11/12/06 - Last Judgment - Heb. 9:24-28

CHRIST APPEARS
- As our High Priest
- As our Sacrifice
- As our Savior

It’s another beautiful morning in the land of Israel, and you are standing behind the altar, watching as the high priest takes a bowl of blood from a newly slaughtered goat and carries it into the tent. Why are you doing this? Because that’s the way it has to be. There is no other way. Last night you and your Israelite family went over to the neighbors for supper. Their young son had gone out that day to hunt, brought back what he had caught, and made it into a stew. Later that evening their son admits that it was rabbit meat you and everyone else had eaten. A rabbit, as any Israelite would know, is an unclean animal. It is a sin to eat it. And although you ate an unclean animal unintentionally, it was still a sin. And so, according to God’s law, you got up early this morning, found a female goat from your flock, let the priest know why you were there at the tabernacle, and brought it to the altar. And now you are standing behind that altar, watching as the high priest takes a bowl of that goat’s blood into the tent.
But you can’t follow him. You have to stay right there behind that altar. In fact, you will never be able to go through that curtain and into the Tent of Meeting. You will live your entire life without ever being able to peak inside. And as you look behind you there is a line forming. Some with goats, some with oil and flour and salt, some with entire bulls, some with pigeons. But none of them will be able to enter the tent either. Like you, they will have to remain behind the altar and watch as the blood of their sacrifice is taken into the tent for them. Why? Because the tent is where the Lord himself dwells. And out of all the Israelites only the priests are allowed to appear before the perfect God. And you understand that completely. Because you know that you, an infected sinner, would die in the presence of the Most High Almighty Lord.
God has not changed. He is the same today as he was 3000 years ago with the Israelites. He is still the Most High Almighty Lord. He still does not tolerate sin. He still demands perfection. God has not changed his mind about sin. What has changed is our perception about sin. Because we no longer stand in front of a bloody altar. Our sins are no longer shoved in our face in such a vivid way. We are no longer physically restricted from the presence of the Lord. And because we aren’t confronted with these things every day, we sometimes forget how completely sinful we really are. It’s not that we just commit sins, it’s that we are sinful. That’s who we are. “I was sinful from birth,” Isaiah said, “from the time my mother conceived me.” And we are all in the same situation. We were born in sin. So anything that comes out of us is infected with sin. Even the “good” things you do. Even those things that are noble and right and motivated out of love for the Lord, even those things are far from perfect.
Think of a pure glass of water. Now imagine that somebody drops a thimble full of poison into it. The poison infects the whole glass of water. You can’t get a portion of that water that doesn’t have some poison in it. It’s impossible. Any water poured out of that glass will be contaminated. And so are you. You are contaminated by sin. Every thought, every word, every action you will ever do will be saturated with sin. And don’t be fooled! Don’t be fooled by what people say nowadays: “Well, there’s a little good in everyone.” No, there’s not! There no good in anyone and a whole lot of bad. I am completely sinful. You are completely sinful. We are completely sinful - as far from perfection as humanly possible.
Don’t forget that even today we need a High Priest. We cannot do it by ourselves. We cannot stand in front of a perfect God. We cannot appear in heaven and think that we’ll be let in because of who we are. Because remember, we are sinners! We need a High Priest. We need Christ. After all, that’s who all those Old Testament high priests foreshadowed. They pointed to our great High Priest. “For Christ did not enter a manmade sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.” Just as the Old Testament high priest went through the curtain and entered into the presence of God on behalf of the people, so Jesus appears in God’s presence for you. Because he is holy. He is not contaminated by sin. He is allowed to stand before God and speak on your behalf. And he does. He speaks specifically for you because he carries your name with him.
The high priests in the Old Testament had to wear special clothing when they went into the tent. One of those articles of clothing was called an ephod. On that ephod the 12 names of the Israelite tribes were engraved on stones. And so when the high priest went into the Lord’s presence, he would carry the names of the people with him. He was their mediator. Jesus carries your name. He is your mediator. He steps in front of God and the Lord Almighty sees your name. And more importantly, God the Father sees that Christ has appeared before him in your place.
Can you imagine how many sacrifices a single Israelite must have performed throughout his/her lifetime? There were five regular sacrifices they had to do: the burnt offering, the grain offering, the fellowship offering, the guilt offering, and the sin offering. And that’s not to mention the special festival sacrifices during the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Day of Atonement. Plus, the High Priest had to offer a sacrifice once in the morning and once in the evening every day for the whole community. The Lord was making the point over and over again that “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.”
Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of that principle. Because Christ is not only your High Priest that brings the sacrifice, he is the Sacrifice itself. The Old Testament high priests couldn’t go into the tent empty handed. They had to bring a sacrifice for the people and for themselves every time they entered. So Jesus couldn’t enter the perfect sanctuary of heaven empty handed either. He, too, had to bring a sacrifice. And that’s what he appeared on earth to do. “He has appeared once for all… to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Jesus, our Sacrifice, did away with sin. That means he completely removed it. He took every intentional, unintentional, secret, and blatant sin and completely removed it. This isn’t just a separation. This is being cut off from sin. Because Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed on the cross, those sins will never come back to you again. They are completely gone. You are completely clean.
And that’s what was so different about Christ’s sacrifice compared to the Old Testament offerings. Christ died once for all. The Old Testament sacrifices were on going. They were never enough. For every sin new blood had to be shed. For every person there was that reminder that their sins were ever-present. They could not do enough to rectify the situation. That’s the glory of Christ. He did rectify the situation. He did forgive all our sins past, present, and future. He died once for all - and once was enough.
As the Old Testament believers carried out those sacrifices every day, they were constantly looking ahead. They knew the promise of the Savior and so they waited in eager anticipation for their Messiah to arrive. We, too, wait for our Savior to arrive. “He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” Our High Priest, our Sacrifice, is our Savior. And when he appears again it will not have anything to do with sin. That is over with. That battle is won. When Christ appears again he will not bear our sin, but rather he will bear our salvation.
And that’s one of the most beautiful pictures to me. He bears our salvation. That means he will take us to heaven, the place that is the true tabernacle, the true dwelling place of God. And so really Jesus is taking us behind that curtain that we could never go beyond. He is taking us into a place that we have no right to even peak at. He is taking us to see the ark of the covenant, the glory of God, and all the joys that go with it. And we don’t have to be scared. We don’t have to tremble any longer because of our sins. The Lord has accepted us already because he has already accepted our High Priest, our Sacrifice, and our Savior in our place, at whose side we will always be.
What a glorious day that is going to be. And so we wait patiently for him. We wait in anticipation for the day when he will appear again because although it will be a day of judgment, it will also be the day of our salvation. We will rejoice on Judgment Day as we hear the trumpets blast, see the angel armies, and experience the Son of God coming in all his glory. I can’t wait! I cannot wait to see that happen because we don’t have anything to worry about. Our High Priest has already appeared for us in God’s presence. Our Sacrifice has appeared on this earth in our place. And our Savior will appear again not to condemn us, but to bring us salvation. What a day that will be. What a day for Christians everywhere - dead or alive!
As we wait patiently for this day, my brothers and sisters, don’t forget to stand behind that bloody altar every once in a while. Whenever you read the Old Testament, the book of Hebrews, or hear about a sacrifice of any kind, put yourself in the place of an Old Testament believer. Stand behind that bloody altar. See you sins for what they are. See yourself for what you are and what it takes to cleanse you from that contamination. But don’t feel that you need to stay behind that altar. Because one day you will walk along side that High Priest into the Most Holy Place. You will watch him sprinkle his own blood. You will see him acting as your mediator. And, perhaps the greatest part: you will stand in the glorious, heavenly presence of the Most High Almighty Lord - and you will never have leave. Nor will you want to.
Amen.

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood… to him be glory and power forever and ever! Amen.” - Rev. 1:5-6