The old covenant sacrificial system prefigured Christ’s sacrifice.  The old covenant taught that sin demands the shedding of blood.  The old covenant truly rested on a sea of blood.  During the Passover, for example a trough was constructed from the temple down to the Kidron Valley for disposing of the blood.  

Our text today is specific about the power of Jesus’ blood:  He has died as a ransom to set a believer free from the past, present and future sins committed. However, under the old covenant the annual atonement atoned for the sins of ignorance committed over the year. Christ’s blood reached all the way back to the Garden of Eden.  Romans 3:25 “God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.”

The writer of the book of Hebrews continues to build His logic argument for the Hebrew people to lay aside every weight that so easily besets them and look to Jesus Christ the author and finisher of their faith. 

During the last presidential election, we heard a lot about the two primary candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Little was heard about the other third-party candidates.  However, one of those third-party candidates was Zoltan Istyan. He ran as a candidate for the Transhumanist Party, whose purpose is to, “become god-like and overcome death.” Zoltan campaigned by driving around the country in a camper, shaped like a coffin. He called it the “Immortality Bus” from which he promoted the use of science and technology to overcome death in our lifetime. (Ethan Richardson, “The Ash Wednesday Immortality Bus,” Mockingbird blog, 3-1-17; www.PreachingToday.com)

Yet science and technology are not the answer, there is only one way to overcome death and obtain a godly character. That way is revealed in Hebrews 9.

Jesus was no uncomprehending, unwilling animal, but rather the perfect God man who consciously set His will to atone for our sins. The old Priesthood sacrifices were just a shadow of what Jesus Christ accomplished.  

The writer told the Hebrew people that…

Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

Overcoming sin and its devastating effects in your life depends on the blood of Christ, which is essential and effective for your redemption. His blood permanently and powerfully put away your sin once and for all!

The way to overcome sin and its devastating effects and to be set free from our depravity is through the blood of Christ.  His shed blood on the cross sets the believer free and overcome sin and its devastating effects because …

Christ’s blood inaugurated the Covenant.

Christ HAD to die to activate the provisions of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant, the Law, declared that “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20). The New Covenant provided forgiveness and freedom from sin, but a death had to occur to put it into effect. The blood of Christ was essential to RATIFY the New Covenant.

Every believer can rely on the blood of Christ, which is absolutely necessary to set you free. Trust in the death of Christ, which is crucial for your deliverance from sin.  Notice how verse 16 and 17 state this fact.

Hebrews 9:16-17For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives.

The word “testament” also means the English word “will.”  In every culture a will becomes in force only when someone has died. It never takes effect until death.  A will is activated by the death of the one who made the will, the testator.  That is the point of the Hebrew writer, Jesus activated His incredibly rich will to all those who believe.   

A man willed his body to science and chose Harvard Medical School, because, “His parents wanted me to go there and this is the only way I could get in” He had to die in order for his will to be accomplished.

Christ had to die in order for God’s will to be accomplished. Christ had to die in order for the provisions of God’s New Covenant to be enforced.

In the early 1900’s a pastor took a ruff backwoods man along to a pastor’s conference. They went to a regional train station and caught a train to the city where the conference was held.  The site of the conference was a big, beautiful building, where the pastors were discussing the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, or the difference between Law and Grace.

Throughout the conference, the pastor’s guest did not say a word. Then at the very end, he made this observation: “It seems to me that the train station demonstrated law and this building grace. At the train station there was a sign, ‘DO NOT SPIT’, and yet the men there did. Here, there is no sign, yet no one spits.”

No one spit, because no one wanted to spit. They didn’t need a sign telling them not to spit. In the same way, God wants our behavior to be inherent on the inside, so that there is no need for a law on the outside. God wants us to desire righteousness from within, so He doesn’t have to force us to keep the rules from without. God wants us to have an internal righteousness.

More than that, God wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him, as well. He wants us to know Him personally. He wants to be our “FATHER.”

Those who put their trust in Christ have nothing to fear. That’s because they know God as their Heavenly FATHER.  They are intimately acquainted with Him, and that’s what God wants!

It is God’s will that all who believe have an internal righteousness and an intimate relationship with Him. But in order for that to happen, Christ had to die. Jesus had to shed His blood to put God’s will into effect.

That’s the way it was with the Old Covenant, the Mosaic Law. Blood had to be shed to activate it.

Hebrews 9:18-20 Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.”

The Old Covenant was activated with the blood of calves and goats (Exodus 24). God had just put forth His law from the mountain. Moses received it and came down from the mountain to tell the people of Israel what God had said. The people responded, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” So, Moses wrote God’s words in a book. Then he gathered the people, sacrificed some calves and goats, and sprinkled the blood on the people.

The Old Covenant, like the New, was put into effect by the shedding of blood. Animal blood was shed to activate the Old. Jesus shed His own blood to activate the New. The blood of Christ was essential to ratify the new covenant.

And it was essential to release you from guilt. Christ’s blood was crucial for your forgiveness.

Hebrews 9:21-22 Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

Moses sprinkled everything with blood to purify it, because blood is absolutely necessary for forgiveness. There is no RELEASE from sin without blood. That’s what the word “forgiveness” means in the Hebrew, and it was used in some contexts to describe a criminal’s release from prison. But in order for that criminal to be released, someone had to pay for his crime.

On the cross, Jesus paid for your crimes and mine. He did it, so God could truly and justly release us from the penalty of those crimes no matter how bad they were.

Joshua Butler, in his book The Pursuing God, gave an example of a neighbor crashing his car through your fence. When you discover the shambles, you forgive him: “Don’t worry about the fence! All is forgiven.” But forgiving your neighbor doesn’t do away with the bill or dissolve the damage; it means you incur the cost.

At the Cross, Jesus incurred the cost of your sin (and mine). Instead of you and me paying for our own sins, a debt we could never pay, Jesus paid for those sins. He personally covered the cost. (Joshua Ryan Butler, The Pursuing God, Thomas Nelson, 2016, page 100; www.PreachingToday.com)

Hebrews 9:23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Animal blood was necessary under the Old Testament Tabernacle, which was only a copy of God’s dwelling. Heaven, on the other hand, requires a better blood than animal blood.  Heavenly entrance requires pure blood, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.

Hebrews 9:24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

When Jesus died on the cross, He entered heaven on our behalf.

Heaven is a perfect, holy place. If sinful people like you and me were to inhabit heaven, Jesus had to do something to keep it from being defiled. The blood of animals was not good enough. Only Jesus’ own blood was sufficient.

Officer Peter O’Hanlon was patrolling the streets at night in northern England several years ago when he heard a quivering sob. He turned in the direction of the sound and saw a little boy sitting on a doorstep in the shadows. With tears rolling down his cheeks, the toddler whimpered, “I’m lost. Take me home.”

Officer O’Hanlon named street after street, trying to help the boy remember where he lived. When that failed, the officer repeated the names of shops and hotels in the area, but that didn’t help either. Then he remembered that there was a well-known church in the center of the city. It had a large white cross that towered over everything else in the city. Officer O’Hanlon pointed to the cross and said, “Do you live anywhere near that?”

The boy’s face lit up. “Yes,” he said. “Take me to the cross. I can find my way home from there!” (Bible Illustrator)

The way of the cross leads home, and it’s the only way home. You cannot get into heaven any other way. You must rely on Christ blood. That He died for your sin and rose again. If you want to overcome sin and its devastating effects, depend on the blood of Christ, which is ESSENTIAL for your redemption. More than that…

His shed blood has RETROACTIVE and PROACTIVE POWER.

Rely on the cross of Christ, which is able to set you free. Trust in the death of Christ, which can deliver you from all sin.

Hebrews 9:25-26 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another — He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

The blood of Christ is a permanent solution to your sin problem. It put away your sin once and for all!

Under the Old Testament religious system, the priests had to offer sacrifices regularly and annually for the sins of omission of the people. The system couldn’t cover sin permanently, and that’s the way it is with all religious systems.  You have to keep coming back to the priest. You have to keep coming back to the system to experience its benefits.

Not so when you enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. He takes care of all your sin (past, present, and future) once and for all!

Matt Chandler talks about a time when he spoke at a conference.

When he was done preaching, he decided to hop in his car, drive twenty minutes to the town in which he grew up, and look at the houses that he remembered from back then. As he drove into town, he passed a field where he once got into a fistfight with a kid named Sean. It was not a fair fight, and Matt did some shady, dark things in that fight. He completely humiliated Sean in front of a large crowd of people… Then Matt drove past his first house, and he thought of all the wicked things he had done in that house. He passed a friend’s house where once, at a party, he did some of what he calls “the most shameful, horrific things that I have ever done.”

Afterward, on the drive back to the conference, Matt was overwhelmed with the guilt and shame of the wickedness that he had done in that city prior to knowing Jesus Christ… He says, “I could hear the whispers in my heart: ‘You call yourself a man of God? Are you going to stand in front of these guys and tell them to be men of God? After all you’ve done?’”

Then in the middle of all that guilt and shame, Matt remembered what the Bible said about the old Matt Chandler. He is dead. The Matt Chandler who did those things, the Matt Chandler who sinned in those ways, was nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, and all of his sins – past, present, and future – were paid for in full on the cross of Jesus Christ. (Matt Chandler, The Explicit Gospel, Crossway, 2012, pp. 211-213; www.Preaching Today.com)

When Jesus died on the cross, He put away sin “once and for all.” As a result, He no longer remembers your sin. Therefore, you no longer need to feel shame for the things you have done, because the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son paid for them all!

Hebrew people were encouraged that to overcome sin and its devastating effects in their life, they can’t depend on religious ritual; rather they needed to depend on the blood of Christ. Unlike any religious system, His blood is a permanent solution for sin.

The blood of Christ is the solution to your sin problem. It saves completely all who put their trust in Him!

Hebrews 9:27-28 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

Every person dies once. That’s it! There is no reincarnation, no second chance after death. You die once and after that comes God’s judgment. The same is true for Jesus Christ. He too died once! Then He took His own shed blood into heaven to pay for our sins, and soon He is returning to deliver us out of this sin-cursed world!

The Hebrew people understood these verses in the context of the Old Testament religious system. In that system, the High Priest would go into the holiest place of the temple every year with blood from an animal sacrifice. It was a fearful time for the priest, who could lose his life if he did anything wrong. But not only that, it was also a fearful time for the people. They anxiously awaited the priest’s return to see if God had accepted their sacrifice. If the priest did NOT return, they knew God was angry with them. If the priest DID return, they knew God had accepted their sacrifice.

Jesus, the Great High Priest, has gone into the holiest place of heaven itself with His own blood.  Now, we can eagerly wait for His return (not anxiously, but eagerly), because we know that God has accepted the sacrifice of His own Son on our behalf. We also know that our sins are covered not just for another year, but for all eternity!

There is a story about a little boy who killed his grandmother’s pet duck. He accidentally hit the duck with a rock from his sling-shot. The boy didn’t think anybody saw it, and quickly buried the duck in the backyard and didn’t tell a soul.

Later, the boy discovered that his sister had seen it all. And she now had the leverage of his secret and used it. Whenever it was the sister’s turn to wash the dishes, take out the garbage, or wash the car, she would whisper in his ear, “Remember the duck.” And then the little boy would do whatever his sister should have done.

However, there is always a limit to that sort of thing. Finally, the boy had had it. He went to his grandmother and, with great fear, confessed what he had done. To his surprise, she hugged him and thanked him. She said, “I was standing at the kitchen sink and saw the whole thing. I forgave you then. I was just wondering when you were going to get tired of your sister’s blackmail and come to me.” (Steve Brown, Three Free Sins, Howard Books, 2012, p. 110; www.PreachingToday.com)

No more of our thoughts or Satan’s blackmail with your regrets!  When our trust is in Jesus’ work on the Cross, He sets us free from the bondage of those regrets. He already knows what you did, and He has paid for it all on the cross.

In the words of song by William Cowpers:

There is a fountain filled with blood

drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood,

lose all their guilty stains

lose all their guilty stains

lose all their guilty stains

and sinners plunged beneath that flood.

Lose all their guilty stains!