Welcome to Reign of Grace. This program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And now for today's program. Welcome to our program today. I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along in your Bibles, I'm going to continue a message that I began last week, and the title of it is The Greatest Reformation. This is part two. the greatest reformation, and it's from Hebrews chapter 9 where God the Holy Spirit, through the writer of Hebrews, shows us how Christ, who is the salvation of his people, is better and infinitely better greater than anything that the old covenant, the law of Moses, in all of its types and its pictures, as glorious as that was, all the miracles that took place in Israel at that time, Christ is so much better in the glory of his person and the power of his finished work and it speaks of a time of reformation. He opened up this chapter speaking of the elements of the tabernacle. and the priesthood, where you had the tabernacle with all of its elements, the various compartments, the outer court, where you had the brazen altar where the animals were slain and the blood was collected in a basin. And then you had the other tent inside, which was the holy place where the priest of Levi went in and out, accomplishing the service of God. And then you had the veil, which separated the inner chamber of the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, the Holy of Holies, where you had the Ark of the Covenant and other elements, and the high priest once a year. on the Day of Atonement, entered there behind the veil, not without blood, he says, because that blood is the salvation. That's a picture of Christ's blood. The blood of animals could not accomplish the perfection that a sinner needs. the satisfaction that a sinner needs in order to be righteous in God's sight. And he says this, these things, this high priest who represented Christ, our great high priest, the other priest who represent the people of God, the church, the blood of the lambs, which represents the blood of Christ. It was a type, it was a picture of all of that. It says that while that tabernacle stood, look at verse eight of Hebrews nine, while that physical tabernacle and later became the temple, while that stood in verse eight, the Holy Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all which is the very presence of God Almighty, was not yet made manifest while as the first tabernacle was yet standing. Now what he's simply saying there is this, while that tabernacle was in force according to God's commandment, that was a signification of the Holy Spirit that Christ had not yet come. So that when Christ came, Everything changed. Look at what he says in verse 9, that tabernacle, that holy stone, it was a figure, a type, a picture for the time then present. Not today, not for today now. We don't slay animals today. We look to Christ, the Lamb of God. And he says, for that time present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, this is verse 9, that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience. Now the conscience is the seat of judgment in the mind, in the heart, whereby we understand what's right and what's wrong. And what he's saying here, now what we read in the Bible is that in order for a sinner to be saved, that sinner must be justified before God. And it's impossible for any sinner to be saved based on their works. And certainly impossible for a sinner to be saved based upon the blood of animals, or an earthly priesthood, or an earthly tabernacle, a physical. For that, we need the blood of Jesus Christ, which is His righteousness. And so the gospel of God's grace which is the everlasting gospel, shows us that Christ coming into the world and doing his great work as God manifest in the flesh, the establishment of the new covenant, last week I told you, the new covenant is the establishment in time of the everlasting covenant of grace made before time. You see, God has always saved his people by grace, never by works. The old covenant was given to show them the impossibility of salvation by works. It was a bilateral covenant conditioned on them and they failed. So would we. That's why any message that places salvation or any part of it conditioned on sinners is a false gospel. And so Christ met all the conditions for his people. And so the blood of animals The services of the tabernacle, the washings and the baptisms, all that they went through could never make those who participated in it perfect, righteous, justified. forgiven as pertaining to the conscience. Verse 10 says, which stood only in meats and drinks, that's the dietary laws, diverse various washings, carnal ordinances, ceremonies imposed on them until the time of reformation, until the time of change. Now what is that time of reformation, that time of change? It's when Christ came into the world And as God manifests in the flesh, we're talking about the tabernacle here. John 1.14 says this, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That word dwelt is tabernacle. Christ, the son of God, The second person of the Trinity was made flesh and tabernacled among us. He is our tabernacle. That means he is the way to God. He said that I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. If you want to get to God and be accepted, you must come through Christ. And so it says in verse 11 of Hebrews 9, but Christ being come and high priest of good things to come, during that time of the old covenant, Christ being come and high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle himself, His humanity and His deity, God-man, all right, not made with hands. See, that physical tabernacle was made with hands, physical hands. It was a physical tabernacle. But Christ, the tabernacle, His being the way to God, was not made with men's hands. His humanity was conceived in the womb of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit. And His deity was never created or made anyway. He's always has been, always will be. So He's God and man, perfect God and man. So greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say not of this building, not of that physical tabernacle. And look at verse 12. Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, the blood of Christ, He entered in once, not year after year after year like under, I said last week, that old covenant, the law of Moses lasted about 1500 years from Sinai to the cross. And every year on the day of atonement, that high priest or the various high priests, there was more than one because one came and then he died and then somebody else took over who was a descendant of Aaron. That high priest every year on the day of atonement would go in behind the veil into the holiest of all, not with the blood of the lamb from off the brazen altar. And so what he's saying here, Christ, not of this building, but it wasn't by the blood of goats and calves, verse 12, but by his own blood, he entered in once, one time. into the holy place having obtained what eternal redemption not a ceremonial one not a temporary one not an earthly one but an eternal redemption all right for his people for us that is not all without exception now but for his sheep he said the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep he redeemed us christ is the Great High Priest of His people. Christ is the altar. He is my altar. What was an altar used for? It was to set apart the sacrifice. What sets Christ apart from all other sacrifices? His deity, His sinless humanity. Christ is our great hope. If you're a believer now, a sinner saved by grace, justified by His blood, which is the same as being justified, that is, forgiven and declared righteous by His righteousness imputed All right, if you're justified and sanctified, set apart by Christ, He's your great High Priest, and you don't need another. The Pope is not our High Priest, and these Cardinals are not our High Priest. They're false. He's our High Priest, and there's one High Priest, one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He is our altar. He is our sacrifice who gave Himself one time for the sins of his people. And it's stated over in Hebrews chapter 10, in verse 14, it says, for by one offering, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. All of the blood, animal blood slain on Jewish altars through that 1500 year period, all of the high priest could not attain that perfection. could not cleanse the conscience because it had to be done over and over again. And it was only a temporary reprieve. It was only a ceremonial thing. It wasn't eternal. It wasn't spiritual. It applied to everybody in that nation, even unbelievers. But Christ is a high priest, a better high priest, a better altar, a better sacrifice. And it says in Hebrews 10, look at verse 19, It says, having therefore, brethren, boldness, liberty to enter into the holiest, that is a sinner has boldness, liberty to enter into the holy place, the holiest of holy. How? By the blood of Jesus. By a new and living way, not that old ceremonial dead way. but a new and living way, which Christ hath consecrated, or made new, for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, His humanity, sacrificed upon the altar of His deity, And having a high priest over the house of God, verse 21, let us draw near, verse 22, with a true heart, a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Now, the sprinkling of the heart is the application of the truth of the blood of Jesus Christ as our whole salvation as applied to the heart, our mind, our affections, our will, our conscience. And that conscience sprinkled from an evil conscience. An evil conscience is a legal conscience. a condemned conscience that tells me that I've got to get right with God by my works. That's an evil, legal, condemned conscience. But the conscience is purified, cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Now go back to Hebrews chapter 9. Christ obtained by His sacrifice of Himself, the spotless Lamb of God, as the surety, the substitute, the Redeemer of His people, He had to obtain eternal redemption for His people. And He has one sacrifice to accomplish that. When He finished, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. You know those priests of Aaron, they never sat down because their work was never finished. But Christ finished the work. He finished it. Christ Romans chapter 10 and verse 4 tells us Christ is the end of the law, the finishing, the perfection of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. So we don't slay animal blood, we don't have earthly tabernacles and physical, we have Christ and He's everything to us. So he says in verse 13, now this is Hebrews 9 verse 13, see that's that greatest reformation. Oh, what a change. It had been set up before time began. And that salvation was given to God's people as it pertained to Christ. And so when Christ come into the world to die for God's elect, to die for His sheep, His church, He accomplished redemption for them and secured their salvation. There'll be no one who perishes in hell for whom Christ died. because he obtained eternal redemption. So he says in verse 13, for if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, in other words, that animal blood did set them apart in a ceremonial way, a temporal way as pertaining to the flesh, not to the spirit, the heart, but only ceremonially, How much more, verse 14, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, how much more shall his blood purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Now, the dead works that he's talking about here is all those services of the tabernacle which could not accomplish eternal redemption, eternal spiritual salvation. It could picture and typify and foreshadow Christ, the Lamb of God, the High Priest of God, but it could not bring about the eternal spiritual forgiveness of sins. Only the blood of Christ could do that. That's why His coming into the world and doing His great work by keeping the law and obeying it unto death, the death of the cross, that's the greatest reformation of all. That animal blood could not make you righteous in God's sight. Only Christ, the merits of His obedience unto death, could make a sinner righteous in God's sight, and that by the imputation, the charging of the merits of His obedience unto death, His righteousness to me and to His people. Romans 4, 6 speaks of that, the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works. You see, it's not conditioned on me. It's not conditioned on you. The new covenant, which is the accomplishment in time of the eternal everlasting covenant of grace made before time, all conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ and on Him alone. And there's no other way of eternal redemption. And so it says in verse 15 of Hebrews 9, and for this cause, he, Christ, is the mediator of the New Testament, the new covenant, which that by means of death, his death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, What's he talking about there? Well, he says, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Even the Old Testament saints, believers, sinners saved by grace, even Abel, even Enoch, Noah, Abraham, keep on going all the way up through, Even they were saved by the grace of God based upon the blood, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And God saved them and gave them life from the dead because it was so sure and certain that Christ would come and do that work that God gave them the benefits and the blessings of it even before He actually came. And that's what King David said on his deathbed. God has made a covenant with me that is ordered in all things and sure. And this is all my hope and all my salvation, all my desire. He said, how could it be ordered in all things? God ordered it and nothing's out of order. And how could it be sure? Because Christ is the surety of it. You know what a surety does? A surety takes responsibility to pay the debt of those who cannot pay their debt. And that's what Christ did before the foundation of the world. He was appointed by the Father to be the surety of His people. And He willingly took upon Himself that task and said, their sin debt, the debt that they would owe, even before Adam fell. put it up on my account, I'll repay it. And it was so sure and certain that he would come and repay that debt. There was no stopping him. No stopping him at all. And so those who receive the eternal inheritance are those for whom he died, and for whom he was buried, and for whom he arose again. And verse 16 says, for where a testament is, there must also be of necessity be the death of the testator. Now the testament here is the covenant, and it's set up like a will, a will and testament here. He's using this as an illustration. Somebody goes out, works all their life to attain their money and their possessions, and then they make a will, and they bequeath it to their heirs. That will and testament only comes into force upon the death of the testator, the one who willed it and bequeathed it to him. And that's what God in the covenant of grace, that's what happened. He chose a people and bequeathed all of the blessings and the benefits of salvation and eternal glory to them. And it was all conditioned on Christ, who is their savior. He did all the work. He accumulated all the wealth. He had all the power. And upon His death, you see, that's the foundation and the ground of the salvation of every sinner for whom He died and arose. And they received this eternal inheritance. Look at verse 17. For a testament is a force after men are dead. Otherwise, it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Now again, God applied the benefits and the blessings of salvation even to the Old Testament saints in their lifetime, even before Christ actually came and died, because a promise of God is sure and certain. There's no possibility of failure. If it were based upon us promising something to God, there would at least be a possibility of failure, but I'll say it this way, because we are sinners, it would be a sure failure. Because I'm telling you, if you think salvation's conditioned on you, what conditions do you think you've met? You say, well, I believe. Well, the Bible tells us that men by nature will not believe. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're spiritually discerned, 1 Corinthians 2 14. We fell in Adam into a state of spiritual death and sin and depravity. God said in John 6, 44, no man can come to me, or Christ said, no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him, and I'll raise him up at the last day. Salvation is not by the works or the wills of men. God said is, he said, I'll have mercy on whom I will, I'll be gracious to whom I will, or be compassionate to whom I will, so that it is not of him that runneth, nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth mercy. And those who are born again, it's not by the will of man that you're born again, it's by the will of God. So in other words, he says in verse 18, whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. The old covenant was dedicated with the blood of animals, but that did not bring about eternal salvation. And he says in verse 19, for when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, He took the blood of calves and of goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book and all the people saying, this is the blood of the Testament which God hath enjoined unto you. That old covenant was dedicated with the blood of animals. But again, the blood of animals could never take away sin. They could only picture of Christ whose blood takes away sins. And so he says in verse 21, moreover, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry, and almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, no forgiveness. Now, the forgiveness and the remission that was brought about in the old covenant was only ceremonial, Temporal, temporary and physical. It was not eternal. It was not spiritual. But the blood of Christ accomplishes what that blood of animals could not accomplish. Christ is better. Over in Hebrews chapter 8, he talked about Christ being the mediator, the surety of a better covenant that had better sacrifices and better promises. That sacrifice, that better sacrifice is Christ. And so here is the greatest reformation. We ought to be so glad, if we're believers now, we ought to be so glad that we're not under that old covenant law, which was an imposition. Some scholars have counted over 600 and some different laws. Think about the laws of the Sabbath. and how they could only walk so far. And if you walk so far, you couldn't walk back because you'd overstep your bounds. You couldn't do this, you couldn't do that. And some of it was on the penalty of death, capital punishment. That's why he said here that almost all things by the law purged with blood. There were some sins that they committed under that old covenant law that even the blood of sacrifice would not cover, like murder. But my friend, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. His righteousness justifies sinners eternally. That greatest reformation, thank God for it. And we hope, we believe in, we have our assurance in Christ. the blood that he shed, the righteousness that he established for his people. That came out of that great reformation. I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening today and may the Lord be with you.