Now let's look at that passage
that Brother Randy just read. As he said, I'm going to focus
on one verse here, verse 22, where the Apostle writes, and
almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without
shedding of blood is no remission. The word remission means pardon,
means forgiveness. Why did the Apostle Paul, who
I believe was the human instrument to write this book, Why did he
say almost all things are purged by the law? Well, he's talking
about the old covenant law. You know, this whole book of
Hebrews is showing the greater superiority of salvation by God's
grace in Christ, as opposed to the law of Moses, the law of
the 10 commandments, the law of sacrifice, the law of feast
days and all of that, the tabernacle, the priesthood, all of that.
Those things were pictures of Christ, and the law was given
to show the Israelites the impossibility of salvation by their works.
It was to show them their sinfulness. That's what the law was. It was
kind of like a mirror to show them their true selves, because
no, they didn't keep the Ten Commandments. None of us do.
None of us keep the law. and to show them through types
and pictures the blood of animals, lambs, rams, goats, sometimes
certain birds could be used, blood, that the only way that
sins could be forgiven was the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the Lamb of God, and that's the point here. Those physical
animals, even though they were in ceremony and in type, they
had some significance, it's explained back up here in verse 13, where
he says, for if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes
of an heifer, that's a young cow that's sacrificed, or an
ox, heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctify, now here's the key
to that, what they did accomplish. Sanctify means to set apart,
to the purifying of the flesh. Now what he's saying there is
that the only significance they had in and of themselves was
a physical thing, not spiritual. There was no putting away of
sins before God, no payment of the debt, no righteousness established,
but there was a physical and a ceremonial accomplishment for
the people that offered these things in Israel. whereby God
joined himself to them and did not immediately bring his wrath
down. In other words, as long as they
kept these ordinances, they were fine as far as, until God, until
what the Bible calls the time of reformation, and that's up
in verse 10 of chapter nine, the time of change. And when
was that time of change? It's when Christ would come and
he fulfilled what those pictures and types and shadows, what they
pictured. And they're no longer needed
now. And I often use the illustration of like a woman whose husband
is off at war somewhere. And she looks at his picture
lovingly every day. But then when he comes home and
shows up at the door, she puts the picture away. She's got the
substance there, she's got her husband. She's not gonna, when
he comes, shows up, she's not gonna say, you go back, I'm just
gonna look at your picture. The picture's been fulfilled.
And that's what it is, you see. That's why we don't sacrifice
animals today. That's why we don't have the
feast day. They're fulfilled, that's why we don't keep a Sabbath
day. This is not the Sabbath day,
Sunday's not. Christ is our Sabbath. Read Hebrews
chapter four. It tells you all about it. He's
our Sabbath. We rest in, come unto me all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. He's our
Sabbath rest because he finished the work of redemption. And so
these, the blood of animals did set Israel apart to the purifying
ceremonially of their flesh, their physical persons. Well,
under the law, there were some sins that there was no provision
for, but they required capital punishment. Murder was one of
them. Breaking the Sabbath was another.
And so most commentators agree here in verse 22 that that's
what the apostle's referring to. Almost all things are by
the law purged with blood. But here's the point I want to
make today. The title of this message is No Blood, No Righteousness. I would have entitled it further,
but I felt sorry for Kristen, I haven't put all that on a title. It's no blood, no righteousness,
no righteousness, no life. And so that blood leads to life,
because that blood is equal to righteousness. Blood means death. The physical life is in the blood. And if you bleed out, you die.
So anytime the Bible talks about the shedding of blood, it's talking
about death. And anytime it's talking about
death through a substitute, mainly the death of Christ, it's talking
about righteousness established. That's what I want to show you.
And he shows us this through here. He says in verse 14, how
much more shall the blood of Christ? If animal blood accomplished
that physical ceremonial relationship with God, which was temporary,
didn't save them, didn't put away any sins, didn't give them
life, that animal blood. That's what Christ does for his
people. And they were to look forward to that. They were not
to count on the animal blood giving them eternal salvation. They were to look forward by
promise to the coming of the Messiah, which these things picture.
But this was the established way of worship, of approaching
God through the blood. sacrifice the blood of an innocent
spotless sacrifice and without the blood there's no remission
but it says if that animal blood accomplished that physical ceremonial
worship how much more verse 14 how much more shall the blood
of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without
spot without fault without blemish to God purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God. So what he's talking
about is the blood of Christ accomplishes what the blood of
animals could not. The blood of Christ accomplished
the putting away of all the sins of all of God's people, his sheep
in the sight of God. He purged our sins, the scripture
said. He put them away. Our sins were
charged to his account, our sin debt, you might put it that way.
Our debt was put on his account, and he paid the debt by the price
of his blood, his death. And his righteousness that came
out of that is imputed to all of God's people, and from him,
who is our righteousness, we get spiritual life, eternal life
that the animal blood could not do. But through these types and
pictures, all through the Old Testament, And then especially
when Moses came along and God gave the law to Israel on Mount
Sinai, the Lord was continually establishing this truth that
sin deserves death. The soul that sinneth must surely
die. The wages of sin is death. And without death, There can
be no satisfaction to the law's justice and no righteousness
established. And without righteousness, there
can be no life. That's why the Bible says in
Romans 6, 23, I quoted half of it, the wages of sin is death. That's what we earn. That's why
it's called a wage. That's what we deserve. If you
want to talk about what you can earn from God, there it is, the
wages of sin. because we've all sinned and
come short of the glory of God. We've missed the mark. And what
is the mark? Perfect righteousness. That can
only be found in one person, based on one work, and that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. So, as the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God, see, not the wage, but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now God was
teaching a lesson to these Old Testament people that without
the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness, there
can be no spiritual life, there can be no righteousness. God
is a just God. And it's not because God is some
kind of a sadist. It's not because God is someone
who's bloodthirsty. He just likes to see blood or
see people kith. No, it's because he's just. And I'll tell you, this generation,
you know, there's certain gospel principles that I can understand
this generation. I can understand that no generation
really understands it until God reveals it to us. I know that.
The natural man receiving not the things of the Spirit of God.
But the idea of justice is totally lost on our generation. You look
at our courts today. People getting tried and either
convicted or exonerated on nothing. People don't know the idea of
justice today, but God does. And God is a just God. And he
must punish sin because of who he is, not because he's mean.
Not because he's bloodthirsty. It's because of who he is. He's
a just God. He could no more allow sin to
pass by his gaze without punishing that sin unto death than he could
stop being God. He deals in justice. And of course,
whenever I preach that, people will think or even say, well,
what about God's mercy? Doesn't the Bible say God's merciful?
Yes, it does. In fact, let me tell you something.
It says His mercy endures forever. It says this about God's people. It's of the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed. Isn't God gracious? Boy, He sure
is. Let me tell you about his grace.
That's a free gift. Why do I have to say free gift?
Because of this generation that I'm preaching to and I know I
was one of them. There's no other kind of gift
other than a free gift. If you pay a penny for it, it
ain't a gift. I told you the story about the man up in Ashton.
I had a guitar and he was working on it for me, but I had a real
old shabby case for it. Good guitar, but a real old shabby
case. And when he returned it to me,
he had a brand new hard shell case for that guitar. And if
you know anything about guitars, those hard shell cases are not
cheap. And when he gave me that back
in that hard shell, I said, oh my goodness, what'd you do? He
said, I'm giving that to you. His name was Ted. I said, well,
Ted, let me pay you for the case. He said, no, I'm giving it to
you. Do you know what a gift is? And that hit me like a ton of
bricks. I said, well, I do now. And that's what God says to his
people in the gospel. You say, well, I want to be conditioned
on me, something I do or something I choose. God's saying, do you
know what a gift is? Even your faith is a gift from
God. Isn't that right? Not of works
that any man should boast. It didn't come from you, it came
from God. But that's what he's teaching
here. Without shedding of blood, no remission. And that's why
Christ had to die. He had to die to save his people
from their sins, the scripture says. He said, I give my life
for my sheep. Why do you have to give your
life? Because God's justice must be satisfied. Isn't God a God
of love? Yes, he is, but not without justice. That's why people have such a
skewed view of the love of God. They think it's just some general
old grandpappy love. You know, that God just feels
sorry for you and you're worth it anyway, so neither one of
those things are true. God's love is in Christ. Outside of Christ, you can talk
about it, you can write about it, you can smile upon it, but
it's not there without Christ. His mercy, His grace. His mercy
is just mercy. His grace is just grace. His
love is a just love. Hearing His love, not that we
love God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. What does a propitiation mean?
What does it do? It's a sin bearing sacrifice
that brings satisfaction to the justice of God. Is God a God
of grace? Yes, He is. As sin hath reigned
unto death, grace reigns through righteousness, just as satisfied
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. His mercy, remember
the mercy seed in the tabernacle? What did the high priest have
to do? They had to slay a spotless lamb on the brazen altar and
catch the blood in a basin and bring it into the, the high priest
would bring it into the holiest of all and sprinkle the blood
over the mercy seat. Why? Because there's no mercy
without justice. That's what it's all about. This
book is a bloody book. But it's the blood of the everlasting
covenant, the covenant of grace. And that's the salvation of God's
people. And all the rivers of animal blood that was shed in
the Old Testament before and after the law of Moses could
not put away sin. But without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission. The Bible says in Romans 5-9
that we're justified by His blood. That means we're forgiven by
His blood. We're made righteous by His blood. The scripture says in Romans
8.10, if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.
That's this body, physical body. But the Spirit, the Holy Spirit
is life because of righteousness. And what does it take to establish
righteousness? Blood. No blood, no righteousness, no
righteousness, no life, no forgiveness. Look over at chapter 10 across
the page. Listen to this, verse one. For
the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very
image of the things, the law foreshadowed something, but it
wasn't that something that it foreshadowed, can never with
those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make
the comers thereunto perfect or complete. For then, if the
animal blood could have done that, then they would not have
ceased to be offered. You see, they're stopped, that's
what Paul's saying here. Because that the worshipers once
purged, once forgiven, once pardoned, once cleansed, should have no
more conscience of sins. Now, he's not saying that we
won't be aware of our sins, but no more guilt that brings damnation. But in those sacrifices, there
is a remembrance made again of sins every year, for it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins. And yet without blood, there is no remission. These
things, as I said, and I wanna just make sure we understand
this now, these things were given as types that foreshadowed the
coming of Christ. into the world to put away our
sins and bring in everlasting righteousness by which God justifies
his people. How much more shall the blood
of Christ, he says. Now let me ask you, I want you
to turn back to Genesis. The book of Genesis, chapter
three. When was this gospel truth first established? When was it
first established? Well, you remember in Genesis
chapter 2, God spoke to Adam, the first man. And you know what
he did? He laid down the law. And he
put Adam in that lush, beautiful garden with all those trees.
And he spoke of two trees specifically. He spoke of the tree of life.
He said, Adam, you and Eve, you can eat of that freely. Then
he spoke of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he said, now that tree belongs
to me. I alone, I alone own that tree. You can't eat of it. And he said
over in Genesis chapter two and verse 16, the Lord God commanded
the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, what? Thou shalt surely die. That means
dead. Dying thou shalt die, what the
literal word is. Because you've disobeyed God,
you've broken the law. Sin is transgression of the law.
And transgression of the law brings death. Now I'm not gonna
get into what all these things represent, but I'll tell you
about that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What it represented
was God's sovereignty. And here's what God's saying
in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God is telling
Adam, I'm the one who sets the standard, who lays down the law,
who gives the orders of what's good and what's evil. Not you,
you're the creature. And when Satan talked about them,
you shall be as gods if you do this, you'll be on your own volition. You'll be autonomous, you'll
be independent of God. You can set your own standard
of good and evil. You can do what's right in your
eyes, Adam. You don't have to follow God. God says, you don't eat of that
tree. Now, God knew he was going to eat of that tree. He didn't
say, if you do this, if I do. He says, the day you eat of it,
you'll die. That's going to happen. Well,
you know what happened. God, he put Adam in the garden. Adam and Eve both ate of the
tree. Eve first, she was deceived. Adam followed his wife. And immediately
after Adam and Eve sinned against God, God sought them in the garden. He said, Adam, where art thou?
And I told you this morning, he wasn't asking for information
there. He was just saying, Adam, look where you are now. You're
in a state of death now. You say, well, Adam didn't immediately
die. Oh, no. He immediately died spiritually
because he lost all fellowship with God. But that's when the
aging process started. I hate to be a downer today,
but you know every one of you are dying. You're not dead yet
physically. Some of you are alive spiritually.
Some of you might be dead spiritually. But we're all in a state of dying.
If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. This
body is still going to die. But the spirit is life because
of righteousness. We're going to live forever with
Christ. So Adam, that process began. and Adam broke the law. But over in Genesis chapter three,
as God is pronouncing the curses, he pronounces a curse on the
serpent, that's Satan, a curse on the woman and a curse on the
man. And in that curse on Satan, who was the instrumental cause
of condemnation, used to bring about the condemnation of mankind,
here's what he says in verse 15, Genesis 3, 15. I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, talking about the serpent, and
between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head and
thou shalt bruise his heel. You know who that's talking about?
It's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, the seed of woman. If
you know anything about biology or physiology, you know the woman
has no seed, the man has the seed, but he's gonna be the seed
of woman. You know why? Because he wasn't born of man.
He was conceived in the womb of a virgin by the Holy Spirit.
He's the seed of woman. That's Christ. That's telling
us who Christ is. He's both God and man in one
person. That's who He is. God manifest
in the flesh. That's a prophecy. Some of the
old writers, they call that the proto-evangelical, whatever they
call it. It's just the gospel thousands
of years before Christ came. That's all it means. The first
proclamation of the gospel, there's Christ. He was made of the seed
of David according to the flesh. That is, even his mother came
down through the lineage of David, but he still wasn't made of the
seed of any man, even though he's called the seed of David
because Mary was of that tribe, Judah. Both Joseph and Mary were
of that tribe. He's even called the seed of
Abraham, because he came through that lineage. Mary came through
that lineage. But this person's coming and
he's going to destroy what Satan brought in. He's going to bruise
your head, Satan. That's a death blow. Now you'll
bruise his heel. Now he's going to die, but he
won't stay dead. He's going to be risen. How's
he going to accomplish this? Well, over in Genesis 3 here,
look at this, verse 20. And Adam called his wife Eve,
his wife's name. You know, this is the first time
she's called Eve in the Bible. She wasn't called Eve before
this. You know what she was called? Woman. Hey, woman. Adam was called man. But here
he calls his wife's name Eve. And what does that mean? That
means the mother of the living. Now this is in line with the
prophecy of the seed of woman, because without Christ, who was
to come six some thousand years later, she wouldn't have been
the mother of the living, she'd been the mother of the dead.
Because the soul that sinneth must surely die. So she's the
mother of all living, and look at verse 21, now this is important.
And unto Adam also and to his wife Eve did the Lord make coats
of skins and clothe them. Now I don't know about you, but
I'm pretty, I'm no master hunter or anything like it, but I know
if you're gonna make a coat of skin, somebody's got to be killed.
Blood has to be shed. This is a picture of the death
of Christ and the coat is a picture of the righteousness that comes
out of his death that is put upon his people by the grand
doctrine of imputation. God laying our sins to his charge,
laying his righteousness. So see, it's right there at the
beginning. God establishes it. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no forgiveness. There's no remission. So God
reveals how he's gonna save people through this person, the seed
of woman, upon this basis, the death, the bloodshed, righteousness
established. That's what he says. And throughout
the old covenant, he begins to reveal more and more information
about this. But the basis of how God is just
to save sinners is right there. And it's gotta have blood. It's
gotta be the blood of a particular person. Now, when was this truth
first illustrated in practice? We'll look at Genesis four. Through
two men who were brothers, Cain and Abel. Now this is what got
me on to this. Read what it says. Verse one
says, Adam knew Eve, chapter four. Adam knew Eve, his wife.
That means they came together as husband and wife. That's what
it means. And she conceived and bared Cain. And that word, that
means, what she's talking about here is someone I've gotten,
I've acquired, a gift from God. And said, I've gotten a man from
the Lord, and she again bear his brother Abel. And Abel was
a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And
in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain, now here's
Cain and Abel, they're going to approach God in worship. to be accepted. And in the process
of time, it came to pass, verse three, that Cain brought the
fruit of the ground and offering unto the Lord. Cain was a farmer
and he brought the fruit of the ground, his crops. And Abel,
he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. Now, Abel slew an animal and
brought blood. And the Lord had respect unto
Abel and his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had
not respect. And Cain was very wroth, angry. His countenance fell, you could
tell it in his face. And the Lord said unto Cain,
why are you angry? Why art thou wroth? And why is
thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou
not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin
lieth at the door. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission, say, and unto thee shall be his desire
and thou shalt rule over him. In other words, if you do well,
you're fine, you're accepted, but if you don't, sin's right
there like a crouching lion ready to crouch on, and you've got
it to deal with, which means you can't deal with it. It's
gonna kill you. Now you know the rest of the
story, how Cain was angry with Abel because Abel was accepted,
and Cain murdered Abel. Cain sinned in murder. He broke
the law of God. Somebody says, well, there was
only one law given about the tree. Cain knew it was wrong
to murder Abel. Believe me. No, this was before the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments says, thou shalt not kill. That law was
enforced right here. even before Moses gave him the
law. God gave the law to Moses. But let me just tell you this.
I heard a message this past week. Somebody wanted me to listen
to this. It was a good gospel message. But the man said this. He got one thing wrong. He said
this. He said, if Cain had been right
with God, then God would have accepted this offering. His crops. Well, Cain was not right with
God. I can tell you that, I agree
with the man there. Cain was not righteous. And the man even
said this, he said, Cain hated imputed righteousness. And I
agree wholeheartedly, Cain hated imputed righteousness. That's
the gospel, you see. I love imputed righteousness.
Because I don't have any righteousness of my own, I have his righteousness
imputed to me. That's my whole salvation. But
he said Cain hated imputed righteousness, and he's right. But he said if
Cain had been right with God, God would have accepted this.
And he said later on, he said God accepted meal offerings,
grain offerings, meat offerings, that kind of thing. Well, later
on, God did under the old covenant, but those meal offerings that,
you know, when they bring grain and meal to God, those were not
atonement offerings. Those were not offerings of blood
that brought about atonement. Those were thank offerings, gratitude
offerings. And all of those thank offerings
and gratitude offerings were based on the blood that had already
been shed on the day of atonement and throughout the weeks. The
blood that came off the brazen altar. Now, you know, let me
tell you this. Right now, right now, in worship,
we're offering thanks unto God. But that doesn't atone for our
sins, does it? We're offering thanks based upon the fact that
Christ has already shed the blood and brought in salvation. And
Peter said this in 1 Peter 2, our sacrifices, our praise, our
obedience is acceptable to God by who? Jesus Christ. Now here's what I would say it
this way. Cain was not accepted because he brought the wrong
offering. God said if you do well, you'll be accepted. What
is it to do well in the context of this past? Bring the blood
like Abel. Somebody said, well, Cain didn't
have any blood to bring. He was a farmer. Well, I think
he could have traded Abel for a lamb or two. Not everybody who brought lambs
in the Old Covenant were shepherds. Many of them were farmers. But
I'll say this, if Cain had been right with God, he wouldn't have
brought that offering. He'd have brought the blood.
Because that's what was settled in Genesis 3, and I guarantee
that's what his mama and his daddy taught him. But he disregarded
it. Cain was not right with God.
Cain's heart was not right with God. Abel was. And it was on the basis of that
bloodshed. Cain's attitude was, I believe
Cain was sincere in all of that. But his attitude was sincere.
Well let me close, turn over to 1 John chapter 3. See, the difference was in the
offering. But the offering showed you something
about the person. What was Abel doing when he brought
blood? He's saying, Lord, I'm a sinner. I have nothing to recommend
me unto you. I deserve nothing but condemnation. But I'm looking forward to that
one who would come that's represented in this blood. made coats of skin and gave them
to Adam and Eve. And what was Cain saying when
he came to God with his offering? He's saying, this is good enough.
I've worked hard. This is my labor. There's my
sweat went into that. God's got to accept that. Well,
God already said he wouldn't. And if Cain had brought it in
Thanksgiving, he would have brought it after the blood. But look here, he's talking about
the children of God and the children of the devil. Verse 11, for this
is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should
love one another, not as Cain. Cain did not love his brother,
that was a problem. Not as Cain, who was of that
wicked one and slew his brother, and wherefore or why slew he
him? Because his own works were evil
and his brother's righteous. Now all that we know about their
works is what they brought as an offering. We don't know anything
else about it. Later on, we know that Cain murdered
Abel. Later on, we know that he built
a monument to himself and his son, all that pride and all that. But why did he kill Abel? Because
Abel's works, the blood that he brought was accepted, and
Cain's works were not. But what is that all about? It's all about this. We have
one, one meritorious work to bring before God that He'll accept.
And what is that one meritorious work? It's the blood of Jesus
Christ. What can wash away my sins? If
you bring any other offering and expect God to receive you
and bless you and forgive you and make you righteous, That's
a wrong offering, it's a God dishonoring offering, but it
tells us a lot about you. Just like it told us a lot about
God. Yes, Cain was not right with God. How do you know? He
brought the works of his hands. What is the way of Cain? It's
the way of salvation by works. The way of able salvation by
grace through the blood of Christ, through his righteousness alone.
All right, well let's open our Hymnals to hymn number 216, Look
to the Lamb of God, 216.