Saunders, Dick: Studies In Hebrews-17

Now in a moment of prayer. Our Father, we are going to open the scriptures now, and we come to them eagerly and with great anticipation of being blessed. And we ask that as a result of all that we receive from your good hand tonight, that we may indeed bring very great glory and honor unto your name through the way we live, the way we act, and the way in which we seek to worship and give our thanks, which is due alone to yourself. Take away, Lord, tonight all tiredness from all of us and anything that would hinder the outgoing and the reception of your precious word, and bless it to us now, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. amen. This evening, then, we turn to the eighth chapter of Paul's letter to the Hebrews. Some of you will say we're not sure that it's Paul's letter, and I will agree with you, we're not sure, but I feel in my own heart, from reading and rereading it over these days, that there is so much about it that it is somewhat stamped with the character of the great Apostle Paul, and we are assuming in our hearts that he is the writer of this because we remembered in our early study that Peter spoke of the things which had been written by Paul, and we have no other letter written to the Hebrews in the whole of the Bible, so we assume that this one is the letter to which Peter referred, the letter written by Paul to the Jews, to the Hebrews that were then scattered abroad in various places throughout the world. Now we have been moving through these studies, and what the Holy Spirit has been doing through the writings of the apostle is to uplift and glorify the Lord Jesus. There's no better thing anyone can do in preaching than to glorify the Lord Jesus. Preaching isn't a time to put your own ideas and yourself forward. It's a time to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ so that our hearts burn within us as we think of him, and when we leave, that we go away with richer and fuller thoughts concerning the one who is our savior. And this whole epistle to the Hebrews has been lifting up the Lord Jesus to such a lofty height that as we began on that first evening of study, we said he is higher than everything and higher than everyone. And so, as we've gone through, in the first study we saw the Lord Jesus lifted up superior to prophets. Then we saw him superior to angels, superior to Moses, superior to Joshua, superior to Aaron. And in this particular study, we're going to see that he has a superior seat in the glory. He has a superior sanctuary, um, over which and from which he ministers himself to the saints and before God the Father. We'll see there's a superior covenant and superior promises. Everywhere you read in the Hebrews, it's better, better, better. Everything's better because the Lord Jesus has accomplished everything that God promised us in the Old Testament he would. So we are taken back constantly to the Old Testament to say, this is what God promised. Then we are taken to the Lord Jesus and said, this is how he fulfilled his promises in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this chapter opens with these words, now of the things which we have spoken. And if you have the authorized version, you really have in that phrase a wrong interpretation, really, of what is being said, because it isn't of what is being, of what has been spoken, but what it is now is the sum of everything that is being spoken is that Christ has been exalted to the place of glory at God's right hand. And, uh, the whole argument here is that this is the chief point of everything that has been written to this point. The chief point of it all is that Christ has been raised to the seat of glory, and he is seated at God's right hand at the majesty, uh, in the majesty of heaven. So that's where we're going to commence this evening, because you see, if we have a better high priest than the high priests of the Old Testament, then the first thing we're going to be confronted with is that our high priest's work is complete. That's why he's seated at the right hand of glory. If we go back to study the high priests of the Old Testament, as we've said on a number of occasions in our studies already, we never find the priests seated. The only seat in the tabernacle or the temple was the mercy seat, and that wasn't a seat upon which men could sit. It was the place that represented the eternal throne of God. It was the place from which God spoke to the people, and it was the place where the blood was sprinkled, which made it possible for God to put away for the time being or cover over the sins of the people. But it wasn't a seat upon which a man could sit to say, I have finished my work, and it is completed, and I now rest. So we have in the Lord Jesus then, when we read this verse, we have such an high priest who is set at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. This is everything he's been writing about, and now he's come to the point in his argument to say, this person, the Lord Jesus, has completed the work for which he came. That's why he is now seated, and you remember so clearly the importance then of those words from the cross. When the Lord Jesus cried, it is finished, and it was at that precise moment that God made the world aware of the fact that the cry from the lips of the Lord Jesus was associated with the finality of the sacrifice, because God split the veil of the temple, he rent it from the top to the bottom, thus signifying to the whole world that the way into the Holy of Holies, the way to God, is opened through the sacrifice of Christ. So we don't any longer need Old Testament priests, for the Lord Jesus is the high priest whose work is finished, which means there is no more sacrifice needed for sin. The one sacrifice that the Lord Jesus offered when he offered up his soul, a sacrifice for sin, and died upon the cross, has completed the work of salvation eternally. So he is now seated. And of course, when we think of him seated, we think of the position he has, because he is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. Now, when men and women approach a throne, worldly thrones, earthly thrones, the usual thing to do is to kneel. For everyone who sits upon a throne represents power and authority and majesty. And if you and I were to go into the presence of the queen, or we were to go to approach a throne in any country of the world where there is a monarch, we would be expected to kneel, or we would be expected to curtsy, or we'd be expected to bow, because in so doing, we acknowledge the authority of the one who sits upon the throne. Now, who is it that sits upon the throne? Through the scriptures that we studied, we have seen that the Lord Jesus is set at the right hand of God. Ah, but you have to come back to the scriptures to understand that, because it isn't that there is a throne upon which God sits and a throne upon which Christ sits. If you go to Revelation chapter three, you'll find that the Lord Jesus says, I am sat down in my Father's throne, and you can be seated with me in my throne. There is one glorious throne in heaven, and it is the throne of the triune God. And the whole thing that flows out from this is not that here is the Lord Jesus seated at God's right hand as somebody who is inferior to God the Father, but somebody who is co-equal and co-eternal, and one who shares in the total majesty of the Godhead in the glory of heaven. And he is seated at the right hand, it says, but he is seated in his Father's throne. The Father, Son, and the Spirit are one eternal God. And so we have him then represented here as one of authority, uh, of one who represents authority and power, and he is set on the throne of the majesty on high. And his work is complete, and his work is done. That's why you and I are secure tonight. That's the wonder of being a Christian, that you have this glorious security. You see, to talk about eternal security isn't arrogance, it isn't pride. If you think that you could not possibly be sure and could not know that you're eternally saved, you're going to be for all of your life wretchedly miserable. The Bible says you can know, not because there's any merit in us, but because the Bible says that any person who throws himself entirely upon the Lord Jesus and trusts in the Lord Jesus is saved. Now, how can we know that in coming we're accepted? Because the Bible says we are. And I know, as you know, that we cannot come until we're drawn. And we cannot believe until God awakens us to understand the cross work of Christ. We're dead in trespasses and sins, but what he does in our heart we respond to, and in faith we trust, and that brings us into the good of an eternal salvation. All the merits are in the Lord Jesus. Everything is with Christ, nothing with us. And when we arrive home, it won't be because we've done one single thing. We will simply cry, my Jesus has done all things well, and with the company around the throne, we shall worship him who redeemed us by his blood. The whole of redemptive work is the work of the Lord Jesus. Now, if you go back to the Old Testament priests, their wearisome day went on for hours, and it was never complete. One day followed the other, one year followed the other, and from the time the priesthood began to the time that Jesus died upon the cross, fifteen hundred years had passed, and the priests had never sat down in the sense that they had never completed their work in the sanctuary. It was an incomplete work, and we'll see that more fully as we go through this chapter. But keep your eye upon the heavens, for there we see a completed work, and we see a glorified savior, and we see a great high priest. Now, in verse two: a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. This is where he is in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man. The chief point is Christ is seated. The second point is that he serves in the sanctuary of heaven. When you think of the tabernacle and of the temple, the tabernacle, of course, was just made of goats skins, and it was able to be carried. It could be all folded up, and all the pillars and posts could be carried by the priests, but it was a, a very, um, portable building, and it could be moved at a very quick notice, very short notice. And of course, when we come to the temple, it wasn't of that same structure, but it was built on the same pattern, the pattern that God gave to Moses when he told him how the tabernacle were made of badger's skin and, and all the things which we'll look at a little more later on. The, the same pattern was in both. But you see, it isn't that that which we're thinking of in heaven now, where Jesus reigns and rules and works, it isn't that that is a glorified tabernacle or that that is a glorified temple. What we are reminded of is this, that the tabernacle and the temple were but a shadow of heaven. It isn't that God has completed something up there which he began down here, it is simply that what we had down here was a little faint reflection of what was already there. That's the great point of it all, and a lot of people get that round the wrong way, and they seem to think that what we have in the tabernacle and what we have in the temple, God is now more glorified. No. You see, if you walk down the street, you'll have a, and the sun is shining, you'll have a shadow on the pavement. The shadow is just a faint reflection of yourself. You are the reality, and if you're not there, you can't have a shadow. And if the real wasn't in the heavens previously, before God told Moses, when how could he say to Moses, you are to build this according to the pattern? And the pattern, the reality, the substance was already there in the glory of heaven. And down here we have a little faint shadow. We have a little reflection. It was very meaningful, and it was very useful because it taught us a lot about the holiness of heaven, and it taught us about the way we could approach God, and it taught us about our sin, and it taught us about the efficacy of the shed blood. It taught us everything, but it's only a shadow, for the reality is there. And where does our Lord Jesus serve? Where does he minister? Where is he acting as the high priest? He is serving not in a tabernacle of badger skins. He is serving not in a great temple of marble and gold and stone. He is serving in the glorious and the magnificent palaces of heaven. He is serving at the throne of the eternal God. So he says that the tabernacle that was pitched was pitched there because it was a shadow of the real. But that which is in heaven is not pitched by a man, it is created by God. God made the real, God created the real. Man down here was able to make something which was very, very less, much less than the reality, but was a picture, a type, or a shadow of the thing that was in reality in the glory. Verse two then, as we continue to look at what the Lord Jesus is doing, we see him serving there as the priest served. And so verse three in a moment will show us something about the service of the Lord Jesus. But for all those fifteen hundred years, there was a never-ending work or ministry for the priests to perform. It wasn't just the offering of sacrifices, there was a great deal more that they did. And we're going to see how that the Lord Jesus, when he had completed his work as a savior and the redemptive work was done, doesn't mean that his work is ended. He is seated as far as the redemptive work is concerned, nothing can be added to redemption. There is nothing more to be done to enable mankind to be saved from sin and brought to glory. That is complete in the Lord Jesus. But, although it speaks of him being seated, it doesn't mean that he's inactive. The priests were never seated in the Old Testament because their continual daily ritual of dealing with man's sin was never over. Christ has completed that part, but continues to minister. So let's look at verse three: For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices. Wherefore it is of a necessity that this man has somewhat also to offer. Those of you can perhaps remember back to our previous studies, remember there is a difference between offerings and sacrifices. Sacrifices were always associated with the shedding of blood, because the sacrifices were always linked with redemptive work, with salvation, with the dealing with sin and the putting away of sin. But the offerings were different. The offerings had no blood associated with them. The offerings were the offerings of meal, and they represented the consecration of a man or a woman. They represented the yielding and the giving of ourselves to God. Now, no individual, you and I, if we'd lived in the days of the Old Testament priests, we couldn't, if we'd sinned, of course, slay our own sacrifice. It had to be dealt with by the priest. Neither could you and I present our bodies to the Lord ourselves. It had to be presented via the priest. You couldn't do anything in Old Testament times without the priest in the sphere of spirit. The priest must take your sacrifice when you bring it, and he must slay the sacrifice. And when his work was done, your sins are covered. When you come to make an offering to the Lord, you cannot offer yourself. You bring your wealth, you bring your gold, you bring those things that you want to present, or you bring yourself, but you can only offer yourself to God through the priest. Now, the whole teaching here is that it's exactly the same now. You and I can't come to God without Christ. He is the only mediator between the sinner and the holy God. There's nothing we can do about our sins but come in all our need to the feet of the lovely Savior and ask him to have mercy upon us, and he will because he's promised that, and we can enter into the peace with God through the merits of his sacrifice. But what about presenting our offerings? What about presenting ourselves? Can we present ourselves to God without Christ? No. That's what he does. In the sanctuary now, he himself stands between ourselves and the holy throne of God, and he is the one. When we come to God, we present ourselves to God through our Savior, through our Redeemer, through our Lord, who paid for, for our salvation with his precious blood. So then we see the Lord Jesus, his sacrificial work finished, but his work of ministry on the behalf of believers is continual. I mentioned, I think before, but it's good to keep this in mind, that when Stephen, the first martyr, died, he had a vision as the stones rained upon him and he was near to death. He had a vision of the Lord Jesus, and he didn't see the Lord Jesus seated. Now, everywhere you read, you'll read after the resurrection that the Lord is seated, just as we have it here in chapter eight. He is sat down or seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty of the heavens. The Lord Jesus always sat as one that is seated. Why do we see him then when Stephen dies as standing? Because we have the two sides of the work of our Lord Jesus represented. As a redeemer savior, he is seated, there's nothing more to do. The work of redemption is over. But when one of the redeemed, when one of the saints is in trouble, does our Lord remain seated and indifferent to our need, to our pain, to our suffering. Because he has finished his work on the redemptive, in the redemptive act on the behalf of Stephen, could he now remain seated when Stephen's body is being broken by stones? No, he's on his feet to succor, to give strength, to comfort, to go out in help. That's the picture of our Lord, seated in his redemptive work, but ever standing in his ministry to the saints. He loves you, he knows your need and mine, and he ever comes out from that throne of glory to take your hand, to comfort your heart, to help you bear the pain, to bring you through the crisis. He is a living Lord who is inactive as far as redemption now because it's completed, but always active as far as the needs of the saints are concerned. What a wonderful Savior we have. The priests, of course, in Old Testament times were busy both with the sacrifices and both with the meeting of the needs of the people. They had to have compassion. They had to understand. And we remember in a past study how our Lord Jesus understands and has compassion because he's lived as we've lived in these frail bodies, and he knows what life is all about. Let's move then to verse four. For if there were on earth, if for if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law, who serve under the example of the shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle. We remember before how the apostle reminded us that if the Lord was here now, and if, well, if he was, had he been here on earth at the time of the old, uh, covenant, then he couldn't have ministered at all. The Lord Jesus healed the sick, he raised the dead, he fed the hungry, he taught, but he never once went in to the temple, inside the temple itself to minister at the altar. He never... Why? Because he wasn't of the tribe of Levi. He was of the tribe of Judah. He had no right there, remember? He couldn't go there because he hadn't been born of the priestly line. But that's why we have him now as the great high priest of a different order altogether. Our study last week shows that he's of the order of Melchizedek because he is a king priest. Something absolutely new was brought in. That's what last week's chapter told us. And I said to you, if I were to get another car like the one I've got, I'd buy another Peugeot, but it would only be another Peugeot. But if I went to the garage and bought a Rolls-Royce, it would be so infinitely different to what I have that it would be something totally different. Now, that's what the new priesthood is like. It's totally different. It isn't like the old priesthood. It's something new after the order of Melchizedek. And that's where we have then the Lord Jesus here represented. If he was on earth, he could not act as a priest, but all the priests did act in the offering up of gifts according to the law. And in the temple itself, they served continually, and in heaven itself, he served continually on our behalf. Now, verse six brings us really to the major argument that we have in this chapter. This verse, verse six, is really a, a point of, of, of change, a point of divine. It says, now this is what we've been moving towards. The whole sum of everything is that we have a high priest which is set at the, or sat down or seated at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven. But now, hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established by better promises. So we see the Lord Jesus now in the glory, and we see him now, and we're going to have him taken to a new position of superiority. When the writer of this epistle shows that Jesus is superior to someone else, he doesn't do it by denigrating the person he's comparing Jesus with. There wasn't any time when he belittled Moses. Do you remember how we saw in Moses' life that the Lord could have pointed out all the failures in Moses' life? Yet in this book of the Hebrews, he doesn't point out his failures, but he points out his high points and the peaks of success. When the Lord Jesus is being compared with any other character, that person is lifted up to the highest point that God can give him. Then he still says, but Christ is higher. So he lifted up the prophets to the highest point he could, but he says Jesus is higher than the prophets because they were but bringing the word, and he is the word. When he showed us the angels, he showed us how magnificent angels were. He showed us the tremendous ministry of angels, but he said the Lord Jesus is superior to them because he created every one of them. And so he went on through it all, taking us to Joshua, showing us how great Joshua was, not bringing about the demise of Joshua, thereby saying, well, this man is so weak, Jesus is superior. No, he's saying Joshua is so great, but Jesus is so much greater. And that's what he's doing right here when he comes to speak about the covenant and the promises. For the covenant which Jesus brought in is so much greater than the covenant which was brought in at Sinai. But he doesn't in any way belittle the Sinai covenant. In fact, in these chapters, he lifts up the wonder of the covenant before, how meaningful it was. It couldn't do what the Lord has done. It was faulty. It never completed anything. But it was great in that it did what God intended it to do until the Lord Jesus, the greater, came. So we're going to be shown then how that the Lord Jesus is a greater mediator of a new, um, covenant. We see the Lord Jesus then seated in the superior place, working in a superior sanctuary. We see him ministering a superior ministry than the others. Now we see him as a superior mediator. Now, a mediator, as the priests of the Old Testament were, were those who stood between man and God. They represented man's need before God. But you see, the Lord Jesus doesn't just stand between man and God and represent us. He represents God. No priest ever did that. And when we look at all the religions of the world, we see priests who are representing man and bringing man's needs before God. But that's not what we see in Christ. In Christ, first of all, we see him representing God and coming out from the throne of God, and in a way that no priest can do, he can bring down all the blessings of God to man with authority, and he can take all the needs of man to God with authority. He is a different kind of mediator altogether. The priests of the Old Testament weren't false priests. They ministered exactly as God intended them to minister. They did everything that God intended the old tabernacle and the old temple rituals to do and to perform and to fulfill, but they were ineffective because they could not complete what God intended on the behalf of men. We have then, then Christ as a better mediator, and we have him representing better promises. Tremendous. When the priest sent away the poor penitent sinner who had brought his sacrifice, the best he could tell him was that his sins were covered. That priest, that poor penitent would come to the priest with a broken heart, sad because of his sin, and offer his lamb or bring whatever sacrifice he could afford, and he would go away with the promise of the priest that his sin was covered. That's all, only covered. No priest ever said to a poor penitent sinner, your sin has been put away forever and will never be remembered again. Ah, but what are the promises now? How different they all are. He establishes better promises. When you and I came to the Lord Jesus as weary sinners, broken by our sin, realizing we were on our way to hell, longing for forgiveness, longing for peace. We had a wonderful promise, and the promise was that our sins were dealt with at the cross, and God would remember our sins no more. Our sins are buried in the depths of the sea. Never will they be found by anyone. I love the little phrase that Corrie ten Boom always used to use. She said, when the Lord buried our sins in the depths of the sea, he put a notice up on the shore, no fishing. You see, God doesn't want us to look for them. No fishing. He's buried them. That's why it's fruitless and foolish for you and I, who have been forgiven through the great sacrifice of Calvary, to go on bemoaning our past. Paul says, I press on. The past God has blotted out. We can't forget it, it leaves its scars. I can't forget the sins of my past in the sense of ever being able to erase it, but I must, by God, put it behind me and realize that the Lord has buried it in the depths of the sea. I have a better promise. I have the glorious hope of heaven, not if, maybe, but an absolute certainty, a better promise. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. A better promise, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. Why can he make these great promises? Because of who he is. Superior to prophets, superior to angels, superior to Aaron, superior to Moses, superior to Joshua. Well, surely he can make promises that they couldn't make. Of course he can, because he is very God, and he came and dealt with our sins through his own shed blood and death at Calvary. Oh, we have a superior savior in that he's a priest that is seated. He w- ministers from the superior sanctuary of heaven, and uh, he is a superior mediator. What is more, he's unchanging and unalterable. You see, he is superior in every sense. The best of all the mediators of the Old Testament had to retire at fifty, and if they came to that age, we knew that they would at least afterwards die. There was nothing uncha- there was nothing stable about the priesthood. It was a changing priesthood. Men came and men went, men died. But we have now an unchanging priesthood. We have one who lives in the power of an endless life, and he's our Lord and our Savior, and he dealt with our sins, and he has pardoned us through his precious blood. Now it says about verse seven, He says the first covenant, if it had been faultless, there would have been no reason, no purpose in replacing it with a second.