HEBREWS 9 (FIFTH READING)
HEBREWS 9 (FIFTH READING)
CAC One has often felt on reading this epistle how it occupies us with things which are exceedingly great. The Son is introduced to us at the commencement as having “set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”. In chapter 8 He is seen as sitting at the right hand of the Greatness in heaven. Our attention is called to Melchisedec — who is a type of Christ — as a great one. It seems to suggest a region of greatness and great things.
One might say that the chapters before us — especially chapters 9 and 10 — are to give our souls an immense thought of the greatness of the death of Christ, the greatness of His sacrifice. All this would have an effect upon [p. 48] our worship and upon our attitude in the house of God and the way we approach. God would give us a sense of greatness.
Rem It was said of the Lord before He was born, “He shall be great”.
CAC Yes; all rests on the greatness of His Person. It is remarkable that the word ‘greatness’ should be applied to God; when it says in Hebrews 8: 1, “Who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens”, it is a remarkable way of speaking because “the greatness” there is God Himself.
Rem It speaks of a greater and more perfect tabernacle.
CAC That continues the thought. It is a tabernacle that as far as we are concerned is entirely heavenly. The whole system of heavenly things is purified by blood, purified by the death of Christ. Could there be anything greater? If God sets up an order of things that stands eternally in the value of the death of His Son, how wonderful it must be! God has no such basis as that for creation!
Ques Is there any other foundation?
CAC The death of Christ supposes the presence of sin in the universe, and is the ground on which God is going to secure His own pleasure and glory eternally.
The tabernacle and all the instruments of service were purified by blood, but that was only typical. Now we have come to “the heavenly things themselves”. It is an immense help to us to see that everything that belongs to heavenly things stands before God in purification: there is no blemish in it because it stands in the purification of the death of Christ.
Rem In Hebrews 2 it speaks of so great salvation.
CAC That is another aspect of greatness.
Ques In the types at every turn one is faced with the necessity than sin for that [p. 49] necessity of death. Does the death of Christ enhance its value thus?
CAC In connection with the typical system blood is not only needed for remission, but blood is needed for purification, and purification has reference to all that God requires.
Ques What does remission mean?
CAC Sins are dismissed from God’s account eternally. The word literally means sending away. Remission of sins means that they are dismissed eternally from God’s reckoning. It is an unworthy thing to speak much about sins to God. If He has forgotten them, you may be sure that He does not want to be reminded of them. That is the difference between remembrance in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. The day of atonement was a great day in the Old Testament and it brought sins to remembrance. What we do is not the calling to mind of sins, but the calling to mind of a divine Person who gave Himself to secure all in the presence of God.
Ques What is the difference between forgiveness and remission?
CAC There are two words for forgiveness; one means to shew grace and the other is remission. Sins are sent away never to count again. Scripture goes so far as to say that a worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sins. Such is the purifying power of the death of Christ that the question of sins never comes on the conscience of a believer.
Ques Is that the force of this verse in Hebrews 9: 24, “For the Christ is not entered into holy places made with hand, figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us”?
CAC Yes, He appears there representatively for us. The nearer you get to God the more completely do you find yourself apart from sin and sins. There are no sins or [p. 50] sin in the presence of God. It is all obtained through the death of Christ; all is purified by blood, by death. Think of the wonderful character in which saints are spoken of in this epistle —
As companions of Christ: what a wonderful thing!,
Heirs of salvation,
Many sons brought to glory,
Brethren of Christ,
Sanctified,
All of one with Christ,
Partakers of the heavenly calling.
All these are heavenly things and they make up the system of heavenly things. Every detail is purified in the value of the death of Christ, so there cannot be any blemish in it. There may be weakness in our apprehension, but the thing itself is perfect. This would put spring into our souls if we entered into it.
Rem It cannot be added to or improved.
CAC No. This is the will of God. We may say we cannot grasp it, that it is too great. Well, it is the will of God and nothing else is going to stand. It stands in the value of the death of Christ. We might as well take it in and give God the praise.
Ques Would this give us capacity to enter into the holiest?
CAC If we think of the system of heavenly things we should accustom ourselves to think that we belong to that system by the calling and will of God and the death of Christ. We are constituted a part of this system of heavenly things, purified by blood. He has gone in representatively. If I want to know my place I must look at Him. My place is heavenly because my representative is there. We sometimes sing:
‘He’s gone within the veil,
For us that place has won;
In Him we stand, a heav’nly band,
Where He Himself is gone’. (12:2)
[p. 51] We stand there representatively.
So all the worship and service now must be of a heavenly order. No earthly service or worship is acceptable to God now. Much that is brought in in christendom like music and other things is all earthly and God does not care about what is earthly. Sonship is one of the heavenly things and it abides in the value of the death of Christ.
The Lord has in mind to introduce a system of heavenly things. He spoke of the necessity for new birth as among earthly things, and if Nicodemus did not believe what the Lord said about that, how could He go on to speak about the heavenly things that were in His mind? John’s gospel might be said to concern heavenly things.
Ques Would not all this give the Supper a bigger place in our affections?
CAC Yes, indeed. We need to dwell more on the death of Christ. If we think of the immense place it has in Scripture, it shews how great it is in the mind of God. If we connected heavenly things more with the death of Christ it would enhance it. God is bringing out in these things the immense preciousness and value of the death of Christ; He is in heaven, but He is the Person who died.
‘And, spotless in that heav’nly light,
Of all Thy suff’rings talk’. (270:2)
In the book of Revelation He is seen as the Lamb; and the bride is the Lamb’s wife.
Ques Is the thing enhanced by what it says here, He offered Himself, not often but once?
CAC That is most blessed. He has been manifested “once” for the putting away of sin by His sacrifice. That is one of the most absolute statements. He became incarnate for that very purpose.
Rem John the Baptist apprehended this; he said,
“[p. 52] Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”, John 1: 29.
CAC Yes. The thought in Hebrews 1 is that He has made purification of sins for God; the defilement of sins was removed for God; it looks at the matter from the side of the detail of it. The sins are looked at in detail. The history of the world has been a history of sins. He has made purification of sins; He has done it within the compass of His own Person; He has done it for God.
You get the thought of the putting away of sin by His sacrifice in Hebrews 9: 26, and you get the bearing the sins of many in verse 28; both aspects are brought in. There is the principle of sin that has come into the universe of God, this terrible principle of sin that has to be put away. God cannot tolerate the principle of lawlessness: He cannot forgive it; He must have it put away, and it has been put away sacrificially.
Ques What is the meaning of “foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1: 20)? Is that before sin came in?
CAC That is important. All heavenly things are connected with purpose; they go back for origin before the foundation of the world. God had the death of Christ in mind before ever sin came into the world. By one man sin entered into the world: before that man came in, God had another Man in mind. He had a universe of bliss before Him connected with that one Man. “In the volume of the book it is written”; there is a book that belongs to eternity and in that book the Lord says, “to do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight” Psalm 40: 8. He does it through death — all that is connected with purpose.
Ques Are we weak on the purpose side?
CAC Yes, I suppose we are slow to get to God’s side of things. We think of our side and do not get to God’s side. Have we a definite idea in our minds of what the will of [p. 53] God really is? The Lord became Man and died in order to do the will, or good pleasure, of God. Have we an idea of what that is? The question is, What is the Father’s will? The prodigal was ready to be a hired servant, but that was nothing but wretched pride. He was as little worthy to be a servant as a son. The father’s good pleasure was to have him robed, ringed and shod, but a son. The wonderful thing about the parable of the prodigal is that you are not told the secret. The secret is the death of Christ. How can we have the robe or the ring or the sandals without the death of Christ? The death of Christ is the explanation of everything. I could not explain why I am a son, but the death of Christ is precious and glorious enough to secure it all. It is due to Him that it should be secured.
Rem His death has put us out of sight.
CAC On one line it has put us out of sight and on another line it has brought us into sight as part of the heavenly system of things. F.E.R. said, ‘God puts you between His love on the one side and the work of the Spirit on the other. Between the two you disappear’.
It is very good to get such an impression of the good pleasure of God that we do not mention anything to Him that does not please Him.
Ques Is the thing summed up in, He “is able to... set you with exultation blameless before his glory”, Jude 24?
CAC That is the God we know and worship! All this is a treatise on worship — how the worshippers come to God to please Him. You find in coming in contact with believers that their thought of the will of God is how God would have them behave and where God would like them to go, but the will of God is far greater than that. “I come to do thy will”; it is all Christ’s work.
Rem The first man was made of dust and was unfitted for heaven.
CAC Yes. If Adam had not sinned he would not have [p. 54] gone to heaven; he would be living still in an earthly paradise. He was made out of dust; he was made for earth, not for heaven.
All this at the end of Hebrews 9 is the setting aside of sin. That sacrifice having been offered, there is not going to be anything more done for the removal of sin sacrificially. We do not see the effect yet, but all has been accomplished. God has been glorified as to the question of sin in the whole universe: that principle of lawlessness and rebellion that came in at the outset in the devil has been judged in the death of Christ. It was the serpent that was lifted up; the mischief was traced to its source, the serpent; that has been judged in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not simply that sin in the flesh has been condemned, but the principle of sin has been condemned. It was condemned when Christ was made sin on the cross.
Rem It says in verse 28 that Christ bore the sins of many.
CAC Scripture does not say that Christ bore the sins of all; it is important to see that. The bearing of sins is limited. He bore the sins of many: He died for all; that opens the door of blessing for all. He is the propitiation for the whole world. He only bore the sins of the elect. The thought of election comes in because God knew every soul who would believe on His Son, and the sins of those were borne by Jesus: “Who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24. That should make us very careful about sin. If I say an unkind word, or give place to a foolish thought, or speak what is not true, Christ had to suffer for those sins. We call things failure, mistakes and weakness, but God calls them sins; they were borne by Jesus; this should make us very careful and very holy people.
When He appears the second time there is no question of sin at all, there is no reference to sin when He comes again. It is not the rapture, it is a statement that we can [p. 55] take up ourselves; we are looking for the appearing. It is to those who look for Him that He will appear without sin unto salvation. We are looking for the Lord’s appearing. To all who look for Him will He appear. He has gone in but He is coming out, and until He comes out the golden bells are chiming. There are many proofs today that Christ is alive. The fact that we are sitting here and enjoying Him and meditating on Him and His death is a proof that He is living and will appear with no question of sin but unto salvation.