Access Granted - Pt. 1

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:11-14 ESV).

 

The first fourteen verses of Hebrews 9 is one of the more difficult texts to understand because of the context and background. This is as one would expect. When you read about something old and strange and culturally foreign to your present world, you have three choices in how you can deal with the difference and the distance you feel from this oldness and strangeness:

 

§  You could say, "The world of this text is so old and so foreign and so strange—with its tents and altars and animal sacrifices and ceremonial defilements and washings—that they have no relevance for my life today at all. So, I will ignore them and deal with more contemporary things."

§  Or you can say, "Well, the truths that really matter in life are not historical truths, but timeless truths above history, and so in every generation these truths get expressed in some way or another in the world. I will look for some of these timeless truths in these old strange days of priests and ritual and sacrifice and ceremonial defilement. Perhaps my life will be enriched in some way by connecting with the eternal realm through these old practices.

§  Or you can say, "I believe that God governs history and is progressively revealing himself to the world by the way he guides history from one period to the next. Yes, old periods of God's design in history are strange and foreign, but, no, they are not irrelevant. Each successive period helps interpret the next and sheds light on what God is doing in the present. And, yes, there are eternal truths that we can learn from old and strange periods of history, but, no, this is not all that God is doing. History is not just an unreal shadow of heaven. God himself comes into history and does things. And we cannot just stand back and try to see symbols of eternal truths; we have to become a part of what God is doing in history if we would be saved and live with him forever."

 

In the next few days I hope to lead you to see that the latter option is the best of these three. When we understand the timeless message of the writer to be that we have been granted access to the very throne of heaven and the Almighty God who rules over all from that throne. This is essential if we are to have hope, especially in the difficult circumstances of life. This declaration will open the topic that Jesus has become the mediator of a new covenant in which all of God’s chosen people, Jew and Gentile, have been granted access to the presence and power of God. That is the heart of the gospel! Jesus is not merely a fire insurance policy against eternity in hell; Jesus is the way into eternal life with Him!