154 - Cleansing of Sin is Only Through Death [B]

Hebrews Lesson 154  April 2, 2009

^NKJ Proverbs 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

We are in Hebrews 9. Now I'm only going to go to one verse there again as we start. We'll get there mostly tonight. I want to go back to John 13. So if you are going to open your Bibles somewhere, open them to John 13. I wanted to tie together one point I left loose last time. It's also important because it really helps us to connect the dots with what the writer of Hebrews is saying in Hebrews 9.

Now the focal point of what we're seeing in the last part of Hebrews 9 is cleansing. That has been a doctrine that the writer has been talking about. He's been focusing on ritual cleansing earlier in chapter 9. Then he goes to the cleansing that occurs at the cross. The cleansing of sin is only through death. 

^NKJ Hebrews 9:22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

Well, that's what that means. Apart from a certain kind of death there is no forgiveness. There is no eternal forgiveness, judicial forgiveness of sin. We have that in Christ. Hebrews 9 and 10 become the top of the staircase, as it were, that we've been climbing since Hebrews 1. Tonight what I want to do is pull together some of the loose ends, some of these different strands that we have been focusing on for the last year as we've gone through Hebrews 9. 

It has taken a long time to get through Hebrews 9; but it is built on such a significant understanding of Old Testament ritual, Old Testament procedures, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the sacrifices, the priesthood – all of these things that to go back and study these things as they were originally revealed in the Old Testament and then tie it together is what we've been doing. It shows that Bible study is not always a real simple procedure. It's not just superficial. It's not that you can't gain things from just grazing over the surface, but at times we really need to dig deeply in order to make sure we understand these concepts and the words that are used. 

For example as we get into Hebrews 9:15:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason He is the Mediator

What's a mediator? How many people that you talk to on the street know what a mediator is? 

of the new covenant,

What's a covenant? What's the New Covenant? How does the New Covenant relate to the old covenant? How does the New Covenant relate to the church?  How does the New Covenant relate to the future of Israel? 

by means of death,

What kind of death? – seven different kinds of death in the Scripture. 

for the redemption

What's redemption? What does that mean?

of the transgressions

 What transgressions? What is a transgression?

under the first covenant,

First covenant – what covenant is that? 

that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance

What does it mean to be called? What's the promise? What's the eternal inheritance? These are all concepts we've gone through in various ways over the last year. What I just wanted to point out was that a simple verse like this is loaded with extremely technical vocabulary that is defined through its introduction in the flow of revelation starting in Genesis and working all the way through the Bible. 

Many people today think, "Well, why do we even need to study the Old Testament? The Old Testament, well that's the old covenant. We're not under the old covenant; we're under the New Covenant. We're in the Church Age. Let's not study the Old Testament."

But what a study of Hebrews shows is you can't understand the New Testament and these rich doctrines that the writer of Hebrews is unpacking for us coming out of the cross, if you don't understand the way God set this up in the Old Testament through the pictures and the images and the foreshadowing from the Old Testament - what we call a type. And all of this really seems to come together in Hebrews 9 because the focal point of Hebrews 9 is on the Old Testament ritual related to the Day of Atonement and how that pictures what Christ accomplished on the cross; what the writer of Hebrews calls in this chapter "having accomplished eternal redemption." Past tense. It is completed. 

So we stopped on this term "eternal inheritance" as we were going through this verse to understand what the New Testament teaches about inheritance. The last thing we looked at in terms of inheritance was the emphasis that Jesus gave to cleansing of sin in relation to having a share of our inheritance in the Millennial Kingdom.

So I wanted to step back a minute and look at John 13 at a couple of things I did not tie together last time. Then we'll get into Hebrews 9.

In John 13:1 we are told:

^NKJ John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover,

I announced on Tuesday night that next Thursday is Passover. April 9^th is Passover. I'm going to do another Passover demonstration here. Now we won't have communion with it. Sometimes we do that. But we won't have communion with it. The Lord's Table comes out of the Passover. But I'll do a full Passover demonstration and then the following Sunday is of course Resurrection Day and it's the second Sunday of the month, which is when we observe the Lord's Table. So it will help set the stage for what we're going to do Sunday morning at the Lord's Table and the resurrection. It's nice how it sort of fits together. 

So it's the time for the feast of the Passover, the night before the Passover. Jesus is going to sit down with His disciples and have the Passover meal. The text here in 13:1 says:

when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

I pointed out last time that this passage is bracketed by this reference to love. If you go down to the end of the chapter, you see that in John 13:34-5 Jesus gives a new commandment. He says:

^NKJ John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

^NKJ John 13:35 "By this

That is "by this loving one another." 

all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Now what happens in the middle of this? That's important. Last time I talked about how Jesus washing of the disciples' feet wasn't a picture of being a servant. That's not what He's emphasizing. You don't see that word emphasized in here at all. The picture is something to do with loving one another. The model is "as I have loved you." So the standard in this new commandment is not like the Old Testament standard in Leviticus 18:13 "to love your neighbor as you love yourself." The standard is not to love someone as you love yourself but love someone as Christ loved the church. New standard, a little bit more difficult! We are to love one another as Christ loved us. What He's demonstrating there in the foot washing is the principle of cleansing of sin, which is a picture of forgiveness. The connection is that Jesus is saying, "As I have forgiven you," (which is what's depicted in the concept of cleansing), you are to do to one another."

"Forgive one another," Paul says in Ephesians 4. 

^NKJ Ephesians 4:32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.

He uses the same word there he uses in Colossians which is charizomai. It has to do with gracing somebody out, being gracious to them despite what they have done. So the event of the foot washing is bracketed by this emphasis on love.

Now to remind you of what happened in the foot washing, Jesus got up from supper, laid aside His garments, wrapped Himself in a towel so He wouldn't slosh water all over Himself, poured water in the basin, began to wash the disciples' feet.  

This was a little too much for Peter. When He came to Peter, Peter challenged Him and said:

^NKJ John 13:8 Peter said to Him, "You shall never wash my feet!" Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."

Basically to paraphrase it: "Peter, you're not going to understand the significance of this object lesson now; but you will in the future when the Holy Spirit gives you precise revelation that explains this."

So he's picturing something. That's how we understand abstract doctrine often, is by these pictures that God gives us in the Scripture. 

So Peter said:

^NKJ John 13:8 Peter said to Him, "You shall never wash my feet!"

And Jesus said:

Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."

I emphasized two words there. The word for washing here is the Greek word nipto, which has to do with only a partial washing. Using the word nipto you'd say, " I washed my face or washed my hands or I washed my feet." But you would use a different word, the word louo, if you were talking about taking a full bath. 

Now that's important because the full bath pictures what we call positional cleansing. Now keep that in mind. There are two different kinds of cleansing that we see in Scripture. The kind of cleansing that is full, total and what we call positional because it's in Christ that occurs at the instant of salvation.  When you believed Jesus died on the cross for your sins, at that instant you become washed totally. Now the picture of that from the Old Testament was that when the High Priest was inaugurated into the priesthood; he took a bath. He's washed from head to toe. But from that point on he is to wash his hands and his feet at the laver whenever he goes in to serve the Lord in the Temple. That's that picture of that ongoing cleansing. 

We're completely cleansed (legally, positionally) from our sin at salvation; but experimentally we still sin. Because we still sin that breaks fellowship with God. It breaks that walk by the Holy Spirit and so there has to be this experiential cleansing or forgiveness needs to take place in order for us to recover fellowship and to resume our forward momentum in the spiritual life. If we don't do that, we'll just stop dead in our tracks. We won't go forward. If we don't go forward, the Holy Spirit's not working in our lives. He's not producing the fruit of the Spirit. He's not producing spiritual growth. He's not producing that which is rewardable at the Judgment Seat of Christ; there is no reward; there is no inheritance. That's what this word "part" means. It's the Greek word meros meaning a share or a portion; that portion of the inheritance that would go to the heir.

So Jesus says, "If you don't let me partially wash you (experiential cleansing, I John 1:9), you'll have no inheritance with Me, Peter."

So Peter goes all the way to the other extreme.  He says:

^NKJ John 13:9 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

"Give me a bath," basically.

Then Jesus says in verse 10:

^NKJ John 13:10 Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed

Louo

needs only to wash

Nipto

his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you."

That is that restoration to fellowship. Now what I want you to pay attention to here is this concept of cleansing because this is related to forgiveness. We have two kinds of cleansing. You have positional cleansing that occurs when you're saved. That's the application of Christ's work on the cross to you as an individual when you receive the imputation of Christ's righteous and regeneration. 

Then there is ongoing cleansing experientially when you get out of fellowship. Now with forgiveness we're going to see (and we've seen in the past) that there are three kinds of forgiveness. I want to remind you of these as we start connecting a lot of dots tonight. 

The first kind of forgiveness is what I'm going to call legal forgiveness. This is what occurred at the cross when Christ paid the penalty for everybody's sin and God is judicially satisfied (propitiation). Christ pays the penalty for everybody's sin. That's redemption. The result of that is that man is reconciled to God. Those three things come out of that legal work that Christ does that happened at the cross. 

The problem is everybody's still left spiritually dead with unrighteous, –R. They're not saved. They don't have the kind of righteousness that they need to have fellowship with God. That is what we get when we trust in Christ as our Savior. We're regenerated. We receive the imputation of Christ righteous.  We're declared to be just, and then we have eternal life. That is solved. 

From that point on there needs to be the ongoing washing or experiential cleansing. So we have these two categories of cleansing, three categories of forgiveness. These are ours in a unique way in the Church Age because of the completed work of Christ on the cross and are the application of the New Covenant. Now that in a nutshell is what the writer of Hebrews has been saying since chapter 7. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 all focus on the implication of that and what that means for our future destiny with Christ. Now all of that is simply by way of review.

Now let's go to Hebrews 9:15.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

"For this reason"… the writer says. This is a phrase in the Greek that indicates that he is drawing a conclusion and an explanation out from what he has said in the previous verses. Now in the previous verses…in the paragraph break – The New King James breaks it between 15 and 16, but the break should come between 14 and 15 for the paragraph. 

In the previous two verses, the contrast is between the limited ritual cleansing that comes from sprinkling the blood of the bulls and the goats and the ashes of the heifer and that's only good for the purification of the flesh. The point was what? It did something. All of that sacrifice with the blood did something.  It was temporary, and it was for ritual cleansing.

We saw that this whole aspect of talking about the blood of something, the blood of the goats, Christ's blood – all of this blood was really a figure of speech – what Bollinger calls in his classic work on The Figures of Speech in the Bible a metalepsis or double metonymy. You have two symbols actually. The blood represents death. In Hebrews we're told that the life is in the blood. So when the blood is gone, there is no life. So the loss of blood (the shedding of blood) pictures the loss of life. Genesis 9 in the Noahic Covenant whenever man sheds man's blood is talking about murder. You don't have to limit murder to just shedding somebody's physical blood. You can poison them or strangle them or hit them over the head (blunt force trauma) – any number of things. There may not be any external bleeding at all. There may not even be internal bleeding. But there is loss of life. It's murder. But it's depicted in this figure of speech, the shedding of blood. So physical blood represents physical death. 

But physical death in turn represents a spiritual death. That's that double metonymy, that double figure of speech. Blood represents physical death.  Physical death represents spiritual death. The spiritual death is what is accomplished uniquely by Jesus Christ on the cross between 12 noon and 3 pm on the day He's crucified. That is when the Father imputes to Him the sins of the world and judicially deals with the sin of the world. That is when the skies are darkened and Jesus cries out, "My God, My God! Why have You forsaken Me?"

After those three hours are over with, Jesus said what? "It's finished." 

It's completed. It is over with, paid in full. Again, it's an economic term. It is a term a waiter might write on a bill. Or, after you've paid off mortgage they write it on the bottom of mortgage. Paid in full, complete, nothing more can be added to it. It's all done. 

Before He died physically, before He goes to the grave, before He's resurrected, the saving work of Jesus Christ is completed on the cross. Everything necessary for our salvation is done at that time. The burial, the resurrection are significant but not in that aspect of soteriology, not for justification or forgiveness. 

Now let's stop where we are in 9:15. We look at this and we bring in concepts of a mediator, a go-between; somebody who is a go-between between two different people. You talk about when labor and management are at odds with one another. They bring in someone to help mediate the contract. Well, this is the same idea. We have a new covenant which is a new contract that God is going to bring specifically in context the House of Israel and House of Judah.  Right?  Hebrews 8. 

So in 9:15 the writer of Hebrews is going back to chapter 8 and he picks up this thread of mediator. Now he's going to pull this in. He picks up the thread of New Covenant which started in chapter 7 and he's pulling that thread which he's hit two or three times now in chapter 8, chapter 9, and now he ties that together. So he's going to weave these two together. Now he pulls in the thread of redemption, which he's already introduced in terms of what Christ did on the cross, the picture on the Day of Atonement. 

The transgressions these are these old transgressions that were committed during the old covenant. The only thing that dealt with them were the ritual sacrifices, the blood of the bulls and the goats, etc. So he's going to tie that together. Then he's going to point us to the promise of the eternal inheritance. 

So what I want to do now is to take you back to chapter 7. Let's just walk our way through what the writer has been saying. The first point he made back in chapter 7: 1-10 is that Christ is a superior priest. He represents a superior priesthood. That is the priesthood of Melchizedek, that somewhat enigmatic Gentile priest-king, the royal priest-king of Jerusalem at the time of Abraham. He is not Jesus. That is, not a priest that fits the qualifications for an Aaronic or Levitical priesthood. He's got a broader ministry. It's not just Israel; it is to mankind as a whole. So this is what the writer is emphasizing in the first ten verses of chapter 7. 

From there he's going to pull in the next point which means that now that he's shown us that there's a change in priesthood; he says in verse 12 that a change in the priesthood means a change of the law. 

Verse 12 says:

^NKJ Hebrews 7:12 For the priesthood being changed,

This word that he uses there is used many times in this section. He's showing the logic. He's drawing logical conclusions from the statements that he's making.  

of necessity there is also a change of the law.

The logical force of that means that the law has to change. If you're not operating on the Levitical priesthood – which is inherent to the whole Sinaitic Covenant, the whole Mosaic Covenant – if that priesthood is no longer valid, then you have to have a whole new covenant. So 7:12 is a swing principle.  There has to be a change of the law.

Now the third thing that he points out is in his quote of Psalm 110:4 in v.21, but he actually refers to it several times in this passage and alludes to it again in 8:1. That is that Jesus has a universal and eternal priesthood. It's not like the Levitical priesthood. That's temporary. They're born. They die. They can only serve from the time that they're inaugurated in the priesthood until they're 40 years old. That's it. They can't serve their whole life. It is a limited priesthood. 

Not only that, but the Aaronic priesthood is based on a limited and weak commandment, the former commandment verse 18. Because of its weakness and unprofitableness, it doesn't complete anything. There's no total forgiveness. There's no resolution of the sin problem. So the Aaronic priesthood has limitations. It's flawed. It's based on a limited and weak commandment which made nothing complete. But we have a better hope.

^NKJ Hebrews 7:19 for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

So we have this better hope. Now this better hope is going to be tied to better promises and a better covenant. Better hope, better promises, better covenant.  All tie to the New Covenant. We see that Jesus is the guarantee of that better covenant in verse 22. 

^NKJ Hebrews 7:22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.

That will be as we'll see because of His death on the cross. So that's the flow. We've got a new priesthood. The new priesthood means a new law. The old priesthood was flawed and limited and finite. Jesus is going to guarantee a better covenant because He's a better priest.

He's superior as a priest because He did not have to die for His own sin.

^NKJ Hebrews 7:26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;

The priest had to bring sacrifices for their sins because they were sinners. But Jesus doesn't have any sins. He is impeccable to so He's superior and He doesn't have to die for His own sins.

Next he says:

^NKJ Hebrews 7:28 For the law

That is, the Mosaic Law. 

appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.

^NKJ Psalm 110:4 The LORD has sworn And will not relent, "You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek."

So the foundation of Jesus' appointment to His priesthood is this oath by God, not the Mosaic Law (7:28). 

Then as we get into the first part of chapter 8, there's a summary of what chapter 7 said and the writer focuses on Jesus' superiority now because He is presently seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven and He is a minister of the heavenly sanctuary. 

Now we talked about this along the way: that in heaven there is the prototype of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle really talks about a place where God dwells.  The Hebrew word was skene, which has to do with a dwelling, an inhabitation. So heaven (the throne room of God) - this is God's dwelling place.  That's the heavenly Tabernacle or the heavenly temple. Revelation depicts that. 

What we're seeing this next Tuesday night on our study in Revelation. We'll come to this seeing the Ark of the Covenant. That's not the ark that Moses had built. That is the heavenly prototype that's in the heavenly temple - the heavenly temple in Revelation. In Revelation it's always referred to as the Temple, not the Tabernacle. 

So Jesus is now in heaven and there's this heavenly sanctuary that is the dwelling place of God, which is where God sits upon His judicial throne in the heavens. Before Him we know there's the altar of incense that's depicted in Revelation. There is the Ark of the Covenant. These are present in heaven. So Jesus is now a minister according to verse 2.

^NKJ Hebrews 8:2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.

So that's the heavenly tabernacle. As such He's there because he offered Himself. Because He's offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice, He's the mediator of this better covenant that has better promises. This is emphasized in Hebrews 8:6. 

^NKJ Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

What ministry is that? That's the ministry that is in the sanctuary of the true tabernacle in heaven. Now this is important because at the end of chapter 9 and in these verses we're coming to we go right back to talking about this heavenly tabernacle, again the heavenly furniture. 

Just as a note, in Hebrews 8:5 we read:

^NKJ Hebrews 8:5 who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, "See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."

Now we're going to get into this terminology of type and antitype. Now what that means is a type was a marker or an impression on something. So it enters into theological vocabulary to describe shadows or patterns in the Old Testament that specifically depict doctrines, persons or events related to Christ in the New Testament. The reality is called an antitype. The shadow is called the type. The earthly tabernacle (and temple) is a type. It is the shadow. The antitype or the reality is what's up in heaven. What we see on earth is merely a shadow or a reflection designed to teach the ultimate truths of what's happening before the throne of God, in God's presence in this heavenly throne room, which is the courtroom of God because the transaction that takes place there is this judicial transaction related to what Christ does on the cross. 

^NKJ Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

He's a mediator of a better covenant. This word mediator is going to be picked up in Hebrews 9:15. It comes from Hebrews 8:6. So that's where the thread starts pulling together. 

Now the next thing we see is that we have an introduction of a better or new covenant which makes the old covenant obsolete. That's Hebrews 8:13.  Hebrews 8:8-12 is a quotation of the entire passage from Jeremiah 31:31-33. But he quotes that whole passage simply to draw one point. That is, because it says the New Covenant that means the old covenant is obsolete. It was always viewed as temporary. So we have the introduction of a better covenant, which equals the New Covenant. That makes the old obsolete in 8:13. 

Then we got into Hebrews 9. In the first ten verses of Hebrews 9, the first covenant is described as focusing on the blood sacrifice rituals, which had only a temporary ritual cleansing value. The focal point was really that ritual that occurred once a year on the Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement a transaction occurred whereby as the sacrifice that is without spot or blemish is sacrificed on the brazen altar and then the blood from that sacrifice was taken into the Holy of Holies and splattered before the Ark of the Covenant, it is a depiction of the fact that God is satisfied that the sins have been cleansed from Israel for another year. Every year they had to do this again. So it's not permanent, it's just temporary. The idea of atonement depicts primarily the idea of judicial cleansing. So it ties together the doctrines of propitiation, redemption, and reconciliation, which is what we talked about when we went through a lengthy analysis of the Day of Atonement. 

So the old covenant atonement ritual could not make the worshipper clean before God; only clean ritually. Remember the priest may not even be a believer. The only requirement for the priest was that he had to be physically related to Levi. And he couldn't have any external blemishes or health problems. That qualified him to be a priest. It doesn't say anything in Leviticus 9 about his spiritual qualifications. So the old covenant atonement ritual couldn't make the worshipper clean before God; only clean ritually. That's what we come to in Hebrews 9:8.

Now in Hebrews 9:8 what we read is:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:8 the Holy Spirit indicating this,

That is, from the Old Testament sacrifices.

that the way into the Holiest of All

That is, the way into God's presence itself.

was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.

See those sins aren't truly dealt with yet. Their conscience isn't cleansed before the judicial bar of God's court. It is symbolic.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect

…or complete.

in regard to the conscience –

So they couldn't cleanse the conscience. He's going to turn right around when we come down to verse 14, that because of what Christ did on the cross (offered Himself without spot to God), that will cleanse the conscience from dead works so that we can serve the living God. So you see there is a contrast between the failure of these Old Testament sacrifices to truly solve the sin problem, and that Christ's death on the cross does truly solve the sin problem. 

So that brings us up to where we've been for some time, starting in verse 11.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come,

Notice the focus is on the future. He came as High Priest. That relates back to First Advent ministry primarily focusing on His work at the cross, the sacrifice of Himself as the focal point of His priestly ministry. But it has a future orientation, the good things to come, which is a term that relates to the Millennial Kingdom blessings.

with the greater and more perfect tabernacle

That's the heavenly tabernacle, which we'll call the Supreme Court of Heaven. His dwelling place in heaven is indicated by the Ark of the Covenant, which pictures the satisfaction of His justice and the altar of incense. Those two were linked together. 

not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place

Now we stopped. That's where we did our study on the meaning of the term blood. We saw this metaphor (this double metonymy or metalepsis), and we should read this for a correct translation "not with the death of goats and calves but with His own death." That's what blood stands for. It stands for death. So when we translate the idiom more literally to get the thrust of it, then we understand the passage a little more precisely. It wasn't on the basis of the death of these animals, but with His own death He entered the most holy place. 

Now what most holy place is that? That's the heavenly courtroom of God. 

once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

He's already accomplished redemption. Redemption has these two senses. It has this one sense of purchase. What's purchased? Or, what is paid? What is paid is the judicial penalty for sin. That is the objective side of redemption. The subjective side is the release of the slave from slavery to sin.  But what He's talking about here isn't the personal application in the release from slavery to sin. He's talking about the payment of the price demanded by the justice of God. He accomplished that. It's finished at the cross. 

So this takes us back to what we studied in Colossians 1 and 2. So we're going to come to the word aphesis in a minute for forgiveness. But let me just remind you of what Colossians 2 says:

^NKJ Colossians 2:13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him,

That's what happened at regeneration. 

having forgiven you all trespasses,

I'm translating the participle for you there in a more precise manner as a participle of means. 

He graced you out. 

When? It occurred at the cross. That's what Colossians 1:13 says.

^NKJ Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

^NKJ Colossians 1:14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Aphesis – it has to do with that objective sense of forgiveness, the cancelling of debt. It is an economic term.

Then Colossians 2:14 explains it in the same economic way.

^NKJ Colossians 2:14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross

That's how He forgave us. That's the legal or judicial sense of forgiveness. That doesn't mean it's applied to you soteriologically yet, it has to do with the satisfaction of God's justice, the payment of the price so that sin is not the issue between man and God any more. 

Does that mean everybody is saved? No, because everybody is still born spiritually dead, and they're still born unrighteous. What it means is God has solved the sin problem so the issue in evangelism isn't all the sins you've committed and all the terrible things you've done. Now I think you have to understand you're a sinner under condemnation because in order to respond to a message of salvation you have to understand you need to be saved. From what? From condemnation. We are spiritually dead. We're born dead in our trespasses and sins. There needs to be regeneration that comes only through Jesus Christ. 

Now let me go back to where we are in Hebrews 9:15. Let's go move through this verse again and we'll go forward.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason

That is, because of what was accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross which cleanses our conscience from dead works…for this reason that we are now cleansed and we can serve the living God.

He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death,

See earlier it used the term blood. Now it's using the term death. We could paraphrase it if we wanted to. 

"He's the mediator of a new covenant so that because of His blood" – that's the purchase price for redemption.

^NKJ 1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

^NKJ 1 Peter 1:19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

See how these terms are used interchangeably. 

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant,

That means that their sins are now taken care of. It was just provisional until the cross.

that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

So now that sin is dealt with, we can have that eternal inheritance. Now when we went through this lengthy study of inheritance in these last few lessons, I pointed out that there are two kinds of heirs. There's an heirship that relates to every believer. We're called heirs of God in Romans 8:17. That is true for every believer. But there is a second heirship, which is true of those who suffer with Christ: the joint heir with Christ. That is only true of those who press on in their spiritual lives and grow. The focus here, the promise of eternal inheritance, is related to eternal life. It's related to that New Covenant. Hebrews 8:6 - He's the mediator of the New Covenant that's enacted on better promises. Notice the connection of promise and covenant there. 

Also when we look at what is said earlier in this chapter related to the Holy Spirit back where earlier He's called the eternal Spirit.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God,

So we have eternal redemption, eternal Spirit.

cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Now we have the eternal inheritance. So this is talking in verse 15. The promise of eternal inheritance is that because there is now a full payment of sin and God's justice is satisfied and there is true forgiveness at the judicial level. The potential is our future promise in reception of that eternal inheritance based on faith alone in Christ alone. 

Now we then shift and he does a little funny thing, a sort of play on words here in verse 16. 

^NAS Hebrews 9:16 For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.

That's how it's translated in the New American Standard. In the New King James it recognizes that he's really using the same word with a different sense.  The New King James translates it:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:16 For where there is a testament,

See the word diatheke is a term that can mean covenant in one context; but in another context it means a will, just like you have a last will and testament. A will is the disposition of your earthly possessions when you die. So what the writer of Hebrews is doing is he's using this same word but with two different meanings. In the previous verse it referred to a covenant. But here it refers to a particular type of contract. That is a will that occurs at the time of death. So just like an English word "letter", the English word letter can refer to a letter in the alphabet or it can refer to correspondence; usually some sort of epistolary correspondence. So diatheke is the same kind of thing.

In verse 16 he says:

there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.

So before the will is enacted, before the covenant is enacted, the person who made the will has to die. It's not until they die that the convent or the will goes into effect. That's the point that he's making in terms of his illustration. 

In verse 17:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:17 For a testament

That is a will.

is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives.

He's using this as an illustration to show that there had to be a death in order for this covenant to be established. The covenants are established and validated on the basis of a death. 

Then He's going to say in verse 18:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:18 Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood.

That's double negative. He states it that way in order to make us stop and think about it. If he had said, "Even the first covenant was inaugurated with blood," it wouldn't cause us to stop and think about it as much as it does with a double negative. With the double negative, we have to stop and say, "Well, what is he really saying there?" That's what he wants us to do.

He's pointing out that the first covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the old covenant was in inaugurated with blood and that means what? What word are you going to substitute for blood? Death. The first covenant was inaugurated with death. There had to be this shedding of blood. So what he's going to do in verse 19 is he's going to start to show from the Old Testament the shadow image related to cleansing.  What did we start off talking about tonight?  Cleansing, and that this cleansing can only come through what? The sprinkling of blood. It is that application of a death that makes cleansing possible.  That's what these next verses are going to talk about. 

So in verse 19 he says:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats,

… that were sacrificed there in the covenant ceremony that's described in Exodus 24. He says:

with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself

That is the law code. 

and all the people,

Then he's going to go into the Tabernacle and he's going to sprinkle everything with blood. Why is he doing that? Because, they've all been affected by sin. Everything is therefore ceremonially impure and unclean. The way to purify it is to apply death to it – the blood. What's it doing? It's positionally sanctifying, cleansing everything. Does he have to do this all the time? No. He just had to do this one time with the nation. When they established the covenant and they affirmed the covenant with God, that's the only time he is going to sprinkle everything – I mean everything – the people, the covenant itself, the Tabernacle, the tent meeting, the Ark of the Covenant - everything gets splattered with blood. This is what we read in Exodus 24:3ff. Moses came after he has gone over part of the Law in chapters 23. 

^NKJ Exodus 24:3 So Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the judgments. And all the people answered with one voice and said, "All the words which the LORD has said we will do."

^NKJ Exodus 24:4 And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

So this is pointing out through the symbolism here the representation the twelve rocks. The nation is united. They are all entering in this contract with God.

He says:

^NKJ Exodus 24:5 Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.

..because there is this peace between Israel and God.

^NKJ Exodus 24:6 And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood

This was an enormous amount of blood – gallons! 

he sprinkled on the altar.

This would be the bronze altar out in front of the Tabernacle. 

^NKJ Exodus 24:7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant

It's the whole law.

and read in the hearing of the people.

You think an hour sermon on Sunday morning gets long. He read the whole Mosaic Law to them. 

And they said, "All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient."

^NKJ Exodus 24:8 And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.

That's what's quoted in Hebrews 9:20

^NKJ Hebrews 9:20 saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you."

And verse 21 summarizes these events in Exodus 24.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:21 Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.

It's the ritual cleansing of everything: the people, the furniture, the Tabernacle, the Law; everything that has been contaminated by sin or impurity representing the fact that everything has to now be set apart to the service of God. 

The conclusion for this is that the law is teaching and the ritual is teaching that all things must be cleansed with blood. That is death because sin has affected everything. The penalty for sin is death and so everything has to be cleansed by means of death in order for God's justice to be satisfied. 

Then we go to Hebrews 9:22.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood,

Let's paraphrase that.

"All things are purified or ritually cleansed with death."

There has to be the right kind of death.

and without shedding of blood

Ie., a death.

there is no remission.

The word for forgiveness is that word aphesis which stands for forgiveness or remission of sin which is the word that's used in Colossian 1:14 for forgiveness.

^NKJ Colossians 1:14 in whom we have redemption

That is the objective payment. Remember what Hebrews said back in verse 12? Having obtained eternal redemption. He's saying the same thing. That eternal redemption, that price, was paid at the cross. The judicial price was paid through His blood.

through His blood,

That is His death.

the forgiveness of sins.

That is the eradication of the debt. This is the bailout of all bailouts folks. We got bailed out at the cross. There's no debt left or the sin penalty because Christ paid it all.

That's what's described again in Colossians 2:14. By cancelling out that certificate of debt that was against us which was contrary to us, He has taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross.

See that's when it was taken out of the way: when it was nailed on the cross, not when you trusted Chris as Savior. So the slate is wiped clean. But it's not applied in terms of your lack of righteousness and your spiritual death until you trust Christ as Savior.

Now verse 23 is going to take us to a new dimension here.

^NKJ Hebrews 9:23 Therefore it was necessary

There's that same word again – logical necessity. 

that the copies of the things in the heavens

That is the archetypes in heaven, the prototypes.

should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

So we'll come back and start to look at this next time because we have to study these words for copies (hupodeigma), types (tupos) and all this. But what we're seeing is that this cleansing in heaven is the acceptance by God of the judicial payment by Christ and that sin that has had a universal impact (even in heaven) is now dealt with completely by this better sacrifice of the death of Christ on the cross. 

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer.

Illustrations