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 Hebrews 9  - New Life

Just a short note today.  I’m thinking of Easter, of the celebration of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Our Rescuer and Savior.

We can’t understand the power of God, the power of a resurrected God unless we understand the power of His death.  The Good News covenant between God our Saviour and his people could not go into effect until Jesus' death on the cross.  Under the new covenant of Jesus Christ, we are born again, purified, and completely cleansed.  We are no longer guilty before God.  Jesus took the penalty for our sins on the cross.  Thank you, God!

God’s justice is rooted in his goodness.  Sin and awful evil deeds are the cause of death and destruction.  Don’t blame God.  He didn’t defile anything.  God’s anger ceases with confession of sin, sorrow, and mourning.  It’s God’s requisite justice.  There is no cheap salvation.  Restoration begins with repentance for what we’ve done.  There is no forgiveness without admission of guilt, no restoration without genuine assent of the reality of our guilt.  I became a Christian in October 1990 because I knew all too well that I was a sinner.  And I was overwhelmed to read that God loved me.  I still am today.

Heaven is not part of this created world.  Jesus, the Son of God came into this world to be the perfect Savior.  Jesus is in heaven now - it is outside of this material world.  It is in heaven that Jesus entered the perfect Tabernacle and offered his own blood in the Most Holy Place once for a time to secure our redemption forever.

As A.W. Tozer popularized, we are to live crucified lives - dead to the old way, alive to Christ alone.  Let’s turn from our sin today and acknowledge our guilt and need for a Savior.  Let us never trivialize what God did for us.  “For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (9:22).

        We know the odds, they are pretty good that each one of us will die.  And we know what the Bible says after our death comes judgment (9:27).  We can face that judgment only with a perfect Savior.

Thank you, Jesus.  We don’t understand all of the unseen world and the workings of the greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven that You made.  But we know we are sinners and we know that You offered your own life as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.  Thank you for dying to set us free from the penalty we deserve.  Thank you for purifying us and for giving us new life.  Amen.


With Ben at Arlington National Cemetary.


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