The Book of Hebrews 9:11-14 But when Christ appeared...
Hebrews 9:11-14 · Vern Peterman · Dec 29, 2013
Hebrews, No. 36
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492641156141

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning and a blessed new year to you. We're going to be moving on into this passage I just read here in Hebrews 9, 11 through 14. First, just want to have a kind of last focus here on the electives because they're going to start next week. This is your last Sunday to sign up and it certainly helps us in locating where the classes are to be and preparing adequate materials and that sort of thing.

So we'll have the Book of Acts led by Roger and Bob and Jeremy and continuing on through the Book of Acts and also some topics in the Book of Acts. We have Colossians. Mike and Courtney and JD will be taking you through that. And then the Bible survey, we will be going through first looking at, you know, what is the Bible about and why did God reveal it? And the quick summary, He revealed it because He loves us. But looking also at things like salvation, a walk with God, what does the Bible reveal as you go through it about some important spiritual things?

So anyway, those are the three electives taking place at the nine o'clock hour here. Well let's step into the Hebrews passage 9.11-14 and we're going to go immediately into the verses, verse by verse. But when Christ appeared at 9.11, when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, and I notice one thing I'd like to change that translation, good things that have come, is the way it ought to be. He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation. So let's go through this step-by-step here. When Christ appeared as a high priest, Christ acted in fact as a priestly way while he was here on earth. Towards the end of his earthly ministry, Christ acted in a priestly way when he prayed to the Father. This is recorded in John chapter 17.

He prayed on our behalf. Isn't it interesting? He prayed for himself, he prayed for the disciples, and he prayed for you and me, those who would believe because of the testimony of the disciples. And he presented his own body within hours of his high priestly prayer, being both priest and the sacrifice. He offered up himself. rather than struggling on the cross and saying, no, you've got the wrong guy, you're making a terrible mistake. He instead offered himself up as if coming to the Roman soldiers and saying, let's do this. He appeared, and that's what this verse is talking about, as a high priest in this context, that is in this passage, in the heavenly tabernacle.

At that point, our position and all of our possessions, I got two different words there, our position and all of our possessions are all accomplished. That's why he could be seated in the heavenlies, why he could sit down. Why could he sit down? Everything was done.

He ministers as our high priest in the heavenlies. At that point in time, we have our position in Christ and all of our possessions. We'll talk about that some more. When Christ ascended, He began a heavenly ministry as our High Priest. We were seated with Him in the heavenlies where we have our heavenly citizenship. We have our position with Him in our possessions because of our position.

All of them are complete at this point in time. That's why you could sit down. It says there in Hebrews 9.11, He's a high priest of good things. Christ serves as our high priest of good things that have come, not good things to come, as many of the translations will say, as if we're still waiting for good things. All the good things were accomplished. We have our position and possessions.

Hebrews 4.14, which we read some weeks ago, reads like this, Therefore, since we have, That's a possession. We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. When the Bible says we have, not in every case, but you look at the context, many of those, and this is one of them, are possessions, things that we possess spiritually because of our position. As believers in Christ of the Church, the body of Christ, We have a position in Christ and He in us. That's a key truth. We are in Christ and He is in us. Additionally, we have spiritual possessions, things that we have because of our position, including Christ as our High Priest representing us before God the Father, always, constantly.

Now, as we come to this passage, we've got three clues. about the location of the tabernacle. Which one is it? Is it a heavenly one? Or is it an earthly one? Three clues are these. A greater and more perfect tabernacle. Of the earthly and the heavenly, which one is greater and more perfect? The heavenly one, right? The heavenly one. Not the one on earth.

The one on earth is a copy and a shadow staffed by priests that keep dying. That's one of the things we point out. The priests serve until the end of their life and then another one has to step in into that place Christ However does not die and continues to serve forever. We have a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek as Hebrews said earlier The tabernacle is one not made with hands and we'll talk more about this made with hands and not made with hands Certainly the tabernacle on earth was made with human hands, right? The tabernacle is not of this creation, that's the third clue, not of this world that we presently dwell in. So it's not the earthly one, it's definitely the heavenly tabernacle.

Now, made with hands, made without hands, both of these are figures of speech. Hebrew figures of speech. And we'll take a look at that. From the Old Testament on into the New Testament, there are multiple references to things made with hands and things not made with hands. Now, there's a variation in the general pattern, but you'll see as we go through it what that pattern is. Principle 1. This is on the slide on page 1.

The work of God in the physical realm, such as when God creates, is often spoken of in the Bible as being done by God's hands, or is called the work of his hands. We'll see that usage of this idea of hands. Now, does God have hands? No, not in the physical sense. So what that means is, it's a figure of speech that means God's doing something, accomplishing something in the physical realm. Such as creating, but that's not the only instance. We have here some examples from Job and Psalms, and two from Hebrews chapter 1 and chapter 2. There are others, so this is just an example, a selection. There are others in the Bible.

It's a fairly widespread use of the idea of God doing something in the physical realm. He does it with his hands. So then we have the next set. The works of man are spoken of as being done by man's hands. This is a good thing, positive, when it's something that God has appointed for man to do. If God says to do this, and man does it with his hands, then that's called a good thing. But, making idols is often called the works of a man's hands.

So that's one of the things that is pointed out about idols, is that the idols, being a work of man's hands, are not God's creation, and those are certainly not gods in that stone, metal, wood, whatever it's made of. And again, what you see here in this listing of verses is just an example. There are other passages that we haven't listed, so there's another widespread use of this figure of speech. But then, when God does something in the spiritual realm, it is spoken of, and now this is interesting, when God accomplishes something in the spiritual realm, it's spoken of as not made with hands. or made without hands. That is a Hebrew figure of speech. So if God does something like identifying us with Christ, putting our sins upon Christ, those are expressed as not made with hands or made without hands.

That's God's accomplishment in the spiritual realm, and we have one of those right here in Hebrews 9.11, this verse that we're looking at here. So when he says, not made with hands, there's more to it than the fact that the tabernacle on earth was made here, but rather it's a part of a larger Hebrew figure of speech, and we'll see the pattern throughout the Bible. So now let's take a look at verse 12. I'll start with verse 11 in order to complete the thought.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, or good things that have come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation. And not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

So let's walk through that step by step here. in verse 12 there Hebrews 9.12 that first part talks about not through the blood of goats and calves but through his own blood so the blood of goats and calves was part of the copy and shadow system of the tabernacle and later on the two temples but now no matter how many goats and calves were sacrifices the sacrifices never actually got it done How do you know that?

Because you're going to have to do it again next year, next time. Again and again and again. There were sacrifices annually and then there were additional sacrifices for other things and other events. Christ's own death on the cross in which he shed his own blood was a sacrifice that did get it done.

Christ didn't have to go back every year or periodically to go back and represent himself. He got it done once for all. Christ could enter the real, not the earthly shadow, the real holy place with sins having been dealt with completely, never to have to sacrifice again.

So it says, and he entered the holy place once for all. Christ entered the real holy place, that's the one in the heavenlies, the one on earth is just a shadow, but not cyclically as the priests did, where they went around every year and then depending on other cycles at other times as they went in the earthly tabernacle and temple. He entered the real holy place to be there and to minister continuously. Just Him. Christ entered the holy place once for all. That Greek root there, and we're not going to throw a lot of Greek at you here, but just simple word hapax means once for all, once done, perpetually valid, valid from then on. Christ's entry was not like that of the high priest where he entered the tabernacle yearly, once a year. Christ's ministry is continuous, eternal, and it's Him, always Him. Always Him.

It says there in verse 12 that having obtained eternal redemption, he didn't need to be redeemed, but we human beings certainly needed to be redeemed. Christ was the one who obtained that redemption for us because we could never have accomplished it for ourselves.

We couldn't have done it for ourselves. If I volunteer to pay for my sins, how long does it take to pay for my sins? Just me, I can't do it for anybody else and forever. Christ gets it done in a few hours on the cross for everyone. Christ is the one who did it, who pulled off what we could never do. The eternal redemption that Christ obtained for us involves paying a debt we could not pay and therefore buying us our liberation forever.

This analogy has been used. It's as if all of us were put into a holding area, imprisoned, and called upon each one of us to pay a huge debt. Let's just pick a number that's impossible. Let's say that you were called upon to pay a debt of $4 trillion or you can't get out.

Then somebody comes in with a whole bunch of checks, and they've got each individual's name on it. And they come and say, now look, this debt, the $4 trillion debt that you owe, it's all been paid for. The money's in the account. The money's in the account. All you've got to do is take this check with your name on it, turn it over, sign it, turn it at the door, and walk out.

And some will say, ah, what is this? Give me a break and throw it down the ground. Some will say, ah, I'll think about it and put it in their pocket and just let it sit. Others will say, what rubbish, and just tear it up. But then some will say, hey, this is the greatest news I've ever had. And they'll turn it over and sign it off, turn it in at the door, and walk out free. That's what Christ did. He paid a price we could never pay. to redeem us.

You have here, and I won't go over all of them, you have here the one word that is used for redeemed here in Hebrews 9.12. There are other words related to slavery, essentially, buying out slavery and whatnot in the New Testament, and I'll leave that to you to look at if you'd like. So what's happening here?

It's absolutely essential that we don't misunderstand what Christ has done for us. It's very important. Christ did not get us out of this debtor's prison to put us on probation with God. Hey, let's let you out and see how you do. Let's kind of see where it goes. Let's see what you make of it, make of your freedom, and then we'll decide, you know, whether you go back in or not. No, there is no probation. We're free, completely, eternally free. We're not on probation.

He did not buy us the opportunity to prove ourselves or to give it our best shot. That's why we don't recommend that you try really hard to be a good Christian. We don't recommend that at all. It is not God's intent that you try hard to be a good Christian. It was accomplished entirely at Christ's expense. He totally pulled off the payment of our debt and liberation.

All we did was believe. That's it. God says, you believe, that's good enough, I'll do everything else. And that's not just in our salvation, but that's in our daily life. He says, I don't want you to go out there and try your best to be a good Christian. I want to live life through you. That's why I did all this. Not so you could go out and try your best. Not so you could just emulate Christ.

Hebrews 9.13 reads like this, for if the blood of goats and the bulls and the ashes of a hep are sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh. And the sentence goes on, but we'll pause it right there.

You have a comparison in verse 13 and 14, rather a contrast. You got verse 13 talks about the cyclical, that is the annual cycle. It's about the ceremonial, ritual and symbolic, and external, outward cleansing that the Old Law Covenant provides. Everything is cyclical, temporary, ceremonial, and external. That's verse 13.

Verse 14 talks about the once-for-all and eternally effective, actual, real, deep, inward cleansing that comes by God's accomplishment in Christ. That's what we need. That's what we need. So we'll get there. The contrast of cleansings is spectacular. The contrast of cleansings is spectacular.

So, in Leviticus 16, we can read what this verse is referring to about the blood of goats and bulls and the Day of Atonement. The Jews have the Day of Atonement. It's roughly in early to middle October. In our calendar, it moves around because the Jews have a different calendar, but that one day of atonement was the one day the Jews could send only the high priest in.

In fact, if he went in any other day, he would die. So only that one day, he would go in and bring in the blood of goats and bulls on that one day of atonement, and that is all. These were all things that the high priest performed in the tabernacle when they were out in the wilderness and early in Israel's history, and in the temple, in Solomon's temple, in the second temple, that were to be done only on that one day.

That's all. The passage called for the high priest to deal first with his own sins. He'd go in and sacrifice for his own sins first, and then for the sins of the people. So that's sequence, and he had to do that. He had to do both, and he had to do it in that sequence.

Now let's talk about this ashes of a heifer. What is this? Numbers 19 tells how someone who had been defiled by touching a dead body could be ritually cleansed by water mixed with the ashes of a heifer. By the way, it had to be an unblemished red heifer. Unblemished red heifer. And when I say unblemished, not just no scars and no, you know, evident illness and that sort of thing. I'm talking about you can't even have white hairs on this thing, right? So an unblemished red heifer would be brought in. One of the instances that we see in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells the story and a priest goes by and a Levite goes by.

Why do they bypass the body of this guy who had been attacked and left for dead on the road? Each of them would have been in trouble because they would have touched this dead body and would have been disqualified from going in and doing their service in the temple. So this would have been a real problem if they were to discover that this guy that they went up to try to help actually was dead. So because of the law they didn't help. How about that? So Jesus tells them about a Samaritan who's not under the law who goes in and actually does help. Actually does help the law prevented them from expressing love and And the reason was you think about this priest and the Levite They were doing what under the law was the wise thing to do To not help this guy because if he was in fact dead they'd go through a bunch of trouble and they'd have to go through this cleansing ceremony with the ashes of a heifer and And whoever helped you with it had to also be ritually clean. Like if two guys dealt with a dead body, you couldn't have one of them help the other and trade back and forth.

You had to get somebody who was ritually clean to come in and help you pour this water with the ashes of the red heifer. In order for it to be valid, they'd have to go and pick the right person and pick this red heifer. The ashes of the red heifer, very interestingly, they would do until they used up the ashes, and then they'd have to sacrifice another red heifer. Interestingly, there have been nine red heifers during the time that they had the tabernacle and the temple. Nine of them.

So that's what this thing is all about. So here under the law, I got all kinds of things I have to go through and we have to be careful I don't touch a dead body and things of that sort. Otherwise, I got to go through this procedure. That's what that's talking about. Those who are defiled by touching a dead body and now what you have to do to correct the problem. Now this term of the flesh, what's meant by this cleansing of the flesh, there are two key points that we want to make. by this term cleansing of the flesh. One is the sacrifices of the goats and bulls and the ashes of the heifer are superficial and external.

Do they really get at the sin problem? The answer is no. They picture it, they point to the sin problem, and they point to the solution, but they don't actually get it done. They're also just symbolic. They don't accomplish anything. So we have two problems one is the superficiality and externality And the other is just the symbolic nature being symbolic doesn't actually do something right.

It's just a symbol What is needed is to deal deeply with the heart of each person and each one with God So here is verse 14 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, start of verse 14, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

How much more, it turns out, is a phrase that is used starting in the Old Testament on into the New. It has critical dimensions of improvement over just cleansing the flesh, the external and symbolic. Instead of being superficial, it goes deep. Instead of being just symbolic, a copy, a fading shadow, what God does is the real thing with true accomplishment that goes on forever. It sticks.

It continues to work. there is a relative that is a comparative but not a minor difference here let's take a look at the middle part of verse 14 it says the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God so the underlying text here in verse 14 involves all three persons of the Trinity one is Christ Secondly, the Holy Spirit is involved.

And thirdly, God the Father. Now it says God, but the Father is implied. And I give as comparisons three passages there in Ephesians. If we have Christ and the Spirit for it to be presented to God, the Father is the one to whom it's being presented. You have this kind of illustration of the Trinity. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but we give three passages in John and Acts that identify them as separate. So three personal beings, one God, one essence. Three personal beings, one God, one essence.

So it says here, by the blood of Christ he offered himself an unblemished sacrifice. The high priest on earth offered the blood of the sacrifices and the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement and no other time. Christ, having shed his own blood, offered himself to the Father as a priestly offering once for all. It's not like, okay, see you again next year, but once for all. Done once, perpetually valid, rather than the once a year. The offer of himself was motivated by two things. It was motivated by love coming up to that offering of himself.

Galatians 2.20, Ephesians 5.2 and 25. All those say, He loved and He gave.

And we could put an overarching statement, John 3.16, He loved and He gave, right? He loved and He gave, He loved and He gave, He loved and He gave, He loved and He gave.

But Hebrews 12.1 and 2, that we'll be getting to in weeks to come here, there's one more motivation and that's joy.

For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. Isn't that amazing? Not only to have love for us, but to actually come to the cross motivated by joy. That's astounding. And considering the pain of the cross, not just physically, but spiritually, that love and that joy that motivated him are huge in magnitude. Huge in magnitude. Why else would you go through that? except that that love and that joy are massive.

It talks about cleansing your conscience here in verse 14. This isn't the first time we've heard the word conscience. There are two sides of Christ's accomplishment for each of us. And the first side is God's side. We are declared righteous by God. God declares us righteous. So that's God declaring our standing. But the other part of it that this is brought out in Hebrews, the other part is our side, the cleansing of our own conscience. So we have our standing before God and our relationship with ourselves.

The theme of one's conscience carries from Hebrews 9, in this passage, and actually it was in last week's passage too, and then into 10 and 13, since that was apparently an issue for these people. They were thinking, you know, boy, I would really need to start doing those sacrifices in Jerusalem because, man, I'm not feeling right about things. I need those sacrifices.

And he's saying, no, Christ took care of that, and let me explain that, right? God does not intend, and this is a very important thing for believers to get straight, God does not intend that guilt be a motivator in our walk with the Lord. Let me say it again. God does not intend that guilt be a motivator in our walk with the Lord. Let me explain that.

Here is Hebrews 9.9, last week's passage, talks about that the offerings that they did there in the tabernacle cannot make a worshiper perfect in conscience.

Here we have, in verse 14 of chapter 9, cleansing our conscience from dead works. When we get to chapter 10, it's going to talk about having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. And in chapter 13, verse 18, we have a good conscience. Conscience matters, but let's talk about conscience. Conscience is something that our society is certainly confused about, and even Christians, many of them are confused. Here's the place of conscience.

Under the law of Moses, failure to follow the law brought guilt that was actual. That is, actual guilt before God. Okay? So under the law of Moses, if you break one of those laws, you have actual and real guilt before God. You broke the law. There was additionally the possibility of a guilt that was felt by oneself. This is the conscience that is being talked about here in this verse. And there was a guilt that was declared by others according to the law. They said, thou shalt not steal. It says in the law, you shall not steal. You stole. We've got two or three witnesses to it. You're going to study rocks up close. We're going to make you study rocks up close. All of us are going to help.

And so there was that aspect of guilt. The conscience of a human being can reveal what is real. That is, I am truly guilty of something. It can also be overridden, and if you've ever been with someone who has no conscience, that's rather terrifying. Rather terrifying. My second son, Ed, works with prisoners, and he encounters that all the time. People have no conscience whatsoever. The conscience can be overridden, and some are better at it than others, if you can call it that.

It can also be based on a lack of knowledge, someone doing something that's wrong and not recognizing it, or the other way around, someone thinking they've done something wrong when they haven't. It can also be a lack of faith in Christ's payment for our sins. People may think, and I've even heard this expressed, what I've done is too bad, Christ can't deal with it. And so there can be any of these possibilities among us human beings and even that could change over time with any one of us.

For the unbeliever, conscience may in fact play a part in what the Holy Spirit uses to bring an unbeliever to the point of belief. We call that conviction of sin. Conscience may be what the Holy Spirit uses to bring an unbeliever to recognize that they're guilty and in need of a Savior. For the believer, the conscience is a tool to direct us to a return to a walk for fellowship and return for believing what Christ has done. The conscience is one of the tools that God can use to bring us back to a walk of fellowship. But within that walk of fellowship, God does not intend guilt and conscience to play a part.

Notice, as Paul writes in Romans 8.1, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus.

Oh, not just a smidgen? Just a little bit? I mean, or maybe there's no condemnation occasionally. Or it depends on whether I feel guilty or not. No. What does it say? In your position in Christ there is now No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you're a believer today, is there condemnation for you? No. If you want to feel guilty, I just can't help you. You'll have to go somewhere else. I just can't help you. Sorry.

Now this passage also brings out another point. Who or what are you going to serve? Hebrews 8.5 talks about serving a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. The priests and the high priests would go into the tabernacle and they'd go into the temple and they would serve in this physical copy or shadow of the actual real tabernacle in the heavens. Here in this passage, 9.14, you serve a living God.

Again, in Hebrews 13.10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. So you're going to serve the tabernacle or you're going to serve the living God. You're going to either serve the law or you're going to serve the living God.

Nobody's going to do both. Nobody's going to do both. Not even sum of one, of each, or through the other. Not mix and match. No 80-20. No 50-50. You're going to serve one or you're going to serve the other, but you're not going to do both. There's a fork in the road here. We each have a decision every moment of every day. We're either going to try to do better, to please God by our own efforts, or we're going to let Christ do the living in us. And guess what? God doesn't say, pick one. God doesn't say pick one. The only thing God wants us to do is to have Christ living His life in and through us. That's it.

Bob Dylan wrote a song, and this of course gives you some kind of indication of my age here, in 1979. You've got to serve somebody. And the chorus goes like this. You're going to have to serve somebody. Yes, indeed, you're going to have to serve somebody. And I've modified it a little bit.

Well, it will be the law system, or it will be the Lord, but you're going to have to serve somebody. We've got a choice. We're either going to fall under some kind of self-effort law system. I'm going to pull it off, or God's going to do it. You're going to have to serve somebody, but it's going to be one way or the other. There's a choice. It's this or this. And God isn't asking us to just pick. The only thing He wants us to do is to serve the Lord, and that's to be done by His life and His strength.

We have the words here, dead works are the living God. Everything the law of Moses required, whether it was in the tabernacle or outside in the towns or out in the field, required everything about the tabernacle and all the other things were dead works. That was used here. The author of Hebrews wrote in chapter 6 verse 1, repentance from dead works, repentance by the way is a change of mind, not just feeling bad about it, and of faith toward God.

Dead works don't get it done, they're dead. Dead works don't get it done. They're dead. Our own efforts, our own attempts to please God on our terms don't get it done. They don't get there. They're dead works. Are they works? Yeah. Are they dead? Oh yeah. And they stink too.

A life of true faith and service means leaving the dead works approach behind and turning to the Lord directly. Not hiding behind shadows and symbols. Not trying our best to please God. not our own efforts, but turning to the Lord directly, face-to-face beholding Him, fellowship and relationship with Him directly.

That's what God has in mind. Let's pray. Lord, as we see this year drawing to a close, we're just thankful for your faithfulness and you have been consistent in the word that you've presented to us, and we just would ask that you bring these truths home in our hearts, that we would realize these truths about our conscience, that it is your intent that our conscience not be our guide other than to point us to get back into a walk of fellowship with you. but that in fact you intend that we walk in fellowship with you based on the position and the possessions that you've given to us and accomplished for us entirely by grace. We thank you for that amazing grace in this year and on into the next. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.