The Better Purification

Heb 9:13-28

Message 25

Heb 9:13-28

13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.

17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.

19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,

20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.

21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.

22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;

26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. KJV

There is a lot of information that is referenced here and we do not want to get bogged down in the details. However, in order to have a good understanding of what is being said, we must visit some of those details.

I. Under the First Covenant, the Law of Moses, things and people were purified by the death of animals.

There was the blood of 'goats and calves.' In reality there was also the blood of sheep and doves,but this stands as a generic reference to them all, a sort of short hand for all of the blood letting sacrifices. The majority of the purification ceremonies of the tabernacle involved the death of an animal and its blood being shed.

The specific reference here is to the ceremony by which Moses dedicated the tabernacle when it had been completed and before it was put into service. We have a short account of that in our text.

Heb 9:19-22

20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.

21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.

22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. KJV

The 'remission' here is the removal of some uncleanness. There is no removal of uncleanness without the 'shedding of blood,' the death of a sacrifice of some kind.

There was another purification ceremony which involved 'the ashes of an heifer.' This was the ceremony by which a person who handled a dead body was purified.

Num 19:1-13

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,

2 This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke:

3 And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face:

4 And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times:

5 And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:

6 And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.

7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even.

8 And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even.

9 And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin.

10 And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: and it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them, for a statute for ever.

11 He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.

12 He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

13 Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him. KJV

It was important that those who handled the dead have a means whereby to purify themselves, since the ordinance of God was that those who handled the dead and did not purify themselves would be executed and considered unclean even in death.

This reminds us that their day was much different than ours. When someone dies today, we have special people who come and take care of the body for us. We don't normally have to do it. But they had no such people and the family tended to the dead. Seeing the seriousness of God's ordinance, they needed some way to 'get back to normal,' to recover the ability to come and worship at the tabernacle. So God gave them a way in the death and burning of the heifer, the storing of the ashes to make a water of purification for them. You will notice that they still had to be considered 'unclean' for seven days even with the ceremony.

This may seem like an odd requirement by God, but remember that these people did not know about the transfer of diseases like we understand it. This was a means of protecting the congregation from plagues that would be transferred from one person to another. History tells us that one of the reasons that the plagues of Europe were so devastating was this transfer of disease by direct contact.

But, again, we must not get lost in the details. This all is a backdrop for the sake of comparison of the Old Covenant with the New.

II. All that is purified in the New Covenant is cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

We might ask ourselves, "how does someone in the 21^st century become purified by the blood of Christ Who died 2 thousand years ago?" I hope to answer that question before we are through.

Our corruption because of sin is two things. When a person sins, two things happen. First of all, he becomes 'unclean' because he has taken into his soul that which is morally and spiritually corrupt. If he continues in it, he will also infect and corrupt others. Secondly, the person suffers a spiritual corruption that is tracked by God Himself. Sin is hated and rejected by God much more than you or I hate and reject things that are rotten. It is an offense to God, called 'a stench' in His sense of smell.

And because the person is corrupt, he is rejected by God. God takes a posture of being 'turned away' from him. Not only that, but God has decreed moral, spiritual, and physical consequences for those who sin. They are forbidden to be received in His Presence both in this life and in the life to come. His Perfect and Eternal Anger are directed toward them and Eternal Condemnation has been passed as a sentence against them.

They are far more corrupt than the poor Jew who had to handle the body of a departed loved one. The point is that more must be done for this corruption than the Old Covenant could provide. It could only provide the blood, death, of animals. But this was effective only "he purifying of the flesh," the removal of physical contamination. These ceremonies only dealt with this life, not the one to come and they only dealt with issues of outward worship, not the issues of the spirit and the heart, not with issues of the conscience as we have seen already.

Enter the blood of Christ, His death, a device by which not only body but heart, mind, and soul can be cleansed before God.

III. The Blood of Christ is far more valuable, thus far more effective for purification.

One cannot even begin to imagine the incredible worth to God of the life of His Son, much less compare His value to that of a bull or a goat.

But we must also realize that the blood of Christ had to do a far more extensive and profound work. Moses sanctified the people and the earthly sanctuary by the blood of animals, but the Work of Christ was to purify the Heavenly Tabernacle and the people who would worship in it.

We have seen that it was a serious matter for someone to desecrate the Jewish tabernacle. To come there in an 'unclean' state could result in one being stoned. How much more serious might it be for some uncleanness to make its way into the holy sanctuary of heaven?

The unclean Jews detracted from the holiness of a man-made building. The unclean worshiper in heaven (could there be such a thing) would detract from the holiness of God.

Hab 1:13

13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: KJV

God cannot look with approval upon evil or upon those who practice iniquity. We He to do so, He would lose His attribute of Perfect Holiness. That is simply not going to happen.

But how, then, can we get a sinner, one who is corrupt and has practiced iniquity, into the tabernacle of heaven to worship the True and Living God? He must certainly be more profoundly cleansed than our poor Jew.

The device that God used was the literal transference of guilt and the death of a Substitute along with the transference of the righteousness of the substitute to the sinner.

Under the Old Covenant, the one who brought a sin offering would, before handing the animal over to the priest, lay his hands on the head of the animal, symbolizing a transference of his guilt to the animal. In a figure, then, the animal would be executed in his place, his blood poured out and his body burned. In a figure, the guilt of the worshiper would be moved to the animal. But this never really happened. The one who brought the animal to the priest went home as guilty as when he came. He was, in a figure, cleansed but in reality not so much.

If one is going to walk the halls of the temple in heaven, he must be pure beyond imagination, so clean that God can embrace him without compromising His Own Purity. We cannot be dealing with 'as it were's here. We must have a cleansing process that works perfectly and completely.

In the New Covenant, Jesus Christ takes the sinner to Himself, transfers the guilt of the sinner to His Own Body, transfers His righteousness to the sinner, and then dies the death that the sinner deserved. The result is Complete and Total Purification. The one who was a sinner is now a citizen of heaven and fit for the company of God. This is the story for every sinner who will ever see the smile of God, for Abel and Seth, for Enoch and Noah, for Abraham and Jacob, for Moses and Aaron, for Peter and John, and for you and me.

None can walk the streets of glory but the pure.

Rev 21:27

27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. KJV

IV. The death of the Testator

In the culture of the bible, covenants were ratified by two things; a death and a mediator.

We have mediators for covenants in our day. When you bought your house, you did not sit down, just you and the seller, and make a contract. There was an intermediary, a person who guaranteed that everything was legal and proper in the transaction. Some of our covenants require a lawyer and some a notary public. Some may require both. But the intermediary is, to some degree, the guarantor of the contract, that it is completely legal. If they certify that it is without it being so, they are subject to legal proceedings.

In the Old Covenant, Moses was the mediator. It was for this reason that, when Israel obviously broke the covenant, he offered his life for theirs.

Heb 9:16

16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. KJV

In the culture of that day, in addition to there being a mediator, an animal had to die. Let us take for an example, the covenant between God and Moses.

Gen 15:7-18

7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.

8 And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.

11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.

12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: KJV

In order for this covenant to be ratified, a heifer, a ram, a goat, a turtledove, and a pigeon had to die.

In keeping, therefore, with this rule and custom Christ died to ratify the New Covenant.

Heb 9:22-10:1