The Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 6, 2025
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 6, 2025
Dead works save no one; they purify no one; they fail to perfect the conscience (vs. 9). No matter how good, righteous, and holy those works appear, they belong to this present age. Like the gifts and sacrifices made in the “Holy Place” (the first section, vs. 2), they are temporary, only until the “time of reformation” (vs. 10). Here, we must heed the Holy Spirit, as the author reminds us. No passage exists into the “holy places” (heavenly places?) while the first section still stands… while this present age still remains (vs. 9). Though those priests and ministers of the first covenant assiduously followed the instructions for building their place of holiness and for worshiping within it, they could not “perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (vs. 10). That work, the work of perfecting the conscience, had to wait until Christ appeared (vs. 11).
Beginning with verse 11, the author of our text begins to extol the distinction between the first covenant and the new covenant… the qualitative difference between the blood of Christ and the blood of bulls and goats. Even the “tent” of the new covenant possesses this qualitative difference. It, in contrast to the tent of the first covenant, is not made with hands—that is, it is not of this creation (vs. 11). Because it is not of this creation, the tent of the new covenant is unsullied by the work of sinful human hands… undefiled by the impurity of human consciences… and untainted by humanity’s pretensions of righteousness. While the blood of goats and bulls sufficed for the purification of the flesh, only the blood of Christ could secure an “eternal redemption” (vs. 12). Only the blood of Christ, which, like the new covenant’s tent, was unsullied, undefiled, and untainted could “purify our conscience from dead works…” (vs. 14).
To you, my friends, Christ comes. The mediator of the new covenant comes to purify your conscience with his own blood and presence. This “high priest of the good things” now sits on the throne of your conscience. So long as Christ rules there, you live from the promised eternal inheritance. That promise guaranteed by his blood, his death… and now by his resurrection wherein he has come to be your life.
Table Talk: Discuss the futility—yet the necessity—of works.
Pray: Heavenly Father, keep me clean by the blood of Jesus. Amen
Hebrews 9:1-15 (ESV)
9 Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. 2 For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, 4 having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. 5 Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
6 These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, 7 but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. 8 By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing 9 (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, 10 but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how 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 serve the living God.
15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.