1949 HEBREWS 9
Let’s make up for lost time.
I was wanting to review Hebrews
chapter 9 last week- so let’s hit it today.
The book of Hebrews [in the New
Testament] is one of my favorites.
Not only chapter 9- but the whole
book speaks about how Jesus started a ‘new and better’ covenant [agreement]
between God and man.
The Old ‘agreement’ [covenant]
was called The Law.
It was based on man approaching God
solely on his own effort- how well he did- how hard he tried to keep the
commandments.
There are many good people today
who still approach God based on this.
The New Testament says the law
came thru Moses- but grace and truth came by Jesus.
Because of Christ- we can now
approach God based on his merit- he kept the law and died for us.
Now- this does not give us an excuse
to sin- but the new approach is one of grace as opposed to law.
Okay- Hebrews 9 says Jesus has
fulfilled the Old Testament law to the tee.
He is now our new High Priest.
He goes into the presence of God
for us- with his Blood- and he makes intercession for us.
In the Old Testament system the
priests went daily [and yearly] into the tabernacle [tent] and did certain sacrifices.
They used the blood of ‘bulls and
goats’.
The writer says these things
could never make the worshippers clean- but they only served as examples until
the ultimate sacrifice would be made.
That was Christ.
The writer says the real
temple—the real presence of God is in heaven- and Jesus has entered into the true
Holy of Holies on our behalf.
He says ‘this should purge us
from dead works to serve the living God’.
In context the ‘dead works’ are
the old works of the law system- with all of its animal sacrifices- and the New
Way is this new priesthood established by Christ himself.
We don’t need the blood of
animals as a sacrifice- we have the death of Christ.
I wrote an entire commentary on
the book of Hebrews- on the blog.
It’s a great letter- and the main
point of the letter is an appeal to the first century Jewish community- who
were still keeping the ordinances of the sacrificial system.
The writer is trying to show them
that Christ has put an end to the old system of animal sacrifice- and he has established
this new ‘system’ [called the New Covenant] and it is based on the one and
final sacrifice of Jesus.
This truly is Good News [the
meaning of Gospel].
Today we have better covenant- a
better way to approach God.
We don’t come to him based on how
well we kept the law.
No- Hebrews says ‘let us come boldly
into the presence of God’.
How can sinful man come boldly?
Because we come to God- not by
our works- but on the merits of the sacrifice of Christ.
Yes- as simple as this sounds- Christ
died for all- all can come- all who believe.
Note- Do me a favor, those who
read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read
them on. Thanks- John. Don’t forget to scroll down on the timeline [Facebook] -
I have posted lots.
No comments:
Post a Comment