Leviticus chapter 4. We're going to look at a couple
of verses there today. I want to bring a message entitled
Substitution First of All. Substitution First of All. It
says in 1 Corinthians 15, if you pick up one of our handouts
on the table in the back. There's an article there that
I wrote to try to summarize this. It's called First of All, and
in 1 Corinthians 15.3, Paul the Apostle says, For I declared
unto you, first of all, how that Christ died for our sins according
to the scripture. And that is a summary of the
entire gospel, what's all important. The word first of all in that
particular verse means that which is of greatest importance. In
Leviticus chapter 4, we're going to read, we're going to actually
be looking at verse 7 today, but I want to read through verses
1 through 7 and then make some comments and we'll try to explain
verse 7 in particular. Leviticus chapter four, verse
one. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the
children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance
against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things
which ought not to be done and shall do against any of them,
If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of
the people, then let him bring for his sin which he has sinned
a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering.
And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation before the Lord, and shall lay his hands
upon the bullock's head and kill the bullock before the Lord.
And the priest that his anointed shall take of the bullock's blood
and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation. And then
pay close attention to what happens next. And the priest shall dip
his finger in the blood and sprinkle of the blood seven times before
the Lord before the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall
put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense
before the Lord which is in the tabernacle of the congregation
and shall pour all of the blood of the book at the bottom of
the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. And again, I want to focus on
verse seven, which says the priest shall put some of the blood upon
the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord. Now, in the Bible, in the Scripture,
throughout Scripture, there's mention made of blood. Hebrews 9.22 says, Without the
shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. And in 1 John
1.7, it says, The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us
from all sin. 1 Peter 1.18 says, knowing you
were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversation, but with the precious blood of Christ
as of a lamb slain." And Matthew 26, 28 says that Christ, when
He gave the cup to His disciples, He says, drink this cup. This
cup is the New Testament in my blood. Throughout Scripture,
throughout the Word of God, Charles Spurgeon said this, that the
Word of God is as full of references to Christ's blood as the body
of a man is full of life and blood. The Scripture itself,
the Word of God is full. That's the life. That's the life
of a man and is the life of God's Word is the blood. But what does
blood mean? When we say blood in Scripture,
what does it mean? Well, when you think of blood,
you think of what happens when you cut yourself. But blood in
Scripture means suffering, but it doesn't mean only suffering.
It means a certain kind of suffering, of suffering unto death. It means the taking of a life
as punishment. Not just the taking of a life,
but the taking of a life as punishment, and particularly a punishment
for sin. It says in Ezekiel 18, the soul
that sinneth, it shall die. So blood was shed when the life
was taken. When the blood was drained from
the body, the life was taken from the body. Blood of sacrifice
in Scripture means that the punishment of sin, which is death, is brought
upon a substitute. Throughout the Old Testament,
whenever there was a sacrifice offered and there was blood in
the sacrifice, it had to do with something, and that something
was the substitution of a life instead of the person who has
sinned. And that's why I've entitled
this message Substitution First of All. Christ died for our sins
according to the Scripture. Now, in the Old Testament, God
ordained and throughout the New, God is the one who ordained substitution. He allowed that a chosen, perfect,
sinless sacrifice could could be made, and that sacrifice could
be made in place of, and instead of the person who sinned. It
says in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for
us. This is what God says. Christ,
our Passover, is sacrificed for us. 1 Peter 3, 18 says, The Lord
Jesus Christ died, thee just, for the unjust. And the word
for has to do with substitution in our place, in our stead. And
so the just for the unjust has to do with that substitution. It says in Hebrews 9.28, Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many, not his own sins,
but the sins of many, those for whom he died. And then I mentioned
this at the outset, that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 3,
I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. Nothing in the word of God is
more important than that. Nothing is more pervasive. Nothing is of higher importance
to God, and that makes it the most important thing to sinners
than the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The shedding of his blood
was the giving of his life. It says in Romans 5, verse 6
and following, For when we were yet without strength in due time,
Christ died for the ungodly. That's the shedding of blood.
He goes on and he says, Scarcely for a righteous man, A just man,
will one die? Yet, peradventure, for a good
man, some would even dare to die. But God commended His love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, listen to this,
very simple, plain declaration of the gospel, Christ died for
us. Substitution. And so, you might
ask the question, why substitution? Why did God ordain? Why did He set up substitution?
First of all, it seemed good to God. And this is the most
important thing. The reason God allows for substitution
The sinless one for the sinful one is that it seemed good to
God. It seemed good to God. Everything
that happens must be right in God's eyes. Everything. God only
does what's right and what's best. And everything He desires
to do, He does. He ordained that substitution
was the way that He could save His people from their sins. And
secondly, The second reason that there
is a substitution is that there were those who had rebelled,
those who were sinful, those who were ignorant, and those
who were out of the way and foolish and without strength, and they
themselves could do nothing to save themselves. They had to
have someone stand up as their champion, as their captain, and
be a substitute for them. And thirdly, and this is not
all the reasons, but these are some of the ones that stand out
most in Scripture, is that justice must be satisfied. God must satisfy
His justice. We read it, I think it was last
week or the week before, in Psalm 22. Christ said in praying that
psalm, He said, Thou art holy. God is holy. Therefore, He must
satisfy His justice. Sin must be punished. And then
fourthly, And this is probably the one that is the most dear
to me, is that love must be fulfilled. God's love for His people must
find satisfaction. Now, the only way that God could
fulfill His threatening sentence and yet bring many sons to glory,
Forgive guilty men was that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would
come into the world, offer his life, suffering unto death instead
of, in the place of, ours according to the will of God. Listen to
this verse from Ephesians 5 and verse 2. He says, He says, well,
I've got the wrong quotation here. Yes, this is it. Walk in
love as Christ also has loved us. Listen to these words carefully.
As Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us
as an offering. and a sacrifice to God for a
sweet-smelling savor. Now, pay attention to that verse,
because we'll come back to it later on. But the verse teaches
plainly the reason why the Lord Jesus Christ died. because of
his love for his people. That's prominent in that verse.
And what did he do because he loved his people? He gave himself
as a sacrifice and an offering for them. Not just giving himself
to pay a bill, but he paid with his life, with his own blood.
In the Old Testament, the life of the sacrifice was taken from
him. It was a victim. But in the Lord
Jesus Christ's case, he was not a victim. He gave himself willingly
because of his love for his people and for his love for God's holiness,
for his love for his Father. And then, I mentioned this already,
man could not do what God required. Man cannot do what God requires.
God requires of us to obey Him perfectly. He requires us to
be suffering punishment for our sins. We can do neither one.
We cannot satisfy God in the punishment of our sins, and we
cannot obey God. That reality comes to us over
and over again. When we're growing up as children,
and our parents tell us what to do, and we don't obey them,
They chasten us or they correct us. They discipline us because
of that. And on and on through our life, it seems like nothing
happens, but we grow worse and worse. We try to control ourselves. We try to order our lives and
discipline our lives, but it seems like that all that happens
is that sin breaks out. We grow up and it just comes
out in all sorts of ways. And that's just what we see on
a human scale. Before God, our heart is perverse. Jesus said, out of the heart
of man comes evil thoughts, fornication, adulteries and murders and all
sorts of things. And these things are the reason
why we ourselves cannot bring satisfaction to God. And yet,
it pleased God. It was to Him, as Ephesians 5.2
says, a sweet-smelling savor. when the Lord Jesus Christ offered
Himself as a substitute for His people. God looked upon what
Jesus did, and He found the greatest satisfaction in that. It pleased
Him. It brought delight to Him. It
was what He longed for, what He looked to. It was an offering
of Christ because of His love for His people and His God, and
He offered Himself. That's what satisfied God, the
substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ for his people. Do you
know what honors God? Do you know what brings delight
to God? Do you know what God From eternity
has ordained and designed to bring satisfaction to his justice
and his love and his grace, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
for his people and bring them because of that death to himself
as his own sons. That is what pleases God. That
is what satisfies him. But how can one man give his
life for many? How can one man even give his
life to God? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ,
because of the majesty of His nature, the dignity of His person,
because He is God, He could give His life. It says in Matthew
1.22, His name shall be called Emmanuel. And what does that
mean? It means God with us. Not just
anybody, God with us. It says in 1 Corinthians 5, I
think verse 19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
It was God who was there. And so because of the majesty
of His nature, the dignity of who He is as God, but not only
because He was God, but because He was a sinless, holy, harmless,
undefiled man, as it says in Hebrews chapter 7. Jesus Himself
said, the bread of God, that which God provides for men to
eat for their life, and not just physical life, but eternal life,
the bread of God is He Himself, which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world. That's what Jesus did. He came
to give His life for His people. His name, as I said, would be
called Emmanuel, but it also says His name shall be called
Jesus. And Jesus means Jehovah saves. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
One who was God and Man. The Son of Man, Jesus said in
Matthew 20, 28, did not come to be ministered unto. He didn't
come to be served. He didn't come to be served.
He came to serve and to give His life a ransom for many, for
many. And this is what Jesus did. We
weren't redeemed with corruptible things. We were redeemed with
the spotless blood of Christ. And so all of the sacrifices,
all of the sacrifices under the law, When their blood was poured
out and their life was taken from them were a picture, a shadow,
a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, the life of Christ, whose life
was given for His people as a sacrifice for them in their place. Those
who had offended unto death against God's law, and were doomed to
die, he stood in their place and became a sacrifice to God
for them." That's what he did. That's a substitute. And Paul
says, that's what I deliver to you first of all. This is the
important thing. This is the chief thing. There
is no way of salvation except by faith in the substitutionary
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. For all men, Ever born into this
world, none can come to God. None can come to God except that
Jesus Christ stands as their substitute before God and sacrifices
himself for them in their place. The way that we're redeemed from
eternal wrath is that Christ stood as our substitute under
that wrath and suffered that wrath. It says, look at Isaiah
53. Isaiah 53. The words substitute
are not used there, but the doctrine, the truth of it is plainly seen
there. Look at this in Isaiah 53, verse
5. Speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And listen to this next part.
The beating or the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and
with his stripes we are healed. Do you see that? That is substitution. Christ taking the beating, my
sins deserved. He stands as my substitute. Have
you ever noticed how conspicuous and how inescapably prominent
and how evident the blood is in Christ's death? Remember when
they took Jesus Christ, when He was even in the garden and
He was praying to His Father, His sweat was, as it were, great
drops of blood. When He was praying, before they
ever laid a hand on Him, He was sweating great drops of blood.
And then, when the soldiers took Him, They took a crown of thorns
and they pressed it into his head. And the thorns would have
pierced his temples. And that's where they say the
blood flows most freely is in the veins, in the arteries of
your head. So when they pressed it down,
the blood would have just gushed out. And then not only that,
but they scourged him. They beat his back and they beat
his body. So that the flesh was ripped
from his body and you could see the blood, not only the blood,
but his bones were exposed. He says, my bones stick out.
in the Psalms. But they also pierced His hands
and His feet, nailing Him to the cross. And the sword was
pierced through His heart even after He was dead, and blood
and water poured forth. Because the blood is always prominent
in the death of Christ to show that Christ poured out His life
to God for His people in their place taking for them the eternal
damnation. Now, in Leviticus chapter four
and verse six, what you see there is that the Lord instructed the
priest to take the blood of the bullock and to sprinkle it before
the Lord. Take a look at that again. Back
in Leviticus. Chapter four, he says in verse
six that the priest would dip his finger in blood and sprinkle
it Sprinkle of that blood seven times. One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven times before the Lord. Notice the words seven
times before the Lord. Seven in the Bible means the
perfection. What the sprinkling of blood
was done before the Lord. Those are important. I looked
and in the book of Leviticus, the phrase before the Lord is
used over 60 times, 60 times. That's important. That means
that the emphasis is that the blood was presented to God himself. And seven means the perfection.
So the sprinkling of blood here means that the The sacrifice
for sin would make a perfect satisfaction to God. And it was
before the Lord. It was not sprinkled to men.
Christ did not offer Himself to men. He offered Himself to
God. And so then in verse seven, he
goes on. If you look in verse seven, he
says, And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns
of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord. There's that
phrase again, before the Lord. Now, the altar of sweet incense,
there were two tabernacles or two places, one was called the
holy, the other one was called the holy of holies. And the first
one that they would enter, the holy place, There was a table,
there was a showbread, there was a candlestick, and there
was this altar called the Altar of Sweet Incense. And it was
covered with gold, so it was a golden altar. And on this altar
there were four horns on each corner, one horn. And the priest
was to take some of the blood and smear it or put it on the
horns of that altar, on the four horns. And notice, he says, before
the Lord. So the first thing we see here,
is that atonement, the satisfaction for sin, is before the Lord. Scripture declares that the shedding
of blood is with reference to God. First of all and foremost,
it's with reference. It's to God. It's before the
Lord. Have you ever noticed that in
the Old Testament, in the book of Leviticus, in chapter 12,
you don't have to turn there, but remember in the Passover,
When the people were inside their houses, and it was nighttime,
and God promised them, He said, I'm going to pass through the
land of Egypt tonight. And the people were inside. God
had instructed them before this that they were to take of the
blood of the lamb, one lamb for a house, and they were to sprinkle
it. on both sides of the doorpost and on over the doorpost. And
then they were to go inside the house. And then while they're
in the house at night, they were to eat that lamb roasted with
fire. But while they were inside, the
Lord would pass by, the angel of the Lord would pass by, and
it says that when God sees the blood, or when God saw the blood,
He would pass over that house. Now, the people were inside.
The blood wasn't sprinkled inside the house. The blood was sprinkled
outside the house. Why? Because it was for God.
The blood was there for God to see. And so, before the Lord
means that the blood was not put on the inside of the house. It was not put there for men
to see. It was put for God to see. Because
God says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Our salvation
is God seeing the blood of Christ. It's not what we think. What
we do, what we promise to do, what we intend to do, our sincerity
or any of those things that save us, it's what God thinks of what
Christ has done that saves us. There is nothing more important
than to know that Christ has died and satisfied God for me,
that I can rest, I can have peace with God only because God has
received from Christ full compensation and satisfaction for my sins. Him is my substitute. But remember
in the Day of Atonement, the priest would even go in on the
Day of Atonement, inside the holiest of all, and he would
there sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, and no man could
go in there. In fact, the whole place was
full of incense, because he had first entered and put the incense
on the coals. And so, the holiest place was
full of incense, and the blood was only seen there by God Himself. And that's important. It's important
for us to understand that when Christ offered Himself, He offered
Himself to God. It's what God saw. It's how God
responded to what Christ did that matters. That's all of our
salvation. And we've talked about this before,
but when Elijah prayed that day on Mount Carmel, and the prophets
of Baal were there dancing and cutting themselves and trying
to get fire to come down from heaven on their sacrifice. And
Elijah stands back and he prays, And he prays that God would make
Himself known to Israel, that He is God. And God sent fire
down and burnt up the altar, the sacrifice, the water, the
stones, and lift up the dust. Everything was consumed. Because
when God received the sacrifice, He fully consumed the sin And
he brought satisfaction to his justice for everything that his
people had done, and received from Christ in his substitution.
And when God did that, the people fell down and they said, The
Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. In the New
Testament, Thomas prayed and he says, when he saw the nails
in Jesus' hands and the place in his side where the soldiers
had pierced his side, he says, my Lord, my God. It's the blood
that satisfies God and it's our understanding of that. That is
the good news of the gospel. It's believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ that He made satisfaction. I didn't make satisfaction. I
could not. I would not. I had no ability to and had absolutely
no interest in satisfying God. I wanted to be on the throne.
I wanted to call the shots. But God, by His grace, in spite
of me has saved me for Christ's sake. And that is the good news
of the gospel. So the blood is offered to God.
And notice that when we talk about substitution, we're talking
about the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ offered
himself to God as a sacrifice for our sins, he didn't just
do it with reference to God's justice, although he did. But
He did it in love to His Father. And you can't separate the two.
Sometimes we do that. Well, there's satisfying God's
justice, there's displaying God's grace, there's fulfilling God's
love. And all those things are true
when you put them all together. But it's all contained in the
heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. He loved what His Father loved. The heart of His Father was His
own heart. His Father's thoughts, His Father's
will, His purpose, everything that He wanted, that's what Christ
wanted. He wanted to satisfy His holiness. He wanted to honor His law. He
wanted to save His people, because that's what His Father wanted.
He wanted all those things. From eternity, He said it in
His heart, to bring many sons to glory. Those that God the
Father had chosen, those are the ones for whom Christ died.
And that's what he did. He was a real substitute. He wasn't a potential substitute. To me, this is the greatest part
of the Gospel. That when Jesus died, he actually
and really substituted himself in the place of sinners before
God. God's anger was against us, justly
so. His wrath, His indignation because
of our sin. And we knew the shame. We knew
it not then, but we know it now. We knew the shame of our sin.
And God looked to Christ and received from Him a full payment
in suffering and punishment for His people. He actually, really
paid for all their sins. When He cried on the cross, it
is finished. He fully met all that God required
from His people, both for righteousness and for suffering. He did it
all. And He did it out of love. It
was Christ who loved us and gave Himself as a sweet-smelling savor
to God by sacrificing Himself to God for us. And the Father
delights in that. That is what honors Him, and
that's what He wanted. Now, the second part of this
verse, if we look at Leviticus 4, verse 7, is that the priest
would put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet
incense. This altar And this is probably
the core of what's being spoken of here. This altar represents
the Lord Jesus Christ interceding for his people. That's what incense
was. It's the prayers, but not the
prayers of anybody. The prayers specifically of the
high priest on behalf of the mediator, on behalf of his people. So the altar, the Lord Jesus
Christ, actually is our altar. How do we know that? Well, several
ways. But one of the ones that is the
most satisfying to me is, remember what Jesus told the Pharisees?
He says, it's not the gift that's important on the altar, it's
the altar that sanctifies the gift. Which is greater, the gift
or the altar? It's the altar. And so, when
the Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself, what could be more important
than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself? He Himself, because it was His
blood, offered to God. Remember that verse in Romans
8.34? Who is He that condemneth? It's Christ that died. That's
why the blood of Christ is received. It's because of who died. And
it's Christ, the altar, that sanctifies the gift. And it was
His blood that was shed. When we look at the altar here,
we're looking at the altar of incense. It represents what the
Lord Jesus Christ is as our high priest pleading for his people
with God and making intercession for them. Look back again at
Isaiah 53. I referred you to Isaiah 53 because
it's probably, if not the most important chapter in all of Scripture,
I think. Isaiah 53, verse 12, it says,
At the end, if you can look through there, in that one verse, it
says, he has poured out his soul unto death. Notice the words
pouring out referring to not just his life taken, but him
actually giving his life. And like blood poured out, he
poured out his soul unto death. And then it says, and he was
numbered with the transgressors. And he bear the sin of many. There's that substitution. But
notice it's combined here. And he made intercession for
the transgressors. He prayed. His own merit, His
own blood on behalf of, as a substitute for His people. So the altar
of incense back in Leviticus 4 represents this. It's the pleadings
of the Lord Jesus Christ for His people. And it was because
that He poured out His soul to death that He was heard. In fact, it says here in Leviticus
4.7 that they were to put the blood on the horns of the altar.
What do the horns mean? Well, the horns of the animal
were the animal's strength, a bull. His strength is represented by
his horns when he pushes with something. As always, you can't
resist a bull pushing with his horns. A bull is strong enough
just by himself, but when he puts his horns into it, it's
even stronger. The horns of the altar were the
strength of it. And so, the horns of the altar
with the blood on the horns of the altar signifies the power,
the strength. of Christ's intercession, the
persuasiveness of Christ's intercession with His Father for His people. The power of Christ's intercession
is the blood that He offered as a substitute for His people. When He prays to His Father for
His people, His Father hears His prayers for them because
He substituted Himself, His life poured out as a sacrifice to
God for them. That's the strength of it. The
dignity of His person, the majesty of His nature, the sinlessness
of His character, and that He poured out His soul. The Lord
Jesus Christ poured out Himself as a substitute. He stood in
the gap, in the place of His people. And His Father hears
His prayers. He hears His prayers. And not only that, but notice
this, that is asked this question. Remember last week I was trying
to bring out in Hebrews chapter 2 that our salvation is dependent
upon a relationship, a relationship God has established. We're called
the children even before Christ gave himself. He took on the
nature of the children. Well, what is this blood? But
an identification of Christ with his people. How so? They were
children. They had the nature of men. And
He took on their cause. He took on the cause of those
that God had promised salvation to. And having taken their cause,
He took their nature. And the evidence, the mark of
His having taken their nature is blood. He offered His blood. And in bringing the blood, He's
identifying Himself with His people as His brethren, His children,
His sheep, His bride, His church, all those for whom He died. He's
bringing His own blood showing that he himself by blood is related
to them. And so it says in Hebrews chapter
2 and verse 14, for as much as the children were partakers of
flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same. It was
because of shedding his blood, showing that they were partakers
of flesh and blood. I myself am bringing my blood
for them. And so, he identifies himself
with them and shows that he was not only God, but man, and giving
himself as man. Now, this also shows that the
Lord Jesus Christ is near to his people, near like a kinsman-redeemer. The one who is the redeemer has
to be near in relationship to those he redeems. And so the
Lord Jesus Christ, by blood, was very near. And that's why
God, in Hebrews chapter 2, calls Him the Captain, the Champion
of our salvation, because He could be so near as to be our
Redeemer, our Substitute, the One who stood for us before God.
It's a token of His identification with us in our nature and of
identification with us as His substitution for us. But it's
Christ's blood that is the power of his intercession, not only
because he gave himself as our substitute in love as a sacrifice
to God in our place, but because his blood is the fulfillment.
Now, listen to this. His blood is the fulfillment
of the eternal covenant God made with him. And we speak of a covenant
because that's what the Bible describes our salvation. Sometimes
when we hear the message of the gospel, we hear it very superficially.
It's just men have sinned, Jesus died, and so on. And they make
such a light thing of the whole matter of our salvation that
we don't understand it. But the Bible reveals that our
salvation is because of an everlasting covenant God made with the Lord
Jesus Christ. before the world began. Our salvation
was arranged before the world began. And God the Father had
a will, a purpose, that He would save His people. And the Lord
Jesus Christ stood even then. as our surety, our substitute,
and made Himself the one who would fulfill all of our obligations.
So when Christ offered His blood, He was fulfilling His conditions,
the promises He made to God in this covenant. And God Himself
had promised blessings to His people and the Lord Jesus Christ
with them, in fulfillment of this covenant. And so it says
in Hebrews 13 20 that is by the blood of the everlasting covenant. That's the basis for which God
makes his people perfect in Hebrews 13 20. In fact, I'll read that
to you. It says this. Let me let me just read it quickly
here. He says now the God of peace
that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great
shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting
covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will,
working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through
Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. You see,
it's the blood, not just of Jesus offering His blood was
not just testified a four time, it was even an arrangement, an
agreement, a transaction between God the Father and God the Son
on behalf of His people. So the reason that Christ's blood
has power in His intercession is because in offering Himself
to God, He's actually bringing the fulfillment of the conditions
that God placed on Him for his people as their surety and substitute,
which he would have to fulfill in order to receive from God
the blessings that God had promised. And the blessings God had promised
were eternal life, righteousness, justification, peace with God. Sons, all these things were things
that God had promised us, given the Spirit of God into our hearts
that we might know our sonship, that we might be brought to glory.
And so in Matthew 26, 28, when Jesus said to His disciples,
giving them the cup, He said, drink this, this cup. is the
New Testament in my blood. He's saying it's the fulfillment
of it. It brings it to pass. It puts it into force. It brings
all the blessings that God had promised. to those for whom God
had promised them. Christ's blood does that. So,
His blood has power with God, and that's what sprinkling or
putting His blood on the horns of this altar indicated that
it was the strength of the blood, the strength on the altar, Christ
offering Himself to God for His people, that to God was a sweet
incense. He smelled it. Christ's prayers
were not brought into the presence of God reluctantly. It wasn't
like God was pushing back, and, no, no, I can't save my people. I don't want to, and then Jesus
persuades him. No, no. God Himself gave His
Son. It was out of love, for God so
loved the world. It says in John 3.16, God loved
His people, and He would give His Son for them. Remember Romans
8.32? God did not spare His own Son. He gave up His own Son. And the
reason He gave Him was out of His love. Now, it's true, in
God's justice, He required the satisfaction. So when Christ
prayed, He smelled the sweet Fragrance of satisfaction and
pleasure, not only to His justice, but also to His love, because
in the whole transaction He fulfilled that eternal will, His purpose,
His covenant, and He received it from His Son, whom He loved,
and He said of Him, He's done all things well, everything's
pleasing in His sight. In this covenant, Christ acted
as our mediator, according to Daniel chapter 9, to finish transgressions,
to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness. And then if you add to that Hebrews
chapter 9, to obtain eternal redemption. Eternal redemption. In the Old Testament, every 50
years they would have jubilee. Or, if someone became impoverished
and they would have to sell themselves into slavery, someone else would
come and buy them out if they were a next of kin. But when
Christ offered Himself to God... In fact, look at Hebrews 9. This
is so important that we have these verses before us when we
think of these things, because this is God's truth. It's not
mine. It's what God has said. Hebrews
9. He says, After he summarizes what took place in the Old Covenant
in Hebrews chapter nine, verses one through ten, he says in verse
eleven, but Christ. In contrast to what happened
then and in fulfillment of it, but Christ being common high
priest of good things to come heaven by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, Not made with hands, that is to say, not
of this building. He's talking about the holiest
of all in heaven itself, the court of heaven before God Himself
in His very presence. Neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy
place, the real holy place. having obtained, actually obtained
eternal redemption for us. Do you know what it means to
obtain something? Christ by His blood received from God full
liberty, a setting free of those who were impoverished and lawfully
imprisoned because of the debt of crimes. Their sin earned them
under the justice of God. But Christ offered Himself, paid
the price of their redemption. And he says in verse 13, for
if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer
sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh,
in other words, if all those Old Testament things actually
purified their flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot
to God. Purge your conscience from dead
works to serve the living God. You see, in the Old Testament
atonement, on the day of atonement, two goats were brought in. One
was a goat to be killed and given to the Lord, offered to the Lord.
And what did that goat do? The sprinkling of that goat on
the mercy seat made propitiation. It appeased God. It made satisfaction
for sins. And then the other goat was brought
to the door of the tabernacle, and the high priest would lay
his hands on the head of that goat, confessing over that goat
all the sins, not leaving out one, but all the sins of all
of the children of Israel. Not everybody, not the Philistines,
not the Amalekites, but the children of Israel, signifying that it
was for God's people. And so when he put the sins on
that goat, it signified the effect of God having already received
satisfaction from Christ in the holy place. And so that goat
was then driven out into the wilderness, so that that goat
bore on him all the sins of the children of Israel, taking those
sins out into a land uninhabited, where God would remember them
no more. The effect of Christ having brought His blood to God
for His people as their substitute, making satisfaction, was that
God remembers their sins and iniquities no more. He sees no
sin on them. Jeremiah 50.20. And He doesn't
find any iniquity in them because their sins have all been paid
for by the blood of Jesus. And God has received full satisfaction
for them. And so God now forgives their
sins. They're put away. He pardons
them. He blots out the account in heaven
of their sins against His justice so that He looks in the book
of justice and finds them no more. That's what the blood did
to God. And that's why it has such an
effect here. And Christ offered Himself through
the eternal Spirit, meaning, In His divine nature, in His
own spirit, He goes into heaven and offers Himself to God. And
God received it from His hand and God gave this eternal redemption,
this liberty that was not every 50 years. It was not when we
fall into impoverishment. It was an eternal redemption.
And Christ fulfilled the covenant in all those things. He finished
transgression. He made an end of iniquity. He
made reconciliation. He obtained eternal redemption. He procured eternal inheritance
for us. That's what the blood on the
altar signifies. Christ as our substitute in love,
giving himself for his people and offering himself. And at
the same time and in the same moment, pleading with God on
behalf of His people to receive His blood in payment for their
sins. And God has received it. And
God says, justified. And He's set at peace with His
people. This peace is established. And you know what the effect
of that blood has on us? The effect of that blood on us,
then, is that we see that God has received from Christ's hand
all that He requires of us. He doesn't even look to us for
anything. He looks only to His Son. And
this is the third part of this offering. If you look at Leviticus
4.7, he says, The priest shall put some of the blood upon the
horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in
the tabernacle of the congregation. Because when the blood was put
on the horns of the altar, it also indicates that every prayer,
every access we have to God, every thing involved in us coming
to God, in our service of God and all those things is only
accepted by God because of what Christ has done. Everything,
our repentance, our prayers, our faith, our service, everything
is only and always accepted. What happened was, is that the
blood was first put on the horns of the altar of incense. And
then the people, then the priests in this case, was accepted by
God. The blood was first put there and then the prayers were
made. Do we do good works? Yes. But our acceptance, our
sin payment, our righteousness, all these things has absolutely
nothing to do with what we do. Nothing to do with it. God cannot
receive anything from us because all that we do, think, desire,
intend to do is wrong. It's tainted with sin. Our tears
are full of sin. Our faith is full of unbelief.
Our prayers are distracted and misguided at best. But Christ's
blood, makes everything that we do accepted for His sake,
because He was our substitute on the golden altar of incense. God hears His people for Christ's
sake. He doesn't accept us because
we love or because we serve Him, but we love and serve Him because
He accepts us for Christ's sake. Salvation doesn't end with our
acceptance before God. Salvation doesn't end with our
sins being put away. Salvation doesn't end with our
being perfected before God. Salvation begins with our sins
having been put away. Salvation begins with God giving
us a full righteousness and justifying us, making peace with us and
giving us everything, even perfection itself in Christ's offering of
Himself to God for us. Colossians 2.6 says this, As
you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. And how did you receive Him?
How did you receive? What things did you bring when
you first received the Lord Jesus Christ? All you brought was your
need. Remember what Jesus... He healed
those who had need of healing. All you brought was your sin.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He died for
the ungodly, those without strength. That's all you had when you first
received the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? If you brought anything,
then you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. If you brought
your sincerity, if you brought your commitment, or your intentions,
or your dedication, or your knowledge, or even your faith to God, Without
looking to Christ only, then you didn't bring, you didn't
come. But when we first received the Lord Jesus Christ, we had
no evidences, we had nothing to point to. All we had was our
need, our sinfulness. We needed to be saved, and we
came that way. And we saw that God had provided
a perfect salvation for us in the substitution of the Lord
Jesus Christ for us. And so he says in Colossians
2.6, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, That's the way
you're supposed to walk in Him. Keep walking the same way you
received Him. Don't be surprised to find nothing in yourself.
All you'll find in yourself is that you are a wretched man.
But be pleased and be satisfied like God is. Be delighted and
give God praise for the blood of Jesus Christ on the altar
in heaven. Christ for me, dying and pleading,
this is all my hope, all that matters, to God all that matters
to me. He gives me peace. He gives me rest. It's the reason
I can come. It's the basis of my coming.
It's all my righteousness. All my salvation. All the reason
I worship God. And the only acceptable way I
can worship God. What I plead in my prayers, And
what I say in my worship is what they said in Revelation 1.5,
unto him who loved us and gave himself for our sins. Actually, that's not what it
says. I misquoted it. It says, unto him who loved us
and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Remember that? Let me just read it to you. Revelation
1.5, he says, this is from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness.
What he says is true, and he's the first begotten of the dead.
God raised him from the dead, and he will raise all those in
him. And he's the prince of the kings
of the earth. And the people of God respond,
this is our worship to Him, unto Him that loved us and washed
us from our sins in His own blood. That's the height of our worship.
That's the depth of it. That's the extent of it. We worship
God in Jesus Christ, and that's all we can do. And what do men
and women who believe this do when they die, when they face
death? When they face death, there's no comfort and there's
no entrance into heaven except resting on the precious blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ who was sacrificed for us. That's
what gives God great delight and pleasure. That is the sweet-smelling
savor. that Jesus offered to God when
He gave Himself for us and the blood was sprinkled in heaven.
And God receives it from Him. And nothing gives peace in my
conscience and rest in my heart than what Jesus has done. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
we would know what Jesus has done. We would not believe what is false, but we would hear
from your Word the truth about how Christ died for our sins
according to the Scripture. Lord, burn it into our heart,
pacify our own conscience, Purge our conscience with what you
have received from Jesus at His hand for us. Don't let us trust
in anything else. Cause us to come to you by Him.
Cause us to lift up our hearts in prayer, pleading. What He
pleads, His own blood, we have no other plea than that Jesus
died and that He died for me. Lord, this is all of our hope.
In ourselves, we're nothing but sin. In ourselves, we have no
strength. But in Christ, we have all things.
He's the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we're complete in
Him. Thank you, dear Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.