S22 || Jesus Opens the New Covenant || Hebrews 9:13-28 || Session 22

Continue in Hebrews chapter 9 with us and watch the old system of sacrifices meet its match. We start with the red heifer—ashes, water, and the relentless push for ritual purity—and move to the heart of the chapter: only Jesus' blood reaches the conscience. The priests never stopped working; blood pooled, smoke rose, and still guilt lingered. That grisly scene teaches us that sin is not a paper cut but a wound that demands life. Then everything changes. Jesus, unblemished and willing, enters not a man-made sanctuary but heaven itself as our Mediator, offering one sacrifice that finally ends the cycle.

We dig into covenant logic and why blood seals promises. Moses sprinkled the book and the people; Jesus seals the new covenant with His own life. Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, not because God loves gore but because justice and mercy meet at the cross. The earthly tabernacle was a copy that needed constant cleansing. The heavenly reality required a better sacrifice—once for all, never to be repeated. That’s why Hebrews says He appears before God for us. The result is profound and practical: a cleansed conscience, freedom from dead works, and a life reoriented to serve the living God.

There’s also a quiet drumbeat of hope running through these verses. We’re living at the consummation of the ages, looking toward a world to come. People die once and then face judgment, and Jesus will appear a second time for those who eagerly wait for Him. Salvation has a past, present, and future; assurance now blossoms into sight then. If you’ve ever wondered whether grace can carry the full weight of your guilt or if one sacrifice could truly be enough, this conversation offers clarity, courage, and hope.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. What part of Hebrews 9 most challenges or comforts you? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Chapters

• 0:19 Two Tabernacles, One Tour
• 0:50 Red Heifer And Old Testament Purity
• 3:58 Christ’s Blood And The Cleansed Conscience
• 6:21 The Endless Sacrifices And Their Limits
• 9:25 Dead Works Versus The Living God
• 11:03 Jesus The Mediator Of A New Covenant
• 13:20 Why Blood Seals Covenants
• 16:31 Copies On Earth, Reality In Heaven
• 20:37 Once For All: The Superior Sacrifice
• 23:59 Eschatology Woven Into Hebrews
• 26:31 Second Coming And Future Salvation
• 29:34 One Death, Then Judgment

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

In today's session of Reasoning Through the Bible, we're still exploring these two tabernacles. There's a heavenly one and an earthly one, and we're still on our tour here. We're taking a trip where we're going on vacation and we're going to tour a couple of religious sites, the heavenly tabernacle and the earthly one, and we're going to compare them. Today we're meeting something and someone who's going to be very interesting. I think you'll find the first ones uh rather curious. I'm reading in Hebrews 9:13 says this for if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Steve, the first part of that talks about blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer. What in the world are the ashes of a heifer doing here in a story about Jesus?

SPEAKER_01: 1:26

There was a rule set aside within the ordinances for purification of the utensils that were used in the tabernacle, and also related to the priests themselves. If for some reason they got defiled, got close to a dead body, or any type of things like that. At certain times there needed to be purification that needed to be done. This provision called for a red heifer to be burnt and then the ashes collected and then mixed with water that would periodically be used for these purification rituals of the sprinkling of the utensils or the priests or other things that are laid out that needed to be purified by these ashes of a red heifer. And they would do that, and then they would periodically have to do it again. Now there was so much left over that they didn't have to do it all that often up until the time of Jesus, according to the rabbinical tradition, there had been only something like 10 of these red heifers through the years that had actually been burned and the ashes collected. So again, this was something that wasn't have to be done very often, but it needed to be done in order for purification to take place.

SPEAKER_00: 2:45

That account, those rules, by the way, are in Numbers chapter 19. It specifically says a red heifer, uh female cow, if you will, had to be red, had to be unblemished. The entire thing would be burned and the ashes mixed with water. Now, just an odd sort of little rule back in Numbers 19. Here we can learn some of the application of it. The red reminds us of Christ's blood, and the unblemished nature speaks of Christ's purity. The ashes of the red heifer were used to cleanse and purify things that had been defiled back in the Old Testament. Well, only through the pure blood of Christ can we be made clean. Now, just personally, that I find interesting. Every now and then, though, what I find almost humorous is people today sometimes will get excited. You'll hear something in the news about people. Well, we found a pure red heifer with no white hairs, and they're keeping it for in case they restart the temple ceremonies in Jerusalem. And I guess my funny sense of humor, I always just find that humorous. That's not the point. The point is that who is Christ? That's really the point. If we also see there, it tells us how effective Christ's payment is and how effective Christ's cleansing is. So, Steve, how effective is the blood of Christ in cleansing a sinner compared to these old things? It mentions there the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of the red heifer.

SPEAKER_01: 4:19

Well, here in 14, it talks about through his blood of cleansing our conscience from the dead works to serve the living God. In our previous session and the verses that we were talking about in that one, it mentioned that the earthly sacrifices weren't sufficient enough to clear the conscience of the people. We mentioned in that session the reason why was because it had to be done over and over and over and over again. There was no ending to it. But here, because Jesus Christ's sacrifice is permanent and it is sufficient, then our conscience can be cleaned as well. One other thing I want to mention here in verse 13, Glenn, as we're talking about this, is it says in the first part, for if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a red heifer, which we just talked about, I did a lookup for a class that I taught several months ago and listed out all of the sacrifices that needed to be made. I went back to Numbers and Leviticus and did that. I was hoping that I could find them for our session today, and I wasn't able to find them. But what I can tell you this is that it opened my eyes as to how many sacrifices that had to be done on behalf of the people on a daily basis. And then you add to it that the people would be bringing their sacrifices to the temple for them to be offered up. Then you had additional high holy days, whenever you had an influx of people that were coming into the Jerusalem area, such as Passover and such, and there were additional sacrifices that had to be given. The picture that you get from that was that it was a continuous thing that was done virtually 24 hours of the day. The priests were continuing doing all of these sacrifices. And what happens? What accompanied is it? The blood. The blood accompanied is it. I'm not a hunter. I haven't gone out and field dressed any animals, but I have dealt with briskets and things like that whenever I've smoked. And I know that once you have the blood and the mixings, it gets slippery and it gets slimy. It starts to smell if it starts to dry and coagulate. You get this picture of dealing with sin through the blood of goats and bulls was just a big, bloody, awful, ugly mess that wasn't done just that one time of the year that we've been talking about. That was, but there were daily things that had to be done. So now none of that has to be done. Christ's blood is sufficient for all of these things. And it's just such a great thing to realize that we don't have to witness and see how ugly that dealing with sin is. But it also, I think, is a little bit of a detriment because we don't have to visualize that. We kind of lost actually how ugly it is to have to deal with our sin in front of God.

SPEAKER_00: 7:29

Well, I have hunted and I have killed a few animals, and I can tell you that death is not pretty. And it is rather sickening to see an animal cut up. As you said, Steve, there were many sacrifices. Around the bronze altar, the rules were the animals had to be cut in pieces there and the blood spilled out on the ground. So, with all of those sacrifices, imagine on a nice hot day what it would smell like with all that animal blood on the ground and all the parts being burned. It was really a sickening, bloody mess. It speaks to the ugliness of our sin. And we contrast that with the purity just a little ways away inside the temple proper of the purity of God. The contrast was great. There was a sweet smelling incense inside the temple and this bloody, smelly mess outside the temple. The contrast is tremendous. It says here in verse 14 that the offerings of Jesus will cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So, what does it mean there, Steve, by dead works? What are we being cleansed from when it says dead works?

SPEAKER_01: 8:40

It means whenever you went up and offered your sacrifice to God to the priests, that was a work. It was something that you needed to do. It was prescribed as one of the statutes and ordinances that you needed to do. It was a work that you had to do. And you had to also make sure that it was an offering that was without blemish. All of these different types of rules that had to be adhered to. Now that Jesus Christ has given his satisfactory sacrifice and his unblemished blood, we don't have to do those works anymore. Those works are dead. Even at the time they were considered dead works because they had to be done over and over and over again. But really the picture here is that they don't have to be done anymore. We don't have to offer up sacrifices to God on our behalf any longer. We have the one great sacrifice through Jesus Christ, and He is our high priest. He is the one that has brought about redemption for us, and He is the one that is the satisfactory sacrifice, as it says here, to serve a living God.

SPEAKER_00: 9:53

Notice there at the end of verse 14, he contrasts dead works with a living God. Our dead works are our going through religious rituals and trying to do things to make ourselves right with God. Those are all dead works. The living God is what can make us right, that can make us pure. Our works can never get us to God, can never make us pure. Those are dead. He is alive. He is able to make us pure. He can regenerate us and cleanse us and make us pure again. Verse 14 says, quote, offered himself without blemish to God. Now the Old Testament animals had to be perfect. They had to not have any spot or illnesses. They couldn't bring sick animals in there or ones with tumors. No, they had to be unblemished. Jesus was sinless, without any spot, without any blemish of sin. He was perfect. He could make the sacrifice. We are all imperfect and we cannot make the sacrifice for ourselves, let alone anyone else. He was the perfect sacrifice. Then verse 15, for this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Steve, who is this mediator of this new covenant?

SPEAKER_01: 11:26

Well, Jesus is the mediator. The he there in verse 15 is referencing back to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who took his unblemished blood into the Holy of Holies in the actual real heavenly tabernacle. That is our mediator of this new covenant.

SPEAKER_00: 11:44

To be a mediator between two parties, a person has to have a stake in both parties. Jesus can be mediator because he is both God and man. He needs to have some identification with both parties in order to mediate. A regular priest cannot be a mediator because he is merely a man. Jesus stands between God and man because he has two natures, both God and man. And it also speaks there not only about our great mediator, but it speaks of, quote, those who have been called, unquote. This verse does not elaborate on who are the called, but Hebrews 3:1, it tells us that Christians are, quote, partakers of the heavenly calling. So we're partakers of the heavenly calling. Here it speaks about those who have been called. We can be sure that those who have faith in Christ were called to do so. He's the mediator of this new covenant, so that since death has taken place, then those who have been called may receive the promise of the inheritance. Because he's the mediator, he can give us the promise of the great inheritance of righteousness and salvation and eternal life. How great this is. Steve, can you keep going? This again, we're in this rarefied air of this temple up here. We're going to find out more about Christ. Start at verse 16 and read down through verse 22.

SPEAKER_01: 13:20

For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. Therefore, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had to be spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet, wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.

SPEAKER_00: 14:01

Here it talks about a covenant, and the covenant's valid only when men are dead. So it's talking about what we would normally call a will or a last will and testament. A person's will only goes into effect when they die. It's not in effect while they're still alive. Christ had to die for his will to be put into effect. Just like a modern will has to have the death of the testator, Jesus had to die for his will to go into effect. At the beginning of the Mosaic covenant, God had Moses sprinkle blood on the book of the law and on the people. You'll see that in Exodus chapter 24, way back at the beginning when the Mosaic Law was first given. This was the blood that sealed the first covenant. The new covenant had to have the blood of a testator as well. Here, the word blood is mentioned six times. Blood is very critical in the Bible. Leviticus 17, 11 tells us the life is in the blood. Steve, why in verse 22 does it say that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness or no remission?

SPEAKER_01: 15:11

It goes to what we were just talking about earlier, that in the ordinances that these sacrifices had been put forth by God for the people to do on a continuing basis. And as we also read in our latter part of our last session over in Romans chapter 3, verses 23 through 26, it says through that that God overlooked the sins of the people, but they weren't actually accepted as forgiveness until Jesus Christ died and was buried and resurrected. And he with his blood went into the heavenly tabernacle. That's at the point in time that all of those sins were actually forgiven. Prior to that, God was just overlooking the sins of the people through the inefficiency of the blood and goats that the blood was being shed of those animals. The picture of the foreshadowing of the temple, earthly temple being one of one in heaven, the same thing is regarding Jesus Christ. All of the offerings of the animals and blood of their sacrifices was a foreshadowing of the one true blood, unblemished blood, as it mentions here in scripture, that of Jesus Christ that was taken into the tabernacle. All of that needed to be done for the forgiveness of sins, but it was only Jesus' Christ's blood was the one that was sufficient.

SPEAKER_00: 16:44

Without the blood, there was no remission or no forgiveness simply because our sin is so ugly. Our sin is severe and must be paid for. Our sin, we may think it's simple and it's just a minor offense, but it is a minor offense against an infinitely holy and pure God. And because of that, the sin requires capital punishment. It requires death. God set up a system of righteousness and punishment to show us how serious sin is. Everywhere where there's a covenant and everywhere where there was sin, there had to be a death. The Mosaic covenant was sealed in blood in Exodus 24 when Moses sprinkled blood on the book of the law and the people. The Abrahamic covenant was sealed in blood when God had Abraham cut animals in half and God went in between them. You'll find that in Genesis 15, 17. Therefore, the new covenant is sealed in blood also. Remember, Jesus said in the upper room, this is the new covenant in my blood. He said that in Mark 14, 24. So Jesus' death on the cross spilled his blood and sealed the new covenant. How wonderful this is that he made this wonderful application of a blood sacrifice in every covenant. But in the most important one, he made the sacrifice himself. Verse 22, the law of Moses has several cleansing rituals. The things in the earthly temple were purified with blood. This means that the earthly tabernacle, the sin and the uncleanness, was purified with blood sacrifices. Next, we're going to see what the heavenly tabernacle is cleansed with. Steve, can you read from verse 23 to 28?

SPEAKER_01: 18:37

According to the law, one may almost say all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us, nor was it that he would offer himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

SPEAKER_00: 19:52

It says in this section that he appeared in the heavenly tabernacle for us, it says at the end of Verse 24. Therefore, Jesus' sacrifice was a better sacrifice, certainly better on our part because he appeared there for us. As we talked about earlier, it mentions here again, how many times did the priest have to make animal sacrifices? Many times, daily, over and over again. Verses 25 and 26, how many times would Jesus have to die only once? The writer here is repeating these concepts. Why does he keep repeating this theme that there were many deaths in the old system and only one sufficient one in the new one?

SPEAKER_01: 20:37

I think that he is driving home the inefficiency of the sacrificial system on earth, of the Levitical priesthood and what they did. And he is making the case for the sufficiency of Jesus Christ because he was a better sacrifice. His blood was offered in the holy tabernacle, in the heavenlies, not in the earth. Everything and the contrast that he is making here is associated with Jesus Christ and his offering is much better. I also want to touch on the mediator. As we've been talking here, I've also been thinking that just Jesus being a mediator for us is so much greater than the mediators that were here on earth. Those were the priests that were here for the people of Israel. When we went through Ezekiel, Glenn, one of the things that God was demonstrating through Ezekiel to the people and telling them was his disappointment and his retribution and wrath on the priests at the time. The people themselves were bringing offerings that were not unblemished. It was not the ones that were truly representative of the people sacrificed to God. They had problems with them. They were sick or they had broken bones or whatever type of blemish that they might have had on them. The people's mediator at the time, the priests, were accepting them. They didn't push back on the people and say, look, though, these offerings that you're giving are not sufficient. They're not unblemished. You need to come back with something that is unblemished. They would just accept them and then put them on and offer them up to God. God was displeased at that. So as we've been sitting here talking about how much greater Jesus is to us as a mediator and a high priest, it's just another thing that I think the author is bringing to these people how much greater Jesus is, because his offering was the satisfactory one, as we've mentioned before, the propitiation, the satisfactory sacrifice. And there's nothing that could get higher. There's nothing that could be done more. As it mentioned here, the priest would have to go in day after day and over again, as we've talked about through all of these sessions. Jesus is now sitting at the right hand of God. It's once again the author getting across to the people, the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice through his death, burial, and resurrection, how much greater it is than all of the Levitical priesthood that was set aside for the people here on earth.

SPEAKER_00: 23:38

That's really the message that if we don't get anything else out of the book of Hebrews, that's the message we need to get is that Jesus' death was superior to all other religious systems. He only had to die once and it was sufficient. It was better than the old system. The other thing I want to bring out here is there are some teachings in this section about the end times. The study of the end times is called eschatology. And if we look across the book of Hebrews, it's really not about teaching the end times. It's really about doctrinal and theological things about Jesus and his sacrifice. But if we look across the book, we see several clues. Here in 926, it says that the church is in the consummation of the ages or end of the ages. In Hebrews 6.5, it spoke of, quote, the powers of the age to come. Hebrews 1.2 says that we are in these last days. Hebrews 2.5 speaks of the world to come. There's several places in the book where it just in passing talks about the world's going to come to an end. And it seems to be just a normal part of this writer's teaching that he would bring up on a regular basis. I find that in our churches, end times teachings are not taught nearly enough. When it is taught, it seems to be just drowned in it. I think that really the approach that's taught here is best. We are clear that Jesus is going to return, and that we're clear that we are now towards the end of the ages. And we've been towards the end of the ages for 2,000 years now since Christ died. We can't predict on a calendar when the end's going to be, but we know that things are going to change. There's an age to come. We are in the last days. There is a world to come. It keeps repeating over and over again in Hebrews. He doesn't go into detail about any of these, but we're sure that it was a regular topic of discussion. Even though Hebrews is mostly doctrinal, the age to come seems to be woven into the thought patterns. Then look at verses 27 and 28 at the end of this chapter. It says, It is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes the judgment. Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation. There we see again, he's talking about end times. All men are going to die once, then the judgment. Jesus appears a second time. What does that tell us, Steve, about the future? What can we be confident of about the future of the church and Christians?

SPEAKER_01: 26:31

What it tells us here is that Jesus is going to come again, and that it's something that we should be waiting for and anticipating for his arrival to come again. It says that through his first time, that through his offering of death, burial, and resurrection, that that was to deal with the sin, and that his second time is going to be for salvation, not meaning that we don't have salvation now. God looks at us as having salvation now. We should look at us having salvation now. But we're going to realize that in his second coming. We're going to have our glorified bodies in his second coming. We're going to be living in a Davidic kingdom, a millennial kingdom, a messianic kingdom in his second coming. And all of those things are going to be manifested through his second coming. So we're going to realize and see a lot of the manifestation of the promises that we have, a glorified body living in a world that is a lot better than the one that is now. Nature, creation has been redeemed, the nations have been redeemed. They're all going to be bringing gifts and worshiping Jesus Christ as he rules from Jerusalem for all the world. All of those things are going to come to fruition and be manifested in his second coming. That's when we're going to see our salvation come to a culmination of everything that we have put our faith in him and our hope into him at that time.

SPEAKER_00: 28:08

Verse 28 speaks of Christ coming back a second time for salvation. So that is a future sense of the salvation doctrine. Other places speak of salvation in the past. We have been saved. Other places in the New Testament talk about our being saved now. There is a past, a present, and a future sense of the word salvation. And we need to be aware of that. What happens with us and God is multidimensional, and we need to be very careful of how we view these things. Then in verse 27, it says there's one death, then the judgment. If that's true, then reincarnation is untrue. We do not die over and over again trying to get to a higher state. We are appointed once to die, then the judgment. Other places in the New Testament reinforce this. Colossians tells us that saved Christians are already elevated to the status of a child of the king, heirs according to the promise. Philippians tells us that Christ's righteousness is credited to our account. Hebrews 9.27 say we die once, then the judgment. So reincarnation is not biblical because Christ already bore our sins. We don't have to die over and over again trying to get it right to reach a higher state. And to wrap up this chapter, Steve, the very last sentence there says he's coming back to those who eagerly await him. Steve, are you eagerly awaiting Jesus' return?

SPEAKER_01: 29:47

I am eagerly awaiting. And the saying is Marinantha, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

SPEAKER_00: 29:54

And we he is our blessed hope, and we have our eyes to the horizon looking for our blessed hope to arrive. And we trust that you'll be back here next time, Lord willing, to reason through the book of Hebrews. Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.