A Redemption that is out of this world. Hebrews 9:11-14
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Veni, Vidi, vici! The boastful words of Julius Caesar to the Roman senate after his decisive victory over Pharnaces II of Pontus at the Battle of Zela in modern day Turkey. It was as if he was saying what else can I say?… I came, I saw, I conquered. A few short words to capture the swift decisive victory in battle. This was the inevitable outcome.
The author of Hebrews here is boasting a similar boast about the decisive victory of Christ when He says in vs. 14 “how much more will the blood of Christ. He came, He saw, He conquered. What else could we expect? This was the inevitable outcome from the beginning. The old was flawed and by design a shadow of the reality which is Christ.
The inevitable outcome of the cross.
The inevitable outcome of the cross.
He appeared.
He appeared.
As a greater temple.
The moment that he appeared death began to tuck its tail and run. This battle was decisive it was over before it started. Rigged battle, like coming to a gun fight with a knife, but more like a nuclear war with just your bare fists. Its like that guy who fought that famous boxer Max Baer who hit him so hard in the fight that that he actually jogged part of his spine loose he was a dead man walking around. The next fight the guy literally hit him with one small jab and he was dead.
This is the already but not yet. He has already brought to us the good things to come, but the best is yet to come.
“We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’ ”
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus is not of this creation that is He is as the “Nicene Creed” confirms begotten not made. He is outside of the creation being very God of God, in fact the very agent of creation.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
Look over in chapter 10:5
He approached.
He approached.
with a greater sacrifice.
The high priest would approach the inner most holy place not by his own merit, but fearfully with the blood of a bull. To offer sacrifice for himself ad his family. But Christ entered the heavenly sanctum by His own merit and His own blood. This is why He is able to perfect and this is why He is able to save to the uttermost. This is why the Catholic mass is such a damnable doctrine. Because Christ came once for all to decisively deal with sin. But in the mass there is a re-sacrifice for sin over and over. This is ironically why when you see Catholics they have the crucifix. You know the cross and Jesus is still on the cross, because is still being offered countless times for sin in the mass. The Roman catholic never truly has the assurance of the forgiveness of sin. They have more in common with the priests of old than they do with New Testament Christianity.
Just as the Red Heifer was to be burned outside of the camp, so to Christ was crucified on Calvary outside of the walls of Jerusalem.
He attained.
He attained.
a better salvation.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Excursus III: The Blood of Jesus and His Heavenly Priesthood)
“The work of the incarnate Son penetrated right to the heart of the matter: it was inward, not outward, radical instead of superficial, purifying the conscience, not just the flesh, and therefore fully and finally effective as a remedy for the sickness of mankind.” Heb Hughes
How could an animal or any other thing in this world that is connected to sin and effects of sin possibly achieve the radical inward cleansing of the conscience that God requires.
Only Christ who was free from all sin could do such a thing. The Old system was useful but weak and could only deal with the external. Christ much more greater because He not only deals with the outward, but the inwards transformation as well.
The outward in that He sanctifies us He himself being first sanctified is able to also set us apart and make us holy. This is the progressive and ongoing work of the Spirit making the believer holy by faith. Justification which comes to us by faith does not make us objectively holy, God declaring the sinner to be holy in Christ. God chooses to see the sinner in the righteousness of Christ because of faith. It is as the ancients called it “an alien righteousness” because it is a righteousness that we do not posses in and of ourselves but is borrowed from God.
But to be sanctified to become holy. We are becoming in reality who we are in Christ and who we one day will become completely. That is called glorification.
Through the eternal Spirit. I want to take some time address the issue that I believe this passage and the New Covenant requires to operate. That is how does God guarantee the New Covenant promises. He has secured eternal redemption for us. That is He guarantees it because of His superior sacrifice. Back in chapter 2 I preached a message on the scope and nature of Christ’s sacrifice. For whom did Christ die? Did He or did he not secure and guarantee an eternal redemption. The conclusion of scripture is that He actually died to accomplish salvation for the elect. It was not hypothetical, He did not just make men savable, He actually saves men. Its called Penal substitutionary atonement, He actually paid a ransom price he in he language of chapter 9:12 He secured for us an eternal redemption.
HOW DID HE DO IT? The New Covenant law written on hearts, universal knowledge of God, decisive forgiveness of sin. How did he do this if we have consciences defiled by dead works. The Old Covenant could not accomplish it, it could only deal with the flesh. SO HOW DID HE DO IT? The answer the NEW BIRTH. Infact this entire passage is contrasting the creation from not created, the flesh vs the spirit, dead works and the living God.
Listen to what John 3:6
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
He has made us the collective church his temple here on earth. Just as Christ in his body is the true temple in heaven, so we are his temple his inner sactum here on earth. If the world wishes to serve the living God, it cannot be apart from this temple. God works in and through the church who has been entrusted with His gospel.