Verse 12 of chapter 9, we read, "...neither by the blood
of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." For
if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer
sprinkling the unclean sanctify to the purifying of the 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? And for this cause,
He is the mediator of the New Testament. That by means of death,
for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament,
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there
must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a
testament is of force after men are dead. Otherwise it is of
no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither
was the first testament dedicated without blood. For when Moses
had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law,
he took the blood of calves and of goats with water and scarlet
wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book and all the people.
saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath
enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled with blood
both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And
almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without
shading of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that
the patterns of things in the heaven should be purified with
these, But the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices
than these. For Christ is not entered into
the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the
true, but into heaven itself 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. Now, this is one of the most glorious
chapters in the whole Scripture. And I personally believe that
it is impossible that a man should have an understanding of what
it is that Christ has come into the world to do if he fails to
grasp what it is that the Apostle is saying here. Now we know that
it is not necessary for a man to have a carnal understanding
of things in order to have a spiritual understanding of them. But it
is nonetheless true that the preaching of the gospel, while
it is empowered by the Spirit of God as He sees fit to send
it forth, It is in a measure a carnal teaching in that it
does come to the understanding of men. And so the purpose of
preaching is not to awaken the people of God because that's
the Spirit's work. The Spirit alone can awaken the
people of God. The Spirit alone can quicken
the people of God. Yet it is the preaching of the
gospel that's given for the instruction of God's people in the things
of righteousness. Now, if it's not applied by the
Spirit of God, then it won't be of any value. But it is important
in order to declare the truth of God that we be accurate in
portraying what it is that the Scripture says that it is. We can't just make up something
and say, well, this is what the Bible says. and it be of any
value. It's got to be what the Bible
says. Now, dear brethren, it seems so clear to me, and I have to say, there has been
a time in my life when it was not so clear to me, and I can't
understand how it couldn't have been clear to me. I do understand
how it is clear to me, And I understand how if it becomes clear to anybody
else, it will be by the same fashion in which the Lord is
pleased to make it clear and make it plain. But insofar as
what the Scripture says here, if a man just studying what the
Scripture says and he doesn't even have any spiritual understanding
at all, if he just read what the words say on the page, He
would have to actually say what I would say, hopefully, in the
enlightened place of what the Spirit of God has told us concerning
who Christ is and what is performed. Because it plainly says here
that Jesus Christ entered in once into the holy place and
obtained eternal redemption. Now, I don't know about you,
but if I obtain something, I have it in my hands. Now, you can't
go to the store and pay your money and obtain some goods and
walk out with an empty sack, can you? You can't walk out with
a sack where you hope somebody else comes along and puts something
in it. If you obtain it, You have it. Now, what the Scripture
says is that the Lord Jesus Christ obtained eternal redemption for
us. Now, if He obtained eternal redemption
for us, just in normal understanding, we would expect to believe that
that means that He got it. Now, if a person is eternally
redeemed, and this is obtained by Christ,
and he has it within his hand, how could it possibly be that
a person in such a state as that could ever be lost? It couldn't be, could it? I mean,
how could it be if he obtained it? Now, if it said he tried
to obtain it, Or he did everything he could to obtain it and hoped
that it was enough. Well, that would mean one thing,
but it says when he entered into that place, he got it. And so
this is really what the whole point of the writing of the book
of Hebrews is, is to point out that Jesus Christ has fulfilled
the law jot and tittle in every way, fashion, form or whatever
could be, Christ has done it. Nothing is left to be done. Just as we sang there in that
song a moment ago about the gospel uniform that the Lord has woven,
He designed it, He wove it and He has put it on His people. And it is in that that they stand
before Almighty God as the redeemed of the Lord. Now, all of the
redeemed of the Lord do not presently know it. That is why we preach
the gospel. It is for the glory of God in
the manifestation of the gospel to those whom He has called.
For how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? And so we do preach the gospel
in order that men might hear, but we preach it so that those
might hear who have been purchased, that they might believe, because
nobody else will. You see, the only ones that will
believe the gospel are those whom God is pleased to give faith. to call by His grace to awaken
from the deadness of their sin and to see what Christ has done
and say, thank God, that's what I want. I want that gospel uniform. I want to stand in the robe of
the righteousness of Christ. I don't want to stand in my own
way. Because you see, the Jews, they
were content to go about to establish their own righteousness. And
unfortunately, this is the state and standing of all men by nature
apart from the intervening grace of God to stop a man on his pathway. That's the pathway he'll continue
on. The Apostle Paul is a good example
of that. He was on the road to Damascus
going about to establish his own righteousness. He was doing
things for God, was he not? He was convinced he was doing
things for God. If you would have been looking
at him from an external path, you would have said, He is doing
things for God. I mean, he was zealous. The folks at Jerusalem that sent
him down there, they said, He is doing things for God. He is
faithful. But he was going about to establish
his own righteousness. Now, if you would have asked
him, was he going about to establish his own righteousness, he probably
would not have necessarily said so in so many words. He would
have just said, I am being obedient to God, because that is what God requires.
But you see, anything wherein a man would seek to be justified
or be made pleasing in the sight of God apart from that which
Christ has performed is to go about to establish one's own
righteousness. And so every time that the great
high priest went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of a
goat or a calf, what was he doing? He was going about to establish
his own righteousness. Now, he was doing it according
to the pattern that was given to him. He was walking according
to the light that he had. But he was nonetheless establishing
his own righteousness, and not one sin was ever taken away by
anything that any of the priests ever did, because the blood of
bulls and goats couldn't do that. Because it was never designed
to do that. The Lord never gave the sacrifices in order to abrogate
sin. He gave the sacrifices as patterns
of that One who would come and would take away sin. And that
is plainly what He says here. For if the blood of bulls and
goats and ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctify
to the purifying of the flesh. There was a fleshly purification.
Just like there was a fleshly righteousness of the Pharisees.
I mean, if you looked at them, you would have said these were
righteous men because they tithed, they prayed, they studied the
Word of God, they were moral men, they were upright men, they
went about doing exactly what the Bible said to do. They were
going right down the road. And so there was a sanctifying
to the purifying of the flesh. There was an outward form. That
was according to what Scripture says, according to the pattern
that God gave. Nobody could look at the Jews
and say, well, you all are doing the wrong thing, could they? No, they were doing the right
thing. I mean, they were doing exactly what God said to do.
But you see, God never told them to do that. Because he said,
this is going to make you righteous in my sight, he said, this is
what I want you to do. He didn't reveal to them at that
point in time that it was temporary, but they knew in the back of
their mind that they couldn't actually be made righteous in
the sight of God through these things, because they knew they
had to keep doing it. Now see, where does a man ever
quit doing What he's going to do if he's got to do something
to make himself righteous before God? What's he going to do? What
are you going to do when you die if you've got to make yourself
righteous before God? Huh? You can't do anything when
you're dead, can you? Well, you're in trouble then.
Because if you're trying to be made righteous in something that
can't make you righteous, then what are you going to do when
you're dead? You can't do anything. You're not going to do anything.
That's exactly the dilemma they were in. And this could never
give the guilty conscience peace. Why? Because it was a continual
thing. But he says here, if that did
some good in the outward, how much more, he said, how much
in a greater and more abundant way shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot
to God, purge your conscience from dead works. Now how does
your conscience purge from dead works? Because no longer are
you relying on dead works. See, the man who is caught up
in the law, he has a conscience which is mindful of doing whatever
it is he's doing, is it not? I mean, if you pray because you
think it's a duty, if you read the Scriptures because you think
it's a duty, if you serve God because you think it's a duty,
well, we've got to do these things. But if we don't do these things,
why, the wrath of God will come down on us. We better do it.
You see, that's a conscience that is not purged from dead
works. Because brethren, everything
that you do say or whatever is going to pass away when you do.
That's going to be the end of it. It's not enough. I don't
care how much you did. I don't care how faithful you
were. It's not enough. But you see
that man who has fled to Christ for refuge and sees Christ as
that great high priest before the throne of God, that sees
that offering that Christ made as an absolute satisfaction of
the law of God, he is purged from dead works. He has got a
conscience that is no longer troubled by dead works because
that is not the thing that he is relying upon. Now there are
some people who they have one eye on Christ and one eye on
dead works. Dear brethren, that's not good
enough. You see, it's not partially what
you do and partially what Christ has done. It's what Christ has
done with nothing added to it. And that's the glory of it. You
see, that's the place of the rejoicing of the sons of God.
That's the place of peace for the children of God. For this
cause he is the mediator of a new covenant, that by means of death or the
redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament,
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance."
You see, this is that which the Lord said, I will write my laws
upon your heart. He says, I will come and dwell
with you and you shall be unto me a people and I will be unto
you a God. And you shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck you from my hand. For a testament is a force after
men are dead, otherwise it is no strength at all. So as we
said last week, it wouldn't make any difference what your inheritance
was ordered to be if the one who had made the will and owned
the property never died. You would never get it. But you
see, he has died. And not only did he die, but
because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself.
Because there was no one able to be the executor of his estate
in whom he had any confidence whatsoever, he became the executor
of his own estate. And he rose from the dead and
he said, and now I'm going to give that which I have purchased.
with my own blood to those who were given to me as my heirs
before the foundation of the world. Now, brethren, that's
a glorious thing. Now, that's redemption. That's
what he said he would do. For upon neither the first testament
was dedicated without blood. Now, blood is an important part
of this situation here. But blood is not important because
God has some affinity to red and white corpuscles. Now hear me out on this. Now
don't ever go away from here and say I said the blood doesn't
matter because the blood does matter. The Scripture says without
the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. It is the
blood. The Lord said, when I see the
blood, to the Jews that pass over, He said, when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. Because you see, that was one
of those patterns, was it not? It was something men could see.
Now what was it that men could see whenever the blood was shed? They could see the death of the
victim. They could see the death of the
sacrifice, could they not? I mean, when you see a living
creature covered in blood, if there is enough of it, you know
he is dead. I mean, when you come up on somebody
and he is laying in a pool of blood bigger than he is, you
know for a fact that there is no life left in him. Why? Because
the life is in the blood. And so the thing that God has
regard to is not read in white corpuscles per se, but it is
in the manifestation of the death of him that committed sin. You see, that's the thing to
which God's justice demands is the soul that sinneth shall die.
And how could a man know How could men know that Jesus
Christ died on Calvary's cross? Because the blood bears testimony
to it. And he said, I'll give my blood
for my people. I'll sprinkle it upon the altar.
Because you see, that was the thing that was done inside of
the children of Israel was the blood was poured out and sprinkled
on the mercy seat. It was sprinkled there. And they
knew that when that blood was poured out, that that was an
atonement for sin. And so it is as we look at this
wine here this morning. It's nothing but wine. It's not
holy in itself, but it represents the most holy thing that ever
has been demonstrated to men. It represents the blood and the
righteousness of Jesus Christ poured out for wretched sinners
so that there is a testimony, dear brethren, of the shedding
of his blood. For when Moses spoke in every
precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood
of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and
sprinkled both the book and the people, saying, This is the blood
of the testament which God hath enjoined to you. He sprinkled
with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, without
the shedding of blood is no remission." It was therefore necessary that
the patterns of things in heaven should be purified with these."
You see, it was necessary, God ordained, that the patterns of
the things be purified with the blood of bulls and goats and
all these things. The patterns were purified by
these things. But listen to what he says. It was therefore necessary that
the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with
these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifice than these." The heavenly things. You see,
that which God ordained in the salvation of His people, His
people being the objects, the heavenly things, You see, that
which God has ordained, that they be made holy with better
sacrifices than these. And what is that better sacrifice?
It is Christ. Christ and Him crucified. Is
that what Paul said? I determine to know nothing else
among you. Think of all Paul could have
come preaching and teaching among the saints of God. All that he
knew. But he said, I don't want to
know anything about that. He said, I want you to know about
this. And he came preaching Christ and Him crucified. Now when you
preach Christ and Him crucified, there must be blood involved
because it is in the pouring out of the blood of Christ that
we know that His life was taken from Him in our behalf. And it
is the giving of His life, dear brethren, that we celebrate this
day. knowing that it is as his blood
is poured out that his life was poured out before Almighty God. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest, because then if he had to pour
out his blood like the high priest did, he would have to offer himself
over and over and over again. He would have always been dying. But now once in the end of the
world, as he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself, once in the end of the world, brethren, this is the
end of the world. Do you realize that? Well, I think the end of
the world is coming. No, brethren, the end of the
world is here. This is it. This is the purpose for which
the world was created. This is the end of the world.
that Jesus Christ would come forth, born of a virgin, and
would become a man and walk among men, and that He would pour out
His life's blood in the behalf of His people and give Himself,
the Scripture says, as an offering for their sin. Oh yes, this is
the end of the world, dear brethren, and He has offered it once. He
gave it one time now here in the end of the world. There is
no other world to come like this one. This is the wind-up
of this because you see what is to be is the ages to come. Now what are the ages to come?
We don't have a whole lot of knowledge about that, but there
are ages to come according to what Scripture says. And through
the ages to come, we are going to praise Him for the giving
of Himself as a sacrifice for our sin. He is a high priest
forever. After the order of Melchizedek,
He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Now
listen to this. 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. Now in the same fashion in which
it is appointed unto men once to die, this is something that
has to occur. Well, in the same fashion, it
is necessary that this occur. It has to occur because it was
ordered of God, just as much so as men are ordered to die
and go into the judgment. It is appointed unto men. wants
to die. 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. Now the Scripture
says that what we are about to do, that we are to remember the
Lord's death till He comes again. There is a two-fold meaning here.
I want you to see this. 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. Now, we have no doubt that Christ
is going to come back to this earth to receive His purchased
possession. I mean, if the Bible means what
it says, which I believe that it does, it means what it means,
that Christ is going to return bodily, visibly. He's going to
come back in the same fashion in which He left, according to
what the angel told the disciples. Why would he have told them that
if it wasn't true? The Lord said, if these things
were not so, I would have told you. He said, I'm going to prepare
a place and when I prepare the place, I'm coming back. to receive
you unto myself. If it wasn't true, I wouldn't
have told you." Now listen to what he says here. 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. Now those that look for Him,
you see what Paul has been writing here in the book of Hebrews is
that Christ has made a payment for sin. Now, those that look
for Christ, they will be satisfied at His appearing. Why? Because
He is their hope. He is their expectation. But
I believe that there is another meaning here besides the fact
that God's people are looking for Him. But it is a subtle way
in which Paul has used a double meaning here. And he said the
high priest went in to the holy of holies to offer for sacrifice
these things. But the patterns in the heavenly
things or the heavenly things themselves must be purified by
better things than these. And he said, to him that looks
for him shall Christ appear the second time. Just like the high
priest went into the holy place, not with his own blood, but with
the blood of bulls and goats. Just like the high priest first
went in there like that as the pattern. He said, so Christ shall
appear the second time. Now, Christ came into the world
to redeem His people. He went to the cross of Calvary
to redeem His people. He rose from the grave to redeem
His people. He ascended back to the Father
to redeem His people. But every now and then He is
coming back to redeem His people, not to pay the price. But you
see, when those that look for Him, not those that are looking
to the first priest that went into the Mosaic tabernacle. But those that look for Christ
shall he appear without sin unto salvation." Because you see,
not only is Paul referring here to the second coming of Christ
insofar as we are looking for Him to come, but we are looking
for Him to come as one who is without sin. Why? Because he is satisfied. those
things. And we look and we see Him. You
see, we're not expecting Him to come back and say, okay, now
I paid for your sin, but now you're going to all have to line
up here and we're going to have a little work to do and see who's
been faithful and who hasn't. No, He's coming back without
sin, dear brother. He's coming back without sin.
He came the first time for sin. He's coming back the second time
without sin. And unto them that look for Him
shall He appear without sin. Oh, what a glorious thing that
He is our great High Priest, that He is that One who satisfied
the claims of the law, that He is that One who is the sin offering
of His people. But greater than the sin offering,
He is that One who is our great High Priest who stands daily
in the presence of God. See, He doesn't stand daily in
the presence of God offering up more blood, but He stands
there in His presence. And the same One who stands there
in His presence before God comes to receive His own unto Himself.
May the Lord give us a mind to consider Christ in all that He
has done.