Please turn with me in your Bibles, if you will, to Exodus chapter 24. If you are using your pew Bibles, it can be found on page 82. We'll only read the first eight verses here this morning. Exodus 24, beginning in verse one. Then the Lord said to Moses, come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the 70 of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him. Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules, and all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words that the Lord has spoken we will do. And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins and half of the blood he threw against the altar. And then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will be obedient. Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. And now turning with me in the New Testament to the book of Hebrews chapter nine. Again, if you're using the Pew Bible, it can be found on page 1,281. Our sermon this morning will cover verses 15 to 22, but we'll begin reading in verse 11. The typo is my fault. Hebrews 9, 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, 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. 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, 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? 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. For where a will or covenant is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will or a covenant takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of goats and calves 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 that God commanded for you. And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, There is no forgiveness of sins. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our gracious God and father, we do thank you for what your word tells us concerning Christ, our savior, that he is the mediator of this new and better covenant. We do ask that by your spirit's power, you would help us to understand the implications of what this means. for us and for our salvation. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well, why was it necessary for Jesus to die? Have you ever thought about that question? Certainly there are skeptics and critics of Christianity who have thought very deeply about this question as they consider the purpose of the cross as it stands at the centerpiece of the Christian faith. You think of Islam that looks at the cross and sees it as wholly unnecessary. According to Islam, God or Allah is able to forgive sins simply by the waving of a wand, as it were. Simply because he is God, he is able to pardon sin. What use or purpose is there for the cross? You think of the assault of the new atheists in the past decade or two that claim that the cross is simply evidence of a great evil, that Christians worship a malevolent deity who delights in cosmic child abuse. Or you think of the criticisms of theological liberalism that sees the cross as irrelevant, as what matters more than anything is the march and social progress. But what we find here in Hebrews 9 tells us the heart of the Christian faith is dependent upon the cross. What Christ does is he offers up himself as a sacrifice once for all for sin so that we might be forgiven. This is the point of Hebrews 9, that without bloodshed, there could be no blessing. It's rather an odd confession that we hold to. It sounds odd to modern ears, but again, if you read 1 Corinthians 1, you would find that this would sound odd to ancient ears as well, as Paul would and describing what the world around him says when they hear the preaching of the cross, they would declare it to be utter foolishness. So the question we have before us this morning is what does the death of Christ have to do with the forgiveness of sins? To answer the criticisms of Islam, why could God not simply forgive because he is God? Again, Hebrews 9 tells us and points us to the reason why this is the case, why it was necessary for Christ to die if we were to ever receive the forgiveness of sins. It directs us to the truth of what the entire Old Testament sacrificial system taught, that there is no blessing without bloodshed. You see that here in verse 22, without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins. So for us to understand what is going on in this passage, I think there are three concepts or three things that we need to understand. First, we have to consider the concept of the covenant. You see that here in verses 16 and 17 as you'll see various words used in translation depending upon what Bible you have to describe the concept of the covenant that is transpiring here. Secondly, we'll consider the blood of the covenant seen in verses 18 to 22 and the centrality of blood so that the covenant might be effected. And then finally, we will consider the mediator of the covenant, as you see there at verse 15. So typically, we try to take the passage verse by verse. But this morning, I think we have to understand the examples that the author is using before we can get the main point that's given in verse 15. So the concept of the covenant, the blood of the covenant, and the mediator of the covenant to help us understand why it is that Christ had to die. So what is a covenant, right? It's not a common word that we hear these days. Perhaps this is your first time kind of gracing the entrance to a church and go, what is all of this talk of blood and bulls and goats? This is very weird. This is 2019. Why is this relevant? Well, I think there are three things that we need to understand regarding the concept of a covenant. The first is simply this. We could describe the covenant in these terms. It's a solemn blood oath. I don't know if you ever grew up as a kid and On the playground, you wanted to make some type of blood pact with your friend, where you kind of cut the palm of your hand slightly, kind of spit in it, shake their hand, and you're blood brothers for life, something like that. Well, this is something kind of like that, except with a lot more blood, guts, and death. I guess maybe it's nothing like it at all. In the ancient world, what you find is that the most important treaties were signed in blood. Today, if we have a contract that's signed, all you have to do is sign your John Hancock at the bottom. of the document. Well, here, it's not a treaty that's sealed with a signature, but it's one that is sealed with the death of an animal. I think the most obvious example we see in the Old Testament before us is found in Genesis chapter 15, if you recall, where the Lord himself makes a covenant with Abraham. And he tells Abraham to take several animals, a bull and a goat and a few others, and he tells him to hack them in two. Split the parts, one on each side, and in the middle there's to be a trough, and as the blood is flowing and congealing in the midst of this, the one who makes the covenant is to pass through the parts. This is not a pinprick. When we speak of bloodshed, this is not simply a bloodletting. Here we see of a grisly and violent death that takes place. This leads us to the second thing in which we have to think about what a covenant is. See, the covenant maker is in effect by this sacrifice saying this. As he passes through the split animals, he says, may God do so to me and more so if I violate the terms of this agreement. It's a pretty serious matter. There's no loophole to be found. There's no way to back out of a covenant of this sort once it has been made. It is a covenant sealed with blood to violate it and dispels certain death for the transgressor. Again, the most obvious example we have before us is found in Jeremiah chapter 31. We have King Zedekiah of Judah. I don't know if those of you who recall the story, Zedekiah decides after hearing the law read that he's going to declare, he's going to give his own emancipation proclamation. He liberates all the slaves in Israel. The Lord says it delights him to no end. He says finally you get what the concept of liberty is about. It says that Zedekiah even makes a covenant with the Lord that he will liberate all of Israel's slaves once and for all. And he does so and yet a certain amount of time passes where both he and the officials think that maybe perhaps this was a bad idea and they change their mind, they go back on their word and they re-enslave the people that they had once liberated. This is the Lord's response to Zedekiah for his mutiny for his transgression. He says, so you men who have transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that you made before me, this is what I'm going to do. I will make you like the calf that you cut into and pass between its parts. I'll give you into the hand of your enemies and into the hand of those who seek your lives. Your dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. So a covenant is a serious matter as one embarks in making this covenant, they invoke, as it were, a covenant curse upon themselves were they ever to violate the terms of the solemn oath. There's something I'd like you to notice here as you're looking here at verses 16 and 17. You might be thinking, what does this have to do with at least the first portion of the passage before us? I don't know what translation you have. I know a lot of people use the ESV. Some people use the King James. And what you'll find is this discussion of a testament or will, and sometimes the word covenant will be used. But the thing I'd like you to recognize is that the Greek word, it's all the same word. So I don't want you to think that he's talking about a will on the one hand in certain places, then a covenant on the other. He's actually talking about the covenant through and through this entire section. I think what we see with some of the older translators, going back maybe 400 years or so, is when they're reading this passage, there's so many difficulties with this passage and trying to understand what the author of Hebrews is saying is that they look at this and go, oh, where the death of the testator is, there is the inheritance. And they kind of read into this inheritance laws. You know, you think of what happens when you're, I remember when my grandfather died. My inheritance was his, you know, collected leather-bound Louis L'Amour collection of old westerns. But I don't think, I think that gets maybe about 75% of what's trying to be communicated here. But as the author of Hebrews goes on to give more and more explanation of what's transpiring, you see that his examples are not that of, oh, I remember when my father died and I inherited his land. No, all of his examples go back to these blood covenants given in the Old Testament. So what we have before us, the context we have in verses 16 and 17, it's not that, again, of inheriting your grandfather's pipe collection, but that of a covenant ceremony, this covenant ceremony that we have spoken of. And I think that helps us to understand the third thing that I think is trying to be communicated here in verses 16 and 17 regarding the concept of the covenant. If we were to translate verses 16 and 17 literally, it would go something like this. It says that for where there is a covenant, the death of the covenant maker is necessary. For a covenant is guaranteed on the basis of death since it is not valid while the covenant maker lives. what it has in mind is this covenant-making ceremony. But it makes this rather odd statement saying that the covenant cannot actually be effected until the one who makes the covenant dies. You could see why older translators would translate this as a last will or testament. It helps make sense of certain things. But I think it's overlooking one of the main points given here in Hebrews 9 is that it is not, you know, if you were to look at this covenant ceremony, The one who makes the covenant is not the one who dies. You say, no, it's the animal who dies. It's the animal that's slaughtered and cut in two. How can you say it is that the covenant maker is the one that dies? I think the point he's trying to make is that the individual, the one who makes the covenant and the animal have become so closely self-identified that when the animal is sacrificed, it is said that the one who sacrifices the animal has died. What is it that the person is doing as they pass between the parts of this bloodied animal? They're saying, may God do more to me. Maybe he'd do this to me if I violate the covenant. There's already this close identification between the covenant maker and the sacrifice. So that the sacrifice is seen to be the substitute of the one who makes the covenant. Are you following me here? For a covenant to take effect, the covenant maker must die and yet it's not the covenant maker necessarily that dies, it is his substitute. That's the third aspect to the covenant that's going on, the principle of substitution. That when the covenant maker brings forth that animal and puts it to death, the animal dies in his place as his representative. So that when the animal dies, it is said that the covenant maker has died. So there's these three components to understanding what the concept of the covenant is here in verses 16 and 17, right? The covenant is something ratified only by a bloody death, not simply a bloodletting. When we speak of bloodshed, we're talking about death, a sacrificial death. Secondly, it involves the invocation of a curse that if the covenant is broken, you have a very vivid example of what will befall you if you were to violate the terms of the covenant. And then thirdly, there's the principle of substitution. As you see the animal hacked to pieces, you see that it has died as your representative in this ceremony. So that's what brings us to the centrality of bloodshed as it relates to the covenant, verses 18 to 22. As he goes on to give more and more examples, he's speaking more broadly in verses 16 to 17 about covenant making. And now in verses 18 to 22, he focuses on a specific act of a covenant making ceremony found in the Old Testament, that of Exodus chapter 24. That's what we had Exodus 24 read here. We find that bloodshed forms the bookends of verses 18 to 22. You see that here in verse 18, Therefore, not even the first covenant, speaking of the Mosaic covenant, was inaugurated without blood. Why? Verse 22, because without bloodshed, there can be no forgiveness of sins. Hope that helps you see why the backdrop to understanding this is something that runs much deeper than simply a last will and testament. Here we see the events spelled out of the covenant ratification ceremony of Exodus 24 where Moses slaughters an animal and then baptizes the people in blood. What we find here in Exodus 24 is that there's blood everywhere. It's splattered on the law, it's splattered on the people, and it's splattered on the tabernacle. And as that sacrifice is brought forward, it sets the tone for the rest of the Old Testament. That in order for a holy God to dwell in the midst of a sinful people, the sinless must die in the place of the sinner. The Lord himself says so much in Leviticus 17 that the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is bloodshed. It is the blood that makes atonement by its very life. It's the principle of life for life, blood for blood, that the sacrificial death was given to die in the place of the sinner. Of course, the rest of the Bible tells us why it is. It's because we have a holy God. Here's a God who will not wink at sin. And so God's holiness and his justice requires that sin must be dealt with. How can God ever be just if he were to look at sin and go, you know, don't worry about it. All is forgiven, wave of the wand. Now in order for God's justice to be satisfied, sin must be reckoned with and sin deserves only one punishment and that punishment is death. And so what we find is the old covenant system taught two things to Israel. First, it spoke of the justice of God, the fact that sin has to be reckoned with in one way or another. But now also as the sacrifice is brought forward, it also speaks of the mercy of God. That though Israel had sinned, though her sins had separated her from her God, Though Israel deserved, and all mankind deserved, nothing but the wrath of a holy God. As they look at the animal sacrifice and recognize that they should be the one on the cutting floor, we see that God in his mercy has provided a sinless substitute. What is it that John the Baptist says as he sees Christ coming to be baptized? He says what? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So you can't understand the death of Christ apart from understanding that Christ has come to die as that sin sacrifice, that the whole old covenant sacrificial system presents the paradigm by which we are to interpret the cross of Christ. That's what we call the doctrine of the atonement, substitutionary atonement. What we find is it's not the invention of 18th century evangelicalism. It is what every ancient Israelite would have been taught day in and day out as they went before the temple and had another lamb or bull or calf sacrificed and put to death in their place. And here we find the dramatic irony in all of this, and it's, again, the heart of the Christian message that who is the covenant maker and what is the covenant sacrifice? See, the point is not for me to sit there and chide you, saying, well, now you've made this covenant with God, so you need to do this or else. The whole point is that the one who has made the covenant is Christ himself. And that Christ came offering up not the blood of another animal, but he came offering up himself. Or at the cross, he came and was cursed, even though he had done no sin, even though he had done no wrong. And yet he was condemned as a common criminal and as a blasphemer. And he bears the punishment. As Deuteronomy 33 tells us, cursed is the one who hangs upon a tree. Christ comes and he bears the covenant curse in our place. We see this even in the Old Testament. Everything points forward to the work of Christ. Think of Genesis 15 again. When I said how Abraham is the one who had to split the animals into and pass, and the covenant maker had to pass through it. When you read Genesis 15, you find it is not Abraham who passes through the animals. It is God himself who passes through. Where God, as it were, invokes this own curse upon himself. If I were to ever break this curse, may this happen to me. And then God sends his son who did not break the curse. He, both being the covenant maker and the covenant keeper, is the obedient son of Israel, comes and dies in our place because we were the ones who had violated God's righteous law. We were the ones who deserved death. You see, it is on account of this, verse 15, that Christ is qualified to be the mediator of this new covenant. Christ has not simply come to mediate the law of Moses. And he has not come simply to be kind of the local sales clerk of the new covenant. Christ has not come to be the assistant regional manager of the new covenant. Christ has come to be the mediator. He is the one everything stands or falls with Christ. Because he is the one who has made this covenant sealed in his own blood. And it's a covenant that can only be received, it's benefits received by faith and trust in what Christ has accomplished for us and for our salvation. It's the great exchange, my sin for his righteousness. Why is it that Christ had to die? Christ had to die in your place if ever you or I were ever to receive the forgiveness of sins. That Christ's death becomes so efficacious. You think of the old covenant. Every time you were the one who had to bring forth an animal to be sacrificed on your behalf, and by the end of the day, you're going to have to do it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. You know, Christ's death is so efficacious, he only has to do it once. Once for all. It's so efficacious that it reaches forward in time and covers all of our sins. But here we see in verse 15 that it's so efficacious that it reaches backwards in time. and covers the sins of all the saints of the old Testament. Look there at first 15 that Christ's death has occurred to redeem them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. So the old covenant saints were not saved by works. They were saved through the same way we were by the blood of Christ and clinging to all the promises that had got that God had given to them. and types and shadows. That Christ's salvation is so efficacious, it deals for all who trust in the promises of God. For there is only one name in heaven by which man can be saved, and that name is the Lord Jesus Christ. So why is it that Christ had to die? Christ had to die so that we could live. To take our place, to satisfy the law's demands, to deal with sin once and for all, and to appease God's wrath to reconcile us. That's why it's called the mediator. He's the go-between. He is the one who reconciles the two parties. He propitiates our sin. He removes our sin, but he also expiates and removes God's wrath so that a holy God and a sinful people might be reconciled together once and for all. That's the point here. that without the shedding of Christ's blood, there could be no forgiveness of sins. This is not an optional component to the Christian faith, but the very heart of what we confess. That's what we're saying. What can wash away my sins? It's nothing but the blood of Jesus. So you're hearing this for the first time and you're thinking, what must I do to partake in this? I don't have vials of Christ's blood sitting on hand. It's not the point. The point is to confess your sins to Christ as your great high priest, to put your faith in the one who has sacrificed himself for you. When you do this, all your sins will be washed away, the guilty conscience cleansed, so you might have the ability to approach God's throne of grace to worship a holy God with confidence. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, we do thank you for the blood of Christ and we do ask that this morning you would use your word to instill in us a greater love for Christ and the sacrifice that he wrought at Calvary as our great covenant maker and a great covenant keeper, as the mediator of the covenant. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.