The Blood of Christ
11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good
things that are now already here,[a] he went through the greater and more
perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a
part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and
calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus
obtaining[b] eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes
of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so
that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,[c] so that we may serve
the living God!
Dig Deeper
It seems to be a fairly obvious point these days that we
live in a time where symbol is valued over substance. As long as you have good intentions or say
the right things, little attention seems to be paid to whether your ideas work
or not. That certainly seems to be the
case in the political world, but it has spread far beyond that. We have become a society that is satisfied
with giving every kid in a sports league a trophy because it symbolizes their
achievement, never stopping to think that if everyone gets a trophy it no
longer means anything, and the symbolism of a trophy is pointless. Feeling good has replaced being good. The examples of this are far too numerous to consider
all of them but they are on display nearly everywhere we look. We take a group of teens and ask them to eat
nothing but rice for a week or to sleep in a cardboard box for a weekend in the
name of raising their awareness of the plight of others. As nice as such symbolic efforts might be, we
must be clear that they don’t really change anything, if (as is most often the
case these days) no subsequent and sustained action is taken in response to the
symbolic act. The participants walk away
convinced that they are more in touch and better equipped to help but the
reality is they have accomplished nothing.
I’m not arguing that raising awareness cannot be a valuable tool at
times, but it is no replacement for action, and that’s usually what happens in
our world today.
Facebook and other social media sites have become
bastions of this symbolism over substance phenomenon. Everywhere you look you see solicitations to
“like” someone’s status, or share a picture of a victim of some terrible crime,
or an appeal to sign up for this petition so that we can stop this latest
atrocity. As wonderful as those causes
might be, and aside from the fact that many of those things are nothing more
than scams, those things accomplish nothing.
The people feel better but they have done nothing more than engage in
empty symbolism. Nothing captures that
more clearly than the recent KONY ‘12 campaign (my apologies if you don’t know
what that is). This campaign quickly
became the popular rage on the internet with people flocking to “raise
awareness” of the atrocities committed by this Ugandan warlord. People raised a few bucks and increased
awareness and then sat back without ever considering that what they were doing
will very likely not have any impact because the situation over there is
incredibly complex. They also never
considered that what they were engaging in could likely create more problems
than they help. But what does that
matter? As long as we feel better,
that’s all that matters, right?.
There is just a huge difference between symbolism and
substance, and it is that difference that lies at the heart of this
passage. The Old Covenant was a good
thing and certainly God gave it to his people as means for them to enter into relationship
with him, but the message that he was constantly sending them at the same was
that it was symbolic. It never
accomplished, and never could accomplish, God’s ultimate plan for his
people. The Old Covenant was full of
symbolic actions. The priest put on all
the right clothes and went through ceremonial cleansing and the like. Animals would be brought forth and
sacrificed. There blood would be
sprinkled in all of the right places as they entered into the earthly
Tabernacle in the wilderness, and the Temple in Jerusalem after that. Every year on the Day of Atonement, the
priest would enter into the Most Holy Place and make atonement before God for
the sin of all the people, including himself.
That’s not to say that all of that had no effect at
all. It did, to a degree, but at the
heart of it all, it was symbolic. It
pointed to the sin that God’s people had and their desperate need for that sin
to be removed so that they could truly enter into God’s presence. The blood of an unblemished sacrifice was
necessary in order to enact this needed forgiveness. Yet, the whole Old Covenant sacrificial
system was only a symbol. That is why
the procedures of the Old Covenant had to be repeated over and over again. It was merely a symbol, with little in the
way of the substance that was needed.
The reason that it was symbolic and didn’t get to the
heart of the need is that it was all external and the real problem was
internal. The problem with sin is that
is a blemish on our consciences. Sin
causes our hearts to be separated from God.
And while the Old Covenant system pointed to an internal cleansing that
would bring true transformation, it could never bring it about. That is why the Old Testament prophets
repeatedly commanded God’s people to embrace the heart of serving God through
actions of mercy and love, rather than just going through the external motions
of the sacrificial system.
Jesus Christ, however, was not about symbolism. He was the real deal. He was all substance. He was the High Priest that brought everything
that the Old Covenant and the old priesthood could only anticipate and point
to. He didn’t walk into the earthly
Tabernacle and engage in those good, but wholly symbolic sacrifices. He was the true sacrifice and he went into
the true heavenly Most Holy Place. He
brought about true redemption, true forgiveness, and true completion of God’s
Covenant. This was not symbolism but was
what God’s people had been waiting for.
And because it was the real substance it brought about an eternal
redemption. There was nothing more that
anyone had to wait for. The ultimate and
final sacrifice had come.
But the appeal of any symbolic act is that it makes the
participant feel better. Symbolic acts
are tangible as they are usually
designed to help someone see a picture in a very emotional way of the real
thing. Now, symbols can be extremely
powerful and effective. That is why God
used symbolism so often. But it is
dangerous when we start to value the symbol over the substance. Just as engaging in symbolic acts that make
us feel better but don’t change anything is problematic, how much more so when
God’s people were considering abandoning the substance of the New Covenant and
returning to the symbolic. It had an
appeal, of course, as symbols always do because you could touch it and see it
and feel that emotional connection but that’s all the Old Covenant could ever
do.
Only Jesus could bring about true redemption that would
last and that enacted the internal transformation that is needed in order to be
reconciled to God. That is one of the
big reasons that those who reject Christ and mock him never understand what
coming to Christ is all about. They are
stuck on the external and, thus, will never come in contact with the internal
solution that only entering into Covenant with God through the blood of Christ
can bring about.
External cleaning has some value, of course, and the Old
Covenant certainly brought that about.
But Jesus Christ was superior because he replaced the temporary symbol
with a permanent reality. In fact there
are three important aspects about this that we have alluded to already but
should take the time to delineate specifically.
First, Christ’s sacrifice was offered in the heavenly
Temple through the eternal Spirit. It is
not as though the writer is arguing that the heavenly realm is real while the
physical realm is an inferior shadow realm.
But the reality is that the physical separation between the physical
realm and the heavenly realm was a result and a symbol of the more important
spiritual separation that occurred as a result of sin. Thus, only Christ could enter into the
spiritual realm and bring about the true work of redemption that was needed.
Second, the sacrifice was not that of an animal but was
his own blood. That is something that an
Old Covenant priest would never be able to do.
The sacrifice had to be unblemished and only the Messiah could present
himself as an adequate sacrifice. As
shocking as that might have seemed for a priest to sacrifice himself, it was
the only means to bring about eternal redemption.
Third, this sacrifice was perfect. It was the real substance and that meant that
the effects of that sacrifice were eternal and could never be made null and
void.
Finding out that we have the real thing and not just a
symbol should be a cause for true celebration and joy. No longer do we have to wait or hope or
struggle with guilt and shame. The real
has come and our sin has been redeemed.
We have eternal forgiveness and can celebrate in that forever.
Devotional Thought
Under the temporary atonement of the Old Covenant, God
called his people to act in mercy and love for others in response to the grace
and mercy that he had shown for them.
How much greater should our response be as a result of receiving the
ultimate and permanent act of grace and mercy in the life of Jesus Christ? What will your response be to the permanent
forgiveness of your sin be this week?
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