Hebrews 8:1-6

“Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, ² a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man. ³ For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore, it is necessary that this One also have something to offer. ⁴ For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; ⁵ who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, ‘See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’ ⁶ But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.”

Last week we looked at the New Covenant that we have in Jesus. He paid for the covenant in His own blood and secured eternal life for all who trust in Him, from the Old Testament saints that looked forward to the New Testament saints that look back at His sacrifice for us. This new chapter begins by stating that Jesus “is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” This refers to sitting at the right hand of God.

As we explored and learned last week, the Old Testament priests were not allowed to sit as they ministered in the Tabernacle or the Temple. This was because the work of covering man’s sins was never done until Jesus came. Now, Jesus is sitting in Heaven as the work has been completed. All that was required by God for the eternal salvation of all men from Adam was completed by Jesus on the cross in about 32 AD. Jesus did not go to Hell, as we often hear many false teachers saying. He did go to Paradise; he told the thief that He would meet him there. This is not Hell.

• The Sanctuary in Heaven, verse 2

When we read through the book of Exodus and then into Leviticus, we get this elaborate explanation of how the Israelites were to build the Tabernacle. This was a tent that served as a temporary place for God to meet with His people. Later in 2 Samuel, we find the building of the Temple by Solomon, and this place was very, very elaborate. There was gold everywhere, and no expense was spared to build this marvelous place. But we are told that the Tabernacle and later the Temple were just copies of a similar sanctuary in Heaven. This heavenly sanctuary was erected by God according to verse 2. We can also see other verses like Habakkuk 2:20:

“But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.”

Psalm 11:4, “The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.”

These are just a few verses about the Lord in His Temple. There are many more. This Tabernacle and the Temple were just pictures of the Temple in Heaven where God resides. Moses, we are told, was instructed to build it exactly the way that God told him; he was not to take any artistic license at all. Jesus is our High Priest in Heaven. He is the one who offered his own blood to blot out our sins and transgressions. In Acts 20:28, we are told this by Luke:

“Keep watch over yourselves and the entire flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.”

We have been purchased, redeemed, and restored into the right relationship with God by Jesus, who bought us with His own blood. His blood was and is powerful enough to wipe out our sins once and forever. He finished the work, and He sat down.

• Our Mediator, verse 6

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word mediator as ‘one that mediates between parties at variance.’ The two parties, in this case, are God, who is Holy and perfect, and mankind, you and I, who are imperfect and unholy. The ‘variance,’ the reason for the divide between God and man, is Sin, yours and mine. Jesus, our Mediator, is the one who settles and negotiates peace for us based on His finished work on the cross. The Bible offers us an example of a mediator in the person of Moses in Exodus 32: 10-12:

“Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.’ But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, ‘O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people.”

God was going to kill all of the Israelite people and begin a new Israel with Moses. God was angry at their sin, their constant complaining, and rebellion. He had enough, and He was about to wipe them out. But Moses intercedes and asks God not to kill them based on God’s good character and how it would look to the nations around them. Jesus mediates based on His shed blood and finished work at Calvary for our eternal security. We will never lose it because Jesus’ blood is enough to cover all of our sins and blot them out. Our security is in Jesus, and there are several verses that promise this. See Micah 7:18-19:

“Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion? He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

See also Isaiah 43:25, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

Isaiah 38:17, “Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love, you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.”

There are many, many verses that remind us and comfort us in our current failures and sins that God has removed forever, yes, even the ones you have not committed yet, and you are secure in Jesus. The work is done, it is finished, and Jesus is our permanent Mediator.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/
Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca

Hebrews 7:20-28

“20 And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath 21 (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: ‘The Lord has sworn and will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’), 22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. 23 Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. 24 But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests, men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.”

Last week, we explored that we have a new permanent High priest, Jesus. He is our High Priest forever, and He has been a High Priest before God for us since the day of Abraham when we meet him in Genesis 14. He is called Melchizedek, and Abraham pays tithes to him after he comes back from a great military victory.

This week in our mid-week Bible study, we explored Numbers 28—29, and we actually tried to count out how many animals like bulls, goats, rams, and lambs had to be killed over the 1,500 years or so from the time of Moses until Jesus came and died on the cross. If you take the time, you will see that about 1,244,000 million bulls were killed over 1,500 years. I used a 360-day year, and it was at the time. I also considered only the mandatory sacrifices that God required under the priesthood. These two chapters cover the mandatory sacrifices that were needed each year as laid out by God to Moses. As you read the chapters, you can get the idea of the hundreds of thousands of animals that were required to be killed over the 1,500-year period.

• A Covenant of Death and Sin, 20-23

The first covenant was a covenant of death. We are told that the first covenant was there to remind us of sin and death; it was never designed to save us. Take a look at Hebrews 10: 1-4,

“For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”

No one is saved by keeping the Law. No one is saved by killing millions of sacrifices, and no one is saved under the ministry of the Levitical Priests. These rituals were there to remind us that we need to substitute, as we see in verse three; the Law was just a reminder of sin. You will recall that there were no chairs in the Tabernacle or the Temple, and the priests were not allowed to sit down. Sitting was a sign that the work had been completed, and so under the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, the priest was never allowed to sit, as the work of redemption was not completed by the blood of bulls and goats. These offerings temporarily appeased God until the time of Jesus. See Hebrews 10: 11-12,

“Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.”

• A Covenant of Life, verses 24-28

Jesus, this Melchizedek of the Old Testament, was alive forever, and in Him, we have eternal life. The old high priests like Aaron died, and God made sure that we knew that by telling us when Aaron died, Numbers 20: 27-29,

“Moses did as the Lord commanded: They went up Mount Hor in the sight of the whole community. Moses removed Aaron’s garments and put them on his son Eleazar. And Aaron died there on top of the mountain. Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain, and when the whole community learned that Aaron had died, all the Israelites mourned for him thirty days.”

Aaron had to pass the mantle to his son, and that son to his son, and so on for 1,500 years. These men toiled, one after another, passing the mantle from one generation to the next but never getting to the end of the sacrifices.

But one day Jesus came, our eternal High priest and our Lamb that was slain before the foundations of the earth. He shed His blood, and when He died, he said in John 19: 28-29,

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, ‘I thirst!’ Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.”

Look, Jesus knew ‘all things were accomplished’ (verse 28 above), and He said, ‘it is finished.’ But to further put an exclamation to that, we see Him seated at the right hand of God. Our High Priest was seated, and we are told in Hebrews 1:3, Acts 7: 55-56, and Hebrews 12:2, to name a few, that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. Jesus could only sit as our High Priest because the work was done. Thus, we have a new covenant in Jesus, a New Testament, one of life eternal and not death. One that removes our sins, and they are forgotten forever and forever. But all this is done in Jesus and Jesus alone.

Are you under the old covenant or the new covenant? Too many are still trying to work their way to Heaven, and this is impossible. Jesus did ALL the work, and He is the one who intercedes for us and secures us forever. Jesus is man’s only hope; all else is simply futile.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch
Online: https://mmbchurch.ca
Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca