Welcome to this week’s episode, a special rerun from our Speaking of Life archive. We hope you find its timeless message as meaningful today as it was when it was first shared.
Watch video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mQc0FfFX14
Program Transcript
Speaking Of Life 3049 | The Jesus Subtext
Greg Williams
Have you ever had a conversation in which the primary communication was not the words spoken? Maybe an exchange with an old friend where you say very little to express your relationship? Maybe a conversation with a rival in which looks and posturing were really what was “said”?
The brief exchange Jesus has with the scribe in Mark 12 is similar. The scribes ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is and Jesus responds:
Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31 (ESV)
His answer connects to the central prayer faithful Jews prayed every day; it is called the Shema. But the words unspoken say a lot as well.
At least in Mark, the scribes are portrayed as Jesus’ nemesis. They are constantly harping on his behavior and ultimately are instrumental in causing his death.
And yet in this exchange, the scribe actually agrees with Jesus by saying: “You are right, Teacher…”
The conversation surprisingly takes a sharp turn away from the usual antagonistic tone. He agrees with Jesus quickly—where the subtext in most of their conversations is challenging, suddenly there is agreement.
Jesus’ reaction to this agreement is no less surprising:
And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Mark 12:34 (ESV)
The Lord knows just when to stop everything and watch the kingdom leaking through, even through a scribe. This conversation stands out against other similar exchanges because there is pause, there is observation, not just a disagreement or debate.
Jesus sees the change coming through this man and proves that the kingdom welcomes everyone as a matter of the heart. Unlike Israel—who at the time who was shutting non-Jews (Gentiles) out—the gospel movement welcomed all—scribes or otherwise—if that person turned even slightly toward Jesus. It was a matter of faith—not social class, not ethnicity nor heritage, that brought someone to believe and follow Christ.
So this exchange—a surprisingly positive response from a scribe excites Jesus. It’s small moments like these showing how Jesus was transforming the world then and still is today.
I’d like to think this scribe who was “not far” from the kingdom made it all the way across. Perhaps this was the beginning of his journey—a brief, patient discussion with Jesus. The same discussion he has had with you.
I’m Greg Williams, Speaking of Life.
Program Transcript
Speaking Of Life 3049 | The Jesus Subtext
Greg Williams
Have you ever had a conversation in which the primary communication was not the words spoken? Maybe an exchange with an old friend where you say very little to express your relationship? Maybe a conversation with a rival in which looks and posturing were really what was “said”?
The brief exchange Jesus has with the scribe in Mark 12 is similar. The scribes ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is and Jesus responds:
Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31 (ESV)
His answer connects to the central prayer faithful Jews prayed every day; it is called the Shema. But the words unspoken say a lot as well.
At least in Mark, the scribes are portrayed as Jesus’ nemesis. They are constantly harping on his behavior and ultimately are instrumental in causing his death.
And yet in this exchange, the scribe actually agrees with Jesus by saying: “You are right, Teacher…”
The conversation surprisingly takes a sharp turn away from the usual antagonistic tone. He agrees with Jesus quickly—where the subtext in most of their conversations is challenging, suddenly there is agreement.
Jesus’ reaction to this agreement is no less surprising:
And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Mark 12:34 (ESV)
The Lord knows just when to stop everything and watch the kingdom leaking through, even through a scribe. This conversation stands out against other similar exchanges because there is pause, there is observation, not just a disagreement or debate.
Jesus sees the change coming through this man and proves that the kingdom welcomes everyone as a matter of the heart. Unlike Israel—who at the time who was shutting non-Jews (Gentiles) out—the gospel movement welcomed all—scribes or otherwise—if that person turned even slightly toward Jesus. It was a matter of faith—not social class, not ethnicity nor heritage, that brought someone to believe and follow Christ.
So this exchange—a surprisingly positive response from a scribe excites Jesus. It’s small moments like these showing how Jesus was transforming the world then and still is today.
I’d like to think this scribe who was “not far” from the kingdom made it all the way across. Perhaps this was the beginning of his journey—a brief, patient discussion with Jesus. The same discussion he has had with you.
I’m Greg Williams, Speaking of Life.
Psalm 146:1-10 · Ruth 1:1-18 · Hebrews 9:11-14 · Mark 12:28-34
This week’s theme is extreme faithfulness. In our call to worship psalm, the Lord is praised as both our Creator and our sustainer. The Old Testament story in Ruth echoes the faithfulness of the Lord through Ruth’s speech that expresses her resolute commitment to stay with Naomi. Our reading from Hebrews explodes into descriptive comparisons that exalt the effectual and permanent power of Jesus as our high priest. The Gospel text in Mark records Jesus quoting the Shema (the time-honored Jewish prayer affirming “God is One”), as the foundational commandment that is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.
How Much More?
Hebrews 9:11-14 NRSVUE
We may not know who the author of Hebrews is or the date in which the book was written, but the message of the book is not lessened to any degree without this knowledge. Because of all the references to the Old Testament, Hebrew Scriptures, and Jewish traditions found in the letter, it becomes fairly apparent that the intended audience was Jewish Christians. Because of this, those of non-Jewish heritage are at a disadvantage in picking up on the many comparisons made using various historically Jewish references in the letter. However, what we do share with the intended audience is what makes this letter relevant for us today. Like those early Jewish Christians, we share the temptation to allow secondary things to slip in and displace our trust in Jesus.
The recipients of Hebrews were a people who had put their trust in Jesus and even endured many persecutions on account of that faith. We too can look back and see a time when we first placed our trust in Jesus as sufficient in and for all things. We too may have given up much and endured a great many disadvantages for doing so. However, we have this letter before us today because the Holy Spirit saw fit that we, like those early Jewish Christians, would need a reminder of the one who is truly worthy of our full devoted and unwavering trust.
We too can slowly drift away from the God who revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. We too can lose sight of who Jesus is for us and seek to either add something that we think will fill in the gaps, or to turn from him altogether. It is possible as the years roll on in our walk with Jesus that we can fall out of step with growing in our knowledge of him and our faith in him. Maybe that is where you are today. If so, this letter is worth your attention from start to finish. But, for today, we only have four verses to read. Even so, this short snippet of Hebrews will serve to remind us, as the author intends, of the greatness and far surpassing sufficiency of Jesus and his work accomplished on our behalf.
This section alludes to a lot of details that were covered in the ten verses leading up to it. Essentially, chapter 9 begins by revisiting the first covenant and the many regulations contained in it with special attention to the tabernacle and high priest. An important aspect of these regulations is that they were intended for worship. This is a critical filter to consider when looking back through Israel’s history. From the start, God intended to enter into a relationship with Israel. This relationship would be characterized by worship. Israel was to know this God who had called them to himself, and in that knowing, they would respond in worship, which is the only fitting response to a God who is worthy of worship. However, this worship would have to be a mediated worship on account of their sin and guilty conscience.
Their history puts on full display that these people were a sinful, broken, and outright rebellious people. They repeatedly resisted God’s grace and love towards them. As a result, God could not dwell with them directly in all his glory as it would destroy them. So, in his grace, God set up a mediated system of worship that would enable these rebellious people to “stay in the room” with him in a manner of speaking. God was making provision for their worship.
When you look back on all the details and precision that was prescribed by God to build the tabernacle and all that went with it, it becomes clear that God is the one who provided the means for Israel’s worship. They would not need to provide their own worship, sacrifices, and rituals, using their own ingenuity or imaginations like the many pagan religious cults around them. Israel was given very specific instructions on how to worship and how not to. That took all the guesswork out of it, and they need not live in fear that maybe they did not offer up worship that was worthy enough to be accepted. They knew exactly what to offer. This was God’s grace to them and a signpost of the ultimate provision of a mediator who will come to fulfill all that God was doing in Israel for the sake of the entire world.
Today’s text, beginning with verse 11, is going to remind the readers of Hebrews that Jesus is God’s perfect and final provision for our reconciliation with him and for the worship of the Father that we were created for. And it begins with a big fat “But.”
This “But” is to let us know that everything the author was talking about up to this point needs to be held in suspension to hear what will follow. In other words, before we decide to hold onto these other things that we feel are so important for our relationship with God, we need to weigh that against what is about to be presented. And what we are about to see is the author’s attempt to remind us that whatever secondary things we may be tempted to add to our faith, over and against a faith in Christ alone, or even to displace our trust in him altogether, they are insignificant by comparison. Ultimately, what we have in Christ is so much more by comparison and we would be fools to settle for anything less.
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the holy place, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! (Hebrews 9:11-14 NRSVUE)
You notice the name “Jesus” is not mentioned here. The writer of Hebrews has already established that Jesus is the high priest and faithful over God’s house (Hebrews 3:1-6). In today’s text, we can take note of several comparisons the author has chosen to bring to our attention which show how much more Jesus is worthy of our faith than animal sacrifices.
Here the writer of Hebrews mentions several types of animals that were sacrificed. On the Day of Atonement, a goat was slain for the people. The blood of this goat was sprinkled before the mercy seat. The high priest confessed the people’s sins over a second goat, sometimes referred to as the scapegoat, which was then led away into the desert. The Levitical high priest was required to offer a bull as a sin offering for himself and his household. A red heifer was slain (Numbers 19:3-4,) whose ashes was mixed with water which became the “water of separation” for removing ceremonial defilement whether contracted by sin or by contact with death. As this heifer was slain “outside the camp,” Christ was slain outside the city limits of Jerusalem (see Matthew 27:31-34, and Hebrews 13:11,12). The sacrifice of our current high priest completely replaced the sacrificial system.
First, Christ is presented as the new “high priest.” This is being compared to Israel’s high priests and their role in Israel’s history and worship. Something has changed with this high priest. He is a high priest “of the good things that have come.” Every good thing God was seeking to accomplish through Israel’s history has now culminated in Jesus Christ. This is now a present reality, not just a future expectation, namely, the very good thing of entering into eternal life. This is a life characterized by an undefiled relationship with God, which has been established and has been completely mediated to us in Jesus Christ. The high priests of Israel’s history never did that, they only pointed to it.
Second, in Jesus we now have a “greater and more perfect tent” compared to the Old Testament tabernacle and temple. One of the debates regarding the date Hebrews was written deals with whether the letter was written before or after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. However, considering how the author here is describing Jesus as the “greater and more perfect tent” it is safe to conclude that whether the temple was still standing or not is immaterial. It would be obsolete by comparison anyway. There is no longer a need for the specific place that contained the “holy of holies” where the high priest would atone for Israel’s sins. Jesus is the one who “tabernacled” among us (John 1:14) and he is, in his person, our atonement.
Third, Jesus has secured our reconciliation through his sacrifice “once for all.” Unlike the other high priest who had to come year after year to offer the “blood of goats and calves,” Jesus provides himself as the blood offering that obtains our “eternal redemption.” There is no further need of any sacrifice to be made. The shedding of blood for redemption is settled, once for all time, in the saving blood of Jesus Christ.
Finally, the author builds on this comparison of Jesus’ sacrifice compared to the sacrifice of goats, bulls, and heifers to establish that it is only in Christ’s sacrifice of himself that our conscience from dead works is purified. And all this has the intended goal of bringing us “to worship the living God.” God’s purposes have been established in Jesus. He is now the mediator of our relationship with his Father. He is now our true worship leader who leads us to know and enjoy God forever.
And did you notice how this was carried out? “who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God…” The entire triune God is involved in the provision of our redemption and purified conscience. Like in Israel’s history, God again has provided for the people’s worship.
Here is a quote from T. F. Torrance in, Atonement, that speaks beautifully on this issue of our consciences being purified in Christ and will serve as a point of closure for our passage today:
It is because in Jesus Christ the voice of the judge is identical with the voice of our high priest, because the very voice that condemns us is also the voice that freely forgives us, that Jesus Christ by his atonement purges our sinful conscience. … Under the Old Testament liturgy there is remembrance (anamnēsis) of sin in every repeated act of sacrifice, but here in the new covenant there is no remembrance of sin at all, and so the conscience is purged of its guilty consciousness by the sprinkling of the blood of Chris upon it, as it is liturgically expressed. … [So] our conscience with him is altered from enmity to peace. But this purging of a guilty conscience means also the sanctification of the believer; that is to say, the believer is put in a relation of holiness to God, and so is dedicated or consecrated to God as a worshipper. By taking away guilt from their conscience Christ sets the believer free in a relation of rightness to the holy God and before him so they may worship him properly and freely. (p. 92)
In the coming weeks, we will hear the author of Hebrews making more staggering claims to how much more we can trust Jesus over anything else we may be tempted to rely on. Perhaps what we must deal with is the immensity of the good news we have in Jesus Christ — the good news that we may at times think is too good to be true. Thankfully the Holy Spirit has inspired authors such as the one who penned the letter of Hebrews to remind us of what is true. Jesus is truly above and beyond all that we ever need or could possibly desire. The more we can grasp that, or be grasped by him, the easier it will be to let go of all those secondary things that amount to less than nothing. He and he alone is worthy of all praise and glory.
This week, spend time in worship thanking the Father for the Son, thanking the Holy Spirit for continually pointing us to the Son, and thanking the Son for being our perfect high priest.
Amen!
Jon DePue—Year B Proper 26
Listen to audio: https://cloud.gci.org/dl/GReverb/GR054-JohnDePue-Propers26-W1.mp3
November 3, 2024 — Proper 26 in Ordinary Time
Hebrews 9:11-14
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Program Transcript
November 3, 2024 — Proper 26 in Ordinary Time
Anthony: Let’s move on to the lectionary passages. That’s why we’re here. So, we’ve got four lectionary texts we’re going to be looking at this month. The first passage of the month is Hebrews 9:11-14. I’m going to be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 26 in Ordinary Time, which is November 3.
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12 he entered once for all into the holy place, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
Jon, let’s make this personal. Why? How does it matter to you that Jesus Christ is a greater high priest of the good things that have come?
Jon: Yeah, this is a great question. And I tend to follow the Torrances on this. I’m sure you know who the Torrance’s are. It’s a family, great family of Scottish reformed theologians.
And here I would lean on one of the lesser known Torrances, James Torrance. Jamie Torrance, who’s the father of Alan and the grandfather of a young theologian, Andrew Torrance. Both Andrew and Alan were kind enough to read the book that I was just talking about, Beyond Justification, and endorse it, kindly. So, I like those guys a lot.
So Christ as the high priest, for someone like James (and I’ve learned a lot from him), Christ is the high priest, is someone who draws people into himself to be a royal priesthood themselves, where we participate in Christ’s priestly status and offer God our whole existence to serve him with heart, soul, mind, and strength.
So, Christ himself is the one true high priest, and this is the only way we’re able to become priestly ourselves, is in him. Without his priestly status as true God and true human, there would be no point of connection there between God and humanity.
So, the priestly status is getting at something so vital for Christians — that it’s only through his priestly status as the true God / human that we’re able to participate in him and therefore in the divine reality.
We would basically just be groping around in the dark without that mediation coming from that high priest who is Christ. So as J. B. Torrance would say, as the high priest Christ worships truly (so Christ is worshiping), we’re enabled to worship ourselves and respond faithfully to God’s will for us through our own ongoing discipleship.
So, Christ worships, in him, we worship, right? There’s that tight connection there. So, it’s significant and it matters because it is only the high priesthood of Christ that enables us to be Christians and to participate in his priesthood, in his worship. And it follows from that, his life, death and resurrection and ascension as well.
And so just a book recommendation here. I’d suggest checking out J. B. Torrance for listeners, J. B. Torrance’s Worship, Community, and the triune God of Grace. That’s been so helpful to me.
Anthony: No, that’s good. Since you brought up J. B. Torrance, I want to share with you something he said in one of his final lectures to his class. He said,
What we need is not a new doctrine or clear doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we need the Holy Spirit. What we need is not a better Christology, what we need is Christ. What we need is not Trinitarian doctrine, but a relationship with the Trinity. And that is the difference.
And that’s what you’re getting at because Christ is high priesting (if I can turn it into a verb), in this moment, mediating. In this moment, we are participating in that love relationship of Father and Son and the fellowship of the Spirit. Hallelujah. It makes all the difference, right?
Jon: Absolutely. Yeah. Without it, we’re just lost. We’re stumbling around in the dark.
Anthony: Well said. What a bloody passage this is. Several mentions of blood and here’s the thing, blood, it’s paradoxical. Blood can mean death and life. It can mean sickness and therapeutic healing, demise and redemption, innocence and judgment. Jon, what should we make of this bloody passage?
Jon: Yeah. I actually have been persuaded that blood — so we’ve got to remember that Hebrews, for example, is drawing on tons and tons of sacrificial material from the Old Testament sacrificial system. That’s really key to understanding what Hebrews is doing, how it’s using it.
I’ve been persuaded that I don’t think blood in the kind of temple system in the Tanakh or Old Testament or in Hebrews really is referring to death per se or judgment really. I think you’re right about life. And I would add freedom because we’ll get to a passage that has blood connected with freedom as well. My dear friend, Andrew Rillera, who’s a Duke grad, recently wrote a book [Douglas Campbell is co-author] called, Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death, where he goes over a lot of the stuff. But he’s drawing on a lot of material from scholars like Jacob Milgram, Old Testament scholar, David Moffat.
And they’ve really helped me see things a bit more clearly, I think, than I had in the past. So based on their scholarship, and many others, here’s what I think is going on with blood in Hebrews 9 and 10. I think it’s actually functioning in a participatory way.
What do I mean by this? We need to read this verse in context. Within the sweep of Hebrews, we should look back to Hebrews 6:20, where Jesus is called the forerunner there, which cannot indicate that Jesus died instead of us. Instead, he’s dying ahead of us. His blood is something that’s going forward in front of us.
Forerunners don’t do something instead of you, they do something before you go through it, and you’re a part of that. So, what Christ does as the forerunner through his blood, is he’s going to be something that’s emphatically purgative. It’s cleansing; it’s removing all the things that sort of contaminate us.
So, I don’t think we should shy away from blood here based on maybe what we’ve been handed about how it functions in certain traditions of understanding more specifically, namely as a judgment, that we would otherwise deserve or something like that. That Christ’s blood is something that we should have gotten ourselves; we shouldn’t have shed blood instead of Christ. We should lean into it. I think that Christ’s blood cleanses us and purges us of impurity and ultimately liberates us, it gives us life, even in the midst of what seems like it’s going to end up in death, full stop.
The gospel, I think, says no to that understanding the idea that blood refers to death. Even in the Old Testament, sacrificial system, which (like I said, Hebrews draws on a lot), if we start by thinking that death is referring to, or that blood is referring to death, it’s going to get us off on the wrong foot, I think. The blood functions to purge, in this sense, a sort of heavenly sancta, as the beginning of the passage suggests, it’s not made of human hands, right?
This heavenly sanctum of impurities is not to substitute for a worshiper as a punishment that they would deserve, is to cleanse them, right? So, the logic is just completely different from blood referring to some sort of substitutionary death or something like that.
Anthony: So unlike when I had to watch “Dexter,” and I looked away because of all the blood, this is where we can look to …
Jon: We should look to the blood there. Yes. Freedom and life.
Anthony: Yes. I appreciate what you said.
Program Transcript
November 3, 2024 — Proper 26 in Ordinary Time
Anthony: Let’s move on to the lectionary passages. That’s why we’re here. So, we’ve got four lectionary texts we’re going to be looking at this month. The first passage of the month is Hebrews 9:11-14. I’m going to be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 26 in Ordinary Time, which is November 3.
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12 he entered once for all into the holy place, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
Jon, let’s make this personal. Why? How does it matter to you that Jesus Christ is a greater high priest of the good things that have come?
Jon: Yeah, this is a great question. And I tend to follow the Torrances on this. I’m sure you know who the Torrance’s are. It’s a family, great family of Scottish reformed theologians.
And here I would lean on one of the lesser known Torrances, James Torrance. Jamie Torrance, who’s the father of Alan and the grandfather of a young theologian, Andrew Torrance. Both Andrew and Alan were kind enough to read the book that I was just talking about, Beyond Justification, and endorse it, kindly. So, I like those guys a lot.
So Christ as the high priest, for someone like James (and I’ve learned a lot from him), Christ is the high priest, is someone who draws people into himself to be a royal priesthood themselves, where we participate in Christ’s priestly status and offer God our whole existence to serve him with heart, soul, mind, and strength.
So, Christ himself is the one true high priest, and this is the only way we’re able to become priestly ourselves, is in him. Without his priestly status as true God and true human, there would be no point of connection there between God and humanity.
So, the priestly status is getting at something so vital for Christians — that it’s only through his priestly status as the true God / human that we’re able to participate in him and therefore in the divine reality.
We would basically just be groping around in the dark without that mediation coming from that high priest who is Christ. So as J. B. Torrance would say, as the high priest Christ worships truly (so Christ is worshiping), we’re enabled to worship ourselves and respond faithfully to God’s will for us through our own ongoing discipleship.
So, Christ worships, in him, we worship, right? There’s that tight connection there. So, it’s significant and it matters because it is only the high priesthood of Christ that enables us to be Christians and to participate in his priesthood, in his worship. And it follows from that, his life, death and resurrection and ascension as well.
And so just a book recommendation here. I’d suggest checking out J. B. Torrance for listeners, J. B. Torrance’s Worship, Community, and the triune God of Grace. That’s been so helpful to me.
Anthony: No, that’s good. Since you brought up J. B. Torrance, I want to share with you something he said in one of his final lectures to his class. He said,
What we need is not a new doctrine or clear doctrine of the Holy Spirit, we need the Holy Spirit. What we need is not a better Christology, what we need is Christ. What we need is not Trinitarian doctrine, but a relationship with the Trinity. And that is the difference.
And that’s what you’re getting at because Christ is high priesting (if I can turn it into a verb), in this moment, mediating. In this moment, we are participating in that love relationship of Father and Son and the fellowship of the Spirit. Hallelujah. It makes all the difference, right?
Jon: Absolutely. Yeah. Without it, we’re just lost. We’re stumbling around in the dark.
Anthony: Well said. What a bloody passage this is. Several mentions of blood and here’s the thing, blood, it’s paradoxical. Blood can mean death and life. It can mean sickness and therapeutic healing, demise and redemption, innocence and judgment. Jon, what should we make of this bloody passage?
Jon: Yeah. I actually have been persuaded that blood — so we’ve got to remember that Hebrews, for example, is drawing on tons and tons of sacrificial material from the Old Testament sacrificial system. That’s really key to understanding what Hebrews is doing, how it’s using it.
I’ve been persuaded that I don’t think blood in the kind of temple system in the Tanakh or Old Testament or in Hebrews really is referring to death per se or judgment really. I think you’re right about life. And I would add freedom because we’ll get to a passage that has blood connected with freedom as well. My dear friend, Andrew Rillera, who’s a Duke grad, recently wrote a book [Douglas Campbell is co-author] called, Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death, where he goes over a lot of the stuff. But he’s drawing on a lot of material from scholars like Jacob Milgram, Old Testament scholar, David Moffat.
And they’ve really helped me see things a bit more clearly, I think, than I had in the past. So based on their scholarship, and many others, here’s what I think is going on with blood in Hebrews 9 and 10. I think it’s actually functioning in a participatory way.
What do I mean by this? We need to read this verse in context. Within the sweep of Hebrews, we should look back to Hebrews 6:20, where Jesus is called the forerunner there, which cannot indicate that Jesus died instead of us. Instead, he’s dying ahead of us. His blood is something that’s going forward in front of us.
Forerunners don’t do something instead of you, they do something before you go through it, and you’re a part of that. So, what Christ does as the forerunner through his blood, is he’s going to be something that’s emphatically purgative. It’s cleansing; it’s removing all the things that sort of contaminate us.
So, I don’t think we should shy away from blood here based on maybe what we’ve been handed about how it functions in certain traditions of understanding more specifically, namely as a judgment, that we would otherwise deserve or something like that. That Christ’s blood is something that we should have gotten ourselves; we shouldn’t have shed blood instead of Christ. We should lean into it. I think that Christ’s blood cleanses us and purges us of impurity and ultimately liberates us, it gives us life, even in the midst of what seems like it’s going to end up in death, full stop.
The gospel, I think, says no to that understanding the idea that blood refers to death. Even in the Old Testament, sacrificial system, which (like I said, Hebrews draws on a lot), if we start by thinking that death is referring to, or that blood is referring to death, it’s going to get us off on the wrong foot, I think. The blood functions to purge, in this sense, a sort of heavenly sancta, as the beginning of the passage suggests, it’s not made of human hands, right?
This heavenly sanctum of impurities is not to substitute for a worshiper as a punishment that they would deserve, is to cleanse them, right? So, the logic is just completely different from blood referring to some sort of substitutionary death or something like that.
Anthony: So unlike when I had to watch “Dexter,” and I looked away because of all the blood, this is where we can look to …
Jon: We should look to the blood there. Yes. Freedom and life.
Anthony: Yes. I appreciate what you said.
Small Group Discussion Questions
- What are some secondary things we are tempted to put our trust in over, or in addition to, Jesus?
- How is Jesus “much more” than Israel’s former high priest?
- How is Jesus “much more” than the tabernacle or temple?
- How is Jesus a “much more” sacrifice for our sins?
- Why do you think our relationship with God and worship are bound together?