The idea of the perpetual offering of Christ is a heretical doctrine that for many centuries has contradicted this and the many other clear biblical teachings about the finished work of Christ. It maintains that, inasmuch as the priesthood of Christ is perpetual and sacrifice is an essential part of priesthood, therefore the sacrificial offering of Christ must also be perpetual.

Ludwig Ott, a Roman Catholic theologian, explains this perpetual sacrifice dogma, which was made official by that church at the Council of Trent in the middle of the sixteenth century. “The holy Mass,” he writes, “is a true and proper sacrifice. It is physical and propitiatory, removing sins and conferring the grace of repentance. Propitiated by the offering of this sacrifice, God, by granting the grace of the gift and the gift of Penance, remits trespasses and sins however grievous they may be.” In other words, God’s satisfaction regarding sin depends upon the weekly mass. That is why attending mass is so important to Catholics.

But the theory of the perpetual offering of Jesus Christ is in absolute and direct opposition to Scripture. But now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. No doubt some Catholics know Christ, but in holding to the doctrine of the perpetual offering of His sacrifice, they undermine the power and significance of Christ’s one-time and only true sacrifice. This false doctrine is plainly reflected in the crucifix, the ubiquitous symbol of Roman Catholicism. Whether in pictures, in statuary, or wherever, the cross is rarely empty in Catholic representations. To Catholics, Jesus is still being crucified.

In Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, we remember Christ’s sacrificial death, as He commanded us to do. But He is not resacrificed. The Lord commanded His disciples to remember His death, not to try to redo it.

JUDGMENT DEMANDS A SUBSTITUTE

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. (9:27-28)

All men have to die, and our death is by divine appointment. It is one appointment everyone will keep. After death comes judgment, which is also appointed by God. And since men are not able to atone for their own sins, God’s judgment demands that they pay or have a substitute pay for them.

Like all men, Jesus Christ was divinely appointed to die once. But unlike all other men, He will never face judgment. Because He took our sins upon Himself, He took our judgment upon Himself. But the judgment was for our sins, not for His, for He had none. God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). He died the one death that judgment demanded.

As mentioned several times, the people always waited expectantly on the Day of Atonement for the high priest to come out from the Holy of Holies. If he did anything wrong, if he failed to follow God’s precise instructions, he would die. So there was always a sigh of relief, for their own sakes as well as for his, when he reappeared.

That is the situation being alluded to in Hebrews 9:28. If the people were so eager to see the former high priests reappear from the earthly Holy of Holies, how much more should Christians look eagerly for their great High Priest to reappear from the heavenly Holy of Holies? This will occur at the Second Coming (Rev. 19:11-16).

When the high priest walked out of the old sanctuary, the people knew that his sacrifice had been accepted. He had done everything right. Jesus Christ’s reappearing will be one more confirmation that He did everything right, that His Father is satisfied with Him. And because the Father is satisfied with Him, He is satisfied with us, for we are in Him. When He comes back, our salvation will be full. When He appears a second time to those who expect Him, it will not be to deal with sin. Sin only needs to be dealt with once, and this He did on the cross. When He comes again, it will be without reference to sin.

Three appearings of Christ are mentioned in this passage. Verse 26 speaks of His appearing, or being manifested, at the consummation of the ages, that is, when He came to be crucified. Verse 24 speaks of His appearing back in heaven, before the presence of God. Verse 28 speaks of His appearing on earth again. It is His third appearing, but only the second time on earth.

At the end of that eventful Passover week when Jesus was finishing His ministry, the Romans had prepared three crosses for three criminals. On two of the crosses, thieves were to hang. The third cross was for an insurrectionist named Barabbas, who had been found guilty of treason against the empire. But Barabbas never made it to the cross. He was guilty and condemned, but he was not executed—because someone took his place. On the middle cross that day hung not a violent, profane rebel, but the sinless Son of God. Barabbas went free not because he was innocent, but because Jesus took his place. Jesus was crucified not because He was guilty, but so that He could take Barabbas’s place—and the place of every other sinner.