About this sermon
Because believers have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, through the new and living way he opened through the curtain of his flesh, Hebrews calls them to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, hearts sprinkled clean and bodies washed with pure water. Baptism signifies and seals that inner cleansing. They are to hold fast the confession of their hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. They must also consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, meeting together and encouraging one another as the day draws near.
Sermon transcript
Well, if you would turn in your Bibles, this evening we are looking at the book of Hebrews and we’ll be reading verses 19 through 25. Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 through 25. This is the Word of God. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for giving us your spirit, for sending your spirit forth into the world, for giving your spirit the task of inspiring your word, breathing that out through the pens of men throughout the ages. And we thank you for preserving that word. And now for giving us that word tonight. We ask that that same spirit which wrote these words down and preserve them for our reading might be present so that we might read them and have life, that we might hear them and have the work of your spirit to open our eyes, the eyes of our hearts, our ears, that we might believe, that we might treasure, we might be changed by your word. We ask this in Jesus’ name, amen. You may be seated. Have you ever had fresh produce straight from the garden?
I know we’ve got quite a number of gardeners here who not only eat their own produce, but generously provide it to others. It is my firm belief that people who claim to not like vegetables have never truly had them fresh. Once you’ve had a fresh, ripe heritage tomato right off the vine, sweet corn right off the stalk, or maybe sweet peas off the vine, kale and lettuce still wet with the dew in the morning, fresh dug potatoes, and all the rest. I don’t see how one could not like vegetables. Fruits are the same way. Strawberries just aren’t the same when they have to ship them from Mexico to be picked up at Walmart. But blueberries, I notice the starkest difference. They’ve always got a special sweetness and nuance of flavor that I’ve only found when I’m picking them off the bush.
So I always try to eat as much as I can whenever I’m picking them. Tonight we’re talking about the new and living way that Jesus inaugurated. He gives us new and living access to God that was simply unavailable in the Old Testament. Well, on the one hand, it’s not fundamentally different since the Old Testament sacrifices were looking forward to Christ’s sacrifice. On the other hand, there’s something different about it now, now that Christ has come. Now this passage that we’re looking at this evening is probably the key passage of the entire book of Hebrews. Someone asks you, what is the message of the book of Hebrews in a nutshell? Certainly you could say Jesus is superior, but I would say that this passage is it. You would want to take them to this passage, Hebrews 10, 19 through 25.
Everything that the author has been saying up to this point is summarized and climaxed in this passage. And everything he will continue to say is unpacking what he summarized here. Jesus Christ has created and is himself a fresh and alive way to boldly access God, hold fast to faith, and to do so together as a believing community. I will see this under three headings this evening. Number one, the new and living way to enter God’s presence. Number two, to endure without wavering. And number three, the new and living way to encourage each other. Number one, the new and living way to enter God’s presence. We see this in verses 19 through 22. Verses 19-20, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.
The writer is about to issue an exhortation telling his readers to do something, but he prefaces it with this, And once again we see the writer identifying with his readers. We have confidence. The writer is identifying with his audience including himself in those that have a shared possession. This possession is confidence to enter the holy places. In Hebrews chapter four, verse 16, the writer exhorted his readers to be emboldened. He said, let us then draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. But now in chapter 10, he’s no longer exhorting his readers to apprehend confidence. He is assuring them that they have it. In chapter four, he had only barely begun to explain the reasons to have confidence. He said that based on the single fact of our sinless and sympathetic high priest, we ought to be able to come with boldness to the throne of grace.
And yet in chapter 4, the idea could be pictured of merely being bold in bringing our requests to priest Jesus. We could have assurance of a listening ear knowing he is sitting at the right hand of God. while being intimately and experientially acquainted with our frailty and failures, without having fallen prey to them himself. But in chapter 10, we find that the previous picture eclipsed, but that previous picture eclipsed because we are given access beyond what any high priest, according to the order of Aaron, ever dreamed of. The Aaronic high priest did enter the holy places, But they were earthly holy places, and they were only once a year, and it was always with trembling. The multitude of warnings against being struck dead would have inevitably struck fear into the heart of Aaron and all his successors.
No high priest in the Old Testament ever dreamed of entering the holy places with confidence. Yet here, the writer of Hebrews is not exhorting his readers to aspire to this, but to be assured that this is precisely what they already possess. This is reminiscent of the progression that we find in Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John to his disciples in the upper room the night before his death. In chapter 14 of John’s Gospel, we find Jesus assuring his disciples that he will take their request to the Father. John chapter 14, verses 13 and 14. He says, whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. And verse 16, and I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.
But as the night progresses and Jesus continues talking, he goes even further in John chapter 16, two chapters later. John 16, 23 and 24, Jesus says, in that day, you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, and your joy will be full. Jesus is not trying to pit himself and the Father against one another in the slightest. Instead, he’s stressing their unity, but he’s highlighting the intimacy available to his disciples because of their connection to him. As those that are in Christ, the disciples possess the same access to the Father that Jesus himself has. When they come in Jesus’ name, they come with his access.
The author of Hebrews is telling his readers that we have confidence to enter the holy places through the blood of Jesus. The previous priests entered the holy places with trembling and trepidation but those who have Christ’s blood sprinkling them walk boldly where even high priests feared to tread. This is something new. Now the writer of Hebrews has been talking about the new covenant, so we’re not entirely surprised to see him describe the access to the holy places in Christ as new. But while the word in English is the same word, in Greek there’s a slight nuance that is present in this word choice. Instead of kainos, which is the word he uses elsewhere for new, the normal Greek word for new, he uses a more obscure term, prosphateros. This is the only occurrence of this word in the New Testament, but it does show up in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
It’s a word that means new, but it carries the connotation of fresh. When used of food, it is in contrast to stale. We find it in Numbers 6, verse 3, distinguishing between fresh and dried grapes. Fresh grapes. Or in Ecclesiastes 1.9, famously, the author complains that there is nothing fresh under the sun. It all seems stale, like it’s been seen before. But here the writer of Hebrews is describing the way into the holy places that has been opened through Christ as fresh, new. This word carries the connotation of experientially fresh. The access to God that Jesus makes possible feels different. It is alive and fresh. In this new and living way that has been opened, the least believer who is united to Christ has greater and more intimate access to God than the greatest high priest under the Old Covenant.
Now as we move through our passage, verse 20 says that he opened it through the curtain of his flesh. by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, verse 20. It can be tricky to pin down exactly what is meant by Jesus’ flesh. Flesh is a word used in multiple ways throughout the New Testament across various writers. Flesh and bone, flesh means a physical body. But when flesh and spirit are contrasted, it doesn’t mean physical versus spiritual, Rather, flesh versus spirit refers to the sinful nature, flesh, in contrast with that which comes from the Holy Spirit. But neither of those definitions seem to quite fit what’s going on here in our passage. It’s not Jesus’ physicality itself that gives us confident access to God’s presence.
It was also clearly not Jesus’ sinful nature either, since he certainly didn’t have one. Instead, what seems to be in view here by Jesus’ flesh is his weakness. Now this does include his physical form, but it is his veiling of his glory, taking on the role of a humble servant. And this is the usage that we saw in Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 7. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. To him it was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. The term, in the days of his flesh, in Hebrews 5, 7, the author of Hebrews cannot mean Jesus’ human nature. Because Jesus has not shed his human nature. He still has it. He still possesses his human nature in heaven.
So the author of Hebrews instead is referring to Jesus’ period of weakness called in the shorter catechism his humiliation as opposed to his exaltation. So Jesus’ flesh that opened the way for us to have confident access to the holy places was his period of humiliation, his time of taking the form of a servant and obediently suffering death, death on a cross. Yet despite possessing fresh and living access that we do, we have not eliminated our superior High Priest, as we see in verses 21 and 22. The author goes on, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Rather, our high priest’s past and present ministry is what provides us with the boldness in the first place.
In fact, Jesus leads the way. Jesus is not merely holding the door open, telling us to go on in ahead of him. We are following him as he leads the way and is the way into the presence of God. Jesus, our High Priest, has given us a true heart that has true faith, since it has been cleansed from sin. as represented with the cleansing water of baptism. The body is sprinkled clean with water, but this merely signifies and seals the inner cleansing which must take place for new life to begin. Jesus’ high priestly ministry provides truly effective cleansing from sin. which finally gives the beneficiaries of his work not just access to God, but bold access into God’s most intimate presence. This fresh and living confidence that we possess then gives us a new way to hold on to our confession of hope.
Number two, the new and living way to endure without wavering. And this is in verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. This exhortation to hold fast our confession is not new in the book of Hebrews. We saw a very similar exhortation earlier in chapter 3, verse 6, and we are his house. If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting and our hope, In chapter 3, the author speaks with contingency. If we hold fast, then we are Christ’s house. The tone is more ominous in chapter 3, and even more so when we see it repeated in verse 14 of chapter 3. For we have come to share in Christ if, indeed, we hold our original confidence firm to the end. The common point made in chapter 3 is that enduring confidence, steadfast holding on to the hope found in Christ, proves that the faith of the beginning was real.
One of the precious teachings within Reformed theology, sourced from passages like these, is the doctrine of the perseverance or the preservation of the saints. Perseverance is how we speak of it from our perspective, but preservation is how we speak of it from God’s perspective. God preserves us in perseverance. God’s preservation results in our perseverance through sometimes unimaginable difficulties. But any saint that has gone through such trials and come out the other side will testify that it has not been so much their strength, but God’s power that preserved them. Mysteriously and wonderfully, God preserves his saints by keeping their faith fixed upon him and his faithfulness, even when they feel their own strength slipping. In chapter 10, the exhortation to hold fast our confidence is not given in terms of a condition of being a part of Christ or his house, but it is reiterated in light of what Christ has brought about.
Instead of being reminded that perseverance is confirmation of our genuineness, the author points to the demonstrated faithfulness of the object of our hope to instill confidence. for he who promised is faithful. He has just assured his readers that they have bold access by virtue of being beneficiaries of Christ’s high priestly work. Now he is exhorting them to exercise this confidence like a muscle. The phrase without wavering comes from a single Greek word that is related to the Greek words for sitting or lying down or in terms of a day declining The word is aklinas, which means to not decline, to not fade, to not lessen. The author is urging his readers to make frequent use of their access to God, granted by Christ, so that it won’t decline or waver the way a muscle will atrophy without regular exercise.
I find this to be the case in my own life. The less I pray, The less I am inclined to pray, the more timid I become in prayer. The bold access which objectively belongs to a believer can be lost subjectively if it is neglected. Nothing will have changed in terms of my standing before God, but my own neglect of prayer in my life results in me feeling more distant from God. I’m more inclined to ask for smaller requests Instead of feeling like God is my Heavenly Father, who is eager to hear and answer my prayers, I tend to start thinking of God as distant and cold. I think of Him as not as interested in my petty concerns. He’s not worth bothering about my daily troubles. When I have a lack of prayer, I also start to think that maybe I don’t need God for the most things in my life after all.
God is someone for me to contact for the really big, serious health stuff, but he becomes a place of last resort, not daily confidence and intimacy. Have you ever found yourself trying to pray for help, but really doubting whether God actually cares about your need or whether he’ll do anything? You’re ready to admit that he’s able to do anything he wants, but you’re kind of doubtful that he’s likely to help you. Your confidence in prayer is wavering. The writer of Hebrews is trying to prevent that from happening. And he does it in two ways. He starts out assuring you that your access to God is truly unparalleled. What you have in prayer as a believer in Christ is beyond what the Old Testament high priest could ever dream of. And then he follows this up with assurance, follows this assurance up with an urging to make frequent use of this access.
Instead of frequent use diminishing its effectiveness, our bold access is like a muscle that only gets stronger with youth. Here in our passage, in chapter 10, verse 23, we have hope linked with confession. Now the Apostle Peter famously tells us in 1 Peter 3.15 to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. The first readers of the letter to the Hebrews were likely under particular pressure to not confess their hope. Speaking of their hope openly might make them the object of persecution. But the author of Hebrews tells them to not just hold on to the hope itself without wavering, but hold on their confession of hope. Use your words. Be ready to give an answer, an explanation, a confession of your hope.
Don’t keep it private to see if people can guess. Exercise the boldness that you possess in entering God’s presence by holding fast to the confession of your hope. We often call our recitation of the Nicene or Apostle’s creeds as a confession of faith. What is often meant by faith in that instance is the way that the Apostle Paul uses faith. For instance, in his letter to Timothy, meaning a body of teaching. But we would be right to consider it also as a confession of faith in terms of hope. While much of what we recite in the creeds is something that has already happened, not all of it is looking backwards. Consider especially the words, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead. Christians are those who hold fast to the belief, the assurance, that despite what the critics, our emotions, or anything around us might suggest, Jesus really is coming back.
Just as surely as we hold fast to the assurance that He came and died and rose again, He is coming again. We confess together our hope that Christ really will return, sooner or later, just as He promised. Judgment day is coming, and so is the consummation of redemption. But the writer of Hebrews is under no delusions that holding fast to hope it would be best maintained by a just me and Jesus situation. It’s meant to be strengthened and maintained in community. And so he moves on to describe the new and living way to encourage each other. Number three. And this is found in verse 24 and 25. and let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.
In contrast to much of the New Testament, the book of Hebrews is especially full of let us or we ought exhortations. The author regularly includes himself with the audience as equally in need of heeding the warnings and encouragements that he gives. In this way, he is modeling what he describes in this verse. He has himself been considering how to stir up his readers to love and good works, so that they will hold steadfastly to the confession of our hope. That’s what prompted him to write this letter. But he knows it’s not enough for him to do it alone. He wants to turn his whole audience into those who are keeping an eye out for each other spiritually and brainstorming about how to encouragingly hold each other accountable. Now, I’ve seen this done in an unhealthy way.
I’ve seen churches which are so much in each other’s business that there’s no room to breathe. The main problem is that there’s not a spirit of grace that allows others to fail without jumping down their throat for every single mistake. In the name of keeping each other accountable, sometimes congregations can develop a culture of perfectionism. Instead of attempting to graciously keep an eye out for those around who may need encouragement, there becomes a spirit of correcting every mistake that is spotted. Since no one is perfect all the time under a microscope, a culture of perfectionism usually breeds hypocrites, like it did in Israel with the Pharisees. There will be people who are able to play the game better than others and can keep up with doing the right things longer and more consistently that matter to the people checking everyone else.
But that’s not what the writer of Hebrews is envisioning here. He’s not calling for a culture of merely pointing out failures. It can be relatively easy to point out failures in others. Jesus famously compared it to a comically sad scenario in which a person with an enormous log protruding from his eye is attempting to remove a splinter from his brother’s eye. A real recipe for disaster. Although I think his real point in that example was to tell us what the attitude we ought to have when addressing criticism. We’re in the best place to lovingly correct a brother or sister when we view our own sin as a bigger deal than the fault that we’re pointing out in them. The author of Hebrews says that what he is calling for is something that requires creative thinking.
It doesn’t usually require much thought to notice somebody messed up. It takes much more thought to know how to come alongside and bring gentle encouragement. The author of Hebrews is offering us an example right here in this passage. There’s obviously a problem that he’s aware of amongst his audience. Some of the congregation are skipping corporate worship quite a bit. This is concerning. The OPC as a denomination has placed a high priority on corporate worship because it understands that neglecting regular worship is often either a symptom or a cause of spiritual anemia or both. Now there are many reasons that people stop gathering with saints for worship. Some people have been hurt very deeply by people within churches. But a me and Jesus Christianity that avoids regular close contact with the body of believers is also avoiding the challenge of exercising love and obedience to those imperfect believers.
Like a muscle that never gets exercised, a Christian who isolates from challenges that inevitably come from interacting with imperfect, even though redeemed, people will find their love, even for God, atrophied. First John 420 puts it as simply as possible. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. The world today is full of people who are convinced that they are loving people. Some admit their dislike or even hatred of humans, but profess a deep love for animals. It is quickly obvious to an outsider that these people do not really understand love. They love creatures which have little to no capacity to hurt them or make themselves difficult to be loved.
Animals are a popular object of love because they express no judgment or expectations. They don’t possess questionable intentions or motivations. People, on the other hand, make it difficult to love them in all kinds of ways. But just as it is obvious that the animal lover who hates people has a deficient understanding of love, so it is with those that maintain they possess a love for God while refusing to join themselves to his church. Yet, the author of Hebrews doesn’t bring down the hammer of judgment on those who are on a dangerous path of neglecting regular corporate worship, consistently distancing themselves from the body of believers. Instead, he urges his readers to think creatively with him, not on how to rebuke and criticize those who aren’t up to snuff, but how to encourage them, to stir them up, that will require first listening to understand what’s really going on.
There are all kinds of legitimate reasons that might be hindering a person from regular worship, gathering with God’s people. And most often, they need encouragement or help. But even if they do need a stern rebuke, that will become clear after you’ve understood the situation more fully. There is a place for calling people out. But the gospel, which is God’s power, the power of God for salvation, it’s not merely bad news, but good news. If the power of God for salvation is encapsulated in a message of good news, we should try to model that same approach in our efforts to stir each other up to love and good works. As we’ll see next time in the next few verses, The author does not soft-pedal the reality of judgment, but he doesn’t begin with it. He opens his discussion with a glorious encouragement for believers to exercise the access to God that they possess.
As part of exercising that confidence to keep it strong, he urges his readers to stay involved in corporate worship and creatively consider how they can encourage any stragglers, especially, to keep gathering with God’s people. And verse 25, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. As time passes, corporate worship is not less important, but increasingly important. So the author adds the final incentive, our hopeful expectation of the imminent return of Christ. Although the means to retrieve stragglers is gentle and creative, the stakes are not small. Judgment day is coming and we don’t want anyone to be unprepared or to find themselves cut off from Christ after cutting themselves off from his church. So we pursue with grave concern. but with a graceful demeanor of encouragement, making use of the bold access to God that we now possess as the beneficiaries of Christ’s precious work.
Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we are amazed at what your word says, that we should be given such access to walk boldly where the high priests came with trembling. But we know it is by the work of your son Jesus Christ, the one who has not just our Lord, but has called himself our brother, who is our high priest, purchased our lives by his blood. and welcomes us in, in his name, to call you our father with bold access. Lord, we ask that you would give us your spirit, that we might have the wisdom and grace and gentleness that we need to be those that encourage one another, that we care enough to encourage, to warn, We are wise enough and gentle enough to do it in a way that brings them back, does not distance them further.
Lord, we ask for your spirit in this. We need your help and your wisdom. And we pray for it in Jesus’ name. Amen. Well, let’s turn now to sing hymn number 404, The Church’s One Foundation. And let’s stand as we sing number 404.
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