Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program this morning. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles with the message, I'm going to be preaching from
Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9. And I have
two messages. This is really one message in
two parts. And the title of the message
is The Greatest Reformation. The Greatest Reformation. And
I'm taking the title from verse 10 of Hebrews chapter 9. I'm
kind of using that verse as a pivot between the two messages, where
he talks about the time of reformation, which we'll get to. And of course,
I'll end with that, probably this message and start with it,
the next message. So this is part one. the greatest
reformation. Now when most people who study
church history or know anything about it When they hear the term
the Reformation, they think of the time, for example, when Martin
Luther, who began as a Catholic monk, when he stood against the
Catholic Church for selling indulgences. In other words, trying to get
people to buy forgiveness. And he came out of the Catholic
Church, and you might have heard the story about how he had 95
points of doctrine, points of truth, that they called the 95
Theses that he tacked up on a door of a church, I believe it was
in Wittenberg, Germany, and that was part of the beginning of
the Reformation. There were other men who are
equated with the Reformation in history. And that was a time
of reformation. Of course, reform, reformation
means change. It's a time of change. And that
was a time of reformation, a time of change. A lot of people think
about John Calvin, old Rick Zwingli, people like that. Anyway, But
the Bible speaks of a time of reformation that is the greatest
reformation of all. And that term is in the Bible
as I read it to you from Hebrews 9 and verse 10. And what that
time of reformation is talking about is the time of change in
the history of redemption, God's purpose and plan, the purpose
of God, which was set forth before the world began, and then the
working out of God's plan on earth in time. And that's what
this time of reformation is about, the time of change, where in
the history of redemption, it went from the old covenant to
the new covenant, which was brought in by the first advent, the first
coming of Christ into the world to do his great work, which was
set up before the foundation of the world. So the time of
reformation is the time of the new covenant. Now, I've talked
about covenants quite a bit on this program, but you need to
understand the issues of the covenant. God is a covenant God.
A covenant is like a testament. It's like an agreement. It has
promises. A covenant has promises. It has conditions that must be
met in order for those promises to go into effect. And so when
we talk about the covenant, now Christ talked about the new covenant
when he instituted the Lord's Supper. He said this is the New
Testament or literally the new covenant in my blood. his blood
being his death. You know, remember when he instituted
the Lord's Supper, he said he gave them the bread, the unleavened
bread, because leaven was an emblem, a type, a picture of
sin, and that bread typified or symbolized his sinless human
body, his sinless humanity. and that body that he gave in
sacrifice for the sins of his people. So the bread, that his
sinless body, we're gonna read in Hebrews 9 here, that he offered
himself without spot, without fault, without sin. Sin was imputed
to him, and I talk about that a lot, because that's so important,
just like righteousness is imputed to his people. But he was never
made a sinner or he was never contaminated or had any sin within
him. But anyway, that body, that body
he talked about is his humanity, his human body. See, Christ is
God manifest in the flesh. And his flesh, his human body
and soul was without sin. And we need to understand that. He's the sinless, spotless Lamb
of God. But he went under the wrath of
God for the sins of his people charged to his account. And then
he said when he gave them the wine to drink, he says, this
is my blood in the new covenant. And that means his death. In
other words, he gave his body and he died, his obedience unto
death, and that represents the payment for sin, the redemption,
and it represents the righteousness that he worked out that's imputed
to his people, charged to his people. So that's the new covenant. The New Covenant represents,
or is literally, in the history of redemption, the actual coming
of Christ into the world to do His great work, which He began,
you know, He was born of a virgin. without the aid of man, and he
came forth through that miraculous birth, the Holy Spirit formed
him in the womb of the Virgin, without the aid of man, without
sin, and he was born and he grew in wisdom and stature, that's
referring to his humanity now, not his deity. In his deity he
couldn't grow in wisdom, he is wisdom. Proverbs chapter 8 is
the personification of wisdom which finds its ultimate fulfillment
in Christ. But as a human being, he grew
in wisdom and stature, even then without sin, and then he began
his public ministry. when he was about 29 to 30 years
old, and that's where he was baptized. Remember he went and
John the Baptist baptized him. He told John, he said, allow
it to be so that we might fulfill all righteousness, his death,
burial, and resurrection. And so the new covenant was instituted
with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. He said it's finished. And that was the ending of the
old covenant. And that's the time of Reformation. Now, if you look at Hebrews chapter
nine, he talks about the Old Covenant and he calls it the
First Covenant. Look at verse one. Then verily
the First Covenant had also ordinances, or that's commandments, ceremonies
of divine service and a worldly sanctuary. Now that's the Old
Covenant. The Old Covenant is the law of
Moses. that was given to the Hebrew
children by God to Moses through him on Mount Sinai. You remember, as they were freed
from Egypt, delivered from Egypt, and they gathered at Mount Sinai,
and Moses went up to the mount, and he received the law. Now,
he received the Ten Commandments, you know, the tablets of stone.
But he also received these ordinance here. That's the ceremonial law. He received the whole law. All
the law that was given under the old covenant. Now that covenant
was a bilateral covenant. Remember I told you a covenant
is an agreement and there are promises made and there are conditions
for the promises. A bilateral covenant is where
the promises and the benefits and the blessings are conditioned
on two parties, bilateral. And what that means is it was
between God and the Hebrew people. Now, we know, and you need to
understand this, that was not a covenant of salvation. And
he says over in the passages here that we're going to be reading
in Hebrews 9 and over in Hebrews 10, the blood of bulls and goats,
see the blood of animals, the sacrifice of animals, that was
connected with the old covenant. And Christ fulfilled all of that,
so those are no longer needed. But they were pictures in times,
but they could never take away sin. They gave the Hebrew children
a ceremonial reprieve throughout the year, and then you had the
Day of Atonement. But they couldn't remove sin,
they couldn't make a sinner righteous. And so that old covenant was
not a covenant of salvation. God gave them that covenant for,
and we could probably go into more reasons than this, but I
would say mainly for two reasons. Number one, he brought the Hebrew
children together and kept them together, especially, remember
the 12 tribes of Israel? Especially the tribe of Judah
until the Messiah would come. It was through them that the
Messiah would come according to the flesh. And that was one
of the main reasons that he brought them together and brought them
out of Egypt, gathered them at Mount Sinai, and gave them the
law. And so, it was God's purpose
to bring Christ through that nation, specifically through
the tribe of Judah. Jacob on his deathbed. He said
that when he was blessing his sons. He said the scepter would
not depart from Judah until Shiloh come. And you can read about
that, I believe it's in Genesis 48, I think. But you look that
up. Shiloh means peace. So it was
through that people. And God kept them together until
Christ came and did his work. And then there was that time
of reformation. Time of change. And he was through
with them. Now, I know people don't like
to hear this today because they think, well, Israel, the physical
nation of Israel is still God's chosen people. They're not. God's
chosen people, eternally and spiritually, are those who make
up the true church. Spiritual Israel. Spiritual Judah. And Jerusalem, heavenly Jerusalem. And this time of reformation
proves that. But they were under that covenant.
And what it was, the giving of the land to them was unconditional,
but their blessings, their peace and prosperity, and living in
the land of promise was conditioned on their national obedience.
So God brought them together and he kept them together in
spite of their rebellion. until Christ come and he accomplished
his purpose, and then it was over. When Christ, when he ascended
unto glory, you remember when he died on the cross, gave up
the ghost, the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom,
indicating several things, but one of the things that indicates
is that the old covenant was now over and the new covenant
had begun. And the inauguration of the new
covenant came at Pentecost when Peter preached to the people
there. So Christ brought it in. Now,
the new covenant is a unilateral covenant of salvation. In other
words, it's conditioned not on the people who receive the blessings
and benefits of it, sinners saved by grace, but it's conditioned
on one person, unilateral. And that one person is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that determines how we should
present the gospel. See, anytime a preacher stands
before a group of people, and talks about how God loves everybody
and Christ died for everybody and it's all conditioned on you.
You've got to make the right decision to put those blessings
and benefits into effect. They're not preaching the new
covenant gospel. They're not even preaching the
everlasting gospel. They're preaching like the old
covenant is conditioned on you. But that old covenant was not
a covenant of salvation. And here's another reason that
God gave them that covenant. It was to show them the impossibility
of eternal salvation and glory conditioned on them. And you
remember now, When he brought them out of Egypt, even before
he brought them to Mount Sinai, they rebelled against God, they
rebelled against Moses, right before God opened up the Red
Sea and brought them over. And then when Moses was up on
the mountain, were the people obedient? Then no, they turned
to idolatry and made a golden calf and worshiped it. And when
they went through the wilderness, were they obedient? No. They
murmured, they complained, When God sent a manna from heaven,
they complained about that. When they came up to the promised
land and they looked over there and sent spies into Jericho,
rather than believing God and depending upon them, they got
all out of sorts, said, we can't do this, you know? And God said,
well, I'm gonna give you that land. That was unconditional.
but all through their history. Now that old covenant lasted
for about 1,500 years from the time of Mount Sinai to the time
of Christ. And it was conditioned on them
and they failed. But here's what you need to understand.
If salvation, any part of it, is conditioned on the sinner,
it will fail. And so Paul, when he talked about
that Old Covenant law and Moses, why was it given? It was given
that sin might abound. It showed them the sinfulness
of man and the impossibility of salvation if it were conditioned
on us. They failed. You see, even during
the time of the Old Covenant, eternal salvation was not based
upon that covenant. It was based upon another covenant
called the everlasting covenant of grace. Now that everlasting
covenant of grace is the covenant made between the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit before the world began. It's the covenant
of salvation. It's the covenant of grace. It's
the covenant of redemption. And it's all conditioned on Christ. 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 20
says this, it says that all the promises of God in Him, in Christ,
are yea, and in Him, amen. If salvation's conditioned on
me or you, it'll fail because we're sinners, sinful people. So grace is salvation conditioned
on Christ. The gospel is the good news that
Christ met and fulfilled perfectly all of its conditions in his
obedience unto death, and he did it as the surety, the substitute,
and the redeemer of God's people. And when he came in time and
did that, that's the new covenant. Now let me put it to you this
way, and then we'll read these scriptures. The New Covenant,
in its essence and nature, is the exact same covenant as the
everlasting covenant of grace. Christ said this is the blood
of the New Testament, shed for you. His blood is also called
the blood of the everlasting covenant in Hebrews 13. But here's the thing. The New
Covenant and the Everlasting Covenant of Grace are virtually
the same, but the New Covenant is the, and mark this down in
your minds. Write it on a piece of paper
if you have to. The New Covenant is the accomplishment in time
of all the terms of that Everlasting Covenant of Grace made before
time. And it ensures the eternal salvation justification, sanctification,
glorification of every sinner whom the Father chose and gave
to the Son before the foundation of the world. That's right. That's why Christ said, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh me
I will in no wise cast out. This is the will of him that
sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but raise it up at the last day. And so salvation is by grace. Well, look back here at Hebrews
9. Look at verse 1 again. Then verily the first covenant,
the old covenant, first in time now, as compared to the new covenant. The everlasting covenant of grace
was before time. It's older than any covenant.
But in the Nuka, as it was accomplished in time, it came after the law
of Moses. So you have the, then verily
the first covenant also had ordinances, ceremonies of divine service
and a worldly sanctuary. You had the priestly ceremonies,
the sacrifice of animals, you had the table of showbread, you
had the golden laver, you had all the golden candlestick, the
altar of incense, all of that. See, you had, they were ordinances
of divisive and a worldly sanctuary. Remember the tabernacle, which
eventually became the temple. And in that tabernacle that God
told Moses to build. And he says in verse two, he
says, there was a tabernacle made. And he says, the first
wherein was the candlestick, the table, that's the table,
and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. That was, you
know, in the tabernacle, you had a fence around it, then you
had the outer court, and you'd find the brazen altar where the
animal was slain and the blood collected. Then you had another
fence inside it and you had the holy place which all the priests
of Levi could do service. And that's where you had this
candlestick and table of showbread and the other thing, the golden
altar of incense and all that. And then you had a curtain inside
of that from top to bottom, which separated the holiest of all. the Holy of Holies, and only
the high priest could, and in there you had the mercy seat,
and the Ark of the Covenant, and only the high priest could
go in there one time a year with the blood of the animal slain
on the altar, brazen altar. Nobody else could go in there,
only the high priest. Now all of that, all of that
ceremony, in some way pictured and typified Christ, the great
high priest, the sacrifice, the altar of his people and his church. Now all of it, that's what it
was for. Most of Israel throughout their history did not see and
understand that. But there were a few who did.
They're called the remnant according to the election of grace. And
it's just like today. A lot of people read the Bible,
but they don't understand it. They're like the Pharisees of
old. Christ told them, he says in John 5, 39, he says, you search
the scriptures for in them, you think you have eternal life.
But they looked at the scripture and they didn't see Christ. They
didn't see grace. They didn't see that salvation,
which was conditioned on him alone. And he says, they are
they which speak of me, testify of me. And so today, there's
a remnant according to the election of grace. Now, read about it
in Romans 9, 10, and 11. Well, look on, he says in verse
three, and after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called
the holiest of all, verse four, which had the golden censer and
the Ark of the Covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein
was the golden pod, it had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded,
that dead rod, but it budded, showing life comes from Christ,
and the tables of the covenant, that's the Ten Commandments,
that was in the Ark of the Covenant, and had the mercy seat on top
of it, and that was made of chitim wood overlaid with gold. That's
the deity and the humanity of Christ. See, all of those things.
We could take, I could preach a message on each one of those
elements and how they pertain to Christ and His church and
salvation by grace. He says in verse five, and over
it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat. Who is the mercy
seat now? Christ has always been the mercy
seat. But that mercy seat back then, that physical mercy seat,
was only a type, a picture of Christ, our mercy seat. When you bow your head and say,
God, be merciful to me, God, forgive me, there's only one
ground upon which God is merciful and forgives sinners, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ, His glorious person, His finished work, His
blood. which is His righteousness. And
that's what this pictured. So over it, verse five, the cherubim
shadowing the mercy seat of which we cannot now speak particularly.
What Paul, I believe Paul was the human instrument, but it
doesn't matter, the writer of Hebrews. What he's saying there
is, at this time, I've got another point, I'm not gonna talk about
these things particularly. And I'm not either. I'm not going
to go over each one and show you that now. But he says in
verse six, now listen to this. Now when these things were thus
ordained, when they were in effect by God's commandment from Moses
on Sinai all the way to the ministry of Christ, the priest, the various
priest of Levi, went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing
the service of God. They went, remember that fence,
the outer court, and then you had another fence, and you had
the holy place. Well, the priest of Levi, they
went in and out, and accomplishing the service of God. They were
doing what God commanded them to do. That was their worship,
their way of life. But look at verse seven. But
into the second, that's the holiest of all, went the high priest
alone once every year, and that was on the day of atonement,
not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors
or the sins of the people. Now that high priest went in
once a year on the day of atonement with the blood of the lamb. And
that was a picture. It was a type. It was a shadow. And he went in there for his
own sins, because he himself was a sinner, and he went in
there for the sins of the people. So the priest went in there just
like Christ. went into the very holy place,
the very holiness of God. And it says in verse 8, the Holy
Ghost signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not
yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was yet standing.
So in other words, as long as that physical tabernacle stood
and the high priest went in and did his service every That was
the Holy Ghost signifying, telling us that Christ had not yet come,
that the services were still types and shadows for the nation
Israel, but Christ and the new covenant had not yet been established.
And he says, the Holy Ghost signifying that the way of the holiest of
all was not yet made manifest, while as yet the first tabernacle
was yet standing, verse nine, which was a figure, a figure,
a type, a shadow for the time then present, in which were offered
both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the
service perfect as pertaining to the conscience." Now, I'm
going to talk more about that next time, but what he's saying
there is the blood of bulls and goats could not accomplish the
perfection that we need, but we had to wait for a time of
reformation. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.