John 1:29-34; Hebrews 9:1-14; Leviticus 16:1-34; Psalm 110
Jesus Christ, My Lord: From Profane to Holy – Sacrificial / Lamb
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
God always interacts with us through means. He does not appear to us, speak to us, or commune with us directly. And that is a good thing, for, as Isaiah confessed when he beheld the glory of God in a vision, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts,” so are we a people of unclean lips, hearts, hands, and everything else. The righteous glory and holiness of the LORD would consume us if He did not, in mercy, approach us through means: His Word, His Son as an angel, His Son as a man, bread, wine, and water. So we confess in the Smalcald Articles that “God does not wish to deal with us otherwise than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments. It is the devil himself whatsoever is extolled as Spirit without the Word and Sacraments.”
The tabernacle, and later the temple, reflected this truth: Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so it is said, and proximity to the glorious presence of the LORD demands a cleanliness and purity we neither have nor can obtain. The cleanliness and purity the LORD demands of us can only be the result of the sacrificial shedding of innocent blood. Thus, the LORD mercifully gave us the sacrificial system through which we could enter His presence by the means of innocent blood. However, only the high priest, and he only once a year on the Day of Atonement, could enter the Holy of Holies (the Most Holy Place) where the glory of the LORD was present above the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant in the midst of His people. And before the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place he had to wash and purify himself according to the law and then make sacrifice for his own sinful uncleanness. Only then could he enter the Most Holy Place to offer sacrificial blood for the sins of the people. Yet you must understand, no amount of blood of sacrificial lambs, goats, pigeons, or bulls ever took away a single sin, but they covered sins for a time, allowing the LORD to “look away” from our sins for a time, only because the LORD attached His Word and Promise to them.
The Preacher to the Hebrews explains that the first chamber of the tabernacle and the temple, the Holy Place, was symbolic of this present age. The priests carried out their daily tasks in the Holy Place where there was the table, the showbread, and the lampstand. In the second chamber, the Most Holy Place (the Holy of Holies), was the altar of incense and the ark of the covenant containing the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s budded staff. Above its lid, the mercy seat, was the glorious presence of God. Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place, and not without sacrificial blood and cleansing for himself first before offering blood for others. “By this,” says the Preacher, “the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age).”
The first chamber, the Holy Place, and the service of the priests and the sacrifices offered there were a foreshadowing and a type, a placeholder, a means by which the LORD could look away from man’s sins for a time, a way in which God could dwell in the midst of His people and not consume them in His righteous glory until He would provide for Himself the Lamb He promised to Abraham who would take away the sins of the world. As the hymn confesses so simply and clearly, “Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. But Christ the heavenly Lamb takes all our sins away, a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.”
Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb of God whose blood actually takes away our sin. And Jesus is our sinless, righteous Great High Priest who has no need to make atonement for or to purify Himself and so can stand in for all unclean sinners as both our Priest and Sacrifice. “But when Christ appeared 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 places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.”
Thus we confess: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.” “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 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 serve the living God.”
You have been baptized into Jesus. His death is your death; His resurrection is your resurrection; His life is your life – then, now, forever. To be baptized into Jesus is to enter into Him and all that He is. This is why Jesus’ teaches “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” This is why Jesus teaches “If anyone keeps my word he will never see death.” Jesus is the means through whom we have access to God and may approach His glorious presence. Jesus taught, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” And He invites you to address His Father as your true Father, and you as His true Son saying, “Our Father…,” trusting that the Father hears and answers your prayers as He does His own Son.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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