Sermon25-24 Heb9 Guide

Hebrews 9:11-22 theme verse Hebrews 9:14

The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.

In this eighteenth Sunday of 2025, I pray that His grace of the application of all the benefits which Jesus earned for our salvation and also the glorious ministry of the proclamation of His kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit may be full in our life. Last week, we looked at the justice and mercy of God in Christ, yet this week, we would like to look at the atonement of Christ to learn few lessons together.

1)    First, to summarize today’s text of Hebrews 9, the author of the Hebrews compares the hand-made earthly sanctuary with the perfect heavenly sanctuary that the temple that God gave through the first covenant, I mean, the old covenant, was built by human hands and belonged to this world so that the high priest alone would enter the Most Holy Place of this temple once a year to offer a goat and a calve as a sin offering, to sprinkle its blood on the altar, and to send one of the goats out into the wilderness as “Azazel,” to take away sins, yet, this was a ceremonial purification which was temporary and imperfect, so it had to be sacrificed every year. However, the temple of the new covenant that Christ established as the High Priest not only forgives the sins of believers but also washes away their sinfulness by offering His blood, so that it provides the effective purification, which is eternal, final, and complete.

2)    To elaborate it, the sacrifice of the old covenant was to be offered repeatedly every year on the Day of Atonement by the high priest who entered the Most Holy Place and sprinkled the blood of goat and calve to cover the sins of the Israelites, and then came out from the Most Holy Place to bless the Israelites, whereas the sacrifice of the new covenant was offered by Christ, the High Priest from heaven, who sacrificed His blood once for all, to forgive the sins of the believers, and also to take away their sins and then He ascended to heaven and is now interceding for His people at the right hand of God, and then when the time comes, He will return to this earth to make the final judgment and lead his people to heaven.

3)    In that sense, today’s text contains three tenses of Christ’s ministry: I mean, first, it is said that Jesus appeared in the past to take away sins through His death on the cross, and then He appears now in heaven to intercede for us, and finally He will appear again on the last day to take Christians to heaven. And also in order to fulfill His ministry, Christ performed the threefold office of King, Prophet, and Priest, in today’s text, especially Christ’s priesthood is described.

4)    I mean, among the works of a priest which was to offer sacrifices, intercession and blessing in the name of God (Heb 5:1,7; Lev 9: 22f), the offering of sacrifice was the function mentioned most frequently and its fundamental meaning was that sin is offensive to deity and necessitates atonement (Lev 1:4, 4:29ff; 5:10; 16:7, 21f, 27; 17:11; Heb 9:7) so that when sacrifice is made according to the command of God, sin is forgiven. Therefore, Jesus Christ came to this earth to do this priestly ministry by himself so that at the beginning of His ministry John the Baptist pointed Him out that "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world" in John 1:29, He Himself said that the reason for His coming was "to minister and to give His life a ransom for many" in Mark 10:45, and and at its close, Eph 5:2 says that He "gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor".  By the way, sisters and brothers, while an ordinary priesthood came out from the line of Aaronic priests, yet the Bible says that the priesthood of Christ was "after the order of Melchisedec”, which was superior. I mean, in Gen 14, when Abraham defeated four Mesopotamian kings who invaded the Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. and took back all the possessions and his kinsman Lot and his families, Melchisedec who was king of Salem and priest of God Most High, went out to meet Abraham and bless him, saying “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” As such, Jesus Christ came through the line of Melchisedec to take threefold offices to do His ministry. So, even though the other priests stood "daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, yet it can never take away sins” (Heb 10:11) and also morning and evening of each day a yearling lamb was offered in the name of the whole nation ( Exod 29:38-42; Num 28:3-8) and its blood was shed and its flesh burned, yet it gives temporary and symbolical cleansing from sin only, but the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, both priest and sacrifice, "by his own blood entered once for all into the holy place and have obtained eternal redemption" (Heb 9:12). So that’s why Isaiah 53 says that "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb before his shearer, so he opened not his mouth" and Paul wrote that "our passover has been sacrificed, even Christ" (I Cor 5:7), and the Apostle Peter could write that we have been "redeemed with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ" (1Peter 1:18,19).

5)    And regarding the atonement of Christ, Belgic Confession Article 21 confesses that “We believe that Jesus Christ is a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek made such by an oath and that he presented himself in our name before his Father, to appease his Father's wrath with full satisfaction by offering himself on the tree of the cross and pouring out his precious blood for the cleansing of our sins, as the prophets had predicted. For it is written that "the punishment that made us whole” was placed on the Son of God and that "by his bruises we are healed.” He was "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter"; he was "numbered with the transgressors"” and condemned as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, though Pilate had declared that he was innocent. So he paid back what he had not stolen, and he suffered-"the righteous for the unrighteous," in both his body and his soul - in such a way that when he sensed the horrible punishment required by our sins "his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. ” He cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And he endured all this for the forgiveness of our sins. Therefore we rightly say with Paul that we know nothing "except Jesus Christ, and him crucified"; we "regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus [our] Lord.” We find all comforts in his wounds and have no need to seek or invent any other means to reconcile ourselves with God than this one and only sacrifice, once made, which renders believers perfect forever.”

6)    Of course, some theologians has been objected to this doctrine of the “penal satisfaction” theory the Belgic confession confesses that “Christ offered himself to the Father for us to appease the Father’s wrath by his full satisfaction,” yet this theory seems amply justified by Scripture. Because although it is not the whole of the Biblical explanation of the meaning of the death of Christ, it is clear that Christ suffered and satisfied the claims of divine justice in His suffering which is the very heart of the doctrine of the atonement, as Eph 5:2 and Heb 9:14 clearly says that Christ offered himself to God. In other words, as God is loving and merciful and also holy and just, so God never condones sin or makes a sinner innocent without any punishment. God, who certainly detests lying lips, is a consuming fire to all who are outside His beloved Son. Therefore, recognizing that indifference or even hostility to this truth prevails in many places within church, Emil Brunner said, "Superficiality makes its own God - a God who is of the kind it likes. So long as we continue to reject the Scriptural ideas of Divine Holiness, of divine wrath, and of divine righteousness in punishment, the process of decay within the Christian Church will continue” (The Mediator, p.468) And also the reason why the cross is that as Deut 21:22 says that “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree”, it is God’s law that a person who commits a mortal sin be hung on a tree, that’s why Jesus was hang on the cross. And also, as vicarious atonement means to take the responsibility for someone else’s guilt of sin, so the Lord had to take all the punishment and the curse for the sins of His fallen people. Therefore, He had to bear all the quilt of the sins of all those who believe in Him throughout His life, especially on the cross, I mean, the curse on this earth and the also the eternal punishment in hell. Therefore, Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 14 teaches us that His divinity helped Him bear the infinite punishment and suffering of God’s wrath that His finite humanity could not bear. And also, the original Lord’s Prayer, confess that “He descended into hell,” which means that Christ took all the suffering of eternal punishment in hell which we have to take in hell, as Calvin said.

7)    And also the atoning blood of Jesus Christ provide not only the blood of Christ brings us justification along with forgiveness of sins, as verse 22 says, “And almost all things are purified with blood according to the law, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” but also, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses our conscience. as verse 14 says, “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your consciences from dead?” I mean, as the contrast between the flesh in verse 13 and the spirit in verse 14 contrasts the external characteristics of the Levitical sacrifice with the essential and spiritual characteristics of the Christ sacrifice, it taught us that the Levitical sacrifice only provides ceremonial cleansing on a temporary basis, but the Christ sacrifice can purify the conscience through internal and spiritual washing. In other words, through faith, we not only receive forensic justification, but also spiritual regeneration, sanctification, and glorification, after the resurrection of the body on the last day.

8)    And also verse 14 says that the blood of Christ not only cleanses our consciences, but also enables us to serve the living God. I mean, as Luke 23:45 says, when the Lord died on the cross, the veil of the temple was torn in the middle, as such, through the blood of Christ, we can enter “behind the second veil, into the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle (Heb 9:3)” and serve God as heb 10:20 says. Therefore, l pray that this year, through the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, we all may serve and worship God in the Spirit and truth, after receiving forgiveness of sins and cleansing our consciences by His blood.

Key Questions as Small Group Activity

Q1 Through today’s text, we became to know that the atonement of Christ took all the eternal punishment and sufferings and curses which we have to take. So, meditating on the meaning of His atonement, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Q2 And also we can know that His blood gives us justification, regeneration, sanctification and glorification. So after reviewing how His blood works in our life, I hope we could share our thought and experience with our team members together to learn from each other.

Love you. Thank you. God bless you.

Prayer Note

Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!

Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or  even during the week )

Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!

Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),

please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized   ).

I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon                                    )

Please help me to live in that (  learned way of life                                                )

I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.