The Symbol and the Better Sacrifice

GO SLOWLY INTRO

1001 Illustrations that Connect (Illustration 287: Welcome to Heaven)

Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth, was asked if those who died without confessing Christ as Savior would go to heaven. She replied:

when people “want to visit my father’s home in western North Carolina. They drive up the long drive and come to the gate. They knock on the gate and say, “Billy Graham, let us in. We’ve read your books, we’ve watched you on TV, we’ve written to you, and we want to come to your house.”

And my father says, “Depart from me, I don’t know you. You’re not a member of my family, and you’ve not made any arrangements to come.”

But when I drive up that same driveway and knock on the gate, I say, “Daddy, this is Anne, and I’ve come home.” The gate is thrown right open, and I go inside, because I’m the father’s child.

Because heaven is God’s house, he has the right to decide who comes in and who stays out...they have to be born again into his family through faith in Jesus Christ.

That gives us a wonderful hope that when the time comes…we can be assured that at the end of the journey, we’ll step right into our Father’s arms. We’ll be welcomed there because we are our Father’s children.

—Anne Graham Lotz, “Finding Meaning in September 11,” CNN.com (December 11, 2006)

Today we are looking at Hebrews 9.

In this passage we see the Symbol that points to the Better Sacrifice.

Main point: Since Christ has appeared as our High Priest we can now receive the good things that have come through entering the greater and more perfect tent.

In chapter 9 the author of Hebrews is telling his audience:

Since Christ is our high priest…

1. Do not trust in the old covenant.

this has been warning against since chapter 4 Hebrews 4:14 “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” Heb 7:11 “Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?” Heb 7:18 “For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness”

Old Covenant (Heb 9:1-5) two sections in the tent, tabernacle, with a curtain separating - (Heb 9:6-7) Day of Atonement Leviticus 16

Separation because of sin - (Heb 9:8-10)

The veil in the Tabernacle separated the people from God, even though the first covenant had regulations and an earthly place of holiness, verse 1, Something was missing—access to God, but then Christ appeared—verse 11.

Since Christ is our high priest…

2. Enter His eternal redemption. (Heb 9:11-12)

Greater and More Perfect Tent - Schlitterbahn verse other water parks - they follow the pattern

How? The same way he entered - by His blood - (Heb 9:12-14)

purify our conscience with His blood (Heb 9:14) How do we purify our conscience?

Repent of dead works Ephesians 2:1–2 “1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 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—” the old covenant didn’t perfect the conscience - (Heb 9:9) the new covenant purifies the conscience (Heb 9:14)

Serve the living God Ephesians 2:4–5“4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—” Ephesians 2:10 “10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Because of the eternal redemption of the blood of Jesus we can have a purified conscience, repenting of dead works and serving the living God. But there’s more to this eternal redemption—the New Covenant.

Since Christ is our high priest…

3. Receive the eternal inheritance. (Heb 9:15a)

New Covenant was promised by the OT Prophets Jeremiah 31:31–34 “31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”” Forgiveness of sin is see in

(Heb 9:15) So by His death, Jesus fulfills the Old Covenant by His sacrifice, and He also becomes the mediator of the New Covenant

How? - By the blood of Jesus! in particular, His death (Heb 9:16-22)

Old Covenant believers were saved on credit, New Covenant Believers on debit.

In the Old covenant, believers were saved on credit— trusting by faith that God would cover their sin by the daily and yearly sacrifices, In the New Covenant we are save on debit—trusting in the better sacrifice of Jesus that doesn’t just cover sin—it forgives it!

Since Christ is our high priest…

4. Eagerly await His glorious return. - (Heb 9:23-24)

Ascension Hebrews 8:1–2 “1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.”

Seated at the right hand means Jesus shares God’s authority, Jesus is God, coequal with the Father, but He’s also a man, He exist right now as a human in the presence of God and He is in the body. Why is this a big deal? The last time a human was in the presence of God in their body was Adam and Eve! This is why the earthly tent had the veil, the curtain, to separate humans from God. The Lord allowed one man to come in under a cloud of incense, one day a year, but this was far from living freely in the presence of God.

(Heb 9:24-26) Jesus offered Himself once - here the author of Hebrews pans the camera out, he zoomed in to the picture of the glorified Christ and now he pans out to show all of creation

(Heb 9:27-28) - here we see the panoramic picture - if you are eagerly waiting for Jesus, you aren’t trusting in the old covenant, by His blood you’re entering eternal redemption, receiving the eternal inheritance, then this is a gloriously picture of an eternity, saved and safe in the arms of Jesus, the author of Hebrews shows us this reality in Hebrews 10:17 God says in the New Covenant (Heb 10:17-18), You don’t have to offer anything, Jesus paid it all

but without Jesus’s better sacrifice then the picture is much darker, the author of Hebrews paints the other side of this portrait for us in (Heb 10:26) this is not a Christian who commits sin, this some who rejects Christ and deliberately remains in their sin, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin outside of Jesus - (Heb 10:26-29)

The Old covenant has passed away, there is no more covering over sin, the new covenant in Jesus’s blood is here, He is the only One who can forgive sin, if you reject Him, then you live separated from God, you have to pay for your sin, so vengeance, punishment is all that remains - (Heb 10:30-31) There is a new covenant, an eternal redemption and an eternal inheritance you can eagerly await His return

You don’t have to fall into the hands of the living God, you can trust in the nail scared hands of Jesus.

προσευξώμεθα