What’s Your Description?
November 14, 2014John 15:9 – Continuing In Love
November 16, 2014
Hebrews 9:14
14 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?
Throughout the book of Hebrews which by the way was written to Hebrews, we see the old nature of the Old Testament and the greater perfect way of the New Testament. We see this contrast vividly by the words, “How much more.”
In the Old Testament Jesus was hidden in shadows and types. All the offerings were pictures of Jesus. For example, a lamb was to be without spot or blemish. “And on the Sabbath day two lambs of the first year without spot, (Numbers 28:9).
Jesus Himself was “without spot” the writer of Hebrews says. But how much more shall the blood of Jesus work in our lives? In the Old Testament it was animal that they offered. How much more when the Son of God—the only begotten was offered. The Jewish rituals were pretty much limited to the Jews. How much more that the blood of Jesus was shed for the whole world, Jew or not?
The Old Testament sacrifices had no power to change people. They didn’t purge the person from self-righteous works. In fact, the law encouraged dead works as they tried to please God by their sacrifices and their rituals. The Old had run its course and Jesus ushered in a new age—an age of grace by His blood.
How much more there is for us. We are living primarily on the fringes of possibility when God has more—the fringes of impossibility. Jesus was the final sacrifice. He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). He was the perfect for the imperfect. He was the good for the bad. He didn’t deserve death for those who did deserve it.
How much more could you realize in your life? There is so much more. None of us have scratched the surface of what God has available for us through the finished work of Jesus. He has purged our consciences from dead works. He has given us life that we might show forth our good works “And glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
