As Dave alluded to, we are continuing this morning in our Advent series. The Advent series is simply titled Anticipate His Arrival, and that really strikes and speaks to what the word Advent means. Advent is just a Latin word meaning that there is a season of anticipation building as we consider and prepare our hearts to celebrate the incarnation of God. In flesh. And so to do that this morning and for this series, we talked last week, we're going to spend 4 Sundays looking at the different offices that the Messiah Jesus Christ would fulfill in His coming. And so last week we considered the first office, Christ the Prophet, right? Well, this week we are turning to the second office to consider Christ the Priest.
So before we do that, you can turn with me into the book of Hebrews. Chapter 9. There were about a half dozen places in Hebrews we could have gone to this morning to consider Christ as our great High Priest. We're going to go to chapter 9, looking at verses 1 through 14, but especially at verses 6 through 14.
Before we do that though, let's begin with a word of prayer. Well, Lord, we come expecting this morning to hear you speak. And we expect that because you promise us that when we encounter your word, we encounter just that, the words of the living God. And so we ask now for the gift of your spirit to be present among us, at work in our midst, that your word would penetrate hearts, that your word would go deep, that for those who know Jesus, they might experience deeper communion with you, that our knowledge of you would be sharpened, and that we would leave here with tangible ideas of new ways to pursue you and to walk in light of your word. And Lord, for those who might be here this morning and don't know the Savior, don't know exactly why, or they have a foggy idea of what Advent is for, Lord, you do powerful things through your word. Your word created the universe, and your word creates life. It creates the new life of faith. So I pray now, even in our midst, Holy Spirit, that through the reading and preaching of your word, you might save. Show Jesus to be a beautiful, worthy Savior. Do this for his glory. In His name, amen.
Hebrews 9:1. Hear the holy and authoritative Word of God. Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence. It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that budded and the tablets of the covenant. And above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, that is, the Holy Place, performing their ritual duties. But into the second section, the Most Holy Place, only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not opened as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age. According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed upon the time of reformation. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he, Christ, entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God. Purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. The holy and authoritative Word of the Lord.
I remember growing up, my first job, one of my first jobs, my dad had two buddies and one of his buddies owned a gas station, so that meant I got the awesome opportunity awesome in quotes, to work as a gas jockey at a full-service gas station. The other job, he had a buddy who owned a restaurant. And this is like one of those glorious small-town diners, like in just massive amounts of grease and goodness, that kind of restaurant. And so my dad, through his connection, got me a job as a dishwasher in the restaurant. And so those are my really two first jobs. Really, really awesome positions. I don't even know, they're probably right at minimum wage, maybe a quarter above. But in that job as a dishwasher, we would work, and I would work on Friday evenings and then later in high school on Saturday nights. And there was one of the guys that I worked with by the name of Robbie. And Robbie and I would be in the back washing dishes together. Then later Robbie got promoted to cook. I never made that promotion to cook. Didn't feel too bad about it either. But we would have conversations as the evening wore down, and especially towards the end as we were shutting down the restaurant. And one of those evenings I'll never forget, we had just an interesting kind of tangent conversation about church. And Robbie was a guy who was raised Roman Catholic. And so we started talking about Sunday, and it became really apparent we had very different understandings of what happened at church. And then we started talking about who led our services, and I was talking about Pastor Roger. And he kept talking about the priests. And then he finally stopped me and said, "Why do you call him pastor? Don't you have a priest?" And I had never thought about it before. I just, "Uh, we just have a pastor. That's what we have." And, "Why do you have a priest, Robbie?" "Well, I don't know." And we both just kind of stood there stumped. Knew there were significant differences, but at 17, didn't really know why those differences existed.
And we're going to see this morning why it's appropriate that we don't call the leaders of worship services priests any longer. Why it's better to call them pastors. We're going to see that because we're going to see that Christ has once for all fulfilled the office of priest. That it reached its zenith and high point in His ministry as the great High Priest described here in Hebrews. So last week we saw that salvation is revealed by Christ the Prophet. This week we will see how it is obtained by Christ the Priest. Next week, how it is applied by Christ the King. Advent as a season of anticipation is empty if salvation is only revealed. And it's not also obtained. So that's what we're going to explore this morning. How is it that Christ, as the great High Priest, obtains and attains salvation for His people?
6 · Defines the fundamental directional difference between prophets and priests: prophets speak from God to the people, while priests speak from the people to God as representatives and intermediaries
Well, we see this first as we observe Christ the Priest in His role of representing us to God. So the first thing we see in Christ in that priestly role is that as all priests, But in a special way, Christ represents God's people to God. So that's the difference with a prophet. Remember last week, prophets represent God to the people, right? This is the other direction. A priest represents the people before God. He ministers on behalf of the people. So a prophet speaks for God to the people. A priest speaks to God for the people.
7 · Uses The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as an analogy for the tabernacle—an ordinary-looking structure that serves as a gateway to an extraordinary reality, in this case the dwelling place of God
And the author of Hebrews does this by describing, especially in the first 7 or 8 verses, this really interesting structure called the tabernacle. And I think one of the ways you can kind of get your mind around this is if you've ever read the books or seen the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Hopefully you've seen that to get a sense of this illustration, but in those books, These children's stories that Lewis writes. There's this group of British children during World War II who are sent off to the country to avoid the bombing of London, and they're in this, this big kind of country mansion, and they're playing in this house and they're exploring the rooms of this house. And one, one day as it's raining and they can't play outside, they're exploring the rooms and playing hide-and-seek or some game, and one of them stumbles upon a wardrobe. Remember? It's this very plain, simple-looking wardrobe. Lucy opens the wardrobe, she crawls in, and she discovers that this plain wardrobe served as a gateway, a bridge to a magical world. That beyond mundane doors in an ordinary room in an ordinary house in an ordinary country there was a place of wonder and mystery and power. Well, ancient Israel had something similar. Hebrews 9:1-2 describes a tent, a tabernacle, something that looked very ordinary from the outside, but what it housed is the very definition of awesome. Inside an ordinary tent is the dwelling place of God.
8 · Explains the structure of Hebrews 9's description of the tabernacle—both its physical details and the priestly work performed there—and introduces the two central rooms (Holy Place and Most Holy Place) that reveal Israel's need for priestly representatives
Hebrews 9 goes on to describe two things. It describes the details of the tabernacle, so the details of that tent, what's inside the tent, what are the things that are in there, and then also the work that goes on inside the tent. So what do the priests do when they go inside that building? And in doing that, as it describes the tabernacle, the tent of meeting as the Old Testament calls it, It also describes two special rooms. There was a big courtyard that's part of the tent itself, and then there were two rooms at the center of the tent, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. And the purpose of this was that the people of Israel needed representatives. They needed priests.
9 · Establishes the theological problem that necessitates the priesthood: God desires to dwell with His people but His holiness cannot coexist with anything unholy, impure, or imperfect, requiring specific precautions for human access to His presence
You see, an astonishing thing had happened. You remember in Exodus, We're reading this towards the end of Exodus because God has delivered Israel out of Egypt. And so maybe you're familiar with the book of Exodus. Maybe you've seen the movie Prince of Egypt or Moses and the Ten Commandments. That's the story that he's displaying here. And so God delivers his people, but an astounding thing happens. God doesn't just deliver his people. God delivers his people and then proclaims that it is his will and his desire to dwell with His people. He wants to be with His people. The Lord of Hosts, the Holy One, condescends to reside in a place on earth. So that is why a priesthood gets appointed. You see, the Holy One, the Most Holy God, can't reside because of His character, because of His nature, with anything that is unholy, anything that is impure, or anything that's even imperfect. That's the nature of who God is. We sing that song, Holy, Holy, Holy. Remember that song? That song explains well just the nature of God's holiness and all that's involved in it. No person or no group of people can be near to God without all sorts of specific and manifest precautions being taken. Because God is holy.
10 · Defines the theological function of the priesthood as a dual link—between holy God and unholy people, and between heaven and earth—making them necessary intermediaries for any relationship or contact with God
And that's what's going on here when this tent is described. And the reason that God creates this order of men called priests and a priesthood, it was to serve the priests. As a link between a holy God and an unholy people. And even more than that, to serve as a link between heaven and earth. And so that's what this tent represents. And so where prophets serve as God's mouthpiece, priests are the people's intermediaries. They link the sinner to God. They link what is broken to the one who is the definition of perfection. So the only way for relationship and interaction and contact between God and His people can happen is through the ministry of the priests.
11 · Unpacks the massive Old Testament background behind Hebrews 9:6, directing attention to Exodus 28-29 which detail the elaborate priestly garments and consecration rituals required to make priests holy enough to bridge the gap between God and people
Hebrews 9:6 needs a ton of unpacking. It says, "These preparations," summarizing verses 1-5, which summarize a huge chunk of Exodus and massive parts of the book of Leviticus, says, "These preparations having thus been made," The priests go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties. There is a ton of background to that verse. If you go back and look in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, towards the end of Exodus, Exodus 28, you want to talk about a whole chapter that might make you stumble in your devotions if you're reading through the whole Bible in a year, Exodus 28 is a whole chapter devoted solely to what priests wear. So maybe ladies find that interesting. I don't know, it's style points for priests, but guys probably don't. But there's a whole section of Exodus, a whole chapter just talking about what a priest had to wear. And then the next chapter in Exodus 29, it goes on and gives even more detailed instructions about now those priests arrayed in their holy garments, how they were to be consecrated for their duties. So these priests that are supposed to bridge the gap between God's people and God's presence— Exodus 29 describes how to make them holy, and Hebrews 9 is looking back at that whole chapter.
12 · Details the bloody, extensive consecration ritual from Exodus 29 where multiple rams are killed over seven days, with blood sprinkled on priestly garments and body parts to make them holy, illustrating how drastically sin must be dealt with before anyone can approach God
And here's sort of the synopsis, to give you the bird's-eye view: before these priests can enter God's presence, they have to start killing. A lot of animals. There is a ram that has to be killed to atone for the sins of the priest himself, and that ram has to be taken to the altar and totally destroyed. And that total destruction of the ram serves as a vivid reminder of just how drastically sin has to be dealt with. The animal dies as a substitute, and the priest would actually lay his hands on the head of the ram, symbolizing he's transferring all of his impurity and all of his sin and all of his guilt onto the animal. And then it was killed. And that's just the first animal. There's another ram that's brought forward and is killed to actually ordain and consecrate the priest. And so this one is killed and the blood of the lamb is sprinkled onto numerous items. And so the garments of the priests are sprinkled with blood to make it holy, and the ears of the priests are sprinkled with blood so that the priests can hear the holy voice of God. And the hands are sprinkled so that they can complete their holy tasks. Even their feet are sprinkled because they're going to walk on holy ground. You get the point. And that ritual is repeated for 7 days. 7 days, kill a ram to atone for sins. 7 days, kill another ram to consecrate this man for service.
13 · Explains that even the altar itself requires seven days of bull sacrifices to be purified because it was built by defiled human hands, showing that God's holiness extends to every object in His presence and that the altar's holiness then sanctifies subsequent sacrifices
When they're finally ready, the priests wait in the courtyard of the tabernacle while the altar itself is prepared. You'd think the altar would be kind of good to go, right? Not in God's eyes. Even the altar has to have a sacrificial bull killed to make a sin offering to purify the altar because in God's eyes, that altar was actually built by human hands, right? And those human hands are defiled. Those human hands aren't holy. And so the altar that was made for the purpose of serving God actually has to have an animal killed to purify it. And there's 7 days of purifying that altar by killing a new bull every day and sacrificing that bull upon the altar to purify it and make it holy. And when that's done, God considers it holy, and so holy that He makes a stipulation now that because that altar is holy, anything that comes in contact with it becomes holy. So from that point on, any animal sacrificed on that altar becomes holy by its contact to it, becomes a worthy sacrifice. And that's just getting the priests and the altar ready.
14 · Describes the perpetual offering of two lambs daily throughout Israel's history to atone for sin and enable God to dwell among His people, painting a picture of constant sacrificial activity necessary to maintain the people's relationship with an infinitely holy God
From that point on, throughout the centuries of Israel's history going forward, Every single day, 2 lambs are sacrificed. One in the morning, one in the evening at twilight. They're known as the perpetual offering. And the purpose of that offering is to atone for sin and to provide a way for God to live in the midst of his people. So if you're picturing what's going on, what's described in Exodus 29, And then what Leviticus goes on and describes in even more detail, there's this constant flow of activity in this tent and later on in the temple. And there's all sorts of sacrifices being made. And the image that you're seeing and what it's meant to remind the people of is for you to live with an infinitely holy God, Israel or any people, you must be constantly at work making sacrifices to make it so that you can be in God's presence. Even your priests need to be constantly made clean to serve God.
15 · Synthesizes the Old Testament system into a stark theological claim: making unholy things holy required time, repetition, and vast amounts of blood, with priests serving as necessary intermediaries between sinners and God since people could not enter God's presence directly
And the point was brutally clear. The process of consecration, of making holy things unholy, required time, required repetition, and it required blood. Lots of blood. These priests represented the people before God in this bloody work, literally up to their elbows in blood. Sinners, in order to be led into the presence of God, to transact— to transact business with God, to pray and present requests to Him, to commune with Him, to receive blessings from God, they couldn't go into this place on their own. They had to have the priests go in on their behalf. So if we imagine like this room was like the Holy Place, none of you can actually be in here. The priests will come in here and minister and worship and do business with God and then come out and extend those blessings to you, if you can imagine such a situation.
16 · Establishes Jesus' superiority over the Old Testament priesthood: unlike all previous priests who themselves needed purification, Jesus is innocent and blameless, requiring no consecration rituals and able to enter God's presence continually without restriction
Even the priesthood itself though needs purifying. Even the designated go-betweens, men that are set aside because of their character, right? Even those men needed help. Well, in this, the author of Hebrews is showing us Jesus is a better representative. Jesus is a better intermediary between God and the people than any priest that's come before Him. And one of the reasons that we see this is unlike all the other priests who've come before, Jesus doesn't start out as guilty. Instead, Jesus is innocent. He has no need to undergo the rituals of Exodus 28 and 29 because He's blameless. He's without sin. In fact, in the Gospel's description of His trial before the Sanhedrin, they go at pains to recognize that they can't find any guilt to deal with Him. So only Jesus as a better priest can enter into God's presence. And only Jesus, as a better priest, can actually commune with God, not just at certain times, not just with certain clothes, not just after an animal has been killed, but at all times. All day. Any day. Every day. Because only Jesus has no guilt and no impurity.
17 · Makes a theological comparison between the altar requiring seven days of sacrifice to become pure and the cross becoming pure immediately upon contact with the innately holy Jesus, transitioning to Jesus' work beyond representation
And unlike the altar, which requires 7 days of death to make it pure, the moment Jesus, in all of His innate holiness, is nailed to the cross, immediately that cross becomes a pure altar, for it has touched a holy man. So Jesus serves as a better representative. But He does more.
18 · Pivots from Christ as representative to Christ as the one who makes final atonement, emphasizing the massive scale of the Old Testament sacrificial system with countless lambs killed daily for centuries just to cover basic sins
So Christ as the priest is our representative, our intermediary, a go-between to God. He's also the one who makes final atonement for sin. So it's not just that priests enter into God's presence, right, and do business with God on behalf of the people. They're also making sacrifice. We got the 2 lambs, remember, every day, so morning and evening. Now, can you imagine? Just in the history of Israel, how many lambs are killed just for the perpetual offering? Morning and evening, day after day, year after year. And that's just to cover the basics. That's not even the really big deal, to deal with the really big sins of the entire nation.
19 · States the central claim about Christ's priestly superiority regarding atonement: unlike the endless Old Testament sacrifices, Jesus makes final atonement for sin, revealing our deepest need for priestly mediation
Well, Jesus, as a better priest, as the Great High Priest, is able to make final atonement for sin. And it's in that that we see our deepest need for priests.
20 · Introduces the recent tragedy of NFL player Jevon Belcher who murdered his girlfriend and committed suicide, noting the media's search for external explanations (concussions, alcohol) while avoiding the real issue of human sinfulness
Now, I'm sure most of you are aware of all that's happening or has happened in the last week and a half with the Kansas City Chiefs. Even those who aren't football fans, who have no desire to ever watch a Chiefs game even when they're good, much less a year when they're horrendous, are probably aware of the tragedy that happened. One of the Chiefs players, a young man named Jevon Belcher, in an argument with his girlfriend in his home with his infant baby present, murdered her and then drove to the Chiefs practice facility, and in front of the general manager and his head coach and his position coach, shot himself in the head. The kind of thing that makes you sort of pause. It brings some serious perspective to a game like football. But what's been going on in the media is there's just all this talk about what happened and why did this happen and who is Javon Belcher and why would he do this. And so I've been reading and listening and they've got interviews with his agent who just said, "This is so shocking, I mean, so stunning." And his agent is actually known as an agent who only takes on clients of really high character. So you think of your typical NFL guy, and you're like, well, it's an NFL guy. They're not really known as real standard men. These aren't upstanding guys in the community. Well, supposedly this agent only works with the best. So he released a statement saying he was shocked that they actually had Belcher going into communities and working with young kids because they thought he had high character. And so people are asking why. How could this happen? And there's this debate raging on the radio that I was listening to about whether it was concussions. Is it because he had concussions? And this huge debate about maybe his head got banged too many times and that's why he did what he did and he couldn't deal with what was going on. So maybe his head was so bruised that he ended up shooting her. And another thread in the story was that he'd been abusing alcohol. So it wasn't the alcohol. Why? How could this happen?
21 · Rejects external explanations for Belcher's actions and makes a bold theological claim: his sin came from an evil, sinful heart in rebellion against God—the same disease that exists in every human heart, including the congregation's
The answer is a lot simpler than concussions. There's no outside influence to scapegoat what Javon Belcher did. The reason Javon Belcher murdered an innocent woman and killed himself was because his own heart was sinful. And here's the thing, as we think about that, and you can kind of imagine, like, how could he do that, right? What kind of person does that? The same disease, sin, that infected Jevon Belcher That exists within every heart in this room. Just like Jevon Belcher, we don't do bad things because of bad circumstances. We do bad things, although they might be lower on the scale of bad, because we have evil, a deep-seated rebellion against God, against His kingdom, and against all of His commands within our own hearts. Nobody in the media is going to talk about the fact that Javon Belcher murdered an innocent young woman and snuffed out her life because he's sinful, and it's ultimately an expression of a man who's in rebellion against God.
22 · Applies the doctrine of sin personally by challenging the congregation to consider their own capacity for extreme evil based on Jesus' teaching that anger is the first step toward murder and lust toward adultery
So were you shocked about Belcher? I mean, I was. I mean, I like stopped that Saturday morning and sermon prep came to a screeching halt and I'm reading for 45 minutes the details as they come in. Did you ever, in that interaction with the news, consider, "Could I do that?" Did you ever imagine yourself capable of such an extreme action? Let's ask it this way. Maybe you haven't contemplated murdering someone. If you have even briefly contemplated it, the Bible would imply you are capable of it. But even more than that, the Bible would ask, have you ever gotten angry? Jesus specifically says anger is the first step on a pathway to murder, that anyone capable of anger is capable of going all the way. Likewise, anyone capable of lust is capable of adultery.
23 · Makes the theological claim that recognizing our similarity to Belcher should drive us to see our universal need for priestly mediation, because without a priesthood and sacrifices there is no solution for our brokenness and no escape from God's coming judgment
When we think of Jevon Belcher, one of the things we should do, we must do, is to consider how similar to him we are. As much as our culture might call evil things good, deep down inside, every single person in this country, in the Kansas City area, knows we need priests. We need intermediaries. We need people making sacrifices for sin because we know deep down inside we are broken. We are crooked. And without a priesthood, it isn't just that we must be removed from God's presence, right? Because He's holy. Without a priesthood, there's no solution for that brokenness. The brokenness remains and it's not just that you can't be close to God, it's that one day God is going to come and He's going to issue forth judgment against that brokenness, against that crookedness, against that rebellion against Him. And without a priesthood and without sacrifices, none of us have hope that there's a solution for solving that problem. We can't transfer our guilt to anything else if we're left to ourselves.
24 · Establishes the theological necessity of blood sacrifice by asserting that human hearts are evil (not just human actions), and that priests serve by making bloody sacrifices to atone for this evil, with Hebrews 9:22 confirming that without bloodshed there is no forgiveness
So priests serve in a bloody business of sacrifice because those sacrifices and that blood is meant to atone for the evil of human hearts. That's a weird thing to say today. People don't talk about human hearts being evil. You think back to the shootings that happened in Colorado, in the movie theater. I mean, that was evil. And people would talk about the action being evil. But how many people would talk about the man responsible being evil? We're not comfortable thinking in those terms, but the Bible does. That's the nature of what sin is. And the priests serve us in the fact that they come and make sacrifices to atone for the evil, the sin that resides in our hearts. And so Hebrews 9:22 says everything is purified in one way. It's purified with blood. And so without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Without the shedding of blood, there's no way to take care of and to excuse the brokenness, the crookedness. That's what priests do.
25 · Emphasizes the grisly, gruesome nature of the priestly work—more gory than modern butchery—to drive home the theological point that the awfulness of the priestly task reflects the awfulness of human sin
A priest, I mean, you think of a priest, like, "Oh, I'd be a prophet or a king or a priest in the Old Testament." Well, prophets usually ended up getting killed because people didn't like their message, right? And the kings, I mean, half of them wander off into unfaithfulness. Well, the priests, maybe that's the— I mean, it's not as cool as the prophets or the kings. The priests, maybe that's the gig you'd want. Do you realize if you read the Old Testament how gory their job was? I mean, what a butcher does today, that is sanitized work compared to what a priest does. This is a grisly, gruesome business, literally of blood and guts. And here's the reason why: because our brokenness, the crooked nature of our hearts, is awful.
26 · Expounds the unique annual role of the high priest on the Day of Atonement when he alone enters the Most Holy Place with blood to atone for his own sins and the people's sins—even unintentional ones—showing the comprehensive nature of the sacrificial system
Well, that awfulness comes to a high point and is recognized on one specific occasion each year. The unique role of the high priest, the priest above all the other priests, was that once a year he would enter into the inner room. Remember Hebrews 9 describes two rooms. There's the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Well, the outer room is that Holy Place where they do the perpetual offering. So twice a day killing a lamb to make atonement for sins, but one time a year the high priest would go into the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement. Hebrews 9:3 says, "Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place." Verse 7, "But into this second, only the holy priest goes, the high priest, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood." which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. The unique role of the high priest is that he enters into this place that's called the Most Holy Place. Some versions call it the Holy of Holies. And the author reminds us— and he doesn't ever do this flippantly— He never sets foot in that room except for one day a year, and he never does it on that one day a year without blood. He has to offer that blood for himself and for all the sins of all the people. Even Leviticus 16 says the unintentional sins of the people. So not even just the Jevon Belcher situations, but the situations where people just forget to do things they should do. That's the kind of stuff that's covered in this moment.
27 · Explains that the Most Holy Place was not merely an inner room but the actual dwelling place of God's presence behind a massive veil, requiring annual repeated sacrifices by successive high priests to appease God's wrath and secure forgiveness
Leviticus 16 explains in detail the rituals and sacrifices required on this Holy Day of Atonement, where the priest actually goes into the Most Holy Place. And the reason all this is described in Leviticus 16 is because when that priest, that high priest, enters into the Holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place, he's not just entering into an inner room of the tabernacle. He's entering into God's very presence. There's actually a massive thick veil that separates the two rooms. To enter into that second room was to enter into the place of the mercy seat, the place where God's presence dwelt. So every year there's a ritual that's renewed And blood flowed, and the purpose was to appease God's wrath against sin and to secure forgiveness. Every year, new high priest, new year, new sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. Next year, new high priest, new sacrifices on the Day of Atonement.
28 · Exposition of Hebrews 9:11-12 declaring the good news that Christ entered the holy places once for all through a greater tent, using not animal blood but His own blood to secure eternal redemption in contrast to the repeated Old Testament sacrifices
And then the good news of Hebrews 9:11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, He entered once for all into the holy places. So both the outer room where you have the perpetual sacrifice and the inner room where you come only on the Day of Atonement. And by means not of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of His own blood, He secured eternal redemption.
29 · Connects John the Baptist's declaration of Jesus as the Lamb of God to Advent, explaining that celebrating Christmas means celebrating the arrival of the sacrificial Lamb whose blood is infinitely more precious than bulls and goats (which the pastor illustrates as comparable to sacrificing a Lexus SUV)
This is why when John the Baptist sees Jesus in John's Gospel, he's recorded as saying, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Even if he had just said, "Behold the Lamb of God," which he does at other points, people are like, "Lamb of God? That's the language you use of someone who's going to be sacrificed." Here he specifically says not just the Lamb of God, but the one who will take away the sins of the world. So what does that mean for Advent, for what we're celebrating and considering this morning? Well, it means this: it means when we celebrate a baby being born at Christmas, we're celebrating the anticipation of God's arrival, of the Lamb coming. It means that for sin to be truly dealt with, we need a perfect high priest, and we need blood that goes way beyond the preciousness of bulls and goats. To get an image of that, like, "Oh yeah, bulls and goats, they're not very precious." That's like you take a bull, I mean, a bull is— that's a big deal for ancient Israel. So that's like once a year, you got to drive up your Lexus SUV to the church and we got to sacrifice a Lexus SUV to make atonement for sin. I mean, even if you're wealthy, that's a sacrifice, right? That's a financial hit. That's $60,000 down the drain. That's the kind of worth that a bull has. But that's not enough to appease God's holiness. That's not enough to actually rectify our crooked hearts. And so verse 13 says, for if the blood of bulls, of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of flesh, How much more will the blood of Christ?
30 · Vividly connects the incarnation to the crucifixion by describing the infant Jesus' physical body in the manger—His flushed cheeks, tiny hands, infant fingers—and making explicit that this same flesh was born specifically to die and shed blood for sin
We talk about Advent and anticipation, talk about the birth of a baby. We're talking about the fact that the Son of God takes on flesh, right? Dave talked about Emmanuel, God with us. So there's a baby born in Bethlehem. With a little head, a little face, and arms, hands, and feet, little lips. And that baby is born and takes on flesh and knows life so that one day it can die. The baby is born in Bethlehem, and you think of the manger scene that we're gonna celebrate, right? You gotta think, here's this little baby, I mean, the shepherds, they see these little flushed cheeks, right? The blood that makes those cheeks flush is the same blood that's going to be spilled to atone for sin. The little hands, those little infant fingers that grip, you know, when the wise men come to it, they kinda poke Jesus? Does he grab onto a finger? Does he hold Mary's fingers when he is nursing? Well, those fingers and those hands, they are going to be pierced with nails, stuck to an unholy, shameful altar. Because sin is horrible.
31 · Expounds the scapegoat ritual from Leviticus 16 where Aaron lays hands on the goat, transfers Israel's sins to it, and sends it into the wilderness, then applies this typologically to Christ who takes on flesh to bear our sins as our substitute and is carried outside the camp to the place of death and judgment
Leviticus 16, where it first describes the Day of Atonement, says, and Aaron— so Moses's brother, the first high priest— shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat. So on the Day of Atonement, there's a couple sacrifices that happen. One of them is the killing of an animal to make propitiation for sin, right? The other is that they actually take a goat and And this is what we read about here. Aaron lays both of his hands upon the head of the live goat, and he confesses over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins. And he shall put them, in confessing them, on the head of the goat, and he will send it away into the wilderness. That's where you get the term scapegoat. Goat from. Verse 22, "That goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let that goat go free in the wilderness." That's what that baby is going to do. We all get to place our hands on on the head of that child. Confess our sins. Christ takes on flesh so He can stand in our place, that He can become our substitute, that He can actually be burdened with our sin. And God in His grace transfers our sin to his innocent son. And like that goat, he has Jesus carried off into the wilderness. The wilderness in the Old Testament was a place of death, a place of judgment. It's a place outside the camp. If you're outside the camp, you're outside the place of God's blessing. You're outside the place where he dwells. As Peter says, "He, Jesus himself, bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By the wounds of this high priest you have been healed."
32 · Returns to the opening Robbie illustration, now revealing how his Roman Catholic theology of the Mass as an ongoing sacrifice left him fearful, without assurance, and unable to experience closeness to God—a dysfunctional theology contrasting with the finality of Christ's work
So Christ as the high priest makes final and perfect atonement for sin. And He does it for a reason. He does that, that we might be forgiven, that our guilt might be removed, but ultimately, that He might purchase for us access to God. That's the final goal, the final endgame of what Jesus is doing as the Great High Priest. It's the great mercy and the great wisdom of God in providing His Son for our sins. Now, remember the conversation I had with Robbie? So we're washing dishes and he's wondering, you know, why don't you call your pastors priests? Well, the other thing that came out in that conversation was Robbie had a deep-seated fear of ever missing Mass. I mean, he couldn't even comprehend the situation and circumstances where he would miss going to church. And the reason for that was He was functioning properly in an understanding of Catholic theology that you've got to get to church, you've got to get to Mass because you've got to partake of communion, but not communion like we celebrate it. Communion in the sense that that bread and that drink is literally the body of Christ and literally the blood of Christ. And that when the priest holds it up, it becomes those things and there is a special new sacrifice for sin. And so when you partake of those elements, you receive grace. The Mass is actually a celebration of an ongoing, continuing sacrifice. And so in Robbie's mind, they were priests. Those priests are overseeing a sacrifice. And you can't miss out on that celebration. You can't miss out on that worship service. Because if you miss out on Mass and you miss out on the Eucharist, you miss out on forgiveness. You're cutting yourself off from grace. It was really obvious in that conversation that Robbie had a conscience that was really fearful. He didn't go to Mass because he wanted to worship Jesus. He went to Mass because he was convinced if if he didn't, he was going straight to hell. A dysfunctional theology of the cross left him without any sort of assurance before God unless he did the things his priest told him. He went to Mass not to be close to God because he was convinced he still couldn't ever be close to God. He was sure he needed communion because He needed another sacrifice for sin, for the sins of that week.
33 · Connects Robbie's situation to Hebrews 9:9 and 10:11, showing that just as the Old Testament sacrificial system could not perfect the conscience of worshipers, a theology of ongoing sacrifice leaves people in the same state of insecurity and imperfect conscience
He's afflicted in the same way verse 9 described Israel. According to this arrangement, in ancient Israel, bulls and goats, right? In a Catholic sense of the Eucharist, that gifts and sacrifice are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper. Rabbi knew the insecurity of Hebrews 10:11, that every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. He'd gotten a sense of it week after week.
34 · Makes a sharp theological distinction between Protestant communion (celebrating the gospel itself as the means of grace) and Catholic Mass (believing grace comes through the elements), asserting the superiority of Christ's blood means no more need for repeated sacrifices, death, or human priests
That's not what we celebrate at this table. James was right in his prayer. We're not celebrating something special happening to the bread you ate. Or the juice you drank. We're celebrating the Gospel. The Gospel itself, which is the means of grace. No element. What Robbie didn't know and what the Old Testament didn't see, the reason why there is this longing for something better is that there is a superiority to Christ's blood. That means there's no more need for sacrifices. There's no more need for death. There's no more need for priests. And so Christ's blood doesn't just heal, it cleanses the conscience.
35 · Expounds Hebrews 9:13-14 to show that if animal blood provided external purification, Christ's blood achieves infinitely more—it purifies the conscience and grants continual access to God's presence, not just for priests with special rituals but for all believers at all times
This is what that means in verse 13 and 14: If the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of the heifer sanctify for purification of the flesh, So, if they're sort of making a way to deal with sin, verse 14, "How much more does the blood of Christ, the Son of God, the Holy One of Israel, enfleshed, how much more does His blood who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish purify our conscience?" The power of what Christ does in His death and His blood means that there is a way for people to now not just have their sins washed away and forgiven, but that people actually get to enter into God's presence. And not once a year with all sorts of special rituals if you're the high priest, or not daily if you're the priest with special garments and having already been cleansed, but that they can come into God's presence continually.
36 · Explains the dual nature of the tabernacle (God's desire to be with His people versus the danger of His holiness), then shows how Hebrews 9:8 indicates two time periods—the Old Covenant where the veil remained and the New Covenant where Christ's death tears the veil and opens access to God's presence
The purpose of the tabernacle, the reason why this tent exists is because God is revealing two things. He has a desire to be with His people. Right? That's why the tabernacle is there. "I want to be with you." But it also represents the reality it is not safe for God's people to be near Him. So it's like this double-edged sword, one of mercy and one of just the danger of living in the presence of a holy God. Leviticus 16:2. This is the words to Aaron. Tell Aaron on the Day of Atonement— tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the holy place inside the veil, so the Holy of Holies, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. You tell Aaron, be careful about my presence, for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. But here's the good news of Hebrews that we celebrate at Advent. When Hebrews talks about these two rooms, verse 8 actually envisions that there's two time periods that are happening here. The first is the Old Testament where there's two rooms and the veil remains and access to God only happens for priests. So only certain people get to come before God and only with a bunch of blood and a bunch of rituals, right? Everybody else, you have to go through those people to get to God. The anticipation of Advent in this season is summed up when verse 8 says, "By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened." He's tipping off and signifying the fact that that is the old dispensation, that is the Old Covenant. Now, there is a New Covenant. There is a better way. Where these priests had indirect and mediated relationship with God and it was limited, now the Most Holy Place, this place where you yearn to be with God but you're fearful, because of the death of Christ, has been provided with access. It's why you read at the same moment when Christ dies on the cross, Matthew in his gospel reports, "And behold." The curtain of the temple, same veil it's talking about in our text, was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split. That's epic symbolism.
37 · Provides deep biblical-theological exposition of John 1:14, explaining that 'dwelt' literally means 'tabernacled' and that when the early church read their Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) they encountered the same word, showing that Christ's incarnate body replaces the tabernacle as the dwelling place of God and His torn body on the cross corresponds to the torn veil, destroying the barrier between God and humanity
In fact, when John describes the incarnation in John chapter 1, we're all familiar with the passage, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. That word translated dwelt, that word is— that word that gets translated dwelt literally means, and the Word of God became flesh and pitched a tent among us. It's the same word that when the early church reads their Bibles, their Bible is the Old Testament, right? In the earliest days of the church. And this is This is Hellenistic Greco-Roman culture. So most of these people actually couldn't read Hebrew. So they had Septuagints, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. And you know what happened when they would read their Bibles? Every time they encounter the word that we read as tabernacle in our English Bibles, in their Greek translation, every time they encounter that word, they're reading the same word that John uses for the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John knows, and he's making a point to say, when the Word becomes flesh, there's no more tent, that is the tabernacle. There's now a person. That person tabernacles with us. When an infant is born in Bethlehem, God's presence is now surrounded with flesh. Once again, God expresses his desire to dwell amongst us. But this time, the glory isn't reserved for just the Day of Atonement. John tells us anyone interacting with this incarnate Son sees the glory of the Father. And it means that when the body of this Son is torn, this destruction of a human tabernacle in Jesus represents the destruction of the cosmic tabernacle. Remember, tabernacle serves as like a bridge and a barrier between heaven and earth too. So the Word becomes flesh, it becomes a helpless baby so that the flesh of that baby housing the presence of God when it's broken on the cross can destroy the divide between God and man. So when the Messiah's back is torn with the whip, the veil is torn. The whole purpose of having a baby born is so that one day a man can be broken, a body can be destroyed, so that fellowship can be restored.
38 · Synthesizes the sermon's theological claims about Advent into a doxological climax: the baby born with God's presence in His flesh was put to death to open access to God, making prayer and communion possible for all believers, turning the place of judgment into a place of blessing, concluding with a hymn celebrating God's grace greater than all sin
Advent is a season to remember and to rejoice. 'Cause there's a little baby. A little baby that was born, and within that flesh was the presence of God. And it's a day to rejoice, because in the wisdom and the mercy of God, that little baby that's His own Son, God would one day put to death so that we could have access to His presence. It is exactly what Hebrews says, the Spirit communicates to our conscience, to our hearts, to our souls by the blood of Christ. That the pathway to fellowship is open. You don't have to have a priest pray for you or a pastor pray for you. You can pray. You can commune. And so a people who were once barred from the most holy place of God are now indwelt by the most holy Spirit of God. Jesus makes a way for the Holy One to receive the unrighteous. He makes it safe for the unholy to stand in the presence of the holy. Jesus makes a place of judgment where even Aaron has to fear for his life into a place of blessing and communion. Finish with the words of a hymn: Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured, there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace that is greater than all our sin.
39 · Closes with additional verses of the hymn emphasizing that God's grace is greater than all sin and crookedness, that the cross is our refuge, and that matchless grace is freely available to all who believe, ending with an evangelistic invitation to receive grace
As crooked as we might be, God's grace is greater. Sin and despair, like the sea waves cold, threaten the soul with infinite loss. Grace that is greater, yes, grace untold, points to the refuge, the mighty cross. Dark is the stain that we cannot hide. What can avail to wash it away? Look, there is flowing a crimson tide. Lamb of God, brighter than snow you may be today. And in this final verse, marvelous, infinite, matchless grace freely bestowed on all who believe. You who are longing to see his face, will you this moment receive his grace? Bow your heads.