Hebrews 9:15-22

What is guilt? What is the price of sin?

“The wages of sin is death,” says Paul. (Romans 6:23) In the Bible, the eventual punishment for every form of sin is death. It's the only punishment—there is no other.

Seems harsh, doesn't it? Is it hard to understand? I mean, death for a murderer, maybe we can understand, but death for a liar?

I had a friend in high school that applied for Harvard. He was valedictorian, had a 6.0 GPA, scored perfect on every college placement exam he could get his hands on—you know the type. He was a genius!, and since he wanted to study law, Harvard seemed pretty natural.

He was turned down cold—couldn't even get his foot in the door.

My friends were all amazed, but I said, 'Hey! It's Harvard. There are how many thousands of high school students each year for them to choose from?' They had high standards. It's why he wanted to go in the first place. If they ever lowered their standards, their academic level would suffer, and their reputation in the academic world would be ruined.

On the other hand, Austin Community College even accepted me into their program. Needless to say, their academic standards are fairly forgiving.

At any rate, we dispense law in our country as seems fit to us, based on the standards we set for our society: You can't kill people. You can't attack people. You can't steal from people. In general, these principles seem fair to us, and we try to establish punishments that fit the severity of the crime committed.

Imagine that our society is Austin Community College. We accept just about anybody in our society, even murderers and thieves, because our standards of morality are pretty forgiving.

Now imagine that God is the ethical equivalent of Harvard University. He can't accept just anybody even if He wants to, because His standards are set extremely high. If He did start accepting anybody that came to Him, He would have to lower His standards, and that would ruin His ethical standing in the world.

Is that even possible? Can you even imagine a world where the Creator of the world did not stand for good and for order? The Law of Entropy says that everything in our universe begins in order and reverts to chaos. Who is that beginning or order but the Creator of the universe? What if that Creator suddenly stopped standing for order?

Gadzooks! Meganoito! What in the world!? Would everything in creation suddenly fly apart if the Source of our order ever failed us?

It can't happen—it mustn't happen! We can't let it happen! Would it even be worth it, the destruction of the universe, for God to drop His standards for even a single wrongdoing?

No way! What, are you crazy?!

But we know that God wants, longs, yearns that everyone come to Him and be with Him—we see that in Ezekiel 18, in Hosea 11, in 2 Peter 3, in John 3:16, in so many other places. At the end of Ezekiel 18, He pleads: “Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (18:31-32)

And that's the secret to God's plan for fellowship with man, right there: a new heart and a new spirit. It's the new covenant He promised in Jeremiah 31:31, the new covenant that the author of Hebrews mentions in verse 15. The only requirement for this covenant is that someone should die in place of the offender. Under the old covenant that God made with the children of Israel, that place was taken by goats and calves—but how could the blood of an unknowing, helpless animal ever truly substitute for the blood of a knowing, fully responsible human being?

There's just no way. Anybody can see that.

For this reason, Christ came to seal the new covenant with His own blood—given knowingly and willingly, without sin or offense of His own to redeem. A perfect life lived for us, to show us the heart of God; a perfect life given for us, to cleanse our hearts for God; a perfect life resurrected for us, to bring us all into the heart of God through that resurrection.

Jesus couldn't have done it alone. N'est-ce pas?

Jesus could not have done it alone. If you learn anything from His life, see that He lived to give the Father the glory. God was with Christ, and God raised Him up from the dead so that He could redeem us forever with His blood.

“Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (v. 22b) This is a given principle of the Bible, a foundational law of creation. It was true for Adam and Eve, true in the time of Abraham, true in Moses' day, true when Jesus came, and it still holds true for us today. We, as they, achieve our ultimate forgiveness through the blood of Christ. All He asks is that we put our faith in Him enough to take up our own burden for Him.

Am I willing to bear the burden of Christ on my heart today, or will I choose my own purposes? He lived and died for me, so that I may gain the ultimate reward. Am I going to live and die with Him, so that I may gain that reward; or would I rather work for my own wages?

I pray Jesus might help me to choose.

Hebrews 9:11-14

I go out and I buy a notebook at the store. I pay a dollar for it, take it home, and it's mine. I can make paper airplanes out of it, write notes for school in it, use it for a journal, whatever I want, and nobody's going to call me out for misusing the notebook--it's mine, I bought it, I get to do whatever I want with it.

Makes sense, right?

At the end of this verse, we see a clause that recurs throughout the New Testament: "[Jesus redeemed us with His blood] so that we may serve the living God." (v. 14b) We see it in the scriptures all the time. In Ephesians, Paul says "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10) Jesus saved us, yes, and He saved us with a purpose.

Does that make Jesus' sacrifice into something self-serving or selfish? Does it mean God only uses us for His own gain?

Good reader, think not such things. If I sit down and make a pot out of clay, I can choose to make it a serving dish or a bedpan, and nobody will think less of me for either. If God crafted us, and if He did make us only to suit His own purposes, there would be no fault in it--isn't that what a creator does? Even if God did create some people only to be punished, that would be His prerogative, wouldn't it? (Romans 9)

But that just isn't the way God thinks--look at the Bible! In Ezekiel 18, God tells his prophet, "'Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?' declares the Lord. 'Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?'" (Ezekiel 18:23) In Hosea, He says, "My people are determined to turn from Me... I will not carry out My fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim, For I am God, and not man--the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath." (Hosea 11:7a, 9) In the New Testament, Peter says "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) Is this a description of a creator that creates some vessels for beauty and some for destruction? Rather, aren't these the words of a father that cares for His children, that longs for them to come home?

If we accept that God does care for us in all things and that He saves us in order that we might serve Him, then we must conclude that serving God is good. God saves us for our own good, and that good is to serve Him.

Have you ever longed for a greater truth in your life, for a greater purpose? Have you envied those that die for a cause they believe in, whose convictions and sense of purpose were so strong that they were willing to give their lives for their beliefs?

As Christians, we have such a purpose, given by God to us when He saved us from our sins. Before, we were unloved; before, we were not a people--but God has chosen to love us, and has made us His own people. Before, we were slaves of sin--but God offers us the chance to become servants of righteousness. (Author's note: I don't say 'slave' because we don't think of slaves as having a choice--this wasn't always the case. In Paul's day, I could sell myself into slavery to pay a debt. Once my debt was paid, I could buy myself back out of slavery. In Israel, a master was required to set all his slaves free every fifty years. The slave could choose to remain a slave, or he could take his freedom and go. This is the slavery God offers to us: we choose to serve Him, and we can choose to stop serving Him. This at-will slavery is completely foreign to a society that tends to consider any form of slavery as evil, and so I say: slaves (against our will) to sin, servants (by our choice) to righteousness in God.)

This is our purpose, this is our cause; yet, God doesn't force His will or His salvation on us. We can choose not to serve Him; but, by our natures, we must serve some greater master. If we choose not to serve God, then we must choose to serve mammon, the god of this age, the devil. On the other hand, we can choose to let God buy off our debt with the blood of Christ, and we can accept His purpose for our lives.

What choice will I make today? Will I accept God's purpose, or will I find my own?

The choice is mine.

Hebrews 9:1-9

Once again, the writer of Hebrews begins a comparative analysis of the Law: first, the old Law was inadequate, insufficient; then, the Contract of Christ is greater and, in fact, perfect.

The tabernacle, God's dwelling place among the Israelites throughout their time in the wilderness and through their formative kingdom years. It's a memory of pillars of fire and of parting waters, of conquests and triumphs. The tabernacle was the visible reminder of Israel's holy fellowship with God Almighty, given to them through Moses when they agreed that they should be God's people, and that He should be their God.

Think of the tabernacle with visions of glory, of consecration, and of devotion, and you may begin to understand how important this first temple was to Israel. Its building was commissioned by God, its plans laid out by Him, its components given in sacrifice to Him, the trophies of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, which God accomplished for them. This tabernacle, this was the house of God!

And yet, these blueprints, these holy symbols, were only a shadow of the types found in Heaven. The priests that presided among them could only go in to the ark of the Law once a year, and then only with the blood of sacrifice, because they were not worthy to enter into its presence. As priests, they were insufficient to mediate between God and man; and as objects of communion, the archetypes in the tabernacle were insufficient to bring man into closer union with God.

These things, the author says, are an illustration: a visual proof for us, that the Law was incomplete. He calls them "external regulations", and it recalls a verse from Jeremiah that he'll bring in later: "'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the Lord. 'I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts.'" (Jeremiah 31: 33a) An internal covenant, better than the external regulations--that was the promise God made to the Israelites, and, the author of Hebrews says, the fulfillment of that promise was witnessed in his generation.

External regulations are reminders, like the pillars of stone set up across the Jordan. (Joshua 4) When people ask, 'What do these regulations you keep mean?' we tell them that the debt of sin was cut off by the blood of Christ. When He died for us, our debt of sin was cut off. These regulations we keep as a memorial for the people of God forever.

And yet, regulations themselves are powerless to save--both those set forth on Sinai and the external trappings we follow today. The Lord's Supper is powerless to save. Worship cannot save us. Praise will not avail. Fellowship with the body of Christ is not enough to win us the victory over sin. Are these things vitally important? Yes!, but only in the role they serve, and it's the same role the tabernacle played: illustration. Now, as then, the ceremonies we keep, external regulations that display heavenly truths, serve as our reminders, ordained and blessed by God, just as those holy stones from the river Jordan served to remind the children of Israel of the power of God in their midst.

It is God Who saves through the Name given to Jesus, which is above every other name, in honor of His sacrifice, the blood and the body pierced for our transgressions. Next to this Truth, all else is but a shadowy reminder.

Like Moses, we live not in the glory of God, but protected from His glory. In this shadowland of grace, we see many things that have the power to remind us of God.

The only question for me is this: Will I allow them to remind me? When other people ask me what these dim forms represent, will I allow them to teach others? This is their sole purpose, their one reason for existence. Will I allow the tabernacles in my life to fulfill the glorious role intended for them by God above, or will I ignore them?

That is for me to decide every day.