Hebrews chapter 9, and we had
pretty much covered the high points of the chapter up until through verses 24. It says, For
Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands,
which are figures of the truth, but into heaven itself now to
appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should
offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy
place every year with the blood of others. For then must he often
have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in
the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once
offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. For the law, having a shadow
of good things to come, and not the very image of the things,
can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year,
continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they
not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers
once purged should not have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there
is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins. Therefore, or wherefore, when
he cometh into the world, he said, Sacrifice an offering thou
wouldest not, but a body thou hast prepared me. In burnt offerings
and sacrifice for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I,
Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me,
to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, Sacrifice
and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldst
not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law.
Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. by which will we
are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering oft times the same sacrifices which
can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is
a witness to us, for after that he said before, This is the covenant
that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I
will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write
them. and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now where remission of sins of
these is, there is no more offering for sin. Have him therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through
the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having an eye-priest
over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in
full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an
evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good
works. not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully, after
that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking-for
of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three
witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot
the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith
he was sanctified, and a holy thing, and hath done despite
unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said,
Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the
Lord. And again the Lord shall judge
his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. But call to remembrance
the former days in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured
a great fight of afflictions. partly whilst ye were made a
gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst
ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had
compassion on me and my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling
of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better
and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your
confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye
have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God
ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he
that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just
shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall
have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw
back into perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul." There is a lot of ground that
is covered there. The reason that I wanted to read
that tenth chapter, even though we are still in the ninth chapter,
is because it is necessary, I believe, to understand the latter part
of the ninth chapter as we keep the context of what it is that
he is talking about. And, of course, As he began the
eighth chapter, this whole book is written to show the superiority
of Christ in the work that He did over the law that was given,
which was the type and foreshadow of what He would do. Now the
Jews being raised in this faith, in this religious teaching, they
had a regard strongly unto all the things that the priests did
in the temple. And, well, they should have,
because that was the thing that was delivered to them. But what
we see when Paul comes teaching in the New Testament, and of
course I believe Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, maybe he didn't,
but whoever wrote the book of Hebrews was taught by the same
one that taught Paul the gospel. And there is nothing different,
but in any event, it seems to me that he did in many ways,
or if he didn't, I believe Timothy did. But nonetheless, the message
that he came preaching and teaching was the superiority of Christ
over those things that the Jews had held to. And so it is necessary
that we keep that in mind as we look at this. Now to us, we're
not turned aside per se by thinking that there was a great benefit
in the sacrifices that were in the temple because we never viewed
them. We never really thought that
much about them. It was not taught to us from
our youth. But keep in mind that the ones
to whom this book is specifically written, that was constantly
upon their mind. And the thing about the early
Hebrew believers was there were many of them that kept wanting
to go back to that. because they kind of felt like
they needed to hold on to both. They kind of believed in the
gospel, but they wanted to hold on to their old religious traditions. And so it is that Paul is showing
them that you can't do that. You've either got to have one
or you've got to have another. And why would you want to hold
on to that which is imperfect when that which is perfect has
been plainly shown? And so he said here, concerning
the things that the high priest did, he said, it was therefore
necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens, this is
verse 23, should be purified with these. Now the patterns,
those things that were but illustrations, it was fine for them to consider
that these sacrifices and things were useful for that purpose.
There's a lot of useful things, as we said last week, about man's
religion. I mean, it's better to live in
a society that has some sort of a religious foundation than
it is to live in one that is totally without any foundation,
in a godless society that is to have no regard to the things
of God. Now, the danger in that is that
men substitute that which is the pattern for that which is
true. And that's what we see in our nation by and large. If
you ask the average person, they would say, well, yes, America
is a Christian nation. Well, it is a Christian nation
in the sense that it has some foundational external things
that the society as a whole is predicated upon. And that's not
beneficial, but the danger of that is that men get to thinking
that because they have this external framework that that is the same
as the substance, but it's not. So there can be, there is in
reality no such thing as a Christian nation. Now, there can be a nation
that is predominantly made up of people who profess to be Christians,
but nations are not Christian. By their very nature, they can't
be, because the Lord Jesus Christ said to love your neighbor, and
nations can't love their neighbors. He said, Do good to those that
despitefully use you. Nations can't do that. I mean,
when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, a Christian nation, the response
of a follower of Christ would be what? Exactly. Now, that's not a good response
for a nation, is it? I mean, now why is that? Well,
that's because of sin. You see, we don't live in a perfect
world. We live in a sinful world. And
so nations, by and large, their principles can be predicated
upon the teachings of Christ, and I believe it's a good thing
if they are, but they can't be Christians. Nations can't be
Christians, not intended to be, because that's not the purpose.
You see, the Lord Jesus Christ didn't come to die for governments. He came to die for his people
that he loved out of every tribe, kindred, nation, and tongue on
the earth. And every government that is on the face of the earth
is ordained by God or it wouldn't exist. It's here. Now, you know,
we get sometimes, I've kind of got off my subject here a little
bit, but just to think about this for a minute, sometimes
we get to thinking that, well, democracy is a Christian Virtue
is a Christian thing. Democracy has nothing, it doesn't
have anything to do with Christianity. You can't make people follow
Christ by giving them democracy. Democracy is no more suited to
the kingdom of God than is a king. In fact, A despotic, absolute
ruling king is more a picture of the kingdom of God than is
the greatest democracy on earth. The kingdom of God is not a democracy. It has one king, and whatever
he says goes, and that's it. And then nobody can call him
into question. And of course, you know, you
stop and think about people talking about communism, and of course
communism as a government-type rule, it won't work in the world. Why? Because of sin. But then capitalism doesn't work
any better. Why? Because of sin. You see, some people say, oh,
well, capitalism is godly. Well, capitalism isn't godly.
Isn't any more godly or ungodly than communism or vice versa? Those are not the things. The
problem with communism is sin. The problem with capitalism is
sin. You see, when men, the love of
money, Paul, you see, he got right down to the brass tacks.
The love of money is the root of all evil. It doesn't make
any difference if you're a communist or you're a capitalist, a socialist
or a conservative or whatever. Sin is the problem that men have
in the world. It's not all these external things. Now, how did I get off on that?
I don't know. But anyway, we're talking about the patterns of
things. All of these things are just external patterns. They're
not the substance. And so the Lord says here, it
was therefore necessary, or that was the useful thing for the
patterns to be purified by these sacrifices that they made, because
that's what they were. They were just illustrations.
But the heavenly things themselves were better sacrifices than these,
because the blood of bulls and cows could never take away sin.
Now, externally, they were set forth as that, as an illustration,
but they never could actually do that. For Christ is not entered
into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the
truth, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence
of God for us." Now that's the whole basis of
our hope. It's not in some external thing. It's not in our being a part
of a Christian nation that causes us to sleep well at night. Now
some people sleep well at night in the thought of that, do they
not? But what are they relying on? They are relying on the structure,
they are relying on the pattern and not the actual thing. For our hope is in Christ, for
He is that One who is now to appear in the presence of God
for us. Nor yet that He should offer
Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place
every year with the blood of others." There was a constant
offering for sin that was set forth in the pattern, and that
was a needful thing. Why? Because sin was not dealt
with in these things. I mean, if the offering of the
high priest could have taken away sin, then once he did it,
what would have been the need for it anymore? It would have
been done, would it not? But you see, the continuation
of sin could not be dealt with in that fashion by those patterns. nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest who continually went in there,
for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world."
Why? Because this is a recognition
of the fact that his priesthood is from the foundation of the
world. And so it was not necessary for
him to have offered himself continually, but rather he says, but now once. in the end of the world hath
he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself once. He was ordained unto this end
and he has come once to take care of this problem. He has
solved the problem which was caused by men according to the
purpose of God. Now, some people get all worried
about that, but listen, all things occur in the earth according
to the purpose of God. I'm glad they do, because if
they don't, who is causing it to happen? I mean, if things
are happening in a random fashion, we're in trouble, because we
don't know what will happen next. We don't know if this will be
true or not. But you see, if God is God, as we believe that
He is, and He wrote, He gave His book to men, then it's something
we can depend upon as being true. Otherwise, we can't. But Christ
has come, and He has put away, He has appeared to put away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself. Now, He has appeared. How did
He appear? He appeared in the flesh. He came in such fashion that
men could see Him. Now, whereas the high priest
went into the holy place, you couldn't see Him. Christ has
been offered openly. He hung on Calvary's cross, and
the sacrifice has been made in the eyes of men. Now has He appeared
in the end of the world. to put away sin. Now, the end
of the world, we talked about that some last week. What is
the end of the world? You'll hear all these people
say, oh, the end of the world is coming. Well, rather, the
end of the world is here. This is the end of the world.
You're in the end of the world. There's not coming another age.
This is the end of the world. This is the purpose for which
Christ came, was to manifest the glory of His grace in the
offering up of himself and the declaration of the gospel to
sinners, for all those for whom he has given himself. But now
once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away
sin. Now keep that in mind, what he's getting at here, because
I want you to see the context in which these next couple of
verses are given, that we might understand it as it is given. What I'm going to share with
you here is not necessarily something that is widely considered. Most of the time when people
read these verses, as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after
this the judgment, so Christ was once offered the sins of
many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second
time without sin unto salvation. They will relate this passage
of Scripture to the second coming of Christ. That is, the coming
that He promised when He said to His disciples, If I go away,
I will come again and receive you unto Myself. Now, we absolutely
believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again. We believe that
He has promised to do so and that He will bodily appear to
receive that which is His. We absolutely do believe that,
but I don't believe that this particular passage of Scripture
right here has reference to that primarily. Now you can definitely
see that here. You could read that and you could
say that's what it's saying and I certainly wouldn't fault somebody
who did. I fully, completely understand
because that's the way I have generally always looked at this
passage of Scripture. But listen to this. Now keep
in mind that the thing that Paul is seeking to point out is that
Christ came once to put away sin. And that even as the high
priest went into the Holy of Holies with sin, with the sin
offering, when he came back out, what did he come out with? Sin. I mean, he went in a sinner and
he came out a sinner. He went in with a sin offering,
and even though he made the sin offering, what did he come out
with? Still a sinner. He was starting on next year.
I mean, he was already in debt. He was already in place. Now,
look at what he says here. He said, to him that looks for
him shall he appear the second time, the first time when he
went in, the second time when he came out. What did Christ
do when He offered up Himself? He put away sin, did He not?
And when we see Him as the offering for sin, as we see Him as He
came as a sacrifice and a substitute for the people of God, but He
actually went to the cross. Now when John said, Behold the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, he was
on display, was he not? He was like the high priest before
he went into the holy place. But you see, now he has gone
into the holy place. John didn't see Christ go into
the holy place. John saw Christ. And that's why
the Lord said, I tell you, of all the prophets that have been
born of women, there has never arisen a greater prophet than
John the Baptist. But I tell you, he that is least
in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. Now what
did he mean? I believe this is what he meant. And I believe
it's tied in with this right here. John saw him the first
time. He saw him as that one who came
to bear sin. It's just like Peter said. When
the Lord turned to him, he said, Peter, whom do men say that I
am? He said, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. Peter saw him the first time.
But you see, Peter was also blessed to see Him the second time, was
he not? Because you see, not only did he see Him as Christ
and be given faith to believe that He was the Christ, he saw
Him demonstrate the taking away of sin. And so in this same fashion,
I believe, as Paul or whoever is writing here to the Hebrews,
and he is impressing upon them The necessity of seeing Christ
in Christ alone is that one who takes away sin. He said, unto
him that looks for him shall he appear the second time. When it says, shall he appear,
that could be translated equally as well as seeing him appear. So that man that's looking at
Christ and seeing Him appear the second time without sin unto
salvation, there is the blessing. And that is the holding on to
that which Christ has done, because look at what he goes right on
into saying. Now, he could have stopped right
there. But he didn't stop right there. But he continued. And
he said, for the law having a shadow of good things to come and not
the very image of those things can never, with those sacrifices,
take away sin. But he said Christ, when He came
the second time, when He came as that One who is the Redeemer,
when we saw Him not only enter into the holy place, but come
out of it. He didn't come out with sin,
but He came out with the salvation of His people because He said
it's finished. He did the work. It was done.
And the man that looks to Him, that man, shall be blessed. And unto them that look for Him
shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation."
That is, He is that One who is the Savior, and they are satisfied
with that which they see. For the law, having a shadow
of good things to come, could never do that. The conscience
of sin could never be satisfied. Because when you saw the high
priest come out, you knew, well, he did it once, but he is going
to have to do it again. And you just knew that sin was
still there. See, there's not a Jew that believes
sin is expiated. But those who believe in Christ,
what do they believe? It's been taken away. Christ
is without sin. And there, brethren, you see,
when Christ went to the cross, He didn't go there without sin,
did He? He went there with sin. The Scripture says that He became
sin for us. He went there as a sinner. Now
we know that He was without sin in Himself. That is, He was tempted
in all points like as we are, yet without sin, but yet He became
sin for us because the sin of God's people was put on Him.
And so when He went to the cross, He went there as a sinner. He
went there with sin. But when He came from the cross,
when He rose from that tomb, On the third day, he was without
sin. And believing that, dear brethren,
is the place of great joy and hope for the people of God because
we believe sin, the sin that's cancelled. And we're not waiting
until next week when somebody can make another offering of
it. As the Romanists continually
offer the blood of Christ, they continually think that it somehow
has to be continually done. And if they don't get it, then
they've missed out on it for that week. Dear brethren, what
Christ has done, He's done completely. And that's what the writer of
Hebrews is here saying. The law could never do that because
it demanded a continual operation. But Christ has finished that
work. And Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. One
time. And those that look for Him,
does He appear? Not in the future. Yes, He shall
come in the future. And He shall come without sin.
But we've already seen Him come without sin. You see, He's come
without sin as the one who bore the sin and carried it away.
as that scapegoat that was sent off into the wilderness. But
the scapegoat never came back, did he? But you see, Christ came
back. He came back and He put Himself
on display before His disciples. And they were amazed. And that
angel said to them, Why stands He gazing up into heaven, this
same Jesus whom you so short saw? shall come in like manner."
This same one. And so we do believe that Christ
is coming again, but what I believe the context demands as you look
at this passage of Scripture here in Hebrews is that it's
speaking about the coming of Christ without sin as He was
offered as that sin sacrifice. for the law having a shadow of
good things to come, and not the very image of the things,
can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually make the commerce thereto perfect. For then would
they not have ceased to be offered?" Or he's asking the question,
if that was the case, wouldn't they cease to be offered? Of
course they would because that the worshippers once purged should
have had no more conscience for sins. In those sacrifices there
is a remembrance made again of sins every year, for it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. But you see, the Lord, He has
taken away sin. And as we talked about last week
about the death of the testator, you see, here is the testament.
Here it is. the testament that He gave. And
this is the covenant that I will make with them after these days,
saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their
hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins
and iniquities will I remember no more." Now the death of the
testator has occurred, has it not? The one who wrote the will. Up until he died, these things
were just promises, just like if a man, his father may be a
multimillionaire, but he may be starving to death. He doesn't have anything, does
he? I mean, you can't get your hands on the inheritance until
what? The death of the testator. And
though these promises were made, they are now demonstrated. because
the death of the testator has occurred. And those that look
to Him the second time see Him without sin unto salvation. We see Him as that One who has
not only come as the Savior, but that One who has died, entered
into the holy place, and has read the will. And He said, I
will remember your sins and your iniquities no more. Now that's
a glorious place to be standing, dear Brett. He didn't say, I'll
remember your sins and your iniquities no more as long as you measure
up to this standard or that. As long as you continue to do
this, that or the other. No, he said, I will remember
them no more. And so we see Christ without
sin because He's taken it away. And he said that he removed it
as far as east is from the west, and he remembers it no more.
Now, dear brethren, if God doesn't remember our sin, what do we
keep bringing it up for? Why do we keep being bowed down
under it? He's come without sin. He's the
Savior. And he says to us, Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. What a glorious
place it is given to the sons of God to be continually reminded
that He has paid it. Jesus paid it all. All to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it. White as snow. What a glorious thing.