9.15-28 The Heavenly Minist… · Web view23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly...

The Heavenly Ministry of the New Covenant

15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, 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.

16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.

17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.

18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.

19 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,

20 saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you."

21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.

22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

© Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado and Pastor Doug Van DornAll Rights Reserved

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23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,

26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him."

Hebrews 9:15-28

What Happens After You Die?

EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS GOING TO DIE. We can live our lives in such a way that we suppress this truth, pretending it isn’t really going to happen. But that won’t stop the


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inevitable march of time that leads to the singular moment when our hearts stop beating and our spirits are no longer present in our bodies. What happens after death? This is a question that philosophers and religions have wrestled with since the beginning. At some point, all of us will too.

Go take a walk down the Pearl Street Mall this Friday night and take a survey of those strolling the avenue. Ask them, “What happens when you die?” In our town, the majority of answers will fall into one of two categories. The first answer is the Eastern answer. Imported to America through cults and philosophies like Theosophy, Scientology, and Transcendental Meditation, and popularized in our culture through the likes of the Beatles and Shirley MacLaine, the Eastern worldviews of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism with their view of the afterlife were made palatable to Christian sensibilities, became a fad, and have now


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entrenched themselves in our consciousness as a legitimate belief system.

What is that belief? When we die, our souls fly off into another body in an eternal (or nearly eternal) cycle of “reincarnation.” Reincarnation has been around for a long, long time. Its Hindu form is a good example of what makes the doctrine so unpalatable to Christians.

In India they have something called a caste system. This is the position in life into which you are born. Whatever caste a person is born into, this is what they have deserved from their works done in a previous life. The vast majority of people in India are in the “Untouchable” caste. They are poor, filthy, and wretched. Their living conditions are abysmal. Their water is dirty. Their food is sparse. Crime is a way of life. And if you do anything to help them, you are heaping bad karma upon yourself, thereby increasing your chances that you will


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reincarnate into a lower form of either human caste or even an animal.

The way this was brought to America was by not telling people this dirty little secret. Instead, reincarnation over here is a “groovy” thing. Hollywood actors and famous musicians somehow always managed to have been reincarnated from someone famous from the past, and who wouldn’t want a piece of that action? Given the “spirituality” of our town, my suspicion is that this view would beat out the other view by a pretty large percentage here in Boulder.

What is the other view? It is the view of the materialist, the atheist: When we die, nothing happens. We simply cease to exist. Unlike reincarnation, which at least has some kind of lasting accountability to one’s actions in the form of karma, for this view, there is nothing that actually hinders people from behaving however they like here and now, other than perhaps fear of punishment


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in this life. But the afterlife? There’s no punishment. There’s no reward. There’s just nothing. My guess is that this view would surprise you as to how many people down on that mall would tell you that this was their view.

What I suspect you would find on the Mall is very little of is the way Hebrews ends its discussion in ch. 9. “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” (Heb 9:27). Boulder is as post-Christian of a town as there is in America. Don’t kid yourself thinking it is a rarity.

This verse is the climax of this section of Hebrews discussion on the new covenant, and it certainly gets at the heart of question as to what will happen to us when we die. The answer is something that quite frankly, the two popular Boulder answers do everything in their power to avoid. This is exactly what makes the Christian answer to


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the question so distasteful to so many people today. We want to warn people. They want to run away. To have a judgment after death means that I’m accountable to someone else. To have a judgment after only dying once means that there is life after death that has to take this judgment into account. This is where the doctrine of eternal punishment comes in. What person in their right mind who is guilty of breaking the moral law of God wants to have anything to do with a Judge who sentences people to eternal punishment? That is why you simply won’t find this view among very many people here in this town, which of all the towns in America is at least honest about one thing: They don’t pretend for a minute to be Christian.

OK, so that is people out there. How about those inside the walls of a church? In recent polls, ¼ of professing American Christians say they believe in reincarnation,


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and in Europe 31% of Roman Catholics say the same thing.1 These polls were taken several years ago and things are changing rapidly in America on things like this. Not coincidently, throughout the church, the doctrine of hell has fallen on very bad times. How does this happen unless preachers simply stop preaching the truth? The constant warnings of the Scripture are to continue in what you have learned, to preach the whole counsel of God, precisely so that people will not turn away from the truth because of silence or because other things are somehow “more important.” It is our job to preach and hear the same timeless truths every week. That is is commission from the Lord Jesus, no matter how “boring” or “offensive” or “irrelevant” people may think that to be.

But even more specifically, there are people here today who either, 1. Have not 1 These were linked on the wiki on “Reincarnation,” but the links no longer exist. I have no reason to doubt the numbers.


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embraced Christ as Savior and need to be confronted with the matter, 2. Are not well taught on this topic and when faced with alternative positions may end up succumbing to them, or 3. Simply need to be reminded. Why would we need to be reminded? Perhaps because we sin. Sin forgets that there is death and judgment coming, and in this forgetting only increases in our lives. The coming Judgment is a check on sin. Two, perhaps too many other things consume our energies to really make it matter. Maybe they are good things, “practical” things, even seemingly religious things, or a combination of those. But when other things take over for truly death of life matters, soon our forgetfulness leads other things to become too important, perhaps even idols in our lives, and ironically our own religious or moralistic zeal causes us to stop talking about these things and, like the


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church as a whole, ends up causing us to stop believing them too.

The Judgment and Death

We want to think through this verse today by looking at its context. The two basic ways to do this are to look at the judgment and why it occurs and then talking about the salvation that is possible resulting in the declaration of pardon. Both are intimately related to our passage in Hebrews 9:15-28. We need to start with the bad news—the Judgment. Bad news always needs to come before good news, otherwise the good news won’t make any sense. Why should anyone care about good news that saves you from bad news if they don’t believe or understand the bad news to start?

What most people do not want to admit is that everyone—via the covenant of creation—is in covenant with God. Everyone means


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everyone. Christians are fond of telling unbelievers that they need to have a relationship with God. The problem with saying this is that they already do. What they should say is that they need to have a different relationship with God. Covenants create relationships with God. They are the means by which God enters into a relationship with mankind. They define the relationship.

The relationship all people are under by virtue of creation is stated in Romans 2: “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, God will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then the for the Gentile; but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show


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favoritism” (Rom 2:7-11). On what basis does God “give” these things? On the basis of “what [a person] has done” (6 NIV); “his deeds” (NAS); “his works” (ESV).

All men know what they are to do because they “have the requirements of the law written on their hearts” (Rom 2:14-15), and because they “knew God” (Rom 1:21). Thus, Scripture says, “The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statues, and broken the everlasting covenant” (Isa 24:5). This is the covenant with creation. Or as Hosea puts it, “Like Adam, they transgressed the covenant” (Hos 6:7). This is the same covenant, but we often think about it as the covenant of works. A person can no more change the fact that they are born into a relationship with God through this covenant than they can change their parents or the color of their skin. It is what it is. Personal acceptance is irrelevant.


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So what does violating this covenant deserve? Going back to Adam, we see that it deserves death. “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). This is why death comes to everyone. “All have sinned” (Rom 3:23), and “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). At death, there will be a Judgment. Death is not the end, but only the beginning. We can liken it as the beginning of eternal slavery to sin. It is a living eternal hell. It is punishment without reprieve. It is eternity without grace. “On that day the LORD will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and the kings of the earth, on the earth. They will be gathered together as prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished” (Isa 24:21-22). Or as Romans 2 puts it, “On that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Rom 2:16). Or as Hebrews


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9:27 puts it, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”

Now, people may not like this. They might ignore it. They might not believe it. But a person’s hatred, slothfulness, or rejection of it doesn’t make it any less true. It is either true or false. Either God will do this, or he won’t. You will either die or you won’t. You will either be judged or you won’t. The Scripture affirms both, your conscience confirms it, and God doesn’t lie. For law-breakers, this is very bad news. So how does this relate to the rest of our passage?

We start in Hebrews 9:15. “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, 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.” This verse has three parts which teach exactly how Jesus inaugurates a new covenant. We will skip the first two for now,


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because they are the good news that results from the bad news.

The bad news is the last part: since a death has occurred. Death. This is the focus of the Judgment. When people break the covenant, someone must die. The bad news (at least for him) in this verse is that someone has now died. Why? The verse tells us it is because of the transgressions committed under the first covenant. Someone died because of sin. This forms the obvious introduction and context to what comes immediately after this in vv. 16-17 and then 18-22 which itself explains those two verses further.

The confusion and difficulty in vv. 16-17 is how to translate the word diatheke. This word was used twice in vs. 15 and is universally translated as “covenant.” It is used again in vs. 18 and in all translations is also rendered “covenant.” In fact, every single time the word is used in Hebrews


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outside of this passage (and that is more than half of the uses in the NT), it is always translated as “covenant.” Even more, every single time it is used in the NT outside of this passage, it is translated as “covenant.” In fact, of the 366 times it is translated in the LXX, the English version translates it as “covenant” every single time. So who cares?

It is because the word diatheke is translated in Hebrews 9:16 and 17, it is translated as a “will” by the ESV and the majority of modern English translations.2 I don’t know if you are like me, but when I’ve read these two verses in the past, by themselves they make sense, but in the context I’ve never really known what this idea of “a will” has to do with anything he is talking about. Listen to the translations, “For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will 2 A will is in CJB, ESV, NET, RSV, NRSV, NAB, NIV, NLT, CEB. The NAS and YLT have covenant. All the older English translations such as the KJV and Geneva have testament.


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takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.” Obviously, this is talking about Jesus. But where does this idea of a will come from? The chief argument made is that he can’t be talking about a covenant here, because it just isn’t true that covenants need to have someone die in order for them to be established. Therefore, Hebrews must be borrowing language here from secular Roman courts with the idea of a will (an idea that in America carry over to this day), or order to make some point, and there is no other word to use to make that point except diatheke.

There is a ton of literature on this from both sides,3 so I won’t go into the reasons for this argument or that argument other than 3 See the discussion in Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2009), 307-321 and his bibliography. Hahn is one of the few scholars who understands that Hebrews has in mind the Levitical covenant rather than the pristine Mosaic covenant, and I’ve found his discussion of this entire section very helpful. Therefore, much of what I say here is taken from him.


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to say one thing. This reasoning falls on its own sword. For the simple fact of the matter is, even with a will was simply not true that a death had to occur in order for it to be established.4 So the point made against covenants is no better off if we translate it with the arbitrary word “will.”

One other point worth mentioning is grammatical. The ESV says, “For a will takes effect only at death.” But the literal rendering is, “For a diatheke is confirmed upon dead [bodies].”5 The ESV is trying to interpret the words, not render them 4 a Hellenistic will was legally secure and valid (bebaios) not when the testator died, but when it was written down, witnessed, and deposited with a notary [Hughes, “Hebrews IX 15ff.,” 60]. Moreover, the inheritance was not wholly subsequent to the death of the testator, as v. 17 would imply: distribution of the estate while the testator(s) was still living (Lat., donatio inter vivos) was quite widespread in the Hellenistic world. [Hughes, “Hebrews IX 15ff.,” 62, citing H. J. Wolff, “Hellenistic Private Law,” in The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions (2 vols.; ed. S. Safrai and M. Stern; CRINT, section 1, v.1; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1:534–60, here 543; and R. Taubenschlag, The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in Light of the Papyri 322 BC–640 AD (2nd ed.; Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1955) 207–8]. Quote in Hahn, Kinship by Covenant, 309.5 As seen in the NOR (Norton Peshitta NT Translation), "For only upon a dead [body] is it made firm; because as long as the [animal] which makes it, lives, there is no utility in it."


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literally. It is trying to make sense of what could possibly be going on by using the word “will.” And it stretches the grammar of the two verses to the breaking point. For it is simply not grammatically possible according to scholarly studies of these verses to translate the words this way and justify it with anything other than a preconceived theology. This is the difficulty of translation and of reading them. But it is something we must all face. Fortunately, the end result of this is all the same. Jesus’ death is the focus. But how it gets there is quite different, and in my view, this idea of a “will” is wrong headed. It just isn’t necessary to get us there, and another way of translating the text makes much more sense of the passage in its own context—the context of covenant.

Now we are ready to try and understand what death and judgment have to do with our passage. We have seen that someone has died (Heb 9:15). We have seen that


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someone has died because someone has “transgressed” the “first covenant” (15). This is the vital thing to understand: Hebrews does not have the making of a pristine covenant (either in the Garden or at Mt. Sinai) in view. Instead, he is thinking about what happened at Mt. Sinai with the Golden Calf and the subsequent Levitical covenant. And the simple fact, as we have seen, is that when a covenant is broken, indeed, someone must die. That happened at Mt. Sinai when the Levities put their own brothers to death. Because he has a broken covenant in view, translating diatheke as “covenant” is perfectly legitimate.

Consider this translation of vv. 16-18 in this light. “Since there is a [broken] covenant, it is necessary for the death of the covenant-maker to be borne, For a [broken] covenant is enforced upon dead bodies; for it is certainly not in force while the [offending] covenant maker lives. Hence, not


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even the first [covenant] was ratified without blood.”6 This translation helps us make sense of several things.

First, the covenant in view is not pristine, but broken, just as vs. 15 has said. That is the context. Second, when someone enters into a covenant and then breaks it, they must die. Now, the Greek does not literally say that that “the covenant-maker must die” but rather than “the death of the covenant-maker must be borne,” meaning that if there is a suitable representative, he may bear the punishment of death on behalf of the covenant-maker.7 This is the gospel, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Third, what does it mean for a covenant to be enforced upon dead bodies? Or again, it is not in force while the covenant maker lives? It means simply that until he dies, the covenant sanctions, its curses, have not been put into play. As Scott Hahn says, “It 6 Hahn, 317.7 Hahn, Ibid.


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has no teeth … A covenant is not in force until it is enforced.” If God does not punish the covenant violator with death, all this is showing is that the covenant is pathetic. Ezekiel puts it bluntly. “But he rebelled against him … Will he succeed? Can a man escape who does such things? Can he break the covenant and yet escape?” (Ezek 17:15).

Fourth, and finally, even the first covenant—that is the broken covenant ratified through the Levitical covenant and its tabernacle and sacrifices—shows this because of all the blood in it. “The first covenant already symbolized and predicted the necessity of the death of the covenant-maker in the case of transgressions.”8 This is where vv. 19-22 come into play as a living example of what he is talking about.

Suddenly, Hebrews is consumed with blood. Moses throws blood everywhere. Seven things are mentioned. He takes it 8 Ibid., 318.


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from calves and goats (19), and along with other shadows and types of water, scarlet wool and hyssop, “sprinkles” the book (that is the two tablets of the Ten Commandments) and the people (19). Then Moses gives the words that Jesus later takes for himself, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you” (20). But now, rather than under the Mosaic Ten Commandments economy, it is under the Levitical priestly sacrificial system.

Thus it continues, “And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship” (21). And finally, “Almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (22). As we will see in the next chapter, this sprinkling is making things objectively clean and set apart and sanctified. But this is not talking about salvation unto eternal life.


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In fact, as Hahn so clearly points out as he makes the proper distinction between the Mosaic and Levitical covenants:

Once Israel breaks the covenant, it is divinely renewed—but only symbolically—through Moses and the apparatus of the Levitical priesthood (the High Priest, Tabernacle, Day of Atonement, etc.). The sacrificial ritual performed by the priest on the Day of Atonement effected something less than a real renewal of the covenant (Heb 10:1–4). Indeed, the author describes it as though it was merely symbolic of what Christ effects through his sacrificial self-offering (Heb 9:23–24; 10:1, 11–13).137 Israel under the Levitical law appeared to receive a 7137 See Swetnam, “Suggested Interpretation of Heb 9:25–28,” who takes another interpretive approach but reaches the same essential conclusion: “Christ, by taking on himself the curse stipulations which in the first diathēkē were connected with transgressions, was able to draw up and effect a diathēkē which makes efficacious provision only for blessings” (281, my emphasis). Finally: “Essential to the line of argumentation being pursued here in regard to Heb 9:15–18 is that in NT times Christ’s sacrificial death resulted in blessings by the removal of the curse provisions of the Sinai diathēkē” (284).


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suspended sentence, but to adapt the legal metaphor, the divine court was temporarily adjourned so that the execution of the covenant curses could be delayed and deferred until someone could bear the curses—vicariously and redemptively—and so release the covenant blessings.1389

In these ways, Israel becomes a living example of life lived by all people under the covenant of creation. Everyone was under covenant with God, and so to enact the curses, everyone after Eden “dies” (Gen 5). Again, God put everyone on earth to death, save Noah and his family with whom he made a covenant because of his grace. Again, everyone on earth disobeyed at the tower of Babel, and so God cut them off from his own Life, by giving them over the heavenly beings whom they so desperately 8138 S. W. Hahn, “Covenant, Cult, and the Curse-of-Death: Διαθήκη in Hebrews 9:15–22,” in Hebrews: Contemporary Methods—New Insights (ed. Gabriella Gelardini; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 65–88.9 Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2009), 319.


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wanted to worship instead of him. So once more, the punishment is essentially death for the whole world as they are cut off from the life of God. But again, in grace, God started over by taking someone already given over to death, a man named Abram, and making a covenant with him. Out of this covenant flows the nation of Israel and the Mosaic covenant of the Ten Commandments, which, like the others, was broken. So in his grace again, he offers a reprieve of doom through the Levitical covenant with all of its regulations.

In this priestly covenant, it is made crystal clear—something we pointed out last week which moderns do not understand but all ancient peoples knew well—that there has to be shedding of blood if there is to be forgiveness of sins. But here in Hebrews 9:22, the subject suddenly changes from bad news in death to good news in death. Rather than death as judgment for our sins, now


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death becomes the means of escaping the judgment for our sins. But the question becomes, whose death?

Death and the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Hebrews 9:23 begins in a transitionary way from the previous verses. “Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites…” This harkens back to the language of the tabernacle being a copy or a type of heaven. It was heaven on earth. It was man-made to mirror what is not man-made. It is the place where God decides to dwell, even though the highest heaven cannot contain him. The fact that these things had to be sprinkled by blood pointed Israel to the fact that the heavenly archetype had to undergo the same sprinkling if sin was to be atoned for.

Thus, “But the heavenly things themselves” (23) must also be sprinkled. But


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Israel should have known that it couldn’t be by the same means of dead animals and mere human priests. Rather, “with better sacrifices than these” (23). What sacrifice could that be? “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, not to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (24). This has been said before, but now it is said in the context of our understanding that someone has to die in our place. Now it is said in the context that our sin demands judgment and death. Now it is said in the context that something better had to happen for anyone to actually be forgiven by God.

This sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is of so great of value and worth that “It was [not] to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own” (25). What did it really cost the high priest of Israel to make atonement? Not


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much. But rather, Jesus death is again “once” (26), repeating what was said earlier in the chapter. Once for all.

This is a very important point I’m about to make. Jesus death is once-for all. It is not offered repeatedly. Sadly, the entire Roman church has greatly confused this issue in its superstitious and philosophical teaching of the Mass. It isn’t the word “mass” that is evil, for that word simply means “dismissal” and it was used in the early church with a very different meaning than it is today. It was originally the equivalent of our own “benediction” or something like Jesus “sending” the twelve disciples. It was the highpoint of the early church service. No, it is the theology that is so terrible.

Though they teach that Jesus did only die once at the cross, nevertheless, the Mass is that same one sacrifice of Jesus. Literally. This is bizarre, completely unscriptural, and rooted in Greek philosophy. The elements


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supposedly literally change into his literal blood and literal body, though, of course, no one could ever verify this scientifically. It is simply something you have to believe. My greatest problem with this idea is actually what it does to the Suffering Servant.

Hebrews says, “For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.” While Rome doesn’t teach this exactly, it isn’t far away at all. Rome’s view of the Mass is combined with a view that God is outside of time, meaning that all things are “present” to him. There is no past, there is no future, there is only the “is,” the “now.” All things are “now” to this God. While technically this would mean that Jesus is not “repeatedly” suffering, it is clear that he is eternally suffering, for the cross is always a present, “now” reality. Even worse, when the Mass is offered up, Jesus’ broken body is literally put forward for people to eat. It is as if he were being re-crucified again.


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Where on earth does anyone come up with these things from the Word of God, I’ll never know. It is simply the delusions of men who think they are wiser than God and need to spout off about things they don’t really understand.

No, friends. Jesus is not in any way suffering repeatedly or eternally. His death was not prior to the foundation of the world, though it can be said that his death was so certain in God’s sovereign plan that he acted as if the Lamb had been slain since then (Rev 13:8 NIV). This doesn’t refer to the actual sacrifice, but to the doctrine of election because he was chosen before the foundation of the world (1Pe 1:19-20). His death is not somehow repeated or continued after it had occurred in space and time. Jesus is not suffering today. He is victorious. He is resurrection. He is glorified. And he is the one who judges the living and the dead.

Thus Hebrews says, “And just as it is © Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado and Pastor Doug Van Dorn

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appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” (Heb 9:27). This is the verse we began with today. But now we continue, “So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time” (9:28). Earlier, I gave the translation that it is necessary for the death of the covenant-maker to be borne (vs. 16). Not “born” as in coming into the world, but borne as in to bear as in to carry something.

This verse has a remarkable allusion to the Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah 53:12. “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” The gospel is not that we, the covenant-breakers, bare the punishment of death. But that the Suffering Servant, the Lord Jesus has done it in our place.


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Earlier in this letter, the focus was on the whole world and Jesus’ atonement was said to be that which ransoms many from the clutches of Satan. This was the equivalent of the sins of all people under the covenant of works or creation. But now the parallel is Israel, and True Israel, and here the focus is not on Christus Victor, but on Christ as the substitute for our sins. This is Substitionary Atonement in all of its glory. Jesus, God, becomes man, Adam, and bears the responsibility of the curse in his body for us. Jesus can do this because he is God and because he is perfect man. His perfection as a man allows his sacrifice and ministry to be perfectly in accordance with the Law, thereby making him the only covenant-keeper in history. His deity allows him to enter into heaven itself to make his offering and to sprinkle heavenly things so that they are actually purified so that God can actually forgive sins.


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Beloved, the bad news is that after we die, there is judgment. Jesus is the Judge who will bring every deed to light on that Day. He will judge men’s secrets. He will bring everything to light. He will make everything right. To those who live by law, there will be only wrath and anger and trouble and distress on that day. The only verdict heaven can render is “Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.” The only just punishment for such treason and wickedness is eternity in hell apart from the grace of God, an eternal slave to sin and death and evil. It is misery beyond words.

But Hebrews is not focused on this. Because the last verse ends where the first verse of our passage began. Jesus “will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb 9:28). This is the glorious promise of eternal life and forgiveness. The first verse had said that he is the mediator of


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a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance (15). This is given here to point you to the almighty, invincible power of God in election. The new covenant promises are that God will save those in this covenant, because all things about it are better than they were before.

Those who are “called” are called effectually. This is the proper way to understand it. As John Owen says, they are called by “The design of God, in this whole dispensation, that all the called should receive the promise; and if they do not so, his counsel, and that in the greatest work of his wisdom, power, and grace, is frustrated. They are the “called according to his purpose,” (Rom 8:28)—those who obtain the inheritance “being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,” (Eph 1:11) … It is not a general call … but what God


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designs unto them that are intended, they are so called as that they shall assuredly be made partakers of it.”10

Is this not wondrous good news? God doesn’t leave it to you and I, but to himself and his own good and wise counsel. To his grace and mercy in Christ. To his designs to save a host of people from every nation and tribe on the planet. God will not be thwarted, because Christ has been raised from the dead and when he comes again he will save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Therefore, consider your own soul. Consider the mercy of God in Christ as he offers you salvation even this moment. The worries, the aggravations, the frustrations of this age are passing away. But what will remain will remain for ever. You don’t want to miss that. You don’t want to miss out of God’s grace. You want salvation from your sins, forgiveness, and the confidence that 10 John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ed. W. H. Goold, vol. 23, Works of John Owen (Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter, 1854), 326.


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God has you so tightly in his grip that nothing can separate you from his eternal love in the Beloved Son.


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