The New Covenant, Part 3
Hebrews 9:15-28
Turn in your Bibles tonight to Hebrews, chapter 9. In Hebrews 9, we are continuing in our study of the new covenant. And I realize that this is difficult to be understood. That's just exactly the way the writer of Hebrews felt, that it was hard material, that it was impossible for an unbeliever to understand. Even for a new believer, next to impossible.
A preacher asked me this week, he said, "When you teach the Bible," he said, "you always seem to teach with such amount of depth." He said, "Don't you ever take into consideration the new Christians in your congregation who don't understand all you're saying?" And that's a very good question, and I replied with the only answer that I can think of. The answer is, "Yes, of course. But my commitment is to teach the Word of God as God wrote it."
And I've learned a wonderful thing. For some, they understand it. For others, they don't, and that frustrates them. And that's exactly what we would like to do, is create such a frustration that there is a great desire to learn. For that which you do not understand, we hope and pray that you say to yourself, "I've got to understand that," and that that becomes motivation for your own further study. That's the point.
And on the other hand, it is also true that as we teach the Word of God, it has so much in it, and there are so many truths in every passage, that, like water, it tends to find its own level in the mind of everybody who hears it. There are certain of you who are really clued in to the little nuances of the Greek and the little things that maybe a dozen of us get. And then it goes on from there according to the time that you've known Christ and your knowledge of the Word of God. But it seems as though the Word of God, in a wonderful way, can meet the level of every individual with certain truth that is applicable.
And do not feel frustrated if you cannot comprehend it all and you have not been able to remember everything. I even listen to my own tapes, because I can't remember what I did with certain passages in the past. So don't expect to remember it all. But we pray to God that you learn, and that after you've learned you have had a refreshed and a new appetite to learn even more. And that's our desire. So we trust that we're not leaving you in the dust, but allowing the Spirit of God to be your teacher and to teach you what it is that you can understand in your frame of reference.
I asked a young man, I said, "Do you get what I've been teaching in Hebrews?" And he said, "Oh, yes. You're talking about the fact that Jesus Christ is the most important person in the universe." That's exactly what I'm talking about. Now, he's a brand new Christian and doesn't know much, but he got that message. And that's where the Spirit of God is instructing him. So at whatever level the Spirit is teaching you, accept that as His instruction.
All right, now, let's look at Hebrews 9, and verses 15 through 28 will be our text for tonight. Hebrews does, in fact, teach us about the superiority of Jesus Christ. The writer of the Book of Hebrews is, in writing to this Jewish community, endeavoring to show them that they can leave Judaism, that they can abandon all the sacrifices, the priesthood and all of those rituals that went along with the covenant, and they can come to Christ. In order for them to do that, He must prove to them that Christ is superior to Judaism, that Christ's covenant is better than the old covenant, that Christ's priesthood is superior to the Aaronic or Levitical priesthood which constituted the Judaistic priesthood, and He must prove to them that Christ's sacrifice was superior to all of the others.
And that is the approach of the book, first of all, in the first few chapters, to present the superiority of Christ as a person, then the superiority of Christ as a priest, then the superiority of Christ as the maker of a new covenant, then the superiority of Christ as a sacrifice.
The old covenant, as we have learned all along, was unable to bring access to God. That is what everything is designed to do in the new covenant, bring men to God. The old covenant was unable to do it. It only provided for a limited relation between man and God, a relationship which was not permanent. It only existed until the next sin, and then sacrifice had to be made all over again to reorient the relationship. Jesus comes along and brings a better covenant that gives full access to God on an eternal basis.
The old sacrifices, you'll remember, were not able to wipe away sin. They only covered it up temporarily. And thus they had to be repeated all the time. Jesus brought a perfect sacrifice that was only done once, and it took care of an eternal redemption, covering and removing, blotting out, all sin.
The Old Testament priesthood was imperfect. They were willing, but they weren't able. They desired to really mediate for the people in the fullest sense and bring them to God, but they could not. So Jesus comes along, and in the heart of the Book of Hebrews He brings, according to the writer, a better priesthood, a better sacrifice and a better covenant.
Now, that's what we've been studying. And you'll remember that, beginning at the end of chapter 4, He began to talk about His better priesthood. Then, as we moved into chapter 8, He began to talk about His better covenant. Now, as we come to 9, He is moving from the covenant to the better priesthood, and it's all tied together. He's been talking about the covenant that is better, and now He's going to talk about the better priesthood.
Let's look at verse 15 and just kind of pick up where we left off last time, as an introduction. "And for this cause He is the mediator of the new testament," or covenant, "that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they who are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance."
Now, I want to untangle that verse in a moment. But what He's saying here is this. "For this cause," which goes back to what He has said before, because of the sacrificial death of Christ, or by virtue of His death, He has become the mediator of a new covenant by means of death. He has become, by His death, the mediator of a better covenant. That's the only way He could provide for men what He wanted to provide. The word "mediator" is mesates. It has to do with a go-between. Jesus, by the act of death, became a go-between from God to man.
Now, you remember that God made certain standards which said "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," and the only way that somebody could come to God was if they had paid for their sin. When Jesus died and paid for sin, He then opened the way. Jesus' death was payment for sin, which became a bridge to God. His death, then, was the primary act of mediation that opened the way. And Jesus Himself said, "I am the way."
The Old Testament priest could not become a go-between in the fullest sense. The veil was always there. He couldn't mediate fully. Jesus became a perfect mediator, bringing men to God, a mediator of a better testament, and He did it by death. He removed the barrier of sin. "The wages of sin is death." That was the barrier. Sin put up a barrier of death. Christ died, thus removing the barrier and giving access to God.
Now, I want you to notice something. Very important. It says that in His death, as a mediator of a new covenant, He brought about redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament. Now, what is the first testament, or the first covenant? It's the Old Testament. Do you know that when Jesus died, He redeemed those under the first covenant? That's what it's saying.
People inevitably will ask, in a question and answer time, "How were people in the Old Testament saved?" They were saved by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. They were saved by the death of Christ on their behalf. Read it again. "For this cause He is the mediator of a new covenant." What cause? "That by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they who are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." By His death, then, He brought redemption to those under the first covenant.
Messiah became the mediator not only in order that He might pay the penalty of sinners who lived since the cross, but that He might pay the penalty of sinners who lived long before the cross. When Jesus died, He gathered up all the sinners from the beginning of time to the end of time in that one sacrifice. That's the point that He's making.
And the point is obvious in reference to Israel. He's preaching to Israel. He must, therefore, give them some indication of what the sacrifice of Christ means to them. And so He simply says, "It is the sacrifice of Christ not only that redeems from now on, but that goes all the way back and covers redemption for everybody who's ever lived and who has believed throughout time."
Now, in order to give you another look at this, turn to Romans, chapter 3. Romans 3, verse 25, says this, talking about Christ Jesus in verse 24, "being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus." Verse 25, "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation," that's helasterion, that means a covering or a mercy seat, one who provides satisfaction, "through faith in His blood," in other words, God is satisfied when a man puts his faith in the shed blood of Christ, but watch it this way, "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood," here's the purpose, "to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins