Heb No.18 Power in the Blood 9v11-15

Now let me read to you again those verses from Hebrews chapter 9 that we're particularly studying this evening. That's from the 11th to the 15th inclusive. When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say not a part of this creation.

He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood. Having obtained eternal redemption, the blood of goats and bulls and ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God.

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. One of the greatest compliments I ever received was actually directed at me as sarcasm and an insult, but I took it as being a very, a good thing in the way that I understood it. I was once referred to by a liberal preacher in the north of London as the blood and thunder preacher, the blood and thunder preacher.

Well, I hope that I would never be someone without sensitivity when preaching the gospel. I trust I always have a compassion for sinners, being a classic example of such a person myself, but I have no reason to object to that particular description. However cynically the observation may have been made, it is true that I cling to the old-fashioned idea that the blood of Jesus Christ is the heart of the gospel, and my conclusion is that if you don't mention the blood, then you're not preaching the good news.

So in no way am I embarrassed if some who have heard me would comment on the fact that the blood is central to my own understanding of the gospel of Christ. As for thunder, well, yes, I believe in the wrath of God. I take no joy out of the thought that there are unbelieving people who one day will stand in front of the judgment seat of God and be eternally condemned.

I wish I did not have to preach that particular serious, somber doctrine, but I find it across almost every chapter of the inspired Word of God, and I would be doing less than justice to this book if I hopped over the fact of judgment and majored in a way that lacked care and full accuracy just on the love of God. So yes, if I'm described as a blood and thunder preacher, within the context that I've just painted, I'm quite prepared to accept the description. I only wish before my God that I had great power and eloquence to major upon those two topics vital to the gospel message, which would, by the grace of God, cause a response within the hearts of those who hear that they may understand the preciousness of the blood of Jesus and may flee at the thought of the thunder of God which is directed towards unrepentant men and women.

It is true, my friend, that we evangelical Christians declare, as did one of the great preachers of the Church, if not the greatest with the exception of our Lord Jesus Christ, that our gospel is Christ crucified, that we preach and that we are proud of. The central part of the gospel, of course, is the cross. But on that cross, sometimes so exquisitely carved, so beautifully manufactured by a goldsmith, on that cross, historically, on that cross seen literally yesteryear hung the blood-stained, bedraggled figure of God's own Son, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

John, who was a spectator at the event, makes reference in the gospel that bears his name to the fact that he saw from the body of Jesus, after the spear had penetrated his heart, blood and water flow forth. John was not a dispassionate man. John was a man with sensitivity.

He was the disciple who was particularly attracted to Jesus and Jesus attracted to him. And later on when John writes about his beloved Lord and about that blood which was shed, he evaluates the the power of the blood when he says that it's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which keeps on cleansing us from all sin. And blessed be God, the blood has not lost its power.

And though there would be some who would be astonished at the thought that someone like myself, like yourselves today, would come into a sanctuary such as this and sing proudly, what can wash me white as snow? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Despite their astonishment, we will sing it because we are proud of the blood of Jesus Christ. Would you be free from your burden of sin? There's power in the blood.

There's power in the blood. And we bless God for the thought of our Lord Jesus giving his life, a ransom for us at Calvary's Cross. Indeed, this particular chapter that we're looking at, at least some verses from it this evening, makes it very clear the blood of Christ is central to the Gospel.

Look at that 22nd verse. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Now, these thoughts that I'm just sharing with you, they are really introductory just to set the scene for our meditation this evening. We've only a small sample from this glorious chapter to look at. I'm directing your attention from the 11th verse through to the 15th verse and it seems to me that central to the argument of the writer of this epistle is the consequences that flow from the outpoured blood of Jesus Christ.

If the blood has never lost its power, if the blood is dynamic, if the blood can achieve certain effects, then what are those consequences? What does the blood merit? What follows from the fact that Jesus bled and died as an offering for our sins on Calvary's cruel cross? Well, I argue from these verses. Four very simple, at least simple to understand things are consequential on the shed blood of Jesus. We read in the 11th verse that it is by the blood of Jesus Christ that He is able as a high priest to enter into the sanctuary of God.

Let's put that very simply. It is because Jesus Christ shed His blood that He can enter into the place where God is. Now our Lord Jesus Christ is the representative man.

That is to say, He stands in your place, He stands in mine. That's what I was trying to share with the young people and indeed all the friends on Sunday evening glass. It was the job of the priest at the ordinary level to be the spokesman of man and to present man's case, so to speak, before the Lord.

Now look at the 7th verse of this chapter because you will remember from our study last week that those opening verses refer particularly to the earthly tabernacle. That sanctuary which was erected in Sinai was taken down and re-erected at various stages as the Hebrews made their way to the promised land. But the thing that I'm trying to emphasize at the moment is not so much the sanctuary but what went on in the tabernacle.

Well, we're told that the high priest, the representative of the Hebrew community, entered into the inner chamber of the sanctuary, that square room right at the front of the tabernacle known as the Holy of Holies, and there in the presence of the Lord, he applied blood to the mercy seat. But you see, there's a contrast when you come to the 11th verse because we're not talking now about the Aaronic priesthood, we're not talking about Moses, we're not talking about his brother, we're not talking about any of the Levites, we're talking about our Lord Jesus Christ. And he, in contrast to the earthly priest, is going to achieve a ministry that will have far greater benefits than the ministries of any of the priests of the Old Testament era.

Now, it was once a year, you remember, I made it very clear as I expounded the Scripture that the high priest could enter into the earthly tabernacle, into the Holy of Holies. He could only go once a year and he could only stay for a very short time. But Jesus, He doesn't go into the Holy of Holies in the temple at Jerusalem.

You remember it was a temple that took over, so to speak, from the portable tabernacle. What Jesus Christ did was to enter into the tabernacle in the heavens of which the tabernacle on earth was just a copy. Jesus went into the real thing.

Jesus went into the presence of God where He always is. So in the heart of that 11th verse, reference is made to Jesus. He went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made.

The earthly tabernacle, as verse 1 of the 9th chapter reminds us, was constructed by human beings, albeit under the direction of Moses who was inspired by God. But the place where God is, turn back will you to the 8th chapter and to the 2nd verse, the place where God is in the heavenlies, that true sanctuary was set up by the Lord and not by man. Now in a sense, and don't push this too literalistically, I'm using it as a metaphor.

In a sense the high priest in the Old Testament era was parabolically enacting what Jesus would do after His death on Calvary's cross. Let's take it again. In the earthly sanctuary the high priest goes into the holy place, the replica of heaven's sanctuary, and he stays there just for a while and God allows His presence to be localized there.

But when Jesus dies, when Jesus is raised again, when our blessed Lord Jesus Christ shows that His priesthood is far greater than any earthly priest, He does so by doing what? By going into the heavenlies, by going into that not man-made tabernacle, that divinely created tabernacle, that place where the living God is. And He penetrates that place not only as Son of God, but as Son of Man. He goes there as our representative.

But on what basis can a man, the God-man, represent sinful men such as us? Well, he can only do so by having made an atonement for our sins, by having shed His blood. It is impossible, I repeat, for Jesus Christ as our representative to act on our behalf in heaven, in the holiest place of all, unless He has shed blood to atone for the sins of those. Whose cause He will plead.

So here is our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He's got something to offer as a priest. But more of that as a moment. In a moment.

If you turn back to Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3, there's something very interesting said about our Savior. I'm looking at the last half of that verse and reference is to what Jesus achieved in heaven. After He had provided purification that was on the earth for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

I'm going to be commenting on the significance of that in more detail later on. But at this juncture, the point I want to emphasize is this. When Jesus went into the heavenlies, into the holiest place of all, He stayed there.

He penetrated heaven on behalf of men as their representative, and He stayed there. The High Priests, they went into the holy place, the earthly tabernacle, once a year, and they couldn't remain. But our Lord Jesus Christ not only went into the heavenly tabernacle, but He stayed.

And the reason why He is able to go as our representative is because of the blood that He shed. But there's something else before we move on to the second main thing I want to bring to your attention this evening. As a High Priest, not only does He have something to offer to the Lord, but He has something to bestow to ordinary men and women.

And that's what the 11th verse is saying here. Christ being an High Priest of good things to come by a greater more perfect tabernacle and so forth. What is meant by those good things which are to come? Let me read the NIV again.

When Christ came as High Priest of the good things that are already here, because Jesus Christ came into this world as our Savior, He brings with Him an abundance of blessings. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 8 and verse 32. Their mention is of what God in Christ has done for us.

What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him graciously give us all things. Now the writer of the Hebrew epistle in this 11th verse of the 9th chapter refers to good things that are already here. What is he mentioning? What's at the back of his mind? Well blessed be God because Christ is our High Priest.

Not only does He minister before God on our behalf but He blesses us on behalf of God and He gives us a foretaste of many things which are yet in store for us in heaven. He gives us for example the earnest of the Holy Spirit. He gives to us the blessings here on earth of our salvation.

And yet there's more to come. The good man is kept until the end. That's always the case with God.

And so Christian people along their earthly pilgrimage are cheered up if they get a little depressed because the Apostle Paul reminds us of these good things. They're going to get better, bigger and bigger, better and better. For I have not seen nor ear heard of the things which God hath in store for those that love Him.

And all those blessings are due to the fact that Jesus shed His blood on our behalf. And as a result He's able to penetrate heaven as our representative. Penetrating the presence of God? Aye, but more than that, securing for us eternal redemption.

Let's come to the 12th and the 13th verses which make this facet of our study tonight very clear. And there is referred or there you find reference to certain animals used by the priests in Old Testament days. Goats and calves and bulls and a heifer.

These were all employed by the high priests in days gone by. Look at the 7th verse again just to make that clear. Only the high priest entered the inner room and that only once a year and never without blood.

He always required blood. And it must be the blood of an animal. It wasn't his own blood.

Let's drop down to the 25th verse. Well at the end of that verse contrast is made between the Lord Jesus and the high priests of the Old Testament era. The writer says the Lord Jesus as opposed to them.

When He entered heaven, did that need to offer Himself again and again? The way the high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood that is not his own. So what's the point that I'm making? Well the earthly high priest, he had to have recourse to one of these animals that are listed here as he makes an atonement for the sins of the people and for his own sins. He can't offer his own blood because he's a sinner and there's no value in his blood at all.

Am I? Well if Jesus Christ is going to act as high priest, then he's going to need blood. But he doesn't use any of the blood of the animals he listed. Not a goat, not a bull, not a heifer.

Why not? Well you see, these are beasts. These have got no purity themselves. They do not offer to be sacrificed.

They're sacrificed and they've got no choice about it. But there's no intrinsic value in the blood of a goat, in the blood of a bull, in the blood of a heifer. There may be symbolic value, but there's no currency at all.

There's nothing that can ultimately atone for sins. It may symbolize something, but it can't do any more than that. So what is our Lord Jesus going to offer then? Well, we've got a hint at the fact that he's going to offer something in the fourth verse of the eighth chapter.

Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifice and so it was necessary for this one, for Jesus Christ also, to have something to offer. All right, but what is he going to bring? Well, let's drop back a little and in the 27th verse of the previous chapter, we're told, unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once per hour when he offered himself.

Well, what does our author mean when he speaks of Jesus offering himself? Well, it's here that we come back to the 12th and the 13th verses of the ninth chapter. The blood of goats and birds and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkle them on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ, what's he going to offer? He's going to offer his own body.

The blood that he shed will not be the blood of the bull or of the goat or of the heifer, for these things can never take away sin. This is the blood of a brute creature. With no morality, with no voluntary spirit does it volunteer to come along and to be sacrificed.

But our Lord Jesus Christ, he offers himself. There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.

That is what our author is saying about our Savior. When he offers up his life to God on the cross, he spills his blood for you and for me. So here is a thought of our blessed Lord Jesus going into the holy place.

I don't believe that he literally, in heaven, took his blood, but I do believe that the value of what he represents as the man who offered his life on the cross is there in heaven and is perceived by the Father. Listen to F.F. Bruce. When on the cross he offered up his life to God as a sacrifice for his people's sins, he accomplished in reality what Aaron and his successors performed in time by the twofold act of slaying the victim and presenting its blood in the holy of holies.

So what have we got in this verse? We've got a tremendous contrast between what the Old Testament priests did. They were incompetent. Their sacrifices were inadequate.

But our Lord Jesus Christ, he's all-sufficient. He's more than adequate to achieve the redemption of humankind. These priests were always so busy.

They came annually, the high priest, into the holy of holies and offered blood, but there was no final sacrifice. You knew that, because next year he'd be doing exactly the same. And those minor priests who were offering sacrifices day by day, they too would be as busy as bees just after the day of atonement.

It was just a relentless round of activity in the Old Testament tabernacle, in the Old Testament temple. But when Jesus offers his blood on the cross, and when in the virtue of the power of that death, he enters heaven, he is accepted. His sacrifice is accepted once for all as the means whereby the sins of mankind are forgiven.

So what has our Savior done? He's penetrated the presence of God. He's secured eternal redemption. And then thirdly, he is able as a result, because he shed his blood, to cleanse the conscience of sinful people.

Let's go back to that 13th verse. The blood of goats and bulls and ashes of the heifer, sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they're outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself on blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.

What does all that mean? Well, let's go back to the ninth verse of this chapter. And there, further reference is made to the inadequacy of the Old Testament priesthood. This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.

You see there was tremendous inadequacy in the Old Testament sacrificial system. The priests there were unable alas, to offer a final sacrifice that would be acceptable to the Lord for the cleansing of our sin. The conscience of the worshiper remained still contaminated, because there were sins that he had committed that were not finally covered, even by the shed blood of an animal.

I wonder if you've understood that? Let me approach it from another direction to try and make it even more clear. Drop back to the seventh verse, will you? Still in chapter nine. Only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins that people had committed in ignorance.

Do you understand the significance of that? The sins that the people had indulged in in ignorance were not covered by the offering of the blood of those root animals. There were sins that the people had not atoned, or could not have had atoned for in the Old Testament era. Their conscience remained therefore in a state of disquiet.

But the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, when he cleanses us from our sins, he does it so effectively that he covers every aspect of sin, even deliberate sins that have got no atonement in the Old Testament law. The blood of Jesus, it completely cleanses. Now you say, well, what about this business of the goats and the bulls and the ashes of a heifer in the thirteenth verse? What is that referring to? Well, when somebody in the Old Testament era went into, shall we say, the tent where someone had died, then they were considered to be unclean, because they'd had contact with a dead body.

And as a result of that, there were certain things that had to be done. The ashes of the heifer were kept outside the encampment of the Hebrews, and the ashes of the heifer, they were mixed with water. And a person who was ceremonially unclean, because he'd been touched by or had touched himself a dead body, he would have hyssop, uh, weed, dipped into the water in which the ashes of the heifer had been placed.

And this water of cleansing would be applied to the contaminated person. Our writer says, although this had got its significance, it only acted in an outward way. It was a cosmetic thing.

It didn't touch the conscience. It didn't penetrate deeply enough. But he says, verse 14, how much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our conscience from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.

Not all the blood of beasts and Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away its stain. All that the Hebrews did in the days of the Old Testament was inadequate. It didn't mean that it had got no value.

Symbolically, it stood for a great deal. But it was always pointing forward to the One who would come, who was able not only to cleanse in a symbolic sense, but cleanse completely. Not cleanse superficially, but cleanse deeply.

But Christ the Heavenly Lamb takes all our sins away, a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they. My soul looks back to see the burden thou didst bear when hanging on the accursed tree and knows its guilt was there. Blessed be God.

Our Lord Jesus Christ touches the depths of the human nature. There he is in heaven. He's penetrated on heaven on our behalf.

He's our representative. He has shed our blood. He has shed his blood for us.

He's brought about redemption and that redemption through the blood that he has shed has such an effect that it touches the conscience of ordinary people like ourselves, so that we can know that we are forgiven. I think one of the most wonderful things about our salvation, my dear friends, is that it's not just an academic thing. It's something that you feel.

How many times have you experienced, how many times have I known in my vestry, people almost weep with joy at the thought that their conscience which gave them no peace is now at rest. I know of people within our congregation who are ashamed of their past life, who would not want what happened then ever to be known by anyone else at all. And for years they lived in a state of disquiet.

They couldn't contain their conscience. It was accusing them. It gave them no rest at all.

But blessed be God, the day came when they heard the gospel preached. They realized there was a man in the glory who'd shed his blood for them. They realized that there was a redemption that had been made possible because of his sacrifice on the cross.

And the moment came in their experience when the Holy Spirit so entered their heart, so applied the power of the blood to their personality that they felt clean and pure and free. And for the first time in their lives, since they had engaged in that bout of sinfulness, they had a joy and a wonder. Calvary covers it all.

The blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses from all sin. You can kill a thousand bullocks. You can mix that blood with the blood of a thousand goats.

You can get harvests full of fields with the weed that is here referred to. And you can sprinkle the blood upon the whole of humanity. And there will never be any cleansing at all.

But blessed be God, because of what Jesus has done. The sprinkling of his blood on the conscience of a sinner lifts the burden and makes him free. What else follows? Well, the Bible tells us this, that those acts that we performed which led to death, thou art changed.

I'm talking about the 14th verse and the last part of it. The Eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God. Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanses our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God.

Have you got in mind that tent in which there was a dead body and the person becomes contaminated because they've had contact with the corpse? Now in one sense that's parabolic. It talks about you before you were converted. Everything you did was a dead act.

It didn't count in the estimation of God. It couldn't because you were a sinner. You were dead in trespasses and in sins.

But the moment the Spirit of God, so to speak, took the hyssop weed and the blood of Jesus had the hyssop weed dipped into it and he sprinkled it on your heart and on your conscience and you were free. You were cleansed. You were set, you set out in the service of God and you started to act for Him.

You did deeds which pleased Him and the acts of death which was a description of your previous life is now taken over or are now taken over by the acts which are acceptable to the Lord and so you serve Him because you have been cleansed. The blood of Jesus has made you effective as an ambassador for the Lord God. And the final thing that this blood does, look at the 15th verse, it becomes the mediator.

It enables the Lord Jesus to become a mediator of a new covenant that those who are called may receive the promised, may receive the promised eternal inheritance now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. There was nothing wrong with the covenant that God enacted with Moses at Sinai. The thing that was wrong was not the covenant that was not with the covenant, but the people who were to receive its benefits.

They never kept the contract. They broke it and that covenant couldn't save. It could only expose their deficiencies.

But there's a new covenant, a covenant that covers up all the sins of ignorance, all the sins that have been deliberately committed on our part. A superior price has been paid, not by the shed blood of a brute animal, that's not superior at all, but by the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

You see, all the sins of the men of the ages gone by who lived before Jesus and all the sins of those who've lived after Jesus are still covered just by the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son. There's only one way by which people will get to heaven. It doesn't matter whether we're thinking of Abraham in the Old Testament era or you and me in the New Testament era.

They were all looking for the Old Testament saints, the coming of the Lord Jesus. And it was to his sacrifice at Calvary that the Old Testament sacrifices were pointing to. The day was to dawn, blessed be God, when what happened in the earthly tabernacle would be fulfilled as Jesus came and dwelt amongst men, becomes our representative, dies on the cross of Calvary, spills his blood, an awful tragic death, is raised again by the power of the Spirit of God as an indestructible being.

He then enters into heaven and on, because of the benefits of the shed blood on the cross, he penetrates the holiest place of all, not just as Son of God, but as Son of Man, as your representative, as my representative. Heaven acknowledges that what he did down on earth is an atonement for the sins of mankind. He secures our redemption and that redemption is so effective it lifts the guilty conscience of the sinner.

It makes him free and Jesus Christ's covenant which he has enacted will remain in force as the only way whereby sins can be forgiven until the moment when he returns. Well, I ask you my friend, as I close down this study, do you know this yourself? Not only academically, but do you know it personally? Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing flood? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Do you know what it is to say, I'm clean? Because Jesus died for me. Have you got this surety that there's a man in the glory who's pleading your case? Have you had the experience of a conscience that once gave you no peace, being affected by the blood of Jesus Christ, which brings peace to the troubled heart? Are you written into the blessings of Calvary? Are you one of the men, one of the women, for whom Christ died? How do you know? By asking yourself this question.

Have I come to Jesus and said, Lord, I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. Will you take that blood and will you cleanse me? And will you put your pure life to my account? Will you be my priest? Will you intercede for me in heaven, before your Father, on the grounds of your shed? Pure blood. If you do that, I tell you in the name of God, the Lord Jesus will respond to your request.

If you don't do that, then remember my starting point this evening. Not only was I accused as being a preacher of blood, but also a preacher of thunder. And outside the shed blood of Jesus Christ, there is not and cannot be any mercy exercised to the sinner.

The unforgiven man is in a desperate condition. He bypasses the blood and he's exposed to the wrath. And there's only one way you can avert the wrath of God.

It's through the blood of Christ. Tell me that I preach bluntly and you'll be doing me a favor, because that is what God's Word says. I point you to the blood and outside of the blood there's only wrath.

What situation are you in right now? Cleansed by the blood or exposed to the wrath?