5TH SUNDAY IN LENT
Text: Hebrews 9:11-15
Source from Back to Luther with German archive reference. Back to Walther's Epistle Sermons.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
In our Savior, dear Christian friends.
God is holy, and we are sinners who have transgressed his inviolable Law. By nature we all have a certain dread of drawing near to God. In Our heart we all bear the consciousness of our guilt and the necessity of first making reconciliation with God before we can confidently step before him. Our conscience tells us: You have offended and made him your enemy who has created you and in whose power you are. Therefore we are easily convinced of the necessity of having a mediator who can act for us with the holy God who has been offended, who would take charge of his affairs before God, through whom God would speak to him, and through whom he in turn would speak to God.
Luther writes: "The entire world tries to be reconciled with God; it therefore has always invented different ways of reconciliation." And Luther is right. There has hardly been one nation upon earth which did not have its institutions for the reconciliation of its gods, its temples, its altars, its sacrifices, and its priests by which it dealt with God in the name of the people, plead for it before God, and sacrifice and pray for it.
It is true: No person had hit upon the doctrine of a reconciliation with God by an offering of reconciliation through the light of his reason; undoubtedly the heathen knew something of this only from a report and as the result of their association with God’s people. It is also true: The priests of the idols of the heathen were deceivers; their secret mysteries were nothing but a web of lies and deceit fabricated by them, in order to procure riches and honor in this world at the expense of the ignorant mob. It is also true: The ways certain peoples tried and still try to appease the divinity was and often is most horrible; they not only imposed the severest torments upon themselves,
even to hurling themselves under the wheels of the heavy wagons of the idols and being squashed; they placed their own children into the glowing arms of hollow iron idols as precious sacrifices of appeasement; they tore the heart from the body of their prisoners of war as quick as a flash in order;to offer it while still beating to their sun god or other gods. Finally it.is true: The god whom the heathen tried to appease was not the true God; for although they knew that there was a God, they did not know the true God, but as Paul writes, they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things; Rom 1, 23; yes, he writes to the Christians dwelling in the idolatrous city of Corinth: "I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God.” 1 Cor 10,2.
Though the ceremonies of the heathen for appeasing God have been and still are deceitful and horrible, they do not show that the teaching of the necessity of a reconciliation of man with God is a concoction of lies; really, they offer proof that all men at all times and in all lands and from all tongues and families felt the need of a reconciliation with God. For if this feeling did not lie by nature in the heart of man, if all men did not have the conscience "which accused or else excused one another,” it would have been impossible, for all people to have been moved by priests to make provisions for the reconciliation of a divinity, build temples, erect altars, bring sacrifices, and appoint priests who were to deal for them with God.
That we are not deceived by the inerasable feeling dwelling in our hearts of needing reconciliation with God, a mediator between us and God,and a priesthood, we see from the divine revelation contained in Holy Scripture. There we learn that there have been priests and sacrifices of reconciliation at all times. We read that Cain and Abel, the first sons of Adam and Eve, were priests in their homes and both brought an offering to the Lord; we read the same thing of Noah. We hear that the king of Salem, Melchizedek who lived at the time of Abraham, was a priest of the Most High God. Finally, we read that Job offered God burnt offerings every day for each of his sons. All these men lived before the Jews had arisen as a nation and before they received their distinctive laws. Sacrificing and the priesthood were therefore not a peculiarity of the Jews and its special religious laws; both are found among God’s people from the beginning of the world until God through Moses instituted a special priesthood with definite ordinances and detailed laws as to where, how, and what sort of an offering should be brought.
But my friends, even the priests of the Old Covenant with their high priests and their assistants, the Levites, were not the true priests which we men needed; all of them were merely shadows, prototypes of the only, true, correct High Priest, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God. Our today's Epistle speaks of that; permit me to present that.
Quote the text here: Hebrews 9, 11-15.
On the basis of this Epistle let this be the subject of our devotion:
CHRIST, THE TRUE HIGH PRIEST OF ALL SINNERS
We ponder:
1. What Sort of a High Priest Christ Was, and
2. That Such a High Priest is the Right One for All Sinners.
Lord, you have revealed yourself in your Holy Word as the true High Priest of all sinners; grant that we may truly know you also as our High Priest, so that our conscience will be free of all slavish fear and that your blessed peace may enter into our hearts. You have offered yourself for every one of us upon the altar of the cross; oh then intercede for every one of us with your Father, bless us, and at last draw us after you within the veil, into heaven. Amen.
I.
Before we can judge whether Christ is the High Priest which we poor sinners need, we naturally must know what sort of a high priest Christ really was and still is. Our today's Epistle shows us this clearly, distinctly, and in detail. Christ is compared to the high priests of the Old Testament; it shows that he is infinitely superior. Six points are mentioned.
First of all we read: " Christ being come an high priest." The apostle does not say: Christ was chosen by us as our High Priest, but he is come to be that. The apostle means to say: The high priests of the Old Testament were chosen, consecrated, and anointed for their office by men; Christ however is a different High Priest; he was not first ordained to be that by men but he came to earth for the very purpose of being a high priest. God himself, the apostle means to say, chose and anointed Christ as our high priest; in eternity he was chosen to be that and the moment he came into the world, he entered upon his high priestly office; he was not made and chosen a high priest in time but he w as born to be a high priest who was anointed at birth, yes, at his conception.
The apostle adds: " An high priest of good things to come." Here the apostle indicates the second of Christ's advantages over the high priests of the Old Testament. By their office, by their sacrifice, and by their intercession, aside from that which was pictured by these acts, all they could do was to see to it that one who was deemed unclean before men was again considered clean by men; that he χΛιο before had been excluded from the external fellowship of Israel, God's people, again received his rights in this external fellowship; but Christ is an entirely different High Priest; he had nothing to do with such temporal rights and privileges; he was a High Priest of good things to come, that is, his office was directed to win eternal, heavenly, uncorruptible good things for us, namely, purity not before men but before God, not the outward but the inner,spiritual fellowship with the elect people of God, namely, grace, forgiveness of sins and righteousness, the Holy Spirit, peace with God, and eternal life. That, that it is with which Christ a§ High Priest concerned himself.
The apostle continues: " By a greater and more perfect tabernacle, pot made with hands, that is to say, not of this building." The apostle means to say: The high priest of the Old Testament attended to his duties in a very beautiful building, at first in the tabernacle, and later on in the temple at Jerusalem; both were built according to the pattern God showed Moses upon Mt. Sinai; it consisted of three parts, the annex where the people halted and where even the heathen could be, the holy place where the altar stood and where the priests sacrificed, and finally the holy of holies which was hidden by a curtain; here stood the ark of the covenant with its mercy seat and cherubim; only the high priest could enter in once a year on the great day of atonement. But Christ, the apostle means to say, had a much more glorious tabernacle, a much more glorious temple in which he carried out his high priestly office than the tabernacle of Moses and the temple at Jerusalem x;ere. Christ's tabernacle is his Church on earth, this invisible temple, this spiritual house, this heavenly kingdom, this kingdom of God and of grace upon earth. This tabernacle of Christ the High Priest is " a greater " one than the One of the Old Testament, for the
Church of Christ is spread over the entire world and includes not only the Jews but also all gentile Christians; Christ's tabernacle is moreover " more perfect " than the one of the Old Testament, for it is not made of gold, silk, wood, lime, and stone, but of believers and of people sanctified by faith. Christ's tabernacle is "not made with hands" as the ones of the Old Testament but erected by the Holy Spirit by means of the Word and the Sacraments.
Now the apostle mentions the fourth advantage which Christ's high priestly office had over that of the Old Testament high priest; he says:" Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place." V. 12a. The apostle means to say: When the high priests of the Old Testament entered into the most holy place, they took merely the blood of an animal with them; to be sure, no person could really be cleaned by it, be reconciled with God, and be redeemed. But Christ is a different high priest; leaving his kingdom of grace in this world, he entered into the most holy place of heaven with his own blood and appeared with that before God.
In the following Paul mentions two more advantages of Christ's high priestly office when he says: " Christ through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God ". V.14.
First he says that Christ " offered himself without spot to God," that is according to the original text, without sin, without blemish, in perfect holiness. The apostle means to say: The high priest of the Old Testament was himself a sinner; therefore when he wanted to sacrifice for the people, he first of all had to sacrifice for his own sins. Christ is an entirely different High Priest; he was the Priest and also the Sacrifice, and an absolutely sinless, innocent, unspotted, pure, holy sacrifice, for he was a true man as we are, "yet without sin."
Finally the apostle says that Christ offered himself " through the eternal Spirit "; this means Christ's eternal divine nature, Paul means to say: The sacrifice of the high priests of the Old Testament had no eternal power and validity, for it consisted of animals who, the moment they had shed their blood, could do no more. On the other hand, Christ offered himself, offered not merely a holy person but also an eternal Spirit, namely the eternal Son of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is equally eternal, almighty, great, and glorious; thus his sacrifice has incomparable power, infinite weight, unending worth, and eternal validity.
We have heard what kind of a high priest Christ was. He was like the high priests of the Old Testament, but only as pictures and shadows are like the real person. As the person is incomparably more glorious than his picture or shadow, so Christ the high priest is incomparably more glorious than the high priests of the Old Testament and to repeat them once more briefly in six different ways: First, Christ was a High Priest who was chosen and born by God from eternity, the others were elected, made by men; Christ has to do with eternal good things to come, the others with present, temporal things; Christ administered his high priestly office in the invisible, spiritual temple of his Church, the others in the visible tabernacle or in the temple of stone; Christ shed his own blood and entered with it into the holy place of heaven and appeared before God, the others entered with the blood of animals into the holy of holies of the temple; Christ brought an offering without spot, without sin, pure and holy, the other high priests were themselves sinners; finally, Christ offered himself by the eternal Spirit, that is by virtue of his eternal, living divine nature and with this his divine nature, the others offered only dead ani mals.
II.
Now that we have heard the kind of a high priest Christ was, let us in the second place ponder whether the kind of high priest Christ was and is, is the right high priest for all sinners, whether he really is the kind we need.
As far as the apostle is concerned, he answers this question with a decided yes; he maintains in our text: " Christ by his own blood entered in once into the holy place !' into heaven." having obtained eternal redemption for us."
The apostle not only maintains this; he also proves it; he adds: " For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Vv. 13.14. This argument is clearly directed to Christian Jews. The apostle means to say: You Jews will gladly admit that by the blood of animals which was shed by the Old Testament high priests at the sacrifices the person who had become unclean was sanctified and cleansed; should not Christ's blood have much greater power? was not Christ an innocent, pure, unspotted Lamb of God? yes, what is infinitely more, was not Christ the Son of God, the eternal, almighty, Host High God himself? What power must it have when he offered himself for men and shed his divine blood for their sins? Verily, he who takes part in this offering will be cleansed from all dead works, not only in his body as in the Old Testament, but beyond doubt also in his conscience, in his soul, that is, cleansed from all sins.
If anyone wanted to raise doubts that so many died in the times of the Old Testament even before Christ's sacrificial death took place; if anyone wanted to ask whether they were cleansed from their sins, the,apostle in conclusion gives us the explanation and says: " And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance V.15. The apostle means to say: The Old Covenant of the Law gave no for giveness of sins, but even in the Old Testament a new covenant of grace was promised, for. which the believers of the Old Covenant were to wait and hope, and for which they actually waited and hoped; in order that they also might receive grace and forgiveness, Christ not only became the true " high priest " but also by his sacrificial death " a mediator " of the promised New Testament of grace. Therefore though the believers of the Old Testament may never have found forgiveness, reconciliation, and redemption and peace of conscience in themselves in the law or in the sacrifices of their high priests, they nevertheless found all this in the New Testament which was promised them, hoped for by them in faith, and finally instituted by Christ; yes, all who brought these typical sacrifices in faith in that offering which it depicted, received all the fruits of the future sacrifice of reconciliation which alone avails before God.
What Paul here presents to the Jews can and should be presented to all men. No matter what kind of a sinner a person may be, in Christ he finds the kind of high priest he needs. My dear hearer, can you confess that you no longer sin wilfully, but that your weakness still is great, that you must complain of your unfaithfulness? Oh, then know that in Christ you have a merciful High Priest who can sympathize with your weakness; for he was tempted in all points like as we are but without sin. Therefore cling to his strength which atones for your weakness; and cling to his faithfulness which atones for your unfaithfulness.
Has your conscience awakened perhaps for the first time? If you now perceive with terror that you are a damnable sinner who dare not appear before God; if you perceive that God is a consuming fire whom you cannot approach; and if you want
to have someone who will go to God for you, pray for you, and plead your case before God; if you want to have a Mediator and a High Priest; of whom you can be certain that God hears him and that his intercession for you is accepted by God, oh then know that Christ is such a High Priest; him God himself has made as the High Priest of all sinners; yes, what do I say? he is his own Son, how can you doubt that he is heard by God? Therefore turn your case, your sins, all your misery over to this High Priest and there will be no trouble; Christ will take care of your affairs with God in a most wonderful manner, and you can confidently meet death and eternity with him as your High Priest.
Or you perhaps ask, whether even he who has committed very serious, great, horrible, and terrible sins and has made himself completely unclean can receive cleansing of conscience from his dead works; I must say to you: Though your sins may be ever so great, they are ever so small, insignificant, yes, as nothing in comparison to one drop of blood, which Christ the High Priest of all sinners has shed; for through the eternal Spirit he offered himself! Think of what that means! He who is God and man in one person has offered himself! Now tell me, how light even your greatest sins will be when they lie in the one side of the scales and when the divinity of Jesus Christ lies in the other! Oh therefore choose Christ as your High Priest and you will be helped.
Perhaps many of us say: What, can even I be helped? I have remained in sin so long; I have despised God's grace so often; I have let God knock at my heart in vain so often and never opened to him but resisted him! I reply: In Christ you will find the true High Priest who had found eternal redemption. Therefore wherever and whenever a sinner lived in the whole wide world, though he may have sinned much or little, for a long or short time, Christ has become his High Priest, for he has found an eternal, listen closely, an eternal redemption.
No matter who you may be, do not remain away from Christ! Rejoice that we poor sinners must not ourselves deal with God but can come to God through a divine High Priest who at the same time has become our brother. In firm faith rely upon his valid sacrifice, and you will be sprinkled, cleansed and sanctified in your heart and conscience with his blood. Hide yourself in his grace; some day you will leave this world and the saints of the Church militant to go into the holy place of heaven and there be presented to your heavenly Father as one reconciled. Grant that to us all. Amen! Amen!