Come and Go Sunday School Lesson with Dr. Frank Carver & Dr. Herb Prince “God Has Spoken-Was Christ’s Death A Sacrifice?-Part Two: The New Covenant” from The First Church of the Nazarene in San Diego, California, United States

Come and Go Sunday School Lesson with Dr. Frank Carver & Dr. Herb Prince “God Has Spoken-Was Christ’s Death A Sacrifice?-Part Two: The New Covenant” from The First Church of the Nazarene in San Diego, California, United States

GOD HAS SPOKEN

“Was Christ’s Death a Sacrifice?”[We continue to use the title of Marcus Barth’s excellent biblical study, Was Christ’s Death a Sacrifice? (Oliver and Boyd, 1961). ]

Part Two: the New Covenant

(Hebrews Twenty-Eight)[The following outline is that of Kevin L. Anderson, Hebrews: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2013), 5-6.

I. Hearing the Apostle and High Priest of Our Confession: Hebrews 1:1—4:13

II. Jesus’ Superior High Priesthood: Hebrews 4:14—10:18

1. The Qualifications of the Great High Priest (4:14—5:10).
2. Preparing for Advanced Teaching on Christ’s High Priesthood (5:11—6:20)
3. The High Priest like Melchizedek: The Son Perfected Forever (7:1-28).
4. The Superior Ministry of the Son’s High Priesthood (8:1—10:18)

1. Introduction to Christ’s Superior Ministry (8:1-13).
2. The Better and More Perfect Tabernacle (9:1-14).
3. Christ’s Sacrificial Death Inaugurated the New Covenant (9:15-28).
4. Christ’s One Obedient Offering Perfects Worshippers Forever (10:1-18).

III. Call to Persevering Faith and Acceptable Worship: Hebrews 10:19--13:25]

Hebrews 9:11 But when the Messiah appeared as cohen gadol of the good things that are happening already, then, through the greater and more perfect Tent which is not man-made (that is, it is not of this created world), 12 he entered the Holiest Place once and for all.

And he entered not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus setting people free forever. 13 For if sprinkling ceremonially unclean persons with the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer restores their outward purity; 14 then how much more the blood of the Messiah, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself to God as a sacrifice without blemish, will purify our conscience from works that lead to death, so that we can serve the living God!

15 It is because of this death that he is mediator of a new covenant [or will].[Hebrews 9:15 Jeremiah 31:30(31)] Because a death has occurred which sets people free from the transgressions committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. 16 For where there is a will, there must necessarily be produced evidence of its maker’s death, 17 since a will goes into effect only upon death; it never has force while its maker is still alive.

18 This is why the first covenant too was inaugurated with blood. 19 After Moshe had proclaimed every command of the Torah to all the people, he took the blood of the calves with some water and used scarlet wool and hyssop to sprinkle both the scroll itself and all the people; 20 and he said, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has ordained for you.”[Hebrews 9:20 Exodus 24:8] 21 Likewise, he sprinkled with the blood both the Tent and all the things used in its ceremonies.22 In fact, according to the Torah, almost everything is purified with blood; indeed, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

23 Now this is how the copies of the heavenly things had to be purified, but the heavenly things themselves require better sacrifices than these. 24 For the Messiah has entered a Holiest Place which is not man-made and merely a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, in order to appear now on our behalf in the very presence of God.

25 Further, he did not enter heaven to offer himself over and over again, like the cohen hagadol who enters the Holiest Place year after year with blood that is not his own; 26 for then he would have had to suffer death many times — from the founding of the universe on. But as it is, he has appeared once at the end of the ages in order to do away with sin through the sacrifice of himself.27 Just as human beings have to die once, but after this comes judgment, 28 so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,[Hebrews 9:28 Isaiah 53:12] will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to deliver those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:11-12, 24, 26: When Christ came as a high priest . . . he entered

once for all into the Holy Place . . . with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. . . . He entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. . . . he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.

“Christians stand by God in God’s own pain”—that distinguishes Christians from heathen. “Could you not stay awake with me one hour?” Jesus asks in Gethsemane.[Letter to his close friend, Eberhard Bethge, from July 1944, two days before a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 8, ed. John W. de Gruchy, trans, Isabel Best, Lisa Dahill, Reinhard Kraus, and Nancy Luiens (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010 [German 1951/1970, ed. Christian Gremmels, Eberhard Bethge, and Renate Bethge, with Ilse Tӧdt), 480.]

For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. . . . For the life of every creature—its blood is its life (Lev. 17:11, 14).

The writer to the Hebrews is still caught in the past.[Herb Prince, “Must There Be Scapegoats?” (2/15/15), commenting on the thought of René Girard, Things Hidden Before the Foundation of the World (Stanford University Press, 1987), 228.]

Introduction

One of my more favorite hymns is William Cowper’s “There is a Fountain” which carries the date of 1771. The lines I love are

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains. . . .

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream

Thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme,

And shall be till I die.

The metaphorical use of “blood” in this hymn somehow speaks theological and devotional volumes to me. And in our scripture for today “blood” is prominent (9:11-28) occurring twelve times.[9:12 (2x), 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (2x), 25.] It is this biblical imagery that informs Cowper’s hymn:

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood, . . .

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream

Thy flowing wounds supply,

As you have heard over and over again my favorite century-ago theologian, P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921), makes Jesus’ atoning death the center of his theologizing; he interprets everything in its light—Forsyth was a theologian of the cross par excellence! So I was very surprised to read not long ago in Forsyth’s The Cruciality of the Cross a critical comment about Cowper’s hymn. He writes that

while we can never cease to speak or think of the blood of Christ we must take much pains to interpret its true idea to our modern conditions. If we speak of the sacrifice of Christ we must construe it in the ethical terms presented by its own dominate holiness and demanded by the modern passion for righteousness; and we must for this end avoid such a use of imagery as discourages that effort—like the first verse of Cowper’s fine hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood.”[P. T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1909), 199. The quotation is from the “Forgotten Books” edition, 2012.]

Our crucial question is how should we properly understand and assimilate Jesus’ “sacrifice of himself”[Hebrews 9:26.] To this end we move into the writer’s brief but profound description of

II.

The Ministry of the New Covenant

9:11-28

We tackle this section a paragraph at a time, so first

A.

“when Christ came”

9:11-14

11But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14how 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 worship the living God!

We give our attention to four prominent concepts in this paragraph:

(1) “the greater and perfect tent . . . not of this creation”;

(2) “the blood of Christ”;

(3) “through the eternal Spirit offered himself”; and

(4) “purify our conscience.”

First, the ministry of the Christ who has come as high priest of “good things” to come takes place in “the Holy Place” that Christ has “entered once for all” via a “tent . . . not of this creation.” The place is a “sanctuary”[Luke Timothy Johnson’s translation in his Hebrews, A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 233.] “not made with hands” as the tent in the wilderness was made. It belongs rather to an entirely different order than our earthly form or existence, and therefore a “greater,” indeed, a “perfect tent” to continue the metaphor, metaphor being our only way to talk about such a spiritual vision beyond sight and touch.

Second, Christ entered this heavenly sanctuary “with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” With his focus on “the blood of Christ,” the writer takes us back to in comparison and contrast to the Old Testament ritual of blood manipulation, to “the blood of goats and calves.” These ancient rites, biblically understood were are not to be conceived as coercive, or propitiatory in the usual meaning of the term; they were not some sort of voodoo magic, but highly personal and moral flowing out of one of the most theologically crucial of Old Testament texts, Lev. 17:11, 14:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. . . . For the life of every creature—its blood is its life.

Simply put, “blood” speaks of the whole of one’s life; it is “life” that is to be offered on the altar. To offer one’s blood is in essence to offer one’s life. It is a “life” that takes into itself the wrong, the sin, the alienation of the other; it identifies with that which contradicts the very integrity of the one who gives it and suffers it out of existence for love’s sake—“atonement” in the best sense of the word.

So “blood” as “life” even in the Old Testament is the life of the holy God himself. God embraces within his very being that which is alien to who he is as holy; God takes ownership of the sin of his people. This, the preacher says, is what Christ was doing when “he entered once for all into the Holy Place . . . with his own blood,” that is, through his “violent and bloody death on the cross”[ Johnson, Hebrews, 237.] on the human plain of real political history. Jesus’ death was a literal human death. Yet, so much more! Genuine forgiveness biblically can come only at the cost of life--the very life stuff of the forgiver! Can we say, a divine life, whose very life stuff is the holy?

Third, says the writer to the Hebrews, Christ offered himself “through the eternal Spirit.” Although this phrase is difficult to interpret, the NRSV, by translating “Spirit” rather than “spirit,” takes the view that the reference is to “the Holy Spirit’s work enabling Christ’s obedient sacrifice.”[Anderson, Hebrews, 249-250. Yet given the emphasis of “eternal” on the note of finality, the translation “spirit” is quite feasible with the phrase “through the eternal spirit” primarily stressing that note. The writer speaks also of “eternal salvation” (5:9), “eternal judgment” (6:2), “eternal redemption” (9:12), “eternal inheritance” (9:15), and “eternal covenant” (13:20).] This is in keeping with the overall view of the New Testament that the incarnate in-the-flesh life of Jesus was empowered by and dependent on the Spirit beginning with his baptism by John: “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove, and it remained on him” (John 1:32; see Mark 1:9-11).

And fourth, is the writers’ way of expressing the consequence of Christ’s atoning act as to “purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!”[“Purify”: the noun form of this root is significantly found in 1:3: “When he had made purification for sins.” See also the two occurrences in 9:22-23.] We have already read his assertion that the “gifts and sacrifices” of the earthly tent were unable to “perfect the conscience of the worshipper”[“Worshipper” in v. 9 and “to worship” (v, 14) are forms of the same verb (latreuonta . . . latreuein) and can also be translated as “the one who serves” and “to serve.”] (v. 9). Anderson defines conscience for us as

the faculty of moral consciousness in human beings. It is not only aware of the character of our thoughts and actions (good or bad, honorable or dishonorable) but also pronounces judgment on them (accusing or defending; see Rom 2:15).[Anderson, Hebrews, 245.]

This one, Jesus, made “perfect through suffering” (2:10), his offering of himself by “the eternal Spirit . . . without blemish to God” can penetrate to the core of the person, to the moral and spiritual center of all who would approach God. In the preachers’ summing-up terminology, Jesus, by entering “once for all into the Holy Place . . . with his own blood” is able to “perfect” (v. 9) the worshipper with respect to moral and spiritual consciousness.

It is thus that the incarnate and risen Jesus is fully qualified as

B.

“the mediator of a new covenant”

9:15-22

15For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant. 16Where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.

18Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19For when every commandment had been told to all the people by Moses in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people, 20saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.” 21And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Our writer continues his discussion in terms now familiar to us, but with a subtle new twist. He talks of “a new covenant” of which Christ is “the mediator . . . because a death has occurred.” He makes his point with an appeal to a second meaning of the term “covenant” (diathēkē) as “a will.”[Anderson, Hebrews, 251, notes that this “wordplay may have been suggested by the idea of “inheritance” just mentioned in v 15.”] With this shift in meaning he reinforces the necessity of death even “under the first covenant.” For a “will” can take effect by common consent then and now only when “the death of the one who made it” is established: “it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.” Where the author is eventually heading is obvious.

But first the preacher must apply this meaning to his emphasis on covenant—“Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.”[Exod. 24:1-8.] Back then the purification of all things “under the law” involved blood, that is, life given up in death. This brings him to his startling “platform” conclusion: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins”! Effective forgiveness has come always at the cost of life, not least on the human plane. Even in the Old Testament it was ultimately the holy divine life—“I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.”

On this foundation, our writer to the Hebrews is beginning to wrap up his discussion of Christ as “the mediator of a new covenant.” So he is ready to move to the heart of the matter where

C.

“Christ . . . entered into heaven itself”

9:23-28[See Herb Prince’s presentation relating to these verses in, “Christ’s Priestly Office” (1/11/15).]

23Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. 24For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

25Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; 26for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, 28so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

A most fascinating and even more significant statement begins this paragraph of our writer’s argument, a declaration theologically basic and designed to reach to the heart of the human spiritual need that has occupied much of Hebrews to this point.[Having been set up in 1:1—4:16, the author has been presenting the substance of his argument since 7:1.] Our author is seeking to state as clearly and meaningfully as he knows how what is foundational to the pastoral character of his “word of exhortation” (13:22) as it occupies him from 10:19 on.

Although the tent in the wilderness and its successors, a mere copy “of the heavenly things,” was purified by the worship order “under the law,” the curiously constructed final word is that “the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these.” Many suggestions have been made as to what this means, but only one in my mind fully fits the overall context of Hebrews.[See Anderson, Hebrews, 253-254, for other suggestions.] And that takes us back to the preacher’s first declaration that Jesus, one “like his brothers and sisters in every respect,” that he might be “a merciful and faithful high priest,” made “a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people” (2:17-18).[See the three previous lessons on this passage: “Hebrews Seven” (January 5, 2014), 37-48; “Hebrews Ten” (February 23, 2014), 64-68; “Hebrews Eleven (March 9, 2014), 69-78. ]

Are the “heavenly things themselves” in need of sacrifices? “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins,” even in heaven? A scandalous thought! Does “Heaven itself” need purification for there to be divine forgiveness, such being the moral seriousness of our sin in relation to the integrity of a holy God? An emphatic “yes,” proclaims the preacher, for Christ via his death and resurrection, entered, not into “a sanctuary made by human hands,” but “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” God in Christ has opened his heart to our sins and sinfulness! That is what it means for God to be truly holy, for God to be God![John Denney, over a century ago, discussing Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo that spoke “of the satisfaction which is rendered to God for the infringement of His honour by sin, a satisfaction apart from which there can be no forgiveness,” commented that we may feel “that the form of thought is inadequate to the substance. But what Anselm means is that sin makes a real difference to God, and that even in forgiving God treats that difference as real, and cannot do otherwise. He cannot ignore it, or regard it as other or less than it is. If he did so, He would not be more gracious than He is in the atonement; He would cease to be God. It is Anselm’s profound grasp of this truth which, in spite of all its inadequacy in form, and of all the criticism to which its inadequacy has exposed it, makes the Cur Deus Homo the truest and greatest book on the atonement that has ever been written.” John Denney, The Death of Christ, ed. R. V. G. Tasker (London: The Tyndale Press,1951), 188. This is a revised and abridged edition of The Death of Christ (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909 [1902]), 284.]

Christ’s offering (v. 28) was not “again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own.” It would have been absurd for Christ “to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world.” Rather, Christ, the Son of God (1:1-3) as our high priest “has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.” There are no more profound, probing, and beyond our ken words ever uttered than “by the sacrifice of himself!” God sacrificing himself, God propitiating God! Was theologian John Denney on target when back in 1902 he concluded that

in Christ’s sacrifice we see the final revelation of what God is, that behind which there is nothing in God, so that the religion which rests on that sacrifice rests on the ultimate truth of the divine nature, and can never be shaken?[Denney, The Death of Christ, 119; The Death of Christ 1909 [1902]), 208.]

To tie the red bow on his argument our theologian preacher, with his full vision of the speech of God to his people, returns with “the end of the age to “in these last days” (1:2) with his proclamation that “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” But not without the reminder that in the light of it all, there is a judgment, for “just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment”!

Conclusion

Herb Prince in last week’s study of the thought of René Girard in relation to Hebrews notes that although “Girard recognizes that the Hebrews writer is aware of the difference between Christ’s Passion and sacrifices that have gone before,” Girard still defines this difference as being “within the context of the sacrificial element, and, therefore, the real essence of the sacrificial in Hebrews is never examined.” The Christian

may well say that Christ’s sacrifice is, by contrast with the others, unique, perfect and definitive. But in reality he can see only continuity with previous sacrifices. [Prince, “Must There Be Scapegoats.” He is quoting René Girard, Things Hidden Before the Foundation of the World (Stanford University Press, 1987), 228. ]

Herb Prince then concludes that “for Girard the writer to the Hebrews is still caught in the past.”[Prince, “Must There Be Scapegoats.]

Is René Girard correct or incorrect in his evaluation of Hebrews? May I suggest that he is both right and wrong? Yes, the Old Testament copy, the ritual of the earthly sanctuary, is not being left behind. Rather, the divine purpose in it is now fully revealed in Christ’s “sacrifice of himself” by which “he entered into heaven itself” embodying all of who we are with him there: “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).

But what the Old worship was really about is now effectively revealed in its true nature and intention. The old ritual is transformed, or better, the old forms are fully transcended, the earthly sanctuary has given way to the heavenly sanctuary; perhaps one could even say the earthly has been consumed by the heavenly!

The historical real-life bloody repulsive event of Jesus’ “sacrifice of himself” by which he entered the sanctuary not made with hands “now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” is no longer merely crude or offensive, but has become a delight to the heart, one that is beyond our human comprehension but not our enjoyment as forgiven! We now worship in spirit and in truth! We can hear the music on yonder side of the curtain!