The Superiority of Redemption in Christ

Finally, the last words of verse 14 read, “from dead works so that we can serve the living God.” What does it mean for our consciences to be cleansed “from dead works”? Anyone under the old covenant who recognized the pervasiveness of his sin would know he would need another sacrifice as soon as the Day of Atonement was over. This is why they repeated the Day of Atonement every year. These are “dead works” because they amount to nothing, just as many of us through our own efforts have tried to earn God’s favor through “dead” moral and religious works. But Christ’s atonement fully cleanses our consciences such that we now no longer have the weight of our sin condemning us before God. Christ’s work on the cross fully removes our guilt, thereby rendering our consciences clean.

Because of this internal cleansing, we can now serve the living God without fear. Hebrews remarkably captures the balance of the Christian life. Redeemed people serve God and find fulfillment and joy in doing the very things that we did out of obligation and frantic determination to try to justify ourselves before Christ came. The completed work of Christ rescues us from this foolish attempt and saves us from dead works.

Hebrews 9:15

Because Christ is the high priest who has secured our redemption through offering himself, the author of Hebrews says Jesus is “the mediator of a new covenant.” Mediator is a dangerous word for many of us because we think we know what it means. We assume that a mediator is someone who gets two opposing sides together and tries to effect a compromise or an agreement between them. For example, if you have conflict in the Middle East, you’ll bring in diplomats and mediators to try and effect some kind of compromise—an arbitration in which two parties try to find some common ground by means of a mediator.

But there is no common ground between a holy God and sinful humanity. Therefore, Christ, as mediator, doesn’t find a compromise between the two because God’s holiness cannot be compromised. Far from suggesting a compromise between two opposing positions, Christ agrees with the Father that we deserve the infinite outpouring of his wrath. He agrees with the Father about the ugliness of our sin. He agrees with the Father about the necessity of a sacrifice. And as our mediator, he agrees to be that sacrifice even as the Father sends him for that task. In this mediatory work, Christ procures an eternal inheritance for his church (i.e., the “called”), an inheritance simply synonymous with all of the present and future benefits of Christ’s salvific work. This “eternal inheritance” is comparable to the “eternal redemption” in 9:12.

Again the author of Hebrews highlights that it is specifically Christ’s death that accomplishes what the sacrifices under the first covenant could not—namely, eternal redemption and forgiveness. The animal sacrifices of the old covenant could not secure redemption eternally. They were temporary and needed to be repeated. Christ’s death, on the other hand, secures redemption forever. His death wins forgiveness from all of the transgressions committed under the first covenant. Furthermore, the old covenant could not secure redemption sufficiently for the people. It could not repair man’s severed relationship with God, for the old covenant anticipated and depended on the new covenant. The animal sacrifices offered for sin and purification under the old covenant foreshadowed the fully sufficient sacrifice in the new: Jesus Christ. He mediated a better covenant and offered up a better sacrifice, one that was efficient to redeem people from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. In doing so, Christ secured an eternal inheritance for those who are called.

Hebrews 9:16-22

The church today is often impoverished by truncated, reductionistic articulations of the gospel. We often talk about how someone can come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved from their sins, but we often have no idea what took place in order for that promise to be true. Hebrews demonstrates that it is the Father’s will that his people understand not only what Christ has done for us but how he did it. The reason is because how Christ achieves our redemption more fully demonstrates the glory of God. We can’t honor, appreciate, and worship God for what he has done for us unless we understand what it cost to achieve our salvation.

Verses 16-22 begin to unveil how Christ achieved our redemption. The author explains that the covenant is like a last will and testament. Just as a last will and testament bequeaths gifts to others after the death of the testator, so also the death of Christ results in the giving of gifts to members of the new covenant community. The account of the inauguration of the first covenant in verse 18 draws the reader back to Exodus 24:4-8. In this covenant-initiation ceremony the sprinkling of the people with the blood of animals signified that the punishment for covenant disobedience was death. However, the deaths of these animals also signified that God provided a substitute to stand in the place of covenant breakers. Covenant breakers could only be forgiven by the shedding of blood. Moreover, the shedding of blood was the inauguration sign of the covenants. The shedding of blood—that is, the death of a substitute—inaugurated both the old and the new covenant. This is what the author means in Hebrews 9:18. Thus, the shedding of blood represented the beginning of a covenant and the forgiveness of sins. This is the theological heart of verse 22. Just as the first covenant was inaugurated with the death of animals and the purification of the tabernacle by their blood, so Christ has inaugurated a new covenant with his blood and has thereby accomplished the forgiveness of sins.

Why blood atonement? In the Old Testament, God tells his people, “The life . . . is in the blood” (Lev 17:11). You don’t have to know very much about anatomy and physiology to know that’s true. Just try losing too much of it and see how well you do! Without blood, there is no life. The Israelites would remember this every time they cut the throat of an ox or a lamb in sacrifice. When they watched an animal’s blood drain out, they watched its life drain out as well.

So if we think theologically about the sacrificial system, we can see the connection between blood, death, covenant, and atonement. The act of sin brings about the covenantal consequence of death. The demand for the transgressor’s death is essentially the same thing as the demand for the transgressor’s blood. The substitutionary animal sacrifices in the old covenant were vivid reminders that transgressors deserved death. Yet, through these substitutionary blood sacrifices, God made a way to atone for sin. Therefore, blood is symbolic in the sacrificial system under the old covenant because it demonstrates the costliness of sin. It graphically illustrates that with sin comes death.

The events on Calvary are the most vivid depiction of this reality. Christ—the One who was fully God and fully man, who was tempted in every way as we are yet remained without sin—shed his own blood. When he shed his own blood, he became the mediator of a new and better covenant. By that blood, and that blood alone, all who are called and endure receive a redemption and inheritance that lasts forever.