· This past September, when fans of NFL football were excited that the referees and the NFL were able to settle their dispute and return to the field, many fans of another major sport were disappointed.
· For most of us in the South we didn’t notice. But for those from the North, it has been a somewhat different sports year so far.
· In September, the National Hockey League players and owners decided that they couldn’t come to an agreement because they were unable to resolve their differences.
· Since September, over 422 NHL games have been canceled and it is unknown whether or not there will be a season at all this year still.
· This is largely because they cannot find anyone who is skilled enough to mediate their differences. Various players and owners have tried to serve as representatives but none have been up to the job of effectively mediating their differences. It just goes to show how difficult mediation can be between two estranged groups. And this is just a game that we are talking about in this case.
· In the case of humanity, we faced a much graver problem that we need a mediator for. Ever since the sin of Adam, we have needed someone to mediate between us and God. We have needed a new representative head that would take the place of Adam and stand in our stead so that we could be reconciled with God.
· But the stakes are no game and humanity really deserves to die and be eternally punished for rebelling against our creator. And not just Adam deserved to be punished; every one of us has proved through our own willful rebellion, sin and pride that we too deserve to be killed and suffer for our sins.
· We need a mediator. And the first very critical point that the author of Hebrews makes in this passage that we are looking at today is that Jesus is our mediator.
1.
Jesus is our mediator
·
Verse 15 opens up
with a very profound and far-reaching statement. It says: “Therefore
he is the mediator of a new covenant”· When there is an irresolvable conflict, a mediator is needed. And deep down, I believe that all of us know that we need a mediator. We know we can't come to God on our own terms. We know we can't argue our own merit before God, even if in our pride we try to. We need a mediator.
· Since the fall of mankind, a covenant has been required which would reconcile man with his Creator and Maker.
· Man was not made to be independent from God but man’s sin divorced mankind from the One who he was made to commune with, to receive strength from, to rely upon and get wisdom from.
· Apart from God, we all are prone to proudly thinks ourselves wise, to assume we are self-sustaining, and to pretend we are self-sufficient.
· And such pride is open hostility towards God.
· We need God, whether we all realize it or not.
· Not only do we need God to sustain us and strengthen us, most importantly, we need God to forgive us, we need to be redeemed. We need to be able to commune with Him.
· But, in the case of mediation where one party has robbed another and committed egregious offenses against the other, payment must be made.
· Justice must be met. The offense must be dealt with in order for there to be true reconciliation.
· And praise be to Jesus, that we have Him as our mediator and He has stood in our place and He enables us to be reconciled to God so that we can no longer be afraid, no longer unsure, no longer feel like God has something against us and instead be confident standing before God.
· Confident knowing He wants to help us and He will help us.
· Our text in Hebrews tells us that now, Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant that Jeremiah prophesied about long before. Jeremiah told of the days when the law would no longer be necessary. He said,
Jeremiah 31:31-34 "Behold, the
days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32
not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took
them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they
broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will
put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be
their God, and they shall be my people. 34
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying,
'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the
greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their sin no more."
·
And Hebrews is
telling us that Jesus came to usher in this new covenant.· He came to put His law within us, to give us a new heart, to enable us to know God.
· The death of Jesus as a ransom for His people has now set us free from the sins committed in the first covenant and He serves as our mediator to guarantee that all of God’s promises will be kept.
· I recently watched a movie about the life of Mary and Joseph and in the movie they had a small scene that reflected the Jewish marriage customs of that day. In the ancient Jewish marriage ceremony, in front of the father, the groom-to-be would pour wine into a cup, pronounce his desire to enter into a marriage covenant with the woman, drink from the cup and pass it to his prospective bride. And the woman would indicate her acceptance of his covenant proposal by taking the cup and drinking from it.
· From then on, she would be betrothed to him and the groom would go to prepare a place for her to live and then within a designated amount of time return to take her back with him. It is a beautiful, symbolic exchange and sealing of the marriage covenant.
· In Mark 14:24, Jesus was sharing his last Passover meal with His disciples. The Passover meal would have followed a very strict tradition involving certain rituals and very specific timing of what they would eat and drink and say. But in the middle of their last Passover meal together, Jesus disrupted it and He did something very shocking – very strange for the normal ritual of the meal.
· He interrupted the normal Passover ritual and gave new meaning to the breaking of bread and explained that it symbolized his body broken for them. And then he poured a glass of wine and using the symbolic language of a groom proposing to a bride, He proclaimed, (as it tells us in Mark 14:24) "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”
· Jesus became our Passover lamb. And in doing so, He was slaughtered in our place and so He ended the hostility of God towards all those who sin.
· When Moses enacted the first covenant, he said, “this is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep”. And in dramatic contrast, Jesus took the cup and made a new covenant and declared that He was keeping the covenant in His blood instead of us.
· So, Hebrews rightly says, He is the mediator of a new covenant. And it is on the basis of this new covenant that God now relates to those who are recipients of this covenant. And this new covenant that Jesus makes enables all those who are called to receive the promised eternal inheritance.
· And from the second part of verse 15 through verse 17, the idea that God wants us to see through the inspired writing of the author of Hebrews is that:
2.
Jesus’ death secures our inheritance
·
Look at the second
part of verse 15, it says: “so that those who are called may receive the
promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from
the transgressions committed under the first covenant.”· Even in the first covenant, salvation and redemption was not gotten through the sacrifices of animals. No, salvation for those under the first covenant was still based on hope in the grace of God. And God had always planned and knew that one day, the debts of mankind would be fully paid.
· God knew that one day payment would be made in full for all of the sins of mankind. One day, justice would be fully met. One day, the penalty would be paid and all the debt removed. One day, all of mankind could truly be made clean through the atoning, substitutionary sacrifice of a perfect man.
· Salvation for those in the Old Covenant was based on God providing a perfect sacrifice for Himself, to pay for mankind’s sins and allow God to accept mankind justly. In the first covenant, God had promised an eternal inheritance but it could not be received on the basis of the first covenant. But now, in the death of Jesus Christ, His death has redeemed all those who are called. And our text tells us that the death of Jesus was what redeemed all those who are called, including those who sinned under the terms of the first covenant
· His death has bought freedom from transgressions for all who are called – prior to His death and after His death. And His death has brought freedom from punishment for sin for those who are called, so that now all who are in Christ Jesus are worthy to receive the promised eternal inheritance.
· It is like a bunch of wayward sons and daughters who were too rebellious and too ill-behaved to deserve the inheritance from their extraordinarily wealthy father. So, the wayward sons and daughters did not receive the inheritance. But there was a son who was perfect and deserved to receive the inheritance. And this son, who received all of the inheritance of His father, then turns and dies for the other sons and daughters to take their punishment and then gives all of his inheritance to those who were wayward. And now, the ones who were once wayward receive the promised inheritance.
· Before we move on though, I believe it is important for us to linger on this idea of a promised eternal inheritance. Because we all want security. We search for security in so many things. We want security and so we try to control things. We try to control the outcome. We try to build our own little kingdoms and secure our future through efforts, through manipulation and at times through presenting the best image of ourselves.
· But we need real security that doesn't rely on us. We need Jesus to secure our future. We need Jesus to secure our inheritance. And I think these verses in Hebrews are meant to give us hope as we see that Jesus is the One who gives us an eternal inheritance and the way He gives us this eternal inheritance is by His death, which not only purifies us from our uncleanness but provides the forgiveness of our sins. And we can be sure it is secure because His death has established our inheritance.
· Everything that He deserved in His life; all of God’s favor that He had earned; He has given to us as our inheritance in His death. And the inheritance we have is the inheritance that was promised by God. It is the promised inheritance. But not only is it the promised inheritance, it is the promised eternal inheritance. We now have the inheritance of the kingdom of God.
· For thousands of years, God promised His people to bring them into a promised land. But the Promised Land we have is better, because it cannot be taken away. The promise we have is to live with God Himself forever. The inheritance we have been given in Jesus Christ is the only inheritance that will never run out.
· It is a common occurrence that those who have been given earthly inheritances either overspend or squander their inheritance and often even the largest inheritances are spent within just one lifetime. According to research out of The Williams Group, 70% of all wealth transfers fail.
· As reported by Forbes, the failure is not that the money doesn’t get passed down; it is that the family inheritance quickly dissolves in a flash of poor planning, bickering, and waste. But the inheritance that we have it will not quickly dissolve. It will not fade. It is the only inheritance that can be received forever and never become less. Every earthly inheritance will eventually be exhausted. Every earthly inheritance will run out – no other inheritance will endure. But we have a promised, eternal inheritance.
· Think about that for a moment. You have riches in Christ that cannot be exhausted. The riches we have in Christ will never become less. We will always live in the good of the inheritance, never having to earn it, never having to wonder if more will come. We never have to worry about our eternal provision in Christ. In eternity, we are taken care of forever. Our future with God is provided for eternally.
· Now, in verses 16 and 17, I believe that the author of Hebrews uses an analogy of a last will and testament. The ESV says, “For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.”
· In the original language, it is important to know that he uses the same word that is translated as “covenant” in verse 15 and 18. However, I believe that he is now making a play on words of sorts and uses another common meaning for the word in verse 16 and 17 to make a point that relates to the idea of an inheritance. (This is the majority view of most Bible translators).
· Because an inheritance is normally only received when someone dies. And so he says where a covenant, in the sense of a last will and testament, is involved, someone has to die before you get what is promised in the will. Now, for the sake of those who are younger in the audience, a will is what you write for your family or for future generations who will come after you that declares what you want to occur when you die and tells how the things you have left behind should be dispersed.
· So, in this case, the author of Hebrews is saying that the death of Jesus enacted the new covenant, as a will of sorts, and His death has guaranteed that we can receive the promised inheritance given to Him by His Father.
· Then the author goes on to say that this is really no different than the first covenant, because it too relied on the shedding of blood, so it says in verse 18, “Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.” And what we are intended to see in verses 18 through 22 is that for both those under the Old Covenant and for us in the New Covenant is that Jesus’ blood is our guarantee.
3.
Jesus’ blood is our guarantee
·
The first covenant
was inaugurated with blood too. But the first covenant was not sufficient to
completely remove the offenses humanity had committed against God. Animal
sacrifices could not atone for the sins of mankind. They could not redeem us or
wipe away humanity’s debts.· It is kind of like paying on an interest only loan for a 10 million dollar home that continues to lose its value and depreciate. The interest alone is daunting and paying the interest only just keeps you in the home. But the home is not really yours and you know that you never really possess it fully, even though it is yours to live in.
· The first covenant made a way for mediation to occur between God and man. The first covenant showed that there needed to be a payment and God set up a way that there could be a good faith effort on mankind’s behalf, but the first covenant rested fully on the grace and mercy of God still. God was merciful to provide a way and God was gracious to overlook man’s sins through the sacrifice of animals – taking a life for man’s choosing of death.
· Verses 19-22 detail how death and the symbolic covering of blood was central to the first covenant. It says,
“For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you." And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood”
·
The first covenant
was meant to show that there needed to be the shedding of blood. They had to
sprinkle blood on everything to remind them that neither they nor anything that
they touched was acceptable to God without payment. Blood had to be sprinkled everywhere to cover
everything with payment and make it acceptable to worship God
·
Could you imagine
being there when Moses did this? The
sights and the sounds of animals being slaughtered would have been intense. And then the tent was sprinkled with blood and
all of the vessels used in worship and blood being sprinkled on all of the
people. What a graphic picture of the fact that death was required. What a
bloody sight it must have been.· Even the book that the covenant was written down on, and all of the people and even the vessels used in worship all needed to be sprinkled – to be covered over with blood, to purify them – to make them acceptable to God. All of this sprinkling of blood was a reminder that Justice needed to be met. But the repetition of the sprinkling of blood and the continual sacrifices of the first covenant showed that justice was never really fully met and it was meant to point forward to the need for justice to be fully met.
· So when the end of verse 22 says that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”, the point is this: Jesus has once and for all time offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice and once and for all time.
· In Romans 3, Paul explains that Jesus blood had to be shed in order for God’s righteous anger to be turned away or propitiated and that through the blood of Jesus, we are justified through faith in Jesus sacrifice in our place.
Romans 3:20-26 “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
·
Jesus has shed His
blood and because He has shed His blood, our sins are forgiven, and the will of
God was enacted so that now, we can now inherit the promised eternal
inheritance.
·
This verse really
serves as the highlight of the author’s explanation of the importance of
Christ’s sacrificial blood. Jesus blood is our guarantee of the new covenant.
It is the guarantee of our inheritance. It is the guarantee of forgiveness. His
blood provides us access to God, it inaugurates the new covenant, it sets us
apart, it makes our conscience clean, it purifies us on the inside; it provides
the forgiveness of our sins and enables us to receive the promised eternal
inheritance.· Remember who this book was originally written to? It was written to those who were tempted to cling to another hope. It was written to those who were tempted to hope in ritual and in their keeping of the law. One of the main reasons this passage was written was to encourage everyone who hears it and everyone who reads it to trust only in the death and shed blood of Jesus to make you clean.
· The author is saying in effect, don’t look to anyone else. Don’t look to anything else. Only Jesus can secure your eternal inheritance. What is the main idea of all of this? The main idea is just this: Jesus mediates the new covenant and secures our inheritance in His blood
Main idea: Jesus mediates the new covenant and secures
our inheritance in His blood
·
We can rest secure
knowing that we have a guarantee that makes us pure. We have a guarantee that provides forgiveness.
We have a guarantee that is once and for all.· Don’t look to anyone or anything else to mediate between you and God. Jesus has already served as the ultimate and final mediator between God and man. Don’t hope for any other kind of reward. Don’t look to any other kind of inheritance to satisfy. Instead, look to the promised eternal inheritance that we have in the death of Jesus and don’t look to anyone or anything else to do what Jesus blood has already done.
· Their only hope and our only hope is to continue trusting in Jesus and to rest in what His death of the Cross accomplished for us – the forgiveness of our sins and the guarantee of our eternal inheritance. And our inheritance doesn’t depend on our performance. It depends on the death of Christ that He died in our place. Now, we can receive all the promises of God in Him.
Potential Application Questions:
1. Are there any areas of your life,
where you feel unworthy to come before God? If so, why?2. How can you apply the truth that Jesus has already, finally mediated between us and God apply to these areas of doubt?
3. How should the fact that Jesus has mediated between you and God change the way you treat those who have offended or hurt you?
4. Jesus was slaughtered as the perfect Lamb of God in our place. Where do you need to remind yourself that no penalty for your sin remains?
5. Do you ever act as if others deserve a penalty for when they sin against you? What does this reveal about your understanding on your own forgiveness?
6. How does knowing that the promised, eternal inheritance of God is secure in Christ affect the way you think, feel or act?
7. What are some aspects of God’s promised inheritance that give you joy in your life?
8. Are there any areas in your life that cause you to doubt your future? How can you personally apply the truth that your inheritance in Christ is secure to these areas?
9. What would it look for you to live with hope in your eternal inheritance and not the rewards of this world? What is God calling you to change?
10. When you sin and feel guilty, how do you apply the fact that Jesus’ blood has completely purified you to the way you feel?
