Through the Blood of Jesus | Hebrews 9:11-28 | Once for All

The power of the blood of Jesus is a central theme of the Christian faith, yet it is often misunderstood or dismissed by the modern world. In our study of Hebrews 9:11–28, we confront the gravity of this truth: that blood is required for the forgiveness of sins.

The author of Hebrews builds a compelling case that Jesus is the superior High Priest who did not enter a temporary, man-made tabernacle, but entered heaven itself to appear in the actual presence of God on our behalf. Unlike the old system of animal sacrifices that had to be repeated daily, Jesus offered Himself once and for all, securing an eternal redemption that actually purifies our consciences.

Join us as we explore why this "messy" reality is actually the ultimate display of God’s grace. We will be challenged to remember the true severity of our sin while resting in the peace and confidence that only the blood of Christ can provide.

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One of the central ideas of the Christian faith is the idea of the power of the blood of Jesus. I don't think it would take us long to come up with a list of well-known hymns that talk about the blood of Jesus. And we also know several verses from the Bible that express this important and powerful truth. If we think about it a little, unless you have a working knowledge of Christian doctrine, this phrase, this idea of the power of the blood of Jesus might not make much sense to you, though.

Being washed in the blood of the Lamb doesn't sound like it would be anything that would get you too clean, does it? unless you know the foundational Christian teaching behind it. There's power in the blood. Seems a bit strange unless you know the idea is that the power of the blood of Jesus is the power to take away your sin.

Well, there are many who teach that we should do away with this type of language and this type of imagery. It is far too savage for our modern ears, they say. What kind of God would require blood? While these false teachers understand that you can't really understand Christianity apart from this idea, this idea of blood, it's right there in the Scriptures.

They still believe that this type of language should be done away with. Clearly, those who speak in this way must not come to the passage that we have read for today with the gravity that it not only requires, but it deserves. In where we find ourselves today in the book of Hebrews, there's no mistaking that the blood of Jesus is the reason that we have the forgiveness of sins. But before we dig into this passage today, I want us to break it down into three points as we usually do.

The first one is that we're going to see that Jesus entered the most holy place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood that was shed. And the author of Hebrews has been speaking to his audience about the old covenant rituals a lot, because they were considering returning to them. And we have seen that the argument is that those rites and those rituals were not ultimate. They were simply pointing to what was coming in the Lord Jesus.

And that idea continues in our passage today. The blood of Jesus secures an eternal redemption, which is far better than the rituals that had to be repeated over and over and over in the Old Covenant. Secondly, we see that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Now this truth is what the Old Covenant rituals showed us, and the author of Hebrews does not mince words.

Blood is required for forgiveness, and the blood of Jesus brings the forgiveness that you and I so desperately need. And finally, We will see that all of this was so that Jesus would pay the price once and for all for our sins. As we have seen in Hebrews, so far the Old Covenant needed repeated sacrifices, blood shed over and over because the sacrifices couldn't bring peace with God because it was just the blood of an animal. And so Jesus took on our very own flesh to pay the price for our sins.

And in his once and for all sacrifice, we have confidence that our sins are actually forgiven because of him. And so we arrive in the middle of the ninth chapter as we see the essential truths that are unfolded here for us. And we see the argument that the author of Hebrews is playing out here, that he's helping us to gather. He's building a case.

And he has made that case that Jesus is the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. We've seen that. We've seen that Jesus isn't from the line of Levi, and now we see why this point has been spelled out so clearly. Jesus is better.

Jesus is greater. He is the high priest who has gone in to the greater and more perfect tent. The high priest who were sinful humans would set up the tabernacle and they would go into this holy place where the presence of God would reside. And we saw last week that the rituals done there had a specific purpose.

They were to show us the holiness of God. The high priests, they went in only once a year, right? And when they did go in, they would burn incense. Now this wasn't to make the place smell like a used record shop.

It was to veil the holiness of God with smoke. And they went in also with blood. And the purpose of this was to show that a life had been offered for the sins of the people and for the priest, the high priest himself. And so now with this case made about Jesus being a better and greater high priest, we see that he has not gone into a tent that's been set up by human hands.

He's not going into the old tabernacle. He's not going into the temple. Instead, he's going into the ultimate of holy places. not just representations set up under the direction of God here on earth, but into the actual presence of God, the true Holy of Holies.

And the point here is that these things weren't made with human hands. They're not a part of God's creation that you and I observe. Instead, this is the actual presence of God. And if the priests needed the blood of goats and calves to go into the presence of God in a place that was made with human hands here on earth, then something must be taken into God's presence.

And so the author of Hebrews lets us know that Jesus has gone in with His own blood. And this is so substantial, because it's not the blood of an animal standing in and being an offering for human sin. Instead, it's the blood of the One who took on our very own flesh and lived a perfect life in our place. It is the blood of the spotless Lamb of God, not an animal offered by an earthly priest.

And the author of Hebrews makes a pretty obvious observation. If the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer did something for sins and purify people, then how much greater is the blood of Jesus? I've mentioned before that we often try out something with the cheaper version, right? We often buy something, seeing if we're gonna like it, and we buy the imitation of it.

You wanna see if this, this appliance or whatever it is, is something you'll use, and then you use it till it wears out, and then you get the better model, right? You finally buy the good one, and you're like, why didn't I start here? This is so much better. The premium product is so much better than the imitation, the one that's meant to look like the good one.

You know. You know why it's better. It's the real thing. Now obviously, I'm not trying to equate the significance of getting a better appliance or a better vehicle to the significance of the work of Jesus for us.

But you understand the idea, right? Why would you go to the imitation? Why would you go to the knockoff when you can have the real deal? And it's obvious how much better the sacrifice of Jesus is.

If all those rites and those rituals were good, how awesome is the work of Jesus on our behalf? In fact, the author of Hebrews says that it can purify our consciences. And last week, our passage says that none of those rites, none of those rituals and sacrifices could perfect the conscience of the worshiper. But now, what do we see?

that the work of Jesus can, in fact, purify our conscience. In other words, we can live in confidence that our sins are actually forgiven because of what Jesus has done. It isn't merely a religious ritual. It is the actual payment for our sin, done in our very own human flesh by God the Son.

Now as we look at verse 14, as we close up our first point here, we see a two-word phrase. It's right there at the end, dead works. All of our attempts at earning salvation through rituals or through our good works don't do anything for us. They are dead.

What we need instead is something that would be once and for all, as it says here, This purifies our consciences so that we can serve the living God. We needed something better. We didn't need the rites. We didn't need the rituals.

We needed the real thing. And before we move on to our second point, I want to draw out what this means for us. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we are not continually trying to climb the ladder to God. We are not on a spiritual treadmill trying to grab the carrot that's just out of reach.

Instead, we have arrived. We are forgiven. We are united to Christ. And so we have a purified conscience and we know that nothing that we have done or anything that we will do will factor into our salvation.

Because of this, you and I can get up every day and we can love and serve our neighbor to the glory of God. And we aren't doing this because we want to earn points with God and hope that maybe someday we will be forgiven and receive salvation. Instead, this lets us love and serve our neighbor because God has already loved and served us in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus.

And so as we move on to our second point, we see why this was necessary. All of what Jesus has done for us shows us that he is the mediator of a new covenant. And it's important that we understand this idea. In the Old Testament, the priests were the ones who were the mediators.

And the idea is that God is so unbelievably holy, He is perfect, and we cannot, we cannot go before Him without something between us and Him. We need a mediator. So that we are not, for lack of a better way of describing it, burnt to a crisp by His holiness.

He is so perfect, so holy, we would be a pile of ash if we went before Him on our own. And so we need a mediator. Now I mentioned already how this looked in the temple. Not only with the priests, but with the smoke and the blood.

The people couldn't do this on their own, so they had the priests and they had the rituals. And in a way though, we have to remember that this was a gracious system because it did allow the people some access to God. It did allow them to have some forgiveness. It was just mediated through this whole system.

But we have to remember, it did not allow them to once and for all have their sins atoned for. It had to be mediated and it had to be done over and over again. And so with Jesus, we now have access to God in a new way.

It isn't mediated through priests and these rituals, but instead through God the Son himself. And that's why it's new. And that's why the author of Hebrews says, it's so much better.

So look at the good news that we have here. Those who were called received the promised eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

Because when our first parents fell into sin, the stated punishment for their rebellion against a holy God was that they would die. But right there in the third chapter of Genesis, We saw that God not only promised a Redeemer who would come, but then what did he do?

If you remember back to when we were in Genesis 3, you remember that he covered them with clothes and they were not leaves. They were not fig leaves when God covered Adam and Eve's nakedness. They were clothes of skin.

Blood was shed to cover the shame of their nakedness that was caused by the rebellion against the Holy God. And so, from the very beginning, there was a requirement of blood because of the severity of sin being rebellion against God.

And that obligation is what this new covenant does away with because someone has finally fully satisfied what was required to cover the shame of our sin. And so this point keeps being driven home to us by the author of Hebrews.

It tells us that this is all now in effect because a death has taken place. Now this is kind of confusing for us to read. The word translated will in this passage is the same word for covenant.

The idea here is that this covenant, this will, is not in effect because as we see, or is now in effect, because as we've seen in verse 18, blood was shed. And it's important for us to remember this.

When it says blood is shed, it wasn't that they got their alcohol swabs out and cleaned up the spot and they tied your arm off and they put a needle in and they took out a pint and then they put a Band-Aid on and the cotton ball and everything was clean and nice. When it says that blood is shed, it means that there was death. It means that there was death.

It means that a life was taken in place of the human life that would have been required for sin. As I mentioned so many times while we've been in Hebrews, this blood that was gathered, it was a messy job. The job of a priest was a messy job, a very bloody job.

And we see here that this was the case throughout the entire Old Covenant. When there were commandments from God, Moses would take blood and sprinkle the book and the people and say that this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.

Well, that's familiar language, right? You hear us say that in here. This is the blood of the covenant. Usually when you hear me say that, I'm standing right there, right?

Those are the words that we use as we talk about the Lord's Supper. Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper and said, this is the blood of the covenant. And that familiar language right there, it's not a coincidence.

It's meant to show us the truth of what is being told to us here. There's a new covenant in Jesus Christ. Moses sprinkled the blood on the tent and the vessels and the people for a reason.

And as it says here, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.

And again, we know why this is. Sin is an affront to the holiness and righteousness of God. And the price to pay is death. Like I said, this isn't blood that's extracted.

It's the blood of a sacrifice. And while this seems a bit savage to us, it's actually gracious, right? Instead of requiring the life of the transgressor, God allows a sacrifice to be given in their place.

And if allowing the blood of an animal was gracious, how much more gracious is what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ? He bore the wrath of God for our sin in our place.

And we see this truth as we move on to our third point, as we see that what Jesus has done is once and for all, and as we see The author of Hebrews is going back to the point that was made when we started.

The copies of the heavenly things had to be purified. All of that stuff that was set up with the human hands in the tabernacle in the temple had to be set apart, had to be set apart with blood.

But now the heavenly things have been entered into with a better sacrifice. Because Jesus entered not into an earthly holy place.

He didn't go into the temple. Instead, he ascended into heaven itself and appeared in the presence of God on our behalf.

And don't miss the importance of that phrase, on our behalf. The purpose of this was to bring his chosen people into right standing with God.

The rituals of the old covenant could never do this fully. And that's where this passage is going.

It also wasn't to offer himself over and over, it says. This is why the author of Hebrews has been bringing up the insufficiency of the priestly system so many times.

The priest offered sacrifices year after year. It was done repeatedly because it didn't perfect anything.

But Jesus enters once and for all. If it wouldn't fully fulfill what was required, he would have had to suffer repeatedly over and over from the foundation of the world.

But because his death is complete, because his death is sufficient for the forgiveness of sins, he enters once and he offers the sacrifice of himself for you.

He has victory over sin, death, and hell in his coming to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And that language is so important. Remember, there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.

And what did Jesus do? He once and for all put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

His very own blood was shed so that sin might be done away with. But that's not the end of the story.

The author of Hebrews wants us to see that just as we die once and then we are judged, so Jesus has been offered once.

In the same manner that Christ suffered and died, so shall we. We will die.

But it is his victory over it, over death, that we rest in as we face it.

And as we rest in the truth that he doesn't have to suffer over and over, we do see something important. He will appear again.

But we read that in his second coming, he doesn't need to deal with the problem of our sin again.

That's not the point of his second coming, to do something about our sin again.

That has been taken care of once and for all.

Instead, Jesus is coming to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

At the end of history, Jesus will return to deliver His kingdom to His Father.

And He will reign forever and ever, for He has saved His people by what He has done for us.

And so this spells out for us the significance of the blood of Jesus.

It is only through His blood that we have hope in this life and in the next.

So let's take a moment to process these truths and apply them to our lives as usual.

I have two takeaways from this passage that I think are very important as we leave from here to live in God's world this week.

The first is that we don't need to remember that we, that's wrong. We need to remember the severity of our sin.

That would go against everything I just talked about for the last few minutes.

We need to remember the severity of our sin.

It's so easy for us to dismiss sin.

We become softened to it and we want to excuse it, but all sin is rebellion against the holiness of God.

When we read this passage, We see this truth affirmed.

The forgiveness of that rebellion does not come to us because God feels in a generous mood.

That's not why we have forgiveness because, ah, we'll forget about that today. It's no big deal.

That's not why we have forgiveness.

And forgiveness does not come to us because we feel really sorry about it either.

Forgiveness is also not achieved by us making up for the bad that we do by doing something good, you know, balancing out the scales.

That's not how forgiveness comes to us.

We read here that forgiveness comes at a price.

The shedding of blood is required.

But the good news is that when we are in Christ, it is not our blood that is shed for our sin.

It is the blood of the Lord Jesus that brings forgiveness to us and it purifies our consciences.

And so, as we think on this passage, may we be convicted by our sin and remember the price that was paid so that we can have true forgiveness.

And as our second point of application, may we let this truth and the truth of Jesus going into the holiest place for us drive us to live in holiness.

The forgiveness that we have in Jesus is not a license for us to live however we feel.

Jesus did not suffer and die so we could thumb our nose at his law and live in rebellion against him.

The Holy Spirit also did not give us the gift of faith so that we could just ignore the conviction of our sin that He gives us.

Jesus went into the holiest place for us so that we might be free from sin and live to righteousness.

And so when we think of what Jesus has done, going into the presence of God and sitting down in our very own flesh May it drive us to live a life of holiness.

May we consider the price that was paid and strive to honor that with our holy lives.

For it is through the blood of Jesus that we have hope and we have peace with God.

May we remember this truth and bring glory to Him, for He is the one who shed His blood that we might be saved. Amen.

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