Participants: Ty Gibson, James Rafferty
Series Code: BOTB
Program Code: BOTB00010A
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00:19 Hi friends, I'm your co-host James along with Ty
00:23 And we are in Books of the Book 00:26 We'd like to invite you to join us with a Bible, a listening ear 00:29 as we get back in the Book of Hebrews. 00:31 James, the book of Hebrews is an extraordinary revelation. 00:35 It is coming to us in the New Testament 00:38 when Jesus has come to this world, as God's 00:41 supreme revelation. 00:43 The book of Hebrews, over and over again emphasizes this idea 00:48 that in the person of Jesus Christ, we encounter superior 00:52 things, better things. 00:54 Jesus constitutes a better sacrifice. 00:57 Jesus constitutes a better priest in comparison to the 01:02 Levitical priesthood. 01:03 Jesus is a better mediator who brings within our reach 01:08 a better covenant, a new covenant. 01:11 As Paul has been developing that theme, now we are in chapter 10 01:15 and he is going to be re-emphazing some of the points 01:18 he has covered, but then he is going to be adding some new 01:21 dimensions of understanding. 01:23 Yeah, this has been a continuing theme through 01:25 the book of Hebrews. 01:26 Something better, offering us better things. 01:28 Also another theme has been the relationalship aspect 01:31 of our experiencing Christianity our experience with God. 01:35 God is seeking to draw us into a close relationship with Him. 01:38 Hebrews 10 has beautiful insights concerning the plan 01:42 of salvation and concerning the gospel and the picture we 01:45 have of Jesus Christ. 01:46 Let's just start there, in Hebrews, Chapter 10 01:48 with verse 1. 01:49 "For the law having a shadow of good things to come," 01:52 "and not the very image of the things," 01:53 "can never with those sacrifices which they offered" 01:56 "year by year continually make the comers there unto perfect. " 02:00 "For then would they not have ceased to be offered?" 02:02 "because that the worshippers once purged should have had" 02:05 "no more conscience of sins. " 02:08 So here we have a contrast between the image 02:11 and the reality. 02:13 The image is the symbolic system of salvation that was 02:18 instituted in the wilderness with the Hebrew people. 02:21 And the reality, that Paul is bringing to our attention here, 02:25 is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, we have 02:28 type, symbol, and then we have reality, we have fulfillment 02:33 in the person of Jesus. 02:34 Now we've already looked at the new covenant and I think 02:37 it's going to be reiterated here in this chapter. 02:40 In the new covenant we have understood the law was to be 02:45 placed in our hearts and minds. 02:46 But here we have this verse that seems to indicate 02:49 the law was just a shadow and that it was basically 02:53 done away with. 02:54 It was a shadow of good things to come, and it was not 02:58 something that we need to continue to keep. 03:00 So, is there a contradiction taking place here? 03:02 Absolutely not, we need to understand in the broader 03:04 context of Scripture, what's taking place here is the word 03:08 law is a broad word that sometimes is referring to the 03:13 symbolic system of salvation, the ceremonial laws that were 03:18 instituted in the Old Testament. 03:19 Sometimes the law we are dealing with in Scripture, and we need 03:22 look at our context always and find out what we 03:24 are talking about. 03:26 Sometimes the law is dealing with the moral law in particular 03:28 and in this particular context we know that in the flow of 03:33 Hebrews he is, primarily here, dealing with the ceremonial 03:36 system and it could not through it's sacrifices, day by day, 03:41 year by year, through it's symbolic priesthood, 03:45 it could not accomplish atonement in salvation for 03:49 the people, so entered Jesus as the fulfillment 03:53 of those things. 03:54 So that the symbolic system becomes obsolete, it becomes 03:58 useless, it is eclipsed by the better things 04:02 that we have in Jesus. 04:03 So this fits with what Paul is seeking to do, he's seeking 04:05 to transition to Hebrews from the types, from the ceremonies, 04:10 the ceremonial law sacrifices, the ceremonial laws that 04:14 governed the priesthood, and the remission of sins to the 04:17 reality of Christ. 04:18 So he's talking about the law of ceremonies, the ceremonial 04:21 law is becoming obsolete and it's making room for Jesus 04:25 a better sacrifice. 04:26 Now that is definitely one aspect of what Paul is saying. 04:29 But sometimes we fail to understand that there is a 04:32 sense in which, in that Old Testament, old covenant system, 04:37 that even the moral law was being handled, dealt with, 04:41 experienced in a way that was insufficient. 04:44 We looked at that previously when we dealt with 04:47 the new covenant, Chapter 8 in Hebrews. 04:49 We saw that when God gave the Ten Commandment law, 04:52 to the people, which of itself is holy, just and good according 04:56 to Romans, Chapter 7 verse 12. 04:58 We also noticed that the people made promises to God 05:03 They said all that the Lord has said we will do. 05:06 We will obey all His commandments. 05:07 Hebrews Chapter 8, informs us, rather emphatically 05:12 that our promises to God, their promises to God, 05:15 Were promises that could not be fulfilled, 05:18 they were weak and insufficient to bring to pass their obedience 05:22 even to the moral law. 05:23 So Jesus steps in, He institutes a new covenant and it based on 05:26 better promises, in which God says I will write my law 05:29 in your heart, I will give you a new spirit, I'll give you a 05:33 heart of flesh where you had a heart of stone. 05:35 I will bring to pass in you, the fulfillment of 05:39 even the moral law. 05:40 That makes sense. 05:41 Now here Paul goes on and he says there is to be no more 05:44 conscious of sins. 05:46 Then he says with the sacrifices of the animals there was 05:49 a remembrance of sin and again and again 05:51 made every year. 05:53 But because it was not possible for the blood of bulls and goats 05:56 verse 4, to take away sins. 05:59 In other words, the sacrifice of Jesus is actually going to 06:02 going to remove our relationship to, our connection with, our 06:06 consciousness of sin in our lives. 06:08 This is amazing, this is, if that's not what we have 06:13 presented to us in the gospel, and in the plan of salvation, 06:16 the implication here is that we would have an endless cycle, 06:21 going on and on and on and on and on. 06:24 He makes this clear when he informs us in the first three 06:27 verses here, that the sacrifices were offered over and over 06:31 and over again. 06:32 He is his logic, here is his reasoning. 06:35 He says, if those sacrifices could have atoned for sin, 06:40 if they could have saved from sin, then they would have 06:44 ceased to be offered. 06:45 So the very fact that the offerings continued over and 06:48 over and over again, is proof, it's an indication, 06:51 that they were insufficient. 06:53 Then Jesus comes, and Jesus makes one sacrifice, 06:56 which is fully sufficient, that Paul speaks of 07:00 a number of times in Hebrews, 07:02 as accomplishing salvation from sin, purging from sin, 07:06 atonement from sin, in a past tense sense. 07:10 Jesus purged us from our sins in Himself. 07:14 Then we by faith are called upon to enter into the 07:18 reality of that purging from sin. 07:20 You know what I see here Ty, I see a lot of repetition 07:24 a lot of summary that is taking place here, Chapter 10. 07:26 In relation to truths that are pointed out in previous chapters 07:29 but then with some added information. 07:32 Some aspects that we haven't covered yet. 07:34 As we look at this, the taking away of sins, the perfection of 07:38 God's people, we see it in the context of a truth that has been 07:41 brought through the book of Hebrews, time and time again 07:43 the truth in transition from the old types to the new realities 07:47 in Jesus Christ. 07:48 For example, you get down here to verse 6, 07:50 "In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin 07:53 thou has no pleasure. " 07:55 If God did not have pleasure in the sacrifice of animals, 07:58 we talked about that earlier. 07:59 Yeah, Isaiah Chapter 1, we had mentioned in a previous program. 08:03 But there are many other verses where God is communicating 08:06 to the Israelites, in the Old Testament, and he is saying 08:09 to them basically, you've misunderstood, 08:12 you misunderstood my intent. 08:13 The sacrificial system is not an equivalent of the pagan rites 08:19 of sacrifice in which the pagan deities are appeased 08:24 by the sacrifices. 08:25 I'm not into the blood of animals, I am not looking for a 08:29 continual flow of blood. 08:30 This was all symbolic so you could understand the wages 08:35 of sin, the affect of sin, and what I am telling you is 08:38 I never had pleasure in any kind of sacrificial system. 08:42 So what I want you to understand now, Paul is telling us, 08:46 God is telling us through Paul, 08:47 what I want you to understand now is I have sent forth Jesus 08:50 My Son, to be the complete and total fulfillment of what does 08:57 bring me pleasure, what I am really after, what I am into, 09:01 and that is I am going to make for you a personal 09:05 self-sacrifice of infinite love on your behalf. 09:08 To demonstrate to you, to prove beyond all shadow of a doubt 09:12 that I love you more than My own life. 09:14 This is incredible, really because the animal sacrifices 09:18 weren't getting it. 09:19 I know today, there are a lot of people who would never 09:21 want to see an animal sacrifice. 09:23 There are people who are vegetarians because they don't 09:25 want to see an animal sacrificed they don't like to see the 09:28 suffering and the pain that is afflicted upon animals in order 09:31 for us to have them to eat for food. 09:33 If that causes us to change our lifestyle to some degree, 09:38 I think in this context we need to say, well how much 09:40 more the sacrifice of God Himself. 09:44 In other words, God is demonstrating, in a very real 09:47 sense, that sin requires the sacrifice, sin leads to death, 09:50 I don't like death. 09:52 Death is an enemy and I want to show you what death 09:54 will ultimately do. 09:55 Death will ultimately kill Me and I'm going to make that 09:58 sacrifice in order to reveal to you that ultimate consequence 10:01 because I love you. 10:04 Not to appease Myself, but because I love you. 10:07 God is not a blood-thirsty deity. 10:10 In fact this is a good point at which we should remind 10:13 ourselves that we see a side of God's character and heart 10:19 through out Scripture, in which He is sensitive. 10:22 Not only to the human situation, human suffering, but the Bible 10:27 actually presents God as a God who is sensitive about 10:30 the sufferings of creation in general. 10:32 I think, for example, where Jesus say not a sparrow 10:34 falls to the ground without your Father taking notice, 10:37 How about Jonah? 10:38 Yeah, the last verse of Jonah God says to Jonah basically 10:42 at the end of Chapter 4, Jonah I don't want to destroy Nineveh 10:46 because there are all these people and much cattle. 10:49 And think about it this way Ty, you said just a minute ago, 10:51 God is not a blood-thirsty tyrant, but sin is, 10:55 a blood-thirsty tyrant. 10:56 Sin would continue to consume animal lives, sin would continue 11:00 to require death after death after death. 11:02 But praise God, sin is going to be destroyed and death, 11:06 the last enemy of God, according to 1 Corinthians 15, 11:08 death is an enemy of God friends. 11:10 Death is going to be annihilated from this earth. 11:12 No more death, no more pain, no more sorrow. 11:14 That's what we are told in Revelation Chapter 22. 11:16 So Paul says, actually it is God here, in quote marks, 11:21 speaking through Paul. 11:22 He said, in verse 5, "sacrifice and offering you did not desire, 11:26 but a body You have prepared Me" 11:28 Now we have this body. 11:30 We have Jesus in His incarnation, coming 11:34 forth into the world. 11:35 This is not what I wanted, God said with animal sacrifices. 11:39 Here's what I am providing. 11:41 I Myself, in the person of My Son, am taking a body 11:45 upon Myself, burnt offerings, verse 6. 11:48 As you read, it is not anything I have had pleasure in. 11:50 I come forth, I come forth into the world to do the will of God. 11:55 The will of God, in this context, is that the human race 11:59 would be redeemed, that sin would be atoned for, 12:03 that in fact we would have salvation by virtue of God's 12:08 once for all act in the person of Jesus Christ. 12:11 Here's the clarification, verse 8, here is the clarification 12:14 of what we've talked about in verse 1, with the law. 12:16 It says then, "when He said sacrifice and offering, and 12:19 burnt offerings, offerings for sin, thou would not 12:21 neither has pleasure therein which are offered by the law. " 12:24 By what law? What law are we talking about when we are 12:27 talking about offerings for sin, when we are talking about 12:29 sacrifices, we are talking about the ceremonial law. 12:32 So that law is the one that is a shadow that is being done 12:36 way with, then he said, verse 9, "low, I come to do Thy will 12:40 oh God," He takes away the first, that first ceremonial 12:43 law, the sacrifice He is taking away the first that He may 12:47 establish the second. 12:48 Now I like this because a lot of people will say, the law 12:51 was nailed to the cross. 12:52 What I would say in response to that Ty, 12:54 in the context is, indeed the law was nailed to the cross, 12:58 in this sense, Jesus Christ was the ultimate sacrifice 13:01 He was the ultimate reality of the ceremonial law. 13:05 He was the Lamb of God. 13:07 That Lamb was nailed to the cross. 13:09 The ceremonial law was nailed to the cross. 13:12 Not the moral law, friends, the ceremonial law. 13:15 We understand that when we look at this in context of Hebrews 10 13:19 In verse 10, we are saved, we are redeemed by the offering of 13:25 the body of Jesus once for all. 13:28 This is a favorite terminology for the Apostle Paul. 13:32 Once for all, which is a universal statement 13:35 with the word all. 13:37 Every human being is included in what God is doing 13:40 through Jesus Christ at the cross, universal statement. 13:43 But it is also a statement that occurs as a one time historic 13:47 act that is not repeated over and over again. 13:50 You know it is very important to understand the context of 13:52 this verse 11 is going to give us a lot. 13:54 And we are going to get to that verse and look at that context 13:57 not just in Paul's setting, but in a present day setting. 14:00 Right after this. |
Revised 2014-12-17