23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the
heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things
themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a
sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he
entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he
enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters
the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ
would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has
appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the
sacrifice of himself. 27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after
that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins
of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring
salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Dig Deeper
Back when I was a teenager my parents decided one year
that we were going to take a vacation to Denver to visit my Aunt and her
family. But we weren’t going to fly out
there. No, that would have been too
easy. They decided that we were going to
drive. At first I did not want to drive
for that long, but once we got going it was a lot of fun. We drove at a relaxed pace and stopped often
on the way to see many cool places along the route that you would completely miss
if you were flying; places like Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home in Illinois, the
Corn Palace in Nebraska, and the Badlands in South Dakota. As we started to head out West, though, I
noticed that every so often we would pass a sign or billboard urging us to come
visit a place called Wall Drugs and pointing the way. This seemed a bit odd because we started
seeing these signs many hundreds of miles before we got anywhere near this
place. This was all quite curious to me
because I had no clue as to what Wall Drugs might be or why it merited so many
signs pointing the way, but I assumed that it must be something pretty
good. My parents would not lessen the
mystery at all and only said that we were eventually going to get there and
that I would really like it. So, we
continued on our journey and I noticed that as we left more miles in our wake
and got closer, the frequency of the sings began to increase. I have no idea how many signs we saw on that
trip but there were a lot. But do you
want to take a guess as to when I stopped seeing the signs? It was when we arrived at Wall Drug. Once we were there, it was a pretty cool
place. . . odd. . . but cool. But there
were no more signs pointing the way to Wall Drug or enticing us to go visit
because we were already there.
Of course the primary theme of the entire book of
Hebrews has to do with the superiority of Christ, and one major aspect of that
is on display here in this passage. The
sacrifices of the Old Testament were inferior to the sacrifice of Christ in
that they needed to be repeated over and over again. It wasn’t that they were entirely symbolic
(although that was certainly an aspect), nor were they completely
ineffective. The reality is that they
were signs that were pointing to the need for the true and eternal sacrifice of
God himself through Christ. There were
many signs pointing to Wall Drug but only one Wall Drug itself. Similarly, there were many signs pointing to
the destination of Christ but only one destination and it would be silly to
keep driving around looking at the signs rather than staying at your final
destination.
In the previous section, the point was made quite
clearly that Old Covenant required the use of blood for purification. The earthly elements of the Tabernacle needed
purification by external means. But as
we follow along with the author’s train of thought we understand that hearts of
those who believe in the life of Christ demand a different kind of purification
before God that external and earthly means simply could never atone for. The Old Covenant consisted of many sacrifices
because they pointed to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ and that required a
whole host of copies and shadows to serve as copies of the complete sacrifice
of the Messiah. This host of earthly sacrifices
could never accomplish what the heavenly one did because that was not their
role and it would be a tragic mistake to ever think that anything other than
Christ’s blood could accomplish what it did.
The priestly work of Christ was not limited to the
earthly realm. He entered into heaven
itself, meaning not so much “a place” put the presence of God (Jews and early
Christians thought of heaven as the presence of God more than a specific place
or some type of celestial city). The
Aaronic priests could but enter the earthly Temple and even then only once a
year. And this is what some of the body
of Christ was thinking of returning to?
Christ did far more than that. He
was able to enter into the very presence of the Father on the behalf of his
people and to do so permanently. Verse
24 speaks literally of the fact that Jesus appears before God’s face. This was such a monumental thing in the
Jewish thought that Isaiah even says that the angels in God’s presence covered
their faces (Isaiah 6:2). To appear
directly before God’s face was something no human being could withstand and
yet, there was Jesus, dwelling forever in that very presence, directly before
his face, and doing so in order to mediate on our behalf.
This sacrifice was superior, among other reasons, says
verse 25 because it was final and voluntary.
The Levitical priests had to return each year, carrying blood that was
not their own from an animal who hardly volunteered for the job. Christ had to enter but one time and the
sacrifice was intentional. His life was
not taken, it was surrendered for the sin of the world (Luke 22:42). The sacrifice was so complete, in fact, that
it brought the previous age to a point of culmination. His sacrifice, in other words, was like a
wedding. You might commemorate or
remember a wedding in some way, but there is only one wedding. That is the whole point of a wedding. It is such a final act that it would be silly
and even offensive to to get married again each year. The whole point of a wedding is that it is
final and brings all previous elements (such as engagement) that pointed to the
marriage to a close. That was the power
of Jesus’ death on the Cross. It wasn’t
just superior to the Old Covenant age, it fulfilled that age and brought it to
an end. The Old Covenant, complete with
it’s repetitive sacrifices was no longer needed.
If Christ’s sacrifice was on an equal level with the
priestly sacrifices that Jews had grown so accustomed to then he would had to
have suffered repeatedly since the beginning of the world to make atonement over
and over again. But Christ appeared at a
specific point in history to be a sacrifice.
It was a once-for-all, non-repeatable event as Christ voluntarily
offered himself as a sacrifice. The
effect of that sacrifice was that sin was finally dealt with permanently.
It does certainly seem, at times, that the writer of
Hebrews was being very thorough to the point of being repetitive but that is
intentional. He wanted his audience to
see every little detail of the superiority of Christ and his sacrifice so that
they could truly understand the overwhelming significance of it. When one truly grasps the superior nature of
Christ and the New Covenant, the temptation to wilt under the pressure of
persecution of any type, and drift away from the Messiah quickly fades
away. In fact, when the two covenants
are stacked up against one another, the thought of leaving the New for the Old
seems downright ridiculous.
Chapter nine comes to a close with a contrast between
the death of human beings and the death of Jesus Christ. Human beings, says our author, die once and
then they face judgment. That is a
reality that cannot be escaped. Death
cannot be avoided but will come to every human being (unless God specifically
chooses otherwise). In the same token,
standing before God, so to speak, to face judgment is something that cannot be
avoided. It is also implied in that
statement in verse 27 that once people die, they cannot come back as ghosts, or
reincarnate or any such thing. They face
only the judgment of eternal separation from God or eternal life of the
resurrection (this is one reason that the Bible consistently forbids talking to
the “dead,” as the apparitions that people often think are their departed loved
ones are actually demons presenting themselves as such--which is why the Old
Testament often refers to demons as “familiar spirits,” because they pretend to
be those familiar to us). This stands in
stark opposition to the Epicurean philosophers of the day that would hold to
the idea of “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” Our world holds to similar philosophies as we
hear mottos like “You only live once, enjoy life while you can.” The biblical mindset, however, stands against
that reminding believers that we need to take action bearing in mind constantly
that we will face judgment. That was
surely a poignant reminder for those struggling with remaining faithful.
Just as humans die once (which, as previously alluded
to, rules out any doctrines of re-incarnation) and then face judgment, Christ
was sacrificed once, the result of which took away the sins of all those who
would trust in his life and enter into it.
When Christ appears again, though, it will not be to bear sin or face
judgment, but to bring the salvation of the resurrection age to those who wait
for him.
The final imagery in this passage comes from an
inspiration which Jewish readers would have been very familiar. The high priest, on the Day of Atonement,
would go into the holy of holies with the sacrificial blood to make atonement
for the people. He would then come out
verifying for the people that the ritual of forgiveness had been performed and
now was ready to be lived out and worked out by the people. His point is that now, the superior high
priest has gone into the heavenly sanctuary and made the grand and final
atonement for sin., opening up the resurrection life to those in Christ. Currently (for both them and us), believers
are still eagerly anticipating his re-appearance when the reality of the
forgiveness will be worked out and take tangible shape in a renewed world. When that time comes, no more work of
atonement will be needed. When Jesus
does return it will be solely for the purpose of brining final salvation to his
people as we are transformed into the
people of the new creation (Phil. 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2).
Devotional Thought
Spend some time today meditating on the realities of
both the imminent return of Christ to his creation and our subsequent
transformation into those who have attained the resurrection and the life of
that age to come. How does focusing on
these truths inform and dictate your actions today?
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