Sermon 87
Sermon by
Keith Bateson in 2007 at Wonersh
Hebrews
Series
New
Covenant of Grace
Reading BibleGateway.com
- Hebrews 9
Opening Prayer
Lord, open your word to our hearts, and
our hearts to your word, in your Spirit’s power. Amen.
Introduction
Continuing our series in the letter to
the Hebrews, following Mike Griffiths’ sermon on chapter
8, we come to chapter 9. Chapter 8
introduced the new and better covenant, and chapter 9 continues with it. The word ‘grace’ doesn’t figure, but it’s
clear that the new covenant is one of grace—undeserved love, ‘God’s riches at
Christ’s expense’.
As the opening words of Morning and
Evening Prayer say, in our green service booklets, ‘we have come together to
hear and receive God’s holy word.’ When
we use the help of notes to read the Bible day by day, we may be reminded to
look out for a promise to claim, a command to obey, or a warning to heed. Something to do as a response to God’s holy
word!
Sermon
As Liz reminded us at the beginning of
this series, the writer is addressing Hebrews, Jewish readers who were in
danger of slipping back to Judaism, to the old covenant which meant so much to
them through their upbringing and culture.
Our readings began with references to the old covenant, the part
concerned with the tabernacle, the holy tent, containing the Holy of Holies,
the
The writer describes the old covenant
reverently enough, before pointing out some limitations. The old sacrifices did cleanse externally,
but failed to do more, failed to cleanse internally, in the heart and
conscience. As Jesus himself had said, ‘Now
then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are
full of greed and wickedness.’
When Christ came—well, things became
different! He brought a new and better
way. He came to do what the high priest
did—but differently. Yet the new did not
simply overthrow the old and get rid of it.
The old was fulfilled in Christ.
As High Priest, Jesus entered the Holy
of Holies to offer his own blood. The
emphasis isn’t on the blood as a physical substance, but on blood as the sign
of a life poured out, blood offered to God as evidence of a death. Under the old covenant the animal killed had
to be perfect, without any blemish. To
bring in the new covenant, Jesus offers himself without blemish—he was perfect,
without sin. Chapter 4 has already told
us this, ‘For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we
are—yet was without sin.’
The writer gives us a picture of a ‘real’
tabernacle in heaven, as opposed to the copy of it in the
How much better is the blood of Christ,
continues the writer, than the blood of bulls and goats. How much more effective it is. It only had to be offered once—not again and
again like the old sacrifices. It truly
sets us free from the sins committed under the old covenant—that is, the sins
which the first covenant showed up in all their sinfulness. Sins already committed leave only the penalty
behind—‘the soul that sins will die’. But
now, by offering his own unblemished life as the one true and effective sacrifice
for sin, Christ has made sure of our eternal salvation, our redemption.
I tried to think of other covenant
situations which are like this. One
possibility, perhaps, is the ending of the two World Wars. Mike Griffiths reminded us that the covenant
of God is not like an agreement between equals.
God just declares it—we are not given an opportunity to discuss the
terms!
In the same way, the Treaty of
Versailles at the end of the first world war was dictated to
Did it work? Well, we know it didn’t. Only 15 years later, Hitler came to power in
By contrast, at the end of the second
world war, a completely different ‘covenant’ was imposed by the Allies,
particularly
Did the German’s deserve the
‘punishment’ meted out by the Treaty of Versailles after the first world war? Well, even if not wholly, they certainly
deserved some of it. Did the Germans
deserve the generosity of the
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
a German Christian executed shortly before the end of the second world war, had
said, ‘In the world, the Christians are a colony of the true home.’ As the writer to the Hebrews relates the real
tabernacle in heaven to the earthly copy in the temple, so we Christians are to
relate to our true home in heaven, showing behaviour in the world that shows
what heaven is like. How do we know what
sort of behaviour that is? We look to
Jesus, and see his life of love, God’s agape love, reaching its fullness in his
life laid down.
Someone else said that out of 100
people, 1 will read the Bible, and the other 99 will read the Christian. ‘They will know you are Christians because
you love one another with my kind of love’, said Jesus to his disciples. How do they read us?
Another kind of covenant many of us
know well is the mortgage. The building
society lays down the rules (have you ever tried negotiating with a building
society??) and we have to accept them.
If we do, and keep up our obligation to pay each month, we are free to
enjoy our houses and live as we want. If
we fail to keep up our regular payments, we lose the lot.
Shades of the old covenant?
Suppose they just gave us the money,
once and for all? How much better we
would find that! We wouldn’t deserve it,
as we don’t deserve the riches of God’s grace, in the new covenant.
The old covenant was a covenant of law,
like the mortgage. Nothing wrong with
that, as far as it goes. The Pharisees
turned it into legalism. Where the rules
became more important than the people. Jesus
utterly condemned that.
He gave his life in the new covenant,
of grace—G-R-A-C-E -: G… God’s, R… riches, A… at C… Christ’s E… expense, as the old teaching goes. Grace always costs more than legalism. The love that shows we belong to Jesus is
precisely the love that is not deserved.
We are supposed to reflect Christ. How much legalism still lurks in our
lives? How much do we reflect the new covenant of
grace?
If you haven’t read it already, you
might find Philip
Yancey’s book ‘What’s so Amazing about Grace?’ helpful. You can get it from Wesley Owen in
As we move towards communion, let’s
receive grace, glad and humble to be loved by such an amazing God.
Closing Prayer
Father, there is so much in your Word,
and it is such a challenge as well as a blessing. Thank you that we, even we, can have
fellowship with you through your Son, and all the joy of knowing that you love
us so much, without our having to deserve it!
Help us to treat other people with the same generous love you have given
us. Amen.