Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. Now today I'm going to be preaching
from the book of Hebrews, the New Testament book of Hebrews.
And I'm going to begin in chapter eight of Hebrews. If you'd like
to follow along in your Bibles, the title of the message is a
gospel summary, a gospel summary that titles taken from verse
one where We read, now of the things which we have spoken,
this is the sum, the summation, the summary. In other words,
this is the message of the book of Hebrews, God's word, all summed
up, and then the writer, the human instrument of whom God
used to write the book of Hebrews begins to explain the summation. So I call it a gospel summary.
Now, before I begin in this, the book of Hebrews is a fascinating
portion of God's verbally inspired inerrant word. It is really a
commentary, you might say, on the Old Testament, or most of
the Old Testament, because it puts things in perspective concerning
what the Bible calls the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Now, believers today are not
under the Old Covenant. They're under the New Covenant.
The Old Covenant is done with. It's finished. In fact, in the
last verse of this chapter, Hebrews 8, 13, it reads, in that he saith
a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now, the old covenant
there is called the first because it was the first in time, in
the process of time. And he says, now that which decayeth
and waxeth or groweth old is ready to vanish away. So he's
talking about the end, the finishing, the completion, the fulfillment
of the old covenant, it's gone. True Christians today are not
under the old covenant. But let me explain what this
means. And as we go through some of
these scriptures, we'll see it too. Someone said that the theme
of the book of Hebrews could be summed up in three words,
Christ is better. And what that means is that what
believers under the new covenant have in the Lord Jesus Christ
is infinitely, eternally better than what the Jews, the Jewish
nation had under the old covenant. That old covenant system. You
know, the old covenant began at Mount Sinai. That's when Moses
led the Hebrew children out of Egypt, the bondage of Egypt.
You remember they crossed the Red Sea by the power of God. And then Moses went up onto the
Mount, Mount Sinai, and he received the old covenant. which was the
Ten Commandments, but that's not all he received. You know,
people watch the movie, The Ten Commandments, and all they see
is Moses with the tablets coming down. Well, he did receive those
tablets with the Ten Commandments, but he also received the whole
law. the law of the ceremonies, and the priesthood, the tabernacle,
the altar, the sacrifices, the feast days. Someone, I think,
counted 640 some laws all together that Moses received from God.
Now, whether or not he received them all right there on Mount
Sinai at that time, or whether God revealed them to him later
on as they were going through the wilderness, we don't know,
and that doesn't matter. Law is law. When God speaks it, it
is law. God didn't make suggestions.
He brought down the law. And that old covenant, sometimes
it's called Sinai because it was given on Mount Sinai, or
the Sinaitic covenant. Sometimes it's called Moses,
the law of Moses, because Moses was the human instrument, the
mediator of that covenant. One of the themes of the book
of Hebrews is that Christ is the mediator of the new covenant,
and it's much better. Christ is better than Moses.
Moses couldn't bring salvation. John 117 says this, the law came
by Moses, but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ, who is
the word of God incarnate, who is the son of God. So salvation
didn't come through the law given on Mount Sinai. There are many
people who believe, well, God gave that law to them and put
them under that law and to see if they could come up to snuff
by their works and it failed and therefore God had a plan
B. That's not the way it is at all. The law was originally given
to the Hebrew children to show them their sin and their depravity. to show them the impossibility
of salvation by their works, by deeds of law. By deeds of
law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. What that means
is that sinners are condemned by the law and sinners cannot
be made righteous. They cannot be made righteous
by their law keeping. It's impossible. For by grace
are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So
under the old covenant, there was no salvation for any of the
Israelites under that covenant. That's not why it was given.
It was given to expose their sin and to show them the necessity
of salvation, of righteousness by the Lord Jesus Christ. So
that's the old covenant now. That old covenant was a national
covenant. You see, the new covenant in
Christ is not a national covenant as far as nations of the earth
are concerned. The new covenant is a covenant
with spiritual Israel, which is identified in the Bible as
God's chosen people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
God's elect. And they are believers. And we'll
see that in just a moment. But that old covenant was a national
covenant made with that nation. The old covenant was a conditional
covenant. upon Israel and they failed.
Now don't get puffed up because we all fail. Had we been under
that covenant, we would have failed because we're sinners.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You ever
quote that verse? Romans 3 23. If God, let's put
it this way, you know, many times people today, they'll read the
Old Testament promises that were given to the nation Israel under
the Old Covenant, and they'll apply them to, for example, the
United States of America. They don't apply. They do not
apply. And I don't have time to go into
all those things, but I've preached on that before. But here's the
thing about it. If God were to make the same
kind of covenant that he made with Israel on Sinai, the Hebrew
children on Sinai, if he were to make that same kind of covenant
with the United States of America at any time given in our history,
the United States of America would fail because we all fell
in Adam. That's what the scripture teaches.
We fell into sin and death and we're born in sin. We're born
spiritually dead. We're helpless to save ourselves.
If salvation is conditioned on us under any law, we will fail. Now that's why we must look to
Christ who did not fail. You see, that's the whole point
of the new covenant. Christ fulfilled its conditions. He met its conditions. So that
old covenant, it was a national covenant, it was a conditional
covenant, which means that men were set up to fail. And somebody
says, well, that doesn't sound fair. Now, listen to me. Paul
wrote by inspiration of the Spirit in Galatians 3 that it was a
schoolmaster to lead them where? To Christ. Christ is the hope
of salvation. He always has been from the very
beginning. He's the hope of salvation. There's
never been any other hope of salvation. It's always been by
the grace of God. And any Israelite who lived under
the time of the Old Covenant, that Old Covenant lasted from
Sinai to the cross. That was a period of about 1,500
years. And when Christ died on that
cross, the Old Covenant was finished, over, never to be brought back
again. You remember in Matthew chapter
27 that was indicated by the tearing of the veil, the rending
of the veil in the temple from top to bottom. Done. And here in Hebrews we just read
in verse 13, that which is ready to vanish away. It was temporary. It was a segment of time that
God gave to reveal something about himself. But there was
never any salvation in it. And then it was temporary. One
of the reasons the book of Hebrews was written, it was the inspired
word of God. Now, a lot of people say that
the apostle Paul was the human instrument that God used to write
Hebrews. And I have a tendency to agree
with that, but here's the point. It doesn't matter who the human
instrument was. This is God's word. Do you understand
that? You know, sometimes in seminaries,
you know, they'll talk about Pauline theology. That's Paul's
theology. Or Johannine theology. That's
John's theology. Or Petrine theology. That's Peter's.
Listen to me. Paul and John and Peter believe
the same gospel. Now, their human personalities,
their language comes into play, and we have to read Scripture
with Scripture, interpret Scripture with Scripture, but it's all
the same. They didn't disagree. There's
not one segment of theology with Paul and another segment of theology
with Peter and with John. No. If you believe that, you
will never understand the Bible. But whoever God used to write
the book of Hebrews, He wrote it to Jewish Christians, who
were being enticed, sometimes under persecution, to deny the
Christian faith, to renounce Christ. And some of them did. Now, the Bible's clear on that
issue. Those who claimed to be Christians
and then renounced it and denied it, apostatized, they were never
saved to begin with. They never had true faith. But
that's what's happening here. And so the word of God in Hebrews
is written to inspire and motivate true believers to persevere in
the faith because Christ is better. There's no salvation. The Jewish
Christians were being enticed to go back under the old covenant,
under the law, because the unbelieving Jews were so proud of their works
and their heritage. And so, The writer of Hebrews
was inspired by the Holy Spirit to bring forth this word to show
that Christ is better than, so much better. And it's, you can't
even describe it. Let's look at this passage in
Hebrews chapter eight. Again, verse one. He says, now
the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. Now what had
he spoken of? He'd spoken of the old covenant
and its limitations. He had spoken of how the old
covenant could never save anybody later on in Hebrews chapter 10,
like the blood of animals. Under the old covenant, they
were required to sacrifice animals, lambs and rams and goats and
bullocks. And those were all atoning sacrifices. In other words, God, he instituted
that system of worship to the nation Israel. And in a civil
ceremonial way, God allowed them to continue as a nation rather
than destroying them for their sins. And that was called an
atonement, a covering. And so what happened was they
kept, they would sacrifice animals on the altar. And you know, you've
heard about the Passover. He said, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. That was actually instituted
before the old covenant, but it became part of the old covenant.
They were to do that perpetually throughout the time of the Old
Covenant. And then the altar of sacrifice in the tabernacle,
and later on in the temple. And how the high priest of Israel,
in the line of Aaron, that he would go into the Holy of Holies
with the blood of the Lamb and sprinkle it on the mercy seat,
that's the lid on the Ark of the Covenant. Well now, there
was no salvation in that animal blood. There's no forgiveness.
You see, in order to be saved, I have to be forgiven of my sins. But I cannot be forgiven of my
sins unless God's justice is satisfied. That's what blood
means. The wages of sin is death. That's what the shedding of blood
is. The shedding of blood is not some magical power in physical
blood. There was no magical power in
the blood of Christ, the physical blood. But the blood of Christ
washes me clean from all my sins because in His blood is His death,
which is the satisfaction of God's justice. In the New Testament,
that's called propitiation. You might be familiar with that
term. That's a sin-bearing sacrifice who brings satisfaction. So I
need forgiveness of sin. Well, the blood of bulls and
goats cannot take away sin, but those things were pictures and
types and shadows of someone much better, and that's the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, by whose blood the sins of the
world are taken away, His people all over the world. because justice
is satisfied. So here's the sum. Now listen
to what he says in verse one. He says, we have such an high
priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty
in the heavens. That's Christ. No high priest,
no human high priest in the tribe of Levi in the line of Aaron
could be set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty
in the heavens. All those high priests were human beings, sinful
human beings, who had to offer sacrifices not only for the people,
but for themselves. But Jesus Christ is the Son of
God. The second person of the Trinity,
Emmanuel, God with us, he is God-man without sin, who in his
death on the cross satisfied God's justice for the sins of
the people that were imputed, charged, and accounted to him. He had no sins of his own. He
didn't have to offer sacrifices for himself. He's so much better
as a high priest. And just like the high priest
went into the holiest of all with the names of the tribes
of Israel on his breastplate and on his shoulders, the amulets,
Christ went into the holiest of all, which is the very presence
of God. not an earthly tabernacle, not
an earthly Ark of the Covenant, but into the very presence of
God, having satisfied justice by His blood for the sins of
God's chosen people, His elect. He calls them all that the Father
gave Him before the foundation of the world. So Christ is the
fulfillment of all that the human high priest under the Old Covenant
pointed to and foreshadowed. It says here, such an high priest.
It's hard to describe the glory of Christ, our high priest. He's
not a sinful human being. He's God in human flesh without
sin. The sins for which he died were
made his only by the divine act of imputation. Now, what does
that mean? Well, sin, one of the words for sin is debt. You
know what debt is, don't you? If you go out, for example, if
you have a credit card and you go out and you buy something
and you give them that credit card, that's however much that
product is, that debt goes on your account and you've got to
pay the debt. And if you don't pay the debt,
then you'll get some phone calls, won't you? Some people have so
much debt that they have to go bankrupt. Well, that's what sin
does. It runs up a debt. And what happens
here is that the Lord Jesus Christ, as the surety, and we'll see
this in just a moment, as the surety of God's people said,
put their debt on my account, their sin debt. He was made sin,
2 Corinthians 5.21 says. So that debt, God the Father
charged, accounted, my debt, my sin debt, to the account of
Christ. So that when he went to the cross
and died, he died for my sins charged to him. And what did
he do? He paid the debt in full. We
sing a song called Jesus Paid It All. And the line, the original
line, is all to him I owe. Some of it changed that to Jesus
paid it all, all the debt I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. So when the Bible talks about
being cleansed by the blood of Christ, when the Bible talks
about having our sins washed away, that's what it means. The
debt's paid. There is no charge now. Even
David of old recognized that. In Psalm 32, he said, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, charges not with
sin. So God doesn't charge his people
with their sins. He charged those sins to Christ.
And that's what he did. That's what Christ did as the
high priest. You know, that word propitiation,
Old John Bunyan said that there's three things required to have
a proper propitiation. Number one, you had to have a
God-appointed high priest. Well, who is the high priest
of the church? It's not some Catholic priest,
that's false priesthood. Who is the high priest of the
church? Christ is, there's no other. Somebody said, well, aren't
believers made priests? We're made priest unto God in
the sense that we have free access into the presence of God through
our one high priest, our one mediator, our one advocate, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the high priest. And then
secondly, to have a proper propitiation, you have to have an altar. Now
the altar back then was not a cooking stove. The altar was something
that set the sacrifice apart. Well, what set Christ apart?
Well, God did. He's God-man. And then thirdly,
to have a proper propitiation, you have to have a sacrifice,
a blood sacrifice. Not just an offering, but a blood
sacrifice. Cain and Abel, remember that?
Cain brought the blood of the lamb. Abel brought a bloodless
sacrifice. It won't work. Sin demands death. Justice must be satisfied. Righteousness
has to be established. And so we have such an high priest
here in verse one, who is set on the right hand of the throne
of the majesty in the heavens. He's sitting, but he's been set
down. He is seated at the right hand
of the father. Now the high priest of Israel
under the old covenant never sat down. There were no chairs
in that tabernacle. Why? Because his work was never
finished. The people's sins kept coming
up year after year, week after week, day after day. And so every
year he had to go in and make atonement one time a year. And
then it kept on until the one sacrifice for the sins of God's
chosen people, Jew and Gentile, came the Lord Jesus Christ and
performed his great work and he finished it. John 19 30. is
finished. Romans 10, 4. Christ is the end
of the law, the fulfillment, finishing, completion, perfection
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe. In
other words, in Christ, our great high priest, the high priest
of his people, we find everything fulfilled, completely finished,
perfect. The Bible says, for by one offering
he hath perfected forever. them that are sanctified. And
so he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens.
Look at verse two of Hebrews eight. He's a minister of the
sanctuary or of holy things and of the true tabernacle, which
the Lord pitched and not man. In other words, this has nothing
to do with a physical tabernacle that man made or a physical temple. that man made or will make. This
is Christ. He's a minister of the sanctuary.
That's those who have been set apart. And of the true tabernacle,
that's his church, his people, all for whom he died, all whose
sins were imputed to him, and his righteousness is imputed
to them. You see, that's the other side
of this grace salvation. Not only have the sins of God's
people been charged to Christ, the righteousness that Christ
worked out, the merit of His atoning work, His redemptive
work, is charged to their account. So that I have a righteousness.
If I'm in Christ, as evidenced by believing in Him, then I have
a righteousness that answers the demands of God's justice.
And that's my justification before God. I'm not guilty. God does
not, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who
can condemn us? We have a righteousness. We're
made the righteousness of God in him. And that's what he does
for his people. And that righteousness, that
imputed righteousness of Christ, our great high priest, is the
ground of salvation, the ground of justification for the people
of God, and it is the source of spiritual and eternal life.
The Bible says in Romans chapter 8 and verse 10 that this body,
this physical body, is dead. If Christ be in us, this body
is dead because of sin, but the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is life
and gives life because of righteousness. Now that righteousness is not
something you do or something I do. That, listen to me, that
righteousness is not faith, believing. Some people today, that's what
they think. That righteousness is what Christ accomplished as
the high priest, the altar, and the sacrifice of his people on
the cross. and it's imputed to them. Now,
we who are saved by the grace of God, we do believe. But what
do we believe? That Christ is our righteousness. And this true tabernacle is the
church. That's the building of God. Christ
said, upon this rock, I'll build my church. Ephesians chapter two and verse
10. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
You see, that's the church, it's built by God, it's not by man. The Lord pitched it, not man.
And then in verse three he says, for every high priest is ordained
to offer gifts and sacrifices. Now there he's talking about
the old covenant priest. of the line of Aaron. They were
ordained to offer gifts and sacra, wherefore it is of necessity
this man have somewhat also to offer. Christ offered himself.
I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.