GOD HAS SPOKEN BY HIS SON
Meditations in Hebrews
Hebrews 9:18-22
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IN these next verses the apostle goes on to further establish this divine principle that in the covenants that God makes with sinners, they are always and of necessity sealed and made sure by blood, that is the death of the one who seals up the agreement and sets into effect its terms and blessings. The apostle does this by drawing the attention of his readers to the situation which was present in the covenant God made with Israel in the time of Moses. This is spoken of here as the first covenant, that is first as being before the covenant made in Christ which supersedes this first covenant.

When God established his covenant with Israel in the time of Moses, after the terms of the covenant, that is the reading of the law of God to the people, etc., had been made known to the people gathered before mount Sinai, sacrifice was made, and the agreement sealed by the sacrifice, and the people identified their agreement and acceptance of these terms, by the blood of the sacrifice being sprinkled over the people, and over the scroll of the terms and conditions of the covenant. This was accompanied by the solemn declaration "This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep." (see Exodus 24:8). The blood also was sprinkled over tabernacle and all that was used in the ceremonies.

The apostle points out that this principle of the blood of sacrifice being sprinkled over people and things was the way cleansing from sin was procured and achieved. The blood was evidence that life had been given in sacrifice, and the blood being sprinkled was to identify the one sprinkled with the virtue of the sacrifice, that is that they were cleansed from their sin on account of the sacrifice of atonement being made.

From this the apostle speaks of the principle that is established throughout the Bible that there is no remission or forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood, that is by the death of a victim occurring.

Here is something which modern thought finds difficult, if not unacceptable. It is spoken of disparagingly as 'slaughter house theology'. From this feeling of unacceptablity of sin being purged only by death, and the shedding of blood, comes the idea that our blessing from God comes not from the death of Christ, but from his incarnation, and the idea that we are assured of God's blessing because God came down and joined us on earth. However this sort of thinking makes the death of Christ a tragic but unnecessary event, and places Christ as an unwilling victim of events over which he had no control. How dishonouring to Christ this thinking is. Throughout the passion story we have the evidence that Christ went voluntarily to death, and that this was the purpose of his coming to be our Saviour, and that his death is the crucial event which provides atonement for sin.

Our understanding must be founded on the fact of death, and the reason for death. Why is it that death is the one thing we all have to suffer and endure? There can be only one answer, and that is found in the Biblical testimony that death is the result of human disobedience, and is the expression God's justice applied to those who break his holy law.

Although the principle of justice that sin deserves to be punished is still present in our thinking, at least by the general consensus of people, yet we find it hard to apply this understanding to ourselves in our relationship to God. This acceptance that sin deserves to be punished is seen in how people expect to see punished realistically those who have committed awful crimes, and are angry when the judicial system seems to fail in this. This is all true of human thinking even though the principle in justice of retribution is unpopular, and generally unacceptable in judicial thinking.

We need to accept that our crimes before God, for that is what our sin is, also deserves to face the fulness of God's justice. This we fail to accept. We are unable to see how serious is the offence to God of any falling short of his holy standard, and also fail to appreciate that God would deny his character, which is impossible, if he failed to punish the least of sin in his creatures.

God's holy justice demands death for every sin, both small and great, and that is why death is a fact and upon us. The principle of God's justice is that death alone satisfies the demands of his justice, so the sinner must die, or else some other death must take place instead of the death of the sinner. This way of salvation which is the substitution of another in the place of the sinner, who then takes the death the sinner deserves, is the revealed principle given in the Bible in its entirety. If we reject this, then there is not remission of sin for us.

The wonder of God's grace, revealed in the sacrifice of Christ, is that God was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice himself in the person of his only begotten Son, and suffer the fulness of his justice against sin by suffering it himself in Christ. There is no love like this anywhere else in the world, or in history, or in any imagining. God's love for us sinners, seen in the voluntary death of Christ on the cross, and in his suffering the full penalty of death for our sin, is a wonder of every believer brought to faith in Christ, who receive thereby peace with God and peace from the fear of death. This Christ has won for us by his death. Let us rejoice in this love, and glorify and praise God for his infinite love in the death of Christ for us.