Hebrews 9:21-28 – The Putting Away Of Your Sin

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 19 May 2019

Intro:

• Story about not believing and expecting a return? (Matthew 24:42-51)

• In the last sermon passage, we ended with Hebrews 9:20¹, which recounted the covenant rati­fication ceremony in Exodus 24 between God and the Hebrew nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai. In that ceremony, Moses, the mediator of the covenant, read God’s laws, then sprinkled blood from ceremonially-slaughtered bulls and goats upon the law-book and the people. As we continue with verse 21 the additional point is made that most everything got blood on it in those Old Testament worship services, and the reason for that was to drive home the point that only the death of a perfect substitute could fix the basic problem between Man and God, the problem of how humans could get rid of the guilt of their sins which offended God.

• So our author continues, saying of these Mosaic-era priestly services:

V.21 He likewise sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and also all the service utensils.

• Now at the time of that initial covenant ratification ceremony in Exodus 24, there was no tabernacle-tent, no ark of the covenant, and no Levitical priesthood, only a stone altar at the foot of Mt. Sinai presided over by Moses, and perhaps he had a fire-poker or something to tend the altar with. It is possible that this basic arrangement is what is referred to as the tabernacle and vessels of worship in v.21. Exodus 24:6 does inform us that before Moses sprinkled the people, “He sprinkled² it upon the altar.” (NAW)

• Later on, in all the instructions for offering sacrifices on the altar in the book of Leviticus, the priests are instructed to sprinkle blood, not only in the holy place, and on the horns of the altar and pour it out at the base of the altar, but also to “sprinkle it all around/סבב/κύκλῳ” the altar (e.g. Lev. 1:11). If this were the case, then any utensils sitting anywhere on or near the altar would have been sprinkled too.

• What sort of utensils/vessels are meant? The Greek word σκεύη is used to describe a wide array of accessories for the different stations in the temple:

  • wick-trimmers for the lampstand (Ex. 25:38-40 “...make its funnel and its snuff-dishes of pure gold. All these articles [σκεύη] shall be a talent of pure gold... make them according to the pattern shewed thee in the mount.” ~Brenton’s English translation of the Greek Septuagint),

  • Dishes and cups for the table of showbread (Exodus 38:12 “And he made the furniture [σκεύη] of the table, both the dishes, and the censers, and the cups, and the bowls with which he should offer drink-offerings, of gold." ~Brenton), and

  • meat-hooks and bowls for the altar of burnt offering (Exodus 27:3 “And thou shalt make a rim for the altar; and its covering and its cups, and its flesh-hooks, and its fire-pan, and all its vessels [σκεύη] shalt thou make of brass.)

• Why all this blood slung everywhere in the temple? It was applied to the ark in the holy of holies, to the curtain separating the holy of holies from the holy place, on the corners of the altar of incense in the holy place, and all over the altar and the ground around it in the courtyard and spattered on everybody and everything! WHY?

v.22 So, practically³ all things are purified by means of blood according to the law, and without the pouring out of blood, forgiveness doesn’t happen!

• If the blood of a substitute was not shed, God promised to destroy the sinner. One way or the other, blood will be shed to atone for the sin of each soul.

  • Zephaniah 1:17 “...because they have sinned against the Lord; therefore He shall pour out their blood...” (Brenton)

  • Leviticus 17:11 “For it is in the blood that the soul of every body exists, and I myself have given it on behalf of y'all upon the altar to make atonement over your souls, since it is the blood in the soul that makes atonement." (NAW)

• The word haimatechousias is a compound of two words used throughout the Greek Old Testament to describe what was done at the end of each animal sacrifice with the blood drained out of the animal. After the requisite sprinklings and smearings and everything, the remainder was always “poured out” at the base of the altar of burnt offering in the temple courtyard. (e.g. Exodus 29:12 “And thou shalt take of the blood of the calf, and put it on the horns of the altar with thy finger, but all the rest of the blood [αἷμα] thou shalt pour out [ἐκχεεῖς] at the foot of the altar.” ~Brenton)

• Forgiveness (ἄφεσις) is at the heart of all this.

  • In the Old Testament, this Greek noun was used almost exclusively to speak of the 7^th and 70^th year of release from all debts⁴.

  • But in the New Testament, this word ἄφεσις is used almost exclusively to speak of Jesus redeeming us from sin with His blood. Here’s a list of every occurrence in the NT:

• Luke 1:77 “To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,” (KJV)

• Luke 3:3 “And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;” (KJV, cf. Mark 1:4)

• Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,” (KJV)

• Matthew 26:28 “...this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (KJV)

• Luke 24:47 “...repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (KJV)

• Acts 2:38 “Then Peter said unto them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.’” (KJV)

• Mark 3:29 states converse: “But he that shall blaspheme... hath never forgiveness...” (KJV)

• Acts 5:31 “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” (KJV)

• Acts 10:43 “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.” (KJV)

• Acts 13:38 “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man [Jesus] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:” (KJV)

• Acts 26:18 “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” (KJV)

• Ephesians 1:7 “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;” (KJV, cf. Col. 1:14)

• Hebrews 10:18-19 “Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus..." (KJV)

[start ppting here] v.23 Therefore, it was necessary, on the one hand that the copies of the things in the heavens be purified with these things, but on the other hand, the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

• There is a basic contrast being drawn between the abode of God in heaven and the earthly tabernacle which Moses built, copying off of the pattern that He saw in heaven.

• As we saw in Heb 8:5, the Levitical priests were “ministering in a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things..." (NAW)

• The Mosaic tent of meeting then was purified “with the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet yarn and a hyssop-branch,” as we saw back in v.19. On the other hand, the temple of God in heaven needed something better than sacrifices of bulls and rams. Thus it was necessary that the blood of the Son of God be shed.

• Vincent: “The rite [in Leviticus 16] implied that even the holy of holies had contracted defilement from the people's sin. Similarly, the atoning blood of Christ is conceived as purifying the things of the heavenly sanctuary which had been defiled by the sins of men.”

• “If the heavenly city of God, with its Holy Place, is, conformably with the promise, destined for the covenant-people, that they may there attain to perfect fellowship with God, then their guilt has defiled these holy things as well as the earthly, and they must be purified in the same way as the typical law appointed for the latter, only not by the blood of an imperfect, but of a perfect sacrifice” (Delitzsch).

• The next two verses point out two differences between what the Levitical priests did which Jesus Christ (The Anointed One) did NOT do.

  • In v.24, Christ did not enter the man-made tabernacle which was only a figurative representation of heaven,

  • and in v.25, Christ did not make His offering over and over again like the Levites did.

v.24 for it was not into handmade antitypes of the true holy places that the Anointed One entered, but rather into heaven itself, in order to be revealed now in the presence of God on behalf of us,

• In v.24, our author picks up on two root words from Exodus 25:40 when God told Moses to “‘make/ποιήσεις’ [the tent of meeting] according to the ‘pattern/τύπον’ which was shown to you on the mountain” where God allowed His heavenly presence to be seen.

• The apostle is kind-of jeering at his contemporaries, who thought that the earthly tabernacle was as good as it gets, by pointing out that the Tent of Meeting, which Moses and Aaron entered into for their priestly duties, was made by human hands [χειροποίητα] and was just a copy/figure [ἀντίτυπα] of the real thing.

• He has already stated in Hebrews 8:1 “...we have such a high priest who took office at the right hand of the throne of the Greatest One in the heavens, a minister of the holy things and of the true tabernacle which the Lord constructed and not man… 9:11 Christ, the high priest of the good things which are about to happen, having come along through the greater and more perfect tabernacle - not the hand-made one (that is, not the one of this created-order), 12 entered once-for-all into the holy places, and not by means of the blood of goats or calves but by means of His own blood, after having obtained eternal redemption.” (NAW)

• The purpose of Christ’s entry was to do the essential task that priests do, and that is reconcile persons who have fallen out of favor with God, to redeem guilty parties from being destroyed by God for their sin.

• The word “appear/be revealed” [ἐμφανισθῆναι]⁵ brings to mind the role of an attorney who “makes an appearance” before the judge, representing you legally and arguing your case for you so that the outcome of the trial comes out better than you could have ever pulled off. But unlike an attorney, this Anointed One pays the penalty for the crime for you and proves to the judge that the penalty has already been suffered so that there is no more legal case against you.

• To enter into the holy presence of God to do that task is the most central part of any priest’s job. I like the way the ESV translated v.24 because the Greek grammar of this sentence does not say that Christ didn’t enter, but rather that it wasn’t the man-made model that He entered. Christ entered, but it was directly into the actual presence of God in heaven to do His priestly work. You can’t top that!

• Not only that, but Jesus beats the Mosaic system because His one sacrifice is better than all the Levite’s sacrifices put together. In verses 25-26, this second contrast is emphasized in the Greek grammar between the adverb “often/frequently” in v.25 and its antonym “once/singu­larly” in v.26:

v.25-26 also, it was not in order that He might offer Himself fre­quently – just like the high priest enters into the holy places [year] after year with another’s blood – 26 (in which case it would have been necessary for Him to suffer frequently since the founding of the world), but now at the conclusion of the ages He has been brought-to-light singularly, for the purpose of displacing sin through the sacrifice of Himself.

• Jesus has no intention of dying over and over again!

• This point has already been brought up two chapters back in Hebrews 7:27 “He does not have a need to offer up sacrifices [day] after day like those high priests, first for their own sins, then for those of the people, for He did this singularly, when he offered up Himself! ...[and in chapter 9] 6 the priests have always been going into the front tabernacle accomplishing the services, 7 but into the second one, the high priest alone [goes] once a year - not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people.” (NAW)

• The high priest in the Levitical system entered the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) to sprinkle the blood of sacrificial animals on the top of the ark of the covenant to propitiate God after all the violations of God’s commands the people had committed all year.

• But a comparison to Levitical priests is denied because Jesus’ priesthood is so much better. The Levites had to offer sacrifices day after day, year after year, many times, but Jesus only had to offer one sacrifice. Furthermore, the Levites used the blood of another entity, but Jesus did it with His own blood. Can’t touch that!

• This is how your sin is displaced/unseated/removed/done away with.

• “He made known his ways to Moses, his will to the children of Israel. The Lord is compas­sionate and pitiful, long-suffering, and full of mercy. He will not be always angry; neither will he be wrathful for ever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor recompensed us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, the Lord has so in­creased his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed [ἐμάκρυνεν] our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:7-12, Brenton)

• But the question might come up from first-Century Jews, accustomed to the daily and yearly offerings in the temple, “How can one single sacrifice be appropriate?” This argument is answered with a rejoinder in Hebrews that if Jesus is truly human, He only has one life to give. It would be a denial of His humanity – and therefore of the scriptures which affirm His humanity – and also a denial of His appropriateness to even be a representative before God for us, to expect Him to die any more “often” than the human limit of “once”

v.27-28 And furthermore, it is in store for humans to die only-once, and for there to be judgment after this, ²⁸ so also the Anointed One, after being offered only-once for the purpose of carrying away the sins of many, will be made visible a second time to the ones who eagerly-anticipate Him, for the purpose of salvation apart from sin!

• Reincarnation is expressly denied here. It’s true, you only go around once in this world.

• But unlike the Budweiser mentality, these verses paint a picture of God’s sovereignty back of our human lifespans,

  • for we have only a certain number of days appointed/destined/literally “stored away” for us to use up before we die. Job said to God, “[Man’s] days are determined, The number of his months is with You; You have appointed⁶ his limits, so that he cannot pass.” (Job 14:5, NKJV)

  • And even when we die, that is not the end, for “then comes judgment.” Our soul remains under God’s sovereign power and we remain accountable to Him even after death! 2 Cor. 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (NKJV, cf. Eccl. 12:14)

• V.28 contrasts two comings of Christ which parallel the human experience of “one death followed by judgment”:

  • the first coming of Christ was in the past to “bear” our sins and be killed as a sacrifice to “carry away” our sin;

  • the second coming will be in the future, not to atone for sins, but to judge sinners – and simultaneously to save from judgment “those who are faithfully waiting on Him.”

• The first coming provided the means by which Jesus could act in the role of priest towards His people and save them from the wrath to come – that’s what His death on the cross was all about!

  • The Greek verb anaferw in v28, depicting Jesus “carrying” our sins, is the same verb used in the Ex. 24:5 covenant ratification ceremony where the “children of Israel... offered whole burnt-offerings, and they sacrificed young calves as a peace-offering to God." (Brenton)

  • This is what Isaiah prophecied in his 53^rd chapter: “⁴ Surely our griefs [ἁμαρτίας] He Himself carried [φέρει], and our sorrows, He bore them... He was being pierced from our rebellion – beaten from our iniquity. Chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes there is healing for us. ⁶ All we like the flock have strayed, each has faced toward his own way. But Yahweh interposed in Him the iniquity of us all.” (NAW)

• Jesus’ second coming will involve “seeing” Him again:

  • For some of us it will be a joy-filled reward to see Him after waiting for Him all of our lives. I am reminded of a similar joy felt by the magi when they saw the baby Jesus: Matthew 2:1 “Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, see, magi from the East came along into Jerusalem, ² saying, ‘Where is the One born king of the Jews? For we saw His star in the East and came to worship Him… 11 And when they had come into the house, they saw the child with Mary His mother, and when they had dropped [to the ground], they worshipped Him, and when they had opened their packs, they brought to Him gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh." (NAW)

  • For others, the return of the Christ will be terrifying and dismaying: Matthew 24:30 “...the sign of the Son of Man will be revealed in the sky, and then all the families of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of the heavens with power and much glory, ³¹ and He will commission His angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they will gather together His chosen ones out of the four winds from [one] end of the heavens over to [the other] end of them.” (NAW)

CONCLUSION

• What should our response be in light of the past and future comings of the Christ?

  • Luke, the Gospel writer wrote: "Now when… [you] see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power... look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near." (Luke 21:27-28, NKJV)

• Do you believe that Jesus actually forgave your sins on the cross? Do you believe that He has actually removed your sins as far as the East is from the West? Do you believe that when He returns it will be to redeem you rather than to condemn you? God’s word is here telling us that His blood is all it took for complete forgiveness of your sins.

  • His blood is no man-made, temporary fix. He has done it once-for-all-time, and He lives in heaven now to secure your forgiveness.

  • “This blood, typifying the blood of Christ, is the ratification of the covenant of grace to all true believers. He sprinkled the tabernacle and all the utensils of it, intimating that all the sacrifices offered up and services performed there were accepted only through the blood of Christ, which procures the remission of that iniquity that cleaves to our holy things, which could not have been remitted but by that atoning blood.” ~Matthew Henry

• Hebrews 9:28 says that it is “to the ones who eagerly-anticipate Him” that Jesus will return and “save away from sin.” What does it look like to “wait for/anticipate” Him?

  • 1 Cor. 1:4-9 “I thank my God always concerning y'all, on account of the grace of God which was given you by Jesus Christ, ⁵ so that in everything, y'all were enriched by Him in every word and in every [piece of] knowledge, ⁶ even as the testimony of Christ was con­firmed by you, ⁷ so that y'all don't miss out on any [spiritual] gift as you are eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸ Who will also make you firm until the end – so as not to be called down in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.” (NAW)

  • The picture of the Corinthian church “waiting” involves receiving God’s grace, reading His word, growing in knowledge, confirming the truth of the gospel by repenting from sin and sharing it with others, interacting with the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:5), using spiritual gifts (like teaching, healing the sick, serving others, and translating the gospel into other languages), and continuing to do these things faithfully. That’s a good picture of waiting with anticipation. It’s not being a passive couch-potato, it’s leading an active life of devotion to Jesus and promotion of His interests in this world, all-the-while ready to leave this world at the drop of a hat when He comes back, because we have a firm belief that what He’s got waiting for us in the world-to-come is far better than any good we’re enjoying in this world!

  • Philippians 3:20 “For our citizenship exists in heaven, from which also we eagerly anticipate the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." (NAW)

• Jesus is indeed the Savior. Let’s believe it and live it out in eager anticipation of His return!

APPENDIX: Side-by-side Greek Text & English Versions of Heb. 9:21-28^A