that he may establish a second.
Now the key to that, the key to that is found in 1 Corinthians
15, 47. Turn over there. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish a second. 1 Corinthians 15, 47. You just write this down. Here's
the key to that verse. 1 Corinthians 15, 47. The first
man is of the earth earthy. Man is the Lord from heaven. He taketh away the first, the
first Adam, with his sin, death, imputed guilt, imparted evil,
second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ. Of God are you in Christ who
is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
All right, it goes on a little further. Takes away the first
covenant. The covenant of works made with
Adam. That covenant of works is mosaic law, Levitical law. Do this and live. Do this and
live. The law of sin and death, Paul
called it, establishes a second. The everlasting covenant of mercy. Our great shepherd of the sheep
through the blood of the everlasting covenant takes away the first.
This is for believers now. The first Adam. I'm not identified
with him anymore. I'm identified with Christ. I'm
in him, imputed righteousness, imparted righteousness. I'm regarded
and accepted in Christ. Adam has nothing to do with me.
That first covenant, do this and live. The law of Christ is
done away with the law of sin and death. And then the first
tabernacle, that was the center of worship. That's where everybody
came. on the day of atonement. The
first tabernacle with its ceremonies, with its sacrifices, with its
washings, with its rituals, with its altars, gone away. No more
Sabbaths, no more ceremonies, no more sacrifices, no more rituals.
I have nothing to do with that. But we have a tabernacle. It
says that it's the true tabernacle. which the Lord pitched, and not
man. And he says back here in verse
7, verse 7, or verse 5, Wherefore when he cometh into the world,
he saith, Sacrifice an offering thou wouldst not, but a body
hast thou prepared me. He tabernacled among us. And
we have an altar. It's Christ. We have a center
of worship, it's Christ. We have a place where the glory
of God dwells, the Shekinah glory that dwells in the Holy of Holies
dwells in Christ. That's where we meet God, and
God meets us in Christ. I'm the way, the truth, and the
life. No man comes to the Father but by me. He takes away the
first tabernacle. Sacrifices, Sabbath, don't let
anybody put you back under that. No sir. God dwells in his people,
not in houses made with ham. And the first priesthood, Aaron
and his sons and the priesthood is no more. There is no earthly
priesthood. And it's just not, it's not right
for us to call those fellows priests and father. He said, call no man your father.
One man's your father. One is your father, God in heaven.
Oh, no man must. We don't go to an earthly priest.
We're all priests. We're kings and priests. Christ
is our high priest, our eternal, unchangeable high priest. We have a priest. But is Jesus
Christ the righteous? But the old priesthood is done
away. Now, every believer is a priest,
a king priest. He made us kings and priests
under our God. And the first Passover is done
away. No more sacrifices. The first mercy sink. Christ
is our mercy sink. Christ is our Passover sacrifice
for us. And the first creation won't
be long until we'll watch it go away, too. Because he said
over here in 2 Peter 3, he said, we look far We long for, expecting
unto the coming of the day of God when the heavens being on
fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat. Nevertheless, we're not looking for destruction. We're
looking for new creation. We look, according to his promise,
for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Go back to my text. He said,
I come to do thy will, O God. And he takes away the person.
It's all fulfilled in him. Establishes a second Lord from
heaven, everlasting covenant. All right, verse 10, By the witch
will. By the which will, he says, I
come to do thy will by the which will, by God's will, not by man's
will, by God's will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. The Old Testament and the New
Testament have one message. Same message. And the Old Testament
sets forth three things which are fulfilled in the New. The
first one is this. Man is a lost, helpless sinner. Man is a lost, helpless sinner.
That's the story of the Old Testament. Man is a sinner. Starts in Genesis. God and man once were on good
terms. When they met and lovingly conversed,
God and man, Adam was holy, the friend and the favorite That's
right, the favorite. God's creation. He said it's
good, but he made man in his own image. Man was God's friend
and his favorite. Let us make man in our own image. But he failed. He joined with
Satan, God's enemy. He joined forces with the evil
one. And now, whether people want
to admit it or not, There's a dreadful, horrible war between heaven and
earth. There's a war. It's a warfare.
Men hate God. Yes, that's right. Men hate God. Natural men hate God. They hate the God of the Bible.
Christ said that. Marvel not, my brethren, that
the world hates you. It hated me before it hated you.
Men hate God, and their hate is law. They hate his word. They hate God. And God, I was
going to sort of salt pedal this a little bit and say he's angry
with the wicked. He hates the workers of iniquity. God's angry with the wicked every
day. Now that's established in the
Old Testament and it's established in the New Testament. Man's a
sinner. By sinner I mean wicked. Wicked
within. The harsh deceitful above all
things. He said from the sole of your feet to the top of your
head there's no soundness in you, not by nature. That which
is born of flesh is flesh and in the flesh no man can please
God. The second thing that's established in the Old Testament
is God will be reconciled to men. That's what he says here. I come
to do your will, O God, by the which will somebody We, somebody,
is sanctified, reconciled to God by the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ. Now this lies, reconciliation
lies not with men. Our Lord said, you will not come
to me, you will not come to me that you might have life. There's
none that seek God, none, absolutely none, apart from divine quickening
and divine intervention and divine call, no man can come to me except
my Father draw him. He won't do it. He can't do it.
He will not do it. This reconciliation lies not
with men, but with God. God said to Moses, I will show
mercy to whom I will show mercy. God said to Moses, I will. be
gracious to whom I will be gracious." Man didn't say, I will seek God. God said, I will be gracious
to me. It lies not with men. It lies
solely and wholly in the will of God. He will have a kingdom.
He will have a body. He will have a bride. He will
have a people. He will populate heaven with
a people who love Christ and are perfectly conformed to his
image. God started this. He's the author and finisher
of faith, salvations of the Lord, of him only. That's established
throughout this work. And the third thing, and this
is so important, the first thing, man's a sinner, the second thing
is God will be reconciled. God will have a people. God will. Thirdly, but that reconciliation
will be accomplished so that God can be just, so that God
can be righteous, so that mercy and truth can meet together without
compromising truth, so that righteousness and peace
can kiss one another without righteousness being compromised.
His law of holiness is unchanged and cannot be changed and must
be honored. His justice, he said, did you
preach on this? He'll no wise clear the guilty.
No wise clear the guilty. He will not clear the guilty. The soul that sinneth shall surely,
as there's a God in heaven, die. Justice must be satisfied. The law must be honored. the
soul that sinned shall surely die. A ransom must be found,
a suitable substitute, a sacrifice to appear in the sinner's stead
to fully answer, to fully answer every requirement, every attribute
of God's holy character. Can he be found? Is there a way
that God can be just and justify lost sinners. Well, these verses
tell us, lo, I come, I come, he said, to do that will, to
fulfill thy will. He taketh away the first, the
types and pictures and shadows and establishes the second Adam,
the man from heaven, the Lord from heaven, by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. Now then, establish something
else. You've got to be a priest. Hebrews 5. Turn over there. You have to have a priest. We have to have a priest. We
have to have a mediator. We have to have an advocate.
Hebrews 5. You must be a priest. For every priest, verse 1, chapter
5, taken from among men, is ordained for men, ordained by God for
men in things pertaining to God, that he might offer both gifts
and sacrifices for sin. We've got to be a priest, got
to be a mediator. Verse 5, So also Christ glorified
not himself to be made the high priest, but he that said to him,
Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Also said in
another place, you're a priest forever. After the order of Melchizedek,
that's the one who made him our priest. God ordained him, God
upon him. So, God and man, to be reconciled,
you've got to be a priest. You've got to be somebody to
approach God for me and somebody to approach me for God. That's
Christ. All right, second, there has
to be a sacrifice. Turn back to Hebrews 10. Now
that typical priesthood, chapter 10, verse 1, they offered sacrifices,
but their sacrifices could never take away sin. Look at verse
1, the law was a picture, a shadow of things to come, good things.
Not the very image of the thing can never, with those sacrifices
which they offered year by year, continually make the comers there
unto perfect, never could. For then would they not have
ceased to be offered? Sure, you wouldn't. Once sin
is purged, you have no more conscience of sin, no more reason for sacrifice. But in those sacrifices is a
remembrance of sin, a remembrance of sin. Every year, every time
they offered an atonement, they remembered sin still here. Turn
over to verse 17, chapter 10. But in Christ's sacrifice, there's
sins and iniquities. What does it say? I'll remember
no more. No more. Got to have a high priest,
got to have a sinner, got to have a sacrifice, got to have
a blood sacrifice. And that's what it says here
in verse 12. Verse 11, Hebrews 10, every priest
stands daily, ministering, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices,
going through the same rituals, taking the same steps, doing
the same motions, burning the same incense, killing the same
type of animal, putting the blood on it. Never take away sin, but
this man, the God-man, the one who said, a body you prepared
me, I come to do your will." This man, after he'd offered
one sacrifice for sin forever, what sacrifice did he offer?
Himself. Himself. Old Abraham said, son,
listen, God will provide himself a lamb. Himself. Titus 2.14 says he gave himself. that he might redeem us from
the curse of the law. He gave himself. Hebrews 1.3
said when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right
hand of God himself. But now wait a minute. He is
the sacrifice offered to God. He is the one sacrifice by which
all his people are sanctified. That's what it says in verse
10, didn't it? By which will we are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Verse 14,
by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Well, the preacher described this sacrifice himself. He gave himself. He offered up
himself. There's another verse over here,
see if I can find it. Himself. Himself. Hebrews chapter 9, verse 14. Hebrews 9, verse 14. 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. Describe
if you can, Pastor, this supreme, sufficient, effectual sacrifice
of himself. Well, now listen. Thomas Boston said, this sacrifice
must be a sacrifice answerable to the awful debt we owe to God. You don't redeem something valuable
without paying a high price. And this sacrifice has got to
be answerable to the awful debt we owe God. It's got to involve
the loss of soul and body. Soul and body. People talk about
the nails and the lashes and the crown of thorns. And that's
indescribable, pain and agony. But this involves the loss of
soul and body. The scripture says, fear him
who is able to destroy you soul and body in hell. Our great high priest, the Lord
Jesus, is just such a sacrifice, soul and body. In soul and body,
he suffered as our surety. Listen to him. He shall make
his soul an offering for sin. My soul is exceedingly sorrowful
even unto death as the blood poured through the pores of his
skin. We are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ. He bore our sins in his
body, soul and body. He took our nature a living body
and a living soul. Christ had a human soul and a
human body that he might make a suitable, proper, and pleasing sacrifice
to God. And his soul sufferings are far
greater and more indescribable than his body. suffering. They consist in three things
primarily. Listen. Number one, the assault
upon his soul by the powers of darkness and hell. The assault
on his soul by the powers of wickedness who assail him all
the days of his life on this earth. And in his hours on that
cross, redouble their fury and redouble their tact in those
hours before and during his sufferings on Calvary's cross. Turn to Psalm
22, the psalm of the cross, and listen to him here. In Psalm
22. Some of these words in Psalm
22 talk about The people around the cross that ridiculed him.
In verse 6, Psalm 22, I'm a worm and no man, a reproach of men
despised of the people. And all they that see me lack
me to scorn. They gaze on my nakedness, they
shoot out their lips, they shake their head and say, he trusted
on the Lord. Let's see if the Lord will deliver
him. Let him deliver him, see he delighteth in him. Now look
at verse 12. Many bulls have compassed me.
Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gape upon me with
their mouths as a ravening and roaring lion." Who's the roaring
lion? You know, don't you? The one
about seeking whom he may devour. Up there on that Mount of Transfiguration,
Satan has come, but he found nothing in me. There on that
cross, strong bull's abation, roaring and ravening lions compassed
me about. Oh, the attack of the fires of
darkness upon the soul of our Lord. In any way, trying him
and testing him to see if he'll fail. And all of this will be
to no avail. But the prince of this world
is defeated and cast out. But here's the second attack
on his soul. Turn to Matthew 26. And let me
tell you what this is. Matthew 26. When he went into
that garden to pray, he said to his disciples, Matthew 26,
verse 36. Look at this. Then cometh Jesus, with them
unto a place called Gethsemane. He said to the disciples, sit
ye here while I go yonder and pray. He took with him Peter
and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and began to
be sorrowful. Oh, so very heavy. This is the
master. Began to be so sorrowful, so
heavy. What's going on here? The weight
of our sins. You've wept over your sins, haven't
you? You've been flooded with grief over your transgressions
and I have over mine. Wept, felt so bitter about them,
just so heavy because of the way we failed God, sinned against
God. But our Lord Jesus Christ is
bearing all the sins. all his people, of all generations,
upon his soul. That's right. He made his soul an orphan for
sin. Can you imagine his sorrow? Can
you imagine his sorrow? He began to be sorrowful and
very heavy, and he said to them, my soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death. I'm, unless Father helps me,
this human soul is not going to survive this agony. That's what he went and then
he cried, Father. He went a little further, fell on his face. He
prayed saying, my Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass
from me, this cup. Nevertheless, not as I will,
but as I will. Verse 42, he went again the second
time and prayed, O my Father, if this cup pass not away from
me, except I drink it, your will be done. Came and found him asleep. Left him and went away and prayed
the third time. Verse 44 saying the same thing.
And then he comes to his disciples and says, Sleep on now and take
your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand,
the Son of Man betrayed and the hand is at center. Father gave him strength, ministered
to him. His soul under the assault of
the powers of darkness and wickedness, his soul under the burden of
our guilt, the rottenness, the filthiness, the corruption of
our guilt was laid on him who never one time ever sinned. You think about that. soul, my
soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. And then the third
attack, greatest agony of all. My God, why have you forsaken
me? Deserted by everybody down here,
but then he lowered his eyes to heaven from which all of his
comfort and health and strength had come. No comfort and no help. Father turned his back. My God, he screamed. That's hell. That's hell. My God. So that which our great
high priest offered in our room instead was the supreme, sufficient,
effectual. For whom did he do that? Was
that in vain? Is it possible that he offered
that awful sacrifice in vain? No. No, sir. Now, sir, God the Father appointed
and prepared this suffering and agony, prepared him a body that
he might offer it for sacrifice, a living body animated by a living
soul, which soul was made an orphan for sin, which soul was
deserted and endured hell, which soul was separated from his body
in that sacrifice, and he died. But because of his infinite holiness
and his infinite worth and his infinite glory, that one sacrifice,
that one soul offering put away all the sins of all God's elect
and reconciled us to God. God was in Christ reconciling
us to himself. Now you can hang your hope on
that and your expectation for eternal glory, but on nothing
else. on what he did. Verse 14, we understand this
a little better now, by one offering. He made his soul an offering
for sin. He perfected forever them that
are sanctified. Wherefore, the Holy Ghost also
is a witness to us. For after that he said before,
this is the covenant. This is the covenant. This is
the covenant. After those days, this is the
covenant I'll make. After those days. After what
days? After all the types and shadows and pictures are fulfilled
and Christ has offered His supreme sacrifice. After those days,
I'll make this kind of covenant with them. I'll put my law in
their hearts and in their minds will I write them. After those
days, my law, my commandments, my gospel be written on the minds
of my elect so that they'll think on them, not on tables of stone,
but on their minds and on their hearts so they'll love them.
And their sins and their iniquities I'll remember no more. No more. Now where remission of these
is, is no more offering for sin. attempt to talk about another
offering with you after that offering. No more offering for
sin. Having therefore boldness, having
therefore brethren boldness to enter the holiest by the blood
of Jesus, not by an earthly priest anymore, but by the blood of
Jesus. By the blood of Jesus. by a new and living way which
he consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his
flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let's
all draw near." In full assurance. Well, the
hymn writer said this, blessed are they whose guilt is gone,
whose sins are washed away in his blood. whose hope is fixed
in Christ alone, whom Christ has reconciled to
God. Though traveling through this
veil of tears, we have many a sore temptation to meet. The Word
of God, this witness bears, but we stand in Him complete. But this pearl of price no witch
can claim. It's the gift of God, both rich
and sweet. This faithful promise bears a
name. We stand in Jesus Christ complete,
complete in Him. Well, I think that's enough to
bring that to a close. And all who've been given ears
to hear, certainly beyond a shadow of a doubt, will look nowhere
else for completion or sanctification or righteousness except in Him.