The Living Bible (386 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
What we are saying is this: Christ, whose priesthood we have just described, is our High Priest and is in heaven at the place of greatest honor next to God himself.
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He ministers in the temple in heaven, the true place of worship built by the Lord and not by human hands.
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And since every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, Christ must make an offering too.
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The sacrifice he offers is far better than those offered by the earthly priests. (But even so, if he were here on earth he wouldn’t even be permitted to be a priest because down here the priests still follow the old Jewish system of sacrifices.)
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Their work is connected with a mere earthly model of the real tabernacle in heaven; for when Moses was getting ready to build the tabernacle, God warned him to follow exactly the pattern of the heavenly tabernacle as shown to him on Mount Sinai.
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But Christ, as a Minister in heaven, has been rewarded with a far more important work than those who serve under the old laws because the new agreement that he passes on to us from God contains far more wonderful promises.
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The old agreement didn’t even work. If it had, there would have been no need for another to replace it.
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But God himself found fault with the old one, for he said, “The day will come when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and the people of Judah.
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This new agreement will not be like the old one I gave to their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; they did not keep their part in that agreement, so I had to cancel it.
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But this is the new agreement I will make with the people of Israel, says the Lord: I will write my laws in their minds so that they will know what I want them to do without my even telling them, and these laws will be in their hearts so that they will want to obey them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.
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And no one then will need to speak to his friend or neighbor or brother, saying, ‘You, too, should know the Lord,’ because everyone, great and small, will know me already.
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And I will be merciful to them in their wrongdoings, and I will remember their sins no more.”
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God speaks of these new promises, of this new agreement, as taking the place of the old one; for the old one is out of date now and has been put aside forever.
Now in that first agreement between God and his people there were rules for worship and there was a sacred tent down here on earth. Inside this place of worship there were two rooms. The first one contained the golden candlestick and a table with special loaves of holy bread upon it; this part was called the Holy Place.
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Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a room called the Holy of Holies.
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In that room there were a golden incense-altar and the golden chest, called the ark of the covenant, completely covered on all sides with pure gold. Inside the ark were the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them, and a golden jar with some manna in it, and Aaron’s wooden cane that budded.
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Above the golden chest were statues of angels called the cherubim—the guardians of God’s glory—with their wings stretched out over the ark’s golden cover, called the mercy seat. But enough of such details.
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Well, when all was ready, the priests went in and out of the first room whenever they wanted to, doing their work.
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But only the high priest went into the inner room, and then only once a year, all alone, and always with blood that he sprinkled on the mercy seat as an offering to God to cover his own mistakes and sins and the mistakes and sins of all the people.
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And the Holy Spirit uses all this to point out to us that under the old system the common people could not go into the Holy of Holies as long as the outer room and the entire system it represents were still in use.
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This has an important lesson for us today. For under the old system, gifts and sacrifices were offered, but these failed to cleanse the hearts of the people who brought them.
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For the old system dealt only with certain rituals—what foods to eat and drink, rules for washing themselves, and rules about this and that. The people had to keep these rules to tide them over until Christ came with God’s new and better way.
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He came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world,
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and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation.
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And if under the old system the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of young cows could cleanse men’s bodies from sin,
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just think how much more surely the blood of Christ will transform our lives and hearts. His sacrifice frees us from the worry of having to obey the old rules and makes us want to serve the living God. For by the help of the eternal Holy Spirit, Christ willingly gave himself to God to die for our sins—he being perfect, without a single sin or fault.
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Christ came with this new agreement so that all who are invited may come and have forever all the wonders God has promised them. For Christ died to rescue them from the penalty of the sins they had committed while still under that old system.
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Now, if someone dies and leaves a will—a list of things to be given away to certain people when he dies—no one gets anything until it is proved that the person who wrote the will is dead.
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The will goes into effect only after the death of the person who wrote it. While he is still alive no one can use it to get any of those things he has promised them.
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That is why blood was sprinkled as proof of Christ’s death
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before even the first agreement could go into effect.
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For after Moses had given the people all of God’s laws, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, and sprinkled the blood over the book of God’s laws and over all the people, using branches of hyssop bushes and scarlet wool to sprinkle with.
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Then he said, “This is the blood that marks the beginning of the agreement between you and God, the agreement God commanded me to make with you.”
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And in the same way he sprinkled blood on the sacred tent and on whatever instruments were used for worship.
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In fact we can say that under the old agreement almost everything was cleansed by sprinkling it with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
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That is why the sacred tent down here on earth and everything in it—all copied from things in heaven—all had to be made pure by Moses in this way, by being sprinkled with the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven, of which these down here are copies, were made pure with far more precious offerings.
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For Christ has entered into heaven itself to appear now before God as our Friend. It was not in the earthly place of worship that he did this, for that was merely a copy of the real temple in heaven.
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Nor has he offered himself again and again, as the high priest down here on earth offers animal blood in the Holy of Holies each year.
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If that had been necessary, then he would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But no! He came once for all, at the end of the age, to put away the power of sin forever by dying for us.
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And just as it is destined that men die only once, and after that comes judgment,
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so also Christ died only once as an offering for the sins of many people; and he will come again, but not to deal again with our sins.
This time he will come bringing salvation to all those who are eagerly and patiently waiting for him.
The old system of Jewish laws gave only a dim foretaste of the good things Christ would do for us. The sacrifices under the old system were repeated again and again, year after year, but even so they could never save those who lived under their rules.
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If they could have, one offering would have been enough; the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all and their feeling of guilt would be gone.
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But just the opposite happened: those yearly sacrifices reminded them of their disobedience and guilt instead of relieving their minds.
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For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats really to take away sins.
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That is why Christ said as he came into the world, “O God, the blood of bulls and goats cannot satisfy you, so you have made ready this body of mine for me to lay as a sacrifice upon your altar.
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You were not satisfied with the animal sacrifices, slain and burnt before you as offerings for sin.
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Then I said, ‘See, I have come to do your will, to lay down my life, just as the Scriptures said that I would.’”
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After Christ said this about not being satisfied with the various sacrifices and offerings required under the old system,
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he then added, “Here I am. I have come to give my life.”
He cancels the first system in favor of a far better one.
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Under this new plan we have been forgiven and made clean by Christ’s dying for us once and for all.
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Under the old agreement the priests stood before the altar day after day offering sacrifices that could never take away our sins.
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But Christ gave himself to God for our sins as one sacrifice for all time and then sat down in the place of highest honor at God’s right hand,
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waiting for his enemies to be laid under his feet.
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For by that one offering he made forever perfect in the sight of God all those whom he is making holy.
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And the Holy Spirit testifies that this is so, for he has said,
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“This is the agreement I will make with the people of Israel, though they broke their first agreement: I will write my laws into their minds so that they will always know my will, and I will put my laws in their hearts so that they will want to obey them.”
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And then he adds, “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.”
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Now, when sins have once been forever forgiven and forgotten, there is no need to offer more sacrifices to get rid of them.
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And so, dear brothers, now we may walk right into the very Holy of Holies, where God is, because of the blood of Jesus.
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This is the fresh, new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us by tearing the curtain—his human body—to let us into the holy presence of God.
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And since this great High Priest of ours rules over God’s household,
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let us go right in to God himself, with true hearts fully trusting him to receive us because we have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean and because our bodies have been washed with pure water.
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Now we can look forward to the salvation God has promised us. There is no longer any room for doubt, and we can tell others that salvation is ours, for there is no question that he will do what he says.
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In response to all he has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other and in doing good.
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Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.
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If anyone sins deliberately by rejecting the Savior after knowing the truth of forgiveness, this sin is not covered by Christ’s death; there is no way to get rid of it.
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There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible punishment of God’s awful anger, which will consume all his enemies.
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A man who refused to obey the laws given by Moses was killed without mercy if there were two or three witnesses to his sin.
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Think how much more terrible the punishment will be for those who have trampled underfoot the Son of God and treated his cleansing blood as though it were common and unhallowed, and insulted and outraged the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to his people.
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For we know him who said, “Justice belongs to me; I will repay them”; who also said, “The Lord himself will handle these cases.”
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It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
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Don’t ever forget those wonderful days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you kept right on with the Lord even though it meant terrible suffering.
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Sometimes you were laughed at and beaten, and sometimes you watched and sympathized with others suffering the same things.
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You suffered with those thrown into jail, and you were actually joyful when all you owned was taken from you, knowing that better things were awaiting you in heaven, things that would be yours forever.
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Do not let this happy trust in the Lord die away, no matter what happens. Remember your reward!
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You need to keep on patiently doing God’s will if you want him to do for you all that he has promised.
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His coming will not be delayed much longer.
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And those whose faith has made them good in God’s sight must live by faith, trusting him in everything. Otherwise, if they shrink back, God will have no pleasure in them.
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But we have never turned our backs on God and sealed our fate. No, our faith in him assures our souls’ salvation.