LEARNING DAILY

 

Hebrews 9:11-14, But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

 

The tabernacle of the Old Testament points the way to salvation through Jesus Christ and the cross. Look at the picture of the tabernacle with this page of the blog. I found this pictured long ago and wanted you to see one Bible authority’s picture of the cross superimposed on the description of the tabernacle.

 

The blood shed on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ provided a once and for all sacrifice for whosoever would call on His name for salvation. Yes, Believers fail – daily – and go to the cross for forgiveness; but Believers who have come to Jesus for salvation only need to be saved once. The blood of Jesus is greater than the blood of animals sacrificed by those in the Old Testament; it is a new covenant. When the writer of Hebrews writes “of the good things to come he writes of the salvation Believers have in Christ and the accompanying reward of life with Him forever” (DJSB).

 

An interesting thought is included by the writer who writes that Jesus would also, “cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God”. How often do we as Believers, do something we know to be against what God wants us to do – sin – and that causes us to stop reading the Bible, causes us to stop praying, causes us to stop being the light of Christ because our conscience tells us we sinned and we should be ashamed? Do you get what I mean? The blood of Jesus cleanses our conscience! When we sin, we ask for forgiveness (back to 1 John 1:9). We do not have to go around ashamed of not being perfect. We are not going to be perfect until we step into eternal life in His kingdom. The narrow way is the difficult way, remember?

 

Jesus Christ rose from the grave and now sits at the right hand of the Father; He is now our High Priest. Where the animal sacrifices in the tabernacle made the people’s flesh pure and temporarily allowed them to do what God desired them to do, Jesus’ sacrifice cleansed the hearts and minds of those who come freely to Him so they might worship Him with praises, fellowship, and good works. The difference between dead and doing good works (serving the living God) is about surrendering to Him. As our High Priest, Jesus is continually interceding for us when the devil accuses us of all the wrong we have done. When we surrender ourselves to Jesus, He forgives and cleanses us (our conscience) in order for us to serve the living God by faith.

 

From now on DJSB will be used to note information or quotes from the David Jeremiah Study Bible and LSSB will refer to information and quotes from the Life in the Spirit Study Bible.