When Jesus Came… (Part 1 of 2)

Under the Old Covenant people were brought to a clear understanding of the greatest predicament in life.

Sin separates us from a holy God. Under the New Covenant, however, things have changed dramatically. And today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg helps us understand the radical transformation that occurred when Jesus came. We went part of the way through Hebrews chapter 9, and essentially I want to pick it up where we left off. We had just got into verse 11, the verses which follow that, and I had begun to suggest that this opening phrase of verse 11 was a key phrase when Christ came, because it radically changed everything.

All of the circumstances that had preceded him and all that would follow from him was radically altered in the coming and in the work of Christ. Under the law, as we've been seeing, one could never, ever be sure of forgiveness. It wasn't that the priests were unfaithful in the performing of their duties. They surely could not have been more faithful in going about all of the religious practice to which they had been called. We're told that again and again they were offering the same sacrifices, but unfortunately, they could never take away sin. And so there was this touch of obsolescence about what they were doing. There was this sense of futility about what was going on, and all and any benefit from it was minimal and external, and the only significant solution that was to be found by these souls was in that to which these sacrifices pointed.

And so, as we said this morning, they had reached the point where something had to happen, where someone had to come. If there was going to be access to God, if there was going to be the cleansing of conscience, if there was going to be the totality of a pardon, if there was going to be redemption that was eternal in its scope and nature, then there needed to be another who would come. And it's interesting, the way in which the progress of thought here parallels the way in which the apostle Paul unfolds these same theological truths in Romans. And just for the sheer exercise of seeing the parallel, I invite you to turn briefly to Romans chapter 3, simply that I might show you the way in which Paul, from a different angle but still with deep theological insight, is making the same point in his great theological treatise here as he's written it to the church in Rome. He has, in the opening chapters of Romans, declared the fact of men and women's predicament before God insofar as God's wrath has been revealed against all the ungodliness and wickedness of men, that his judgment is a righteous judgment, that the Jewish people, despite all the benefits that they have enjoyed in their heritage in the provision of the law, find themselves also and equally under this same judgment. And he reaches the concluding part of his opening argument, if you like, in verse 20 of chapter 3, where he says, Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by observing the law.

Rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin. And that is exactly what was happening to these folks, these Hebrew believers. They had become aware of their sin. The sacrifices made it clear. The reason that they were repeated again and again and again was on account of the fact of their sinfulness.

And what were they to do? They had come, if you like, to the dead-end street of externalized and ceremonial religion. Well, look at the way in which Paul puts it in verse 21. He says, But now a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. In other words, he says, if you read your Scriptures, you will discover that this is not a new thought, but this is something for which God has been preparing as he has provided the ceremonial law and as he has provided the word of the prophets. They have been testifying to these things. This righteousness—verse 22—from God comes through faith in Christ Jesus to all who believe.

There's no difference, for we're all in the same boat. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. Now, when you turn back to Hebrews chapter 9 and you read the little phrase, When Christ came, and you flip back over again to Romans chapter 3, what you have in Romans chapter 3 and verse 21 and following is a sort of commentary on this little phrase, When Christ came. When he gets to Romans chapter 5, he puts it succinctly and wonderfully in verse 6. You see, he says, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Now, the wonder of this is that, again, it parallels what the writer to the Hebrews is saying. In verse 26 of Hebrews chapter 9, he says, Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. If he had had to enter heaven himself to offer himself again and again and again in the way that the high priest offered himself year after year after year, then he said the sacrifice of Jesus would have had to have been going on for a long time, and it would never end.

It would have to continue. Paul, when he writes to the Romans, he says, You see, it was at just the right time, in the third decade AD, when the plan of God from all of eternity was ushered in, and Jesus came. Well, back in Hebrews chapter 9, when Christ came, he says, in verse 11 as the high priest, and then into chapter 10 and to verse 12, But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. This recurring emphasis, then, is upon the fact that what has been inadequately covered in the old covenant is now perfectly taken care of in the sacrifice of atonement offered by the Lord Jesus Christ. I'd like to try and summarize what is a fairly challenging section by considering with you three simple phrases.

I'll take just a moment or two on the first one, probably longest on the second, and then probably a moment or two on the final one. How are we going to get our arms around all of this material here from verse 11 through to the end of the chapter? What is the writer saying?

What are the central points of emphasis? Well, first of all, he is saying of Christ, he entered heaven itself. He entered heaven itself. Now, again, he has made much of this in the opening verses of chapter 8. He says, We do have such a high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.

He comes back to it here in the eleventh verse of chapter 9. He went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made—that is to say, not a part of this creation. And in verse 12 he points out of Jesus that he entered the most holy place. And if you allow your eye to scan to verse 24, Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one. He entered heaven itself.

Now, this is obviously of significance. Otherwise, he would not emphasize it in the way in which he does. Jesus, he says, did not enter a holy place that had been made with human hands. This had been the experience of the priests of an earlier era, and particularly of the high priest on the Day of Atonement. They went into what was essentially a copy of the real thing. And you remember, the real thing was the copy, the type, had its anti-type in the reality of heaven. Jesus then, he says, appeared in heaven itself as the representative of a people who now enjoy, through his work, continuous and unrestricted access into God's presence.

I don't want to, in endeavoring to bring this down, trivialize it in any way. But essentially, what has happened is this—that Christ has entered back into the presence of his Father, taking with him, as it were, the fruits of his atoning sacrifice. Some who are presently there, others who will join him soon, others who will come later. But in each occasion, he is able to turn, as it were, to his Father and say, These are all with me. The high priest could take no one in with him to the most holy place.

He was able to go on only one occasion and then had to wait for a year to go back again. But Christ, he says, has now entered into heaven itself, taking with him the travail of his soul. Now, again, what you find in the writer of the Hebrews is this wonderful recapitulation of essential themes.

If this was a musical rendition, it would be quite masterful in the way in which he is able to weave themes back into the main section and body of the work. So, for example, what he is saying here is what he actually said in the first few verses of his letter when he reminded the people that the Son is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being. He sustains all things by his powerful Word, and after he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

And on account of this, he told them, he is far more superior to the angels than we might ever imagine. It's a wonderfully reassuring truth to people who were beginning to doubt in their faith, who were being buffeted by the accusations of their friends and neighbors, who were beginning to wonder whether it might not have been better to live back with all of the rigmarole and the bells and the smells and the ritual of the ceremonial life from which they had come, and they were undergoing the jibes of people who said, You really don't have anything much in this new religion of yours. And the writer says, Now, I want you to understand that the great benefit of this high priest is his very absence from you.

But I want you to know that he hasn't just gone somewhere. He has gone into heaven itself. On the Day of Atonement, the worshipers would wait patiently for the high priest to return from the Most Holy Place. And then, having come out, he would of course be preparing to go back in again, because his work was never done. In contrast, the return of Christ into heaven was an indication of the fact that his work was finished. And again, I don't want to reduce it to a level of triviality, but there is an essential way in which we can honestly acknowledge the fact that his cry, It is finished upon the cross, was then ratified by his reappearing in the presence of his Father, to declare directly face to face with him, The work, Father, that you gave me to do, I have accomplished. Those whom you gave me to redeem, I have atoned for. And I am now back where I began, back in heaven itself. Now, loved ones, we need to understand that these things are realities.

These are not mythologies. This is not spiritual fiction. Raymond Brown says, He entered heaven as an outward, visible sign that his eternal achievement was finished and complete.

So that's the first thing. He entered heaven itself. Second thing is that he offered himself. He entered heaven himself, and by the offering of himself, how in the world was he able to go into heaven? Well, first of all, he had come from heaven, but he was able to go into heaven by his own blood. That's what we read in the twelfth verse. He entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood. It was in the offering of himself. If you look at verse 14, how much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit—here's the phrase—offered himself? And then in verse 26, then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world, but now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin—here's the phrase—by the sacrifice of himself.

And here again is a great recurring theme. Not only has Christ entered a better place, but he has also offered a better sacrifice. Henley Mould, the Anglican bishop and a great Greek commentator from an earlier era, says of this, bloodshed is not a vehicle of power but an evidence of death, especially by sacrifice or execution. The shed blood was not a vehicle of power, a means whereby there might be some manipulative ingenuity. But the shed blood was an evidence of death, especially a death that had come about as a result of sacrifice or execution.

Now, the significance of that lies in this. What the high priests had in common—namely, the Old Testament high priest and Christ our great high priest—was this fact, that they both entered a sanctuary in virtue of a sacrificial death. How was the Old Testament high priest able to enter into the Most Holy Place on account of a sacrifice that had been made? How, then, was Christ able to enter into heaven on account of a sacrifice that had been made?

The distinction, of course, lies in the fact that that which the high priest in the Old Covenant referred to and carried with him was only a shadow of that which we find epitomized and realized in Jesus himself. Again, Henley Mould, to give evidence of that death, the earthly priest took with him the blood of another victim. But as Christ was both priest and sacrifice, he presented only himself.

Wonderful statement. To give evidence of that death, the earthly priest took with him the blood of another victim. But since Christ was both priest and sacrifice, he took only himself. Now, you say, is this significant?

Well, yes, it certainly is. And I want you to note very clearly that in verse 12 we're told that they entered the Most Holy Place once for all—notice, not with his own blood, not with his own blood, but by his own blood. The significance of that lies in the fact that what he accomplished, he accomplished in a moment of time in and upon the cross, and that the presentation of himself was the indication of the reality of the blood that had been spilled in a moment in time on a hill called Golgotha. Now, it is this issue of death which leads the writer, in verse 15, to introduce another way in which the word covenant is used. In fact, in verse 16, he all of a sudden says, In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it. And if you're reading that, you're saying to yourself, Well, how in the world did we get to the last will and testament from here?

Well, the fact of the matter is that this is another way of using the Greek word diaphikē. It can be used of a covenant, and it can also be used of a last will and testament. And with this idea of sacrifice and death forcibly in his mind, he refers to Jesus as the mediator of this new covenant—what the old covenant promised it couldn't confer, because the blood of the animals couldn't provide a real atonement for sin. Was there then no value in these old sacrifices?

Yes, there was value in them. The value in them was insofar as that they found out regularly that they were in need of a perfect sacrifice. And as they went through the same thing over and over again, they'd be saying to themselves, If only there was one who would bear away our sin!

If only there was a Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world! And so their value is found in the one perfect sacrifice to which they point it. And that is why people were saved in the old covenant in the same way that they're saved in the new covenant.

Let me quote to you from Robertson. He says, It is Christ's death that gives worth to the types that pointed to him. So then the atoning sacrifice of Christ is the basis of salvation for all who are saved before the cross and since. Abram was saved on the basis of the death of Christ. All who were saved in the Old Testament were saved on account of the sacrifice made perfect in Jesus to which all of their ceremonial worship was pointing. And so the death and the inheritance introduces, as I say, this issue of the last will and testament.

I don't want to go into it. I think it will take us off track from these three central points. But I want you simply to notice that when you have a last will and testament, you have three things. There is a benefactor, a beneficiary, and a bequest. The benefactor is the Lord Jesus Christ, the beneficiary are those whom he has redeemed, and the bequest is the blessing of eternal redemption. That's the point.

That's it all. He then uses a couple of illustrations, to which, again, I don't want to go in, in verse 18, 19, and through to verse 22. And if you read your Old Testament, you can find all of this, but what he is essentially saying is that none of this can happen without blood. That's his whole emphasis—this issue of the blood being shed and of the sacrifice being so important. In verse 18, this is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood.

The covenant was ratified with blood. Now, again, this would be perfectly understandable to the first-century reader, because they had come out of a background where all of this ceremonial worship was very clear to them. And it would make perfect sense to them that in the same ways there had to be the shedding of blood, the death of the innocent for the provision of the guilty was a principle that they understood.

And therefore, if Christ was this, then they understood it to be true. And indeed, they had no difficulty in understanding that apart from the sacrificial death of Jesus, apart from the shedding of his blood, there was no forgiveness of sins. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. It is shocking to realize that our forgiveness requires that blood be shed. If it weren't for Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave, we would be forever lost and without hope.

You're listening to Truth for Life. Alistair Begg is teaching today from Hebrews chapter 9. In this study, we're learning that without Jesus, we are alienated and separated from God because of our sin. And yet, when Jesus came as our high priest, he established a way to enter into God's presence. As we reflect on this drastic change, the natural response is to give thanks and to want to draw near to God.

And that's clearly what he wants from us. In fact, he stands with open arms ready to receive us. Ed Welch has written a beautiful book on this topic. The book is called Created to Draw Near, and Ed shows us in the book from Scripture that as believers in Jesus Christ, our heritage can be traced back through generations of priests. And in this role, we're invited to come directly into God's holy presence. We'd love for you to have a copy of this encouraging book. It comes to you with our thanks when you donate today to support the ministry of Truth for Life. Ask for your copy of the book Created to Draw Near when you give online at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can give through our mobile app.

You can also give by calling 888-588-7884. This idea of the priesthood of believers is one of the joyful discoveries that comes for any serious student of the Bible. And that's precisely why God's word is the centerpiece of this daily program. If you're a longtime listener to Truth for Life, you often hear Alistair begin his message with these four words, open your Bible to, well that's consistent with our singular mission, to teach the Bible.

That means we clearly read and explain the text as God has given it to us in his word, without adding to it or taking away from it. This is the only way to help listeners trust the truth of the Bible, rest in its promises, and be transformed by its power. When you give toward this mission today, we invite you to request your copy of Ed Welch's book, Created to Draw Near. In case you missed our phone number, here it is once again, 888-588-7884. If you'd prefer to mail your donation, you can write to Truth for Life at Post Office Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139. The Old Testament law was good at pointing out man's sinfulness, but it fell short of providing an escape for guilt and shame. Tomorrow we'll continue to see how the new covenant of Jesus offers a perfect solution. So be sure to join us Friday. I'm Bob Lapine. This daily program features the Bible teaching of Alistair Begg, and it's furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.