We come this Lord's Day to continue in our study the God of all comforts. God comforts us by the oath He made to Christ, appointing Him our High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Because Christ has obtained a better priesthood, He's the mediator of a better covenant established upon better promises. Christ's sacrifice presented in glory has a transforming and liberating power for His people. The blood of Jesus sacrificed for us takes away the pollution of our guilt by satisfying God's justice in our place. Therefore, our consciences are at peace with the Holy God. Christ's blood also purges us from relying upon our own works to make us right with God. It sets the whole of our hope upon Jesus and His sacrifice as the Lamb of God and removes all hope from ourselves. But note well the transformation that follows. Our consciences are purged from dead works. Why? To serve the Living God. We are no longer trying to vindicate ourselves to God, but rather to love and fear Him for saving us by the blood of His dear Son. Hebrews next begins to describe the New Covenant as being a special type as Christ's last will and testament. This is done in order to make clear how the New Covenant requires the death of Jesus in order to bring its promises to fulfillment for God's people. According to the way wills work, the beneficiaries can only receive their inheritance when the testator, the person who wrote the will, is proven to be dead. Hebrews points out the will has no power or application until the death of the testator. Likewise, the testament of Christ has no force until Christ dies. Before that, it is a solemn promise yet to be carried out. The reason the New Covenant operates as a will and testament is that in order for its promises to be carried out, Christ had first to sacrifice Himself in the place of His poor, sinful people. God promised judgment for sin, Those who transgress His commandments are under a curse of judgment and wrath. God's promises under the old law, the old covenant, must be carried out. His mercy cannot contradict His holiness, righteousness, truth, and promise. Remember He said, "...the soul that sinneth, it shall surely die." God promised wrath for our sins. That was the old covenant. But by sacrifice, Jesus stepped into our place under the old covenant, under the law, and bore that judgment for us. He kept all the law for us and by death paid all the promised judgment on our behalf. This is how Christ's death literally carries out and brings into force the new covenant blessings for us. He stood between God and us, being God himself as well as a man, and brokered the exchange of the new covenant blessings and salvation for old covenant disobedience and wrath by dying for us at Calvary. By dying for us, Christ undoes all the promises of wrath to us under the broken law. All those promises which were against us and contrary to us, Christ takes away, nailing them to his cross and dying for us. thereby Christ empowers and puts into force the new covenant blessings for us. All this is done by Christ so that they that are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. This is the nature of a will that the testator specifies the beneficiaries and they alone inherit the estate. Christ had in mind His elect loved ones who will receive the promises of His last testament Those are called by God to obtain salvation and everlasting life by the death of Jesus. Jesus taught the same thing in John 6, where He described how the Father gave His people to Him, and every single one would come and be saved by Christ. Indeed, Jesus makes it clear everlasting life and salvation and glory only come through His Body and Blood. Believers partake of Christ by believing on Him. And the metaphor Jesus uses is eating His body and drinking His blood. In this way, Christ nails down the fundamental basis for receiving the promises of God, the death of the testator. Our entire hope of salvation from sin and death and hell rests entirely upon Christ's sacrifice in our place. Note well how Jesus echoes the promises of the New Covenant. He said, "...it is written in the prophets, they shall all be taught of God. Every man that has heard and learned of the Father comes to me." This is the same promise made by God to us in the New Covenant. He will cause His people to know Him, to obey Him, to submit to Him as their God, and He will forgive their sins forever. All these benefits, as both Christ and the writer of Hebrews stress, are inherited by those that are called by God unto Christ. No wonder God has comforted us in His oath to Christ. He will be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He represents all who are chosen by God to come to Him unto everlasting life, which Christ secures for us by dying for us so that His testamentary promises might come to us. No wonder we rejoice to celebrate what Jesus promised the night He was betrayed. This is my blood of the New Testament, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins." Now, we didn't quite finish Hebrews 9 at verse 15, last Lord's Day, which reads as follows, "...and for this cause He's 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." Notice this phrase for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament. We might say under the Old Covenant or you might even say just under the law of God. By means of death, that is the death of the testator, the death of Christ, in order to bring about the promises which have been elaborated before verse 15, Christ dies for the redemption of the transgressions. For the redemption of the transgressions. That is, the transgressions of the broken law. Now, there are different uses of the word redemption in the Old Testament. Sometimes they involve a money transaction, sometimes they involve Rescue by force or violence of a friend or of a relative, or by the king, or even by God. It said God redeemed Israel out of the land of Egypt. And He did it by violence, didn't He? He did it by force, by miraculous intervention. But He also did it by the Passover. And there was the blood of the Lamb. You can never really get away from the idea of a sacrifice in the context of redemption in the Scriptures. So it says that even though there are some different definitions of redemption, you always need to watch for when a price is paid for the redemption, when a price is described. And in this case, the price described is the death of the Lord Jesus. That it's by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament. So here, the word redemption, which in the Greek, according to my research materials, is apollutrosis, which means a releasing affected by payment of a ransom. Liberation procured by the payment of a ransom. So here, this particular word, which is used in other places in the New Testament, refers to a setting at liberty, a rescue of the sinner by the payment of a debt, a ransom, in this case, the justice of the law, which we were subject to because of our crimes. Christ died to redeem us of those transgressions. to take them away, to satisfy and cancel them. It might be useful to notice that the same word is used in Ephesians 1 verse 7, which we read earlier this Lord's Day. In Ephesians 1 verse 7, we read this, In whom, that is in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. So notice here that this redemption, the exact same Greek word as used in Hebrews 9.15, is through Christ's blood, which is a similar way of saying by means of death, because the life of the flesh is in the blood, but it is through the blood of Christ that we have redemption. And then notice furthermore that there is a parallel description of this situation, redemption through the blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins. And of course, it's all by God's grace, the riches of His grace. But it tells us that when we are redeemed through the blood of Jesus, the sins are forgiven. So it makes perfect sense in Hebrews for The promise of God forgiving the sins of His people under the New Covenant, under Christ's last will and testament, that is, should be carried out by the death of Christ for the redemption of the transgressions. So He died to pay the price for our sin and thereby we were set free from wrath and judgment. It is the New Covenant promise. that we are redeemed unto. It is also the Lord's Supper's promise by Christ. What did it say? For this cause He's the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament." So this is what Christ said. This is My blood of the New Testament, shed for many for the remission of sin, for the forgiveness of sin. All these verses are in tight correspondence to each other. And all read together, they make it very clear that the death of Christ, the blood that He shed, paid the price of our sin to a holy God, and thereby rescued us, redeemed us from the curse of the law, and brought to pass the promise of the new covenant, which was published in olden times. And not only that, it has a great explanatory power as to how God could save people who had sinned with an appropriate sacrifice of propitiation and appeasement unto the Lord. It says, for redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament. So Christ's blood reaches back in time, if you will, as well as going forward. But it takes care of the problem of the sins that had already gone before and whose perpetrators had already passed away and died. Even the saints, even the believers, even those who tried out for mercy. What about their sin? What about their transgressions which could not really be taken away by animal sacrifices? How can God forget His promised wrath and judgment for their sin or for our sin? What about Old Testament saints Christ had not yet died for them? Hebrews tells us here that God can retroactively pardon His people because of the sure promise of Christ as God's Lamb to come. And here in Hebrews is written, of course, Christ's Lamb has come and has satisfied all the debt that went before and after. He has died to redeem his people from their transgressions, including the ones that have long since passed. Now, Paul explains in Romans 3, after he denounces that all of us are under sin and judgment. We know the text well. Romans 3 verse 21, "...but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." And that means the righteousness of God received apart from the law, received by those who have broken the law, received not by law-keeping at all. The righteousness of God is manifested, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe, for there is no difference." So here is a righteousness much to be desired, for it's not by law-keeping, for we could not keep it. By the law is the knowledge of sin, and the law condemns every living soul for disobedience to the Creator, to the Holy God. But there is a different righteousness. There is a righteousness of God by faith, received by faith of Jesus Christ unto and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference." And this is, of course, Paul's great expounding of the gospel in all of his epistles, that we are not made righteous by the keeping of the law. No one can be. that we're not made righteous by our good deeds, for we don't have any, but we're made righteous by God when we believe on Jesus Christ and His gospel promises. And then the righteousness of God is imputed to us through faith. Now, it's not our faith that saves us. It's not our faith that God credits as righteousness. It's the means by which we lay hold on the promise God made that whoever calls on Him will be saved, that whoever trusts in the name of the Lord Jesus, in the death of the Lord Jesus, in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus for poor sinners will be declared righteous. And so we all have been declared righteous. who've trusted in Jesus. And we all will always be declared righteous. It's not something that we can send away or that some church or religious rulers can whittle away from us and require to add new conditions like going to the mass or doing penance or buying indulgences or whatever foolish notions people have added to salvation and righteousness by free grace through faith in the Lord Jesus. So there is the beginning of Paul's explanation in more detail of this text that Hebrews has given us about how Christ redeems the inheritors of the New Covenant promise of forgiveness for sin, redeems them from their transgressions which had already passed. And he does it by his death. He does it by his death. Righteousness without law-keeping of the promise of Paul. But then notice in verse 23, "...for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." That's why It's available by faith to all of them that believe because there's no other availability of it except by faith in Christ Jesus. Everyone is doomed under their sin to the judgment of God. But everyone who trusts in the Lord Jesus, whether they be Jew or Gentile, man or woman, child or adult, slave or free, whatever their other conditions might be, they've all sinned and become short. of the glory of God, then look at verse 24, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Justified means that God declares us to be without fault. He pronounces a verdict of not guilty on people who were guilty because of their sin. He pronounces His people just by the person of the Lord Jesus who was completely just one and who paid all the price for our sins. And this is what the New Covenant promised. Your sins I remember against you no more. Here, Paul is teaching that we're justified. God doesn't remember our sins against us anymore. We're free and clear by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That is the purchase, that is the payment of all the price that we should have had to pay in God's wrath. So we're justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. So here it is. God has set the Lord Jesus out in this world in a public way, recorded in numerous ways in the Holy Scriptures, which He has preserved down to the ages so that we can read it too and know what happened, that Christ is the propitiation in His blood, received by faith, appropriated by faith. And here propitiation means the appeasement of God's wrath, the satisfaction of God's justice under the law, the carrying out of God's promise of judgment, wrath, and condemnation to all who break the law. That's how Christ redeemed us and had us declared justified by making an offering for sin that was pleasing to God and wiped away all the crimes off the ledger as far as the Lord's people are concerned. You remember the publican who went to pray in the synagogue and Jesus said that he beat his breast and he cried out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And here's a prayer of faith and of repentance that this wicked man did towards God. And what does Jesus say? I tell you, this man went down to his house justified. His sins taken away, God declares him righteous by grace received through faith. Why? Well, because one day the Lamb of God would die in that man's place and in the place of all his people. and take away our sin. And therefore, God could declare him to be without fault in a judicial sort of way because Christ's righteousness has been put upon him and God sees that wicked tax collector who'd stolen so much from helpless people. He sees him as justified, as morally perfect in the garment of salvation which Christ has laid on him. But then the question is, how did Christ redeem us, satisfying what we owed under the law, paid off our debt of sin to God? And we read in verse 25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, the sacrifice of Jesus satisfied God's justice on our behalf. God put Christ out into this world in human flesh to be a propitiation, a satisfaction, an appeasement to God's wrath and the just penalty of the broken law in His blood to be laid hold on by faith, which is a gift from God. The bloodshedding of Christ at the cross satisfied God's wrath and took away the curse from us. But then notice We get down to the nub of it, how this ties into Hebrews 9 and verse 15 so carefully. "...to declare," that is, Christ's propitiatory sacrifice, redeeming us from our sin, "...to declare God's righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God." Now there is that reference to what the writer of Hebrews said. that Christ redeemed us by His death, redeemed the transgressions that were under the First Testament. Those would be laws that were broken at any time before or after, but particularly focusing on before the death of Christ. Here it is in Romans. Paul writes the same thing, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. to declare His righteousness for the forgiveness of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, the prior sins of His people whom He will redeem. God waited on Jesus to pay the price for His people and withheld His wrath from His people until it could be poured out on Jesus at the cross for all of His people, past, present, and future. And this is the demonstration that God is righteous in treating our sin this way through Jesus Christ. That the order in which the penalty is executed is only this, that so long as it's executed against Christ, we're set free and God is vindicated By not sending all the Old Testament saints and believers to hell or to torment, he's vindicated in not carrying out, not executing his judgment against their crimes. Why? Because the Lord Jesus came one day in history, laid down His life, and therefore, God is perfectly just to remit the sins that were passed through the forbearance of God God has therefore demonstrated His righteousness, His justice is fully satisfied by the blood of Jesus shed for us. And that's what Paul says in verse 26, "...to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." All of this is so that God can carry out all His promise of wrath against sin and can declare sinners righteous, justified, without fault, who trusted in the sacrifice of Jesus. This whole glorious plan of redemption through the blood of Jesus, it manifests God's perfect righteousness, perfect fairness, perfect justice in keeping all of His promises with regard to what happens to sinners and justifying at the same time those who call upon Him, who trust in the Lord Jesus, declaring them to be without fault at all. Now, you know, the contrast, of course, is in our own land and in every land, we have judges who don't rule properly. But worse than that, we have governors who pardon people who are guilty. And we saw our governor pardon almost 300 people at the very last of his term once. There was great outrage. Because you see, pardons of guilty people are not based on justice. They are based on mercy, but there is no justice in it. But God has found a way for there can be mercy and justice, and He can set His people free who've trusted in Him, and loose us from the judgment, because He did not loose His Son, but laid our sins on Him instead. God waited on Jesus to pay the price for His people, withheld His wrath until He could pour it out on Jesus. God therefore demonstrates His righteousness, His justice is fully satisfied by the blood of Jesus that He might be just and the justifier of those who trust in Jesus. God can be just and declare sinners just without fault before Him by the blood of Jesus which has redeemed us from the wrath of God for sin. and Hebrews agrees with all of this at Hebrews 9 at verse 15. For this cause He's the Mediator, that is, Christ 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. That promise of eternal inheritance to them that are called You see, only the beneficiaries of the will receive the promises. If you will your house to your son, it's not anybody can just show up at the will reading and take possession of it, only your son and so forth. The promises are to the beneficiaries. And how are we made beneficiaries? From God's perspective, Paul explains it in Romans 8 at verse 29, For whom He did foreknow, them He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of Christ, so that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. And whom He did predestinate, them He also called." So there we have it. The called of God are the beneficiaries of the will. But before we are called, God has chosen the people whom He will call. He's foreknown us since eternity past. He's predestined us, because He foreknew us, to be conformed to His Son, and then He called us. And then, what does it say? It doesn't stop there. He called us, and whom He hath called, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. So you see, once you're called, There's an inevitable end to it. If God has put you in the list of beneficiaries of His Son's New Testament, then you will surely be called. And when you are surely called, you will be justified. Why? Because Christ died for your sins. And whom He justifies, He will surely glorify. One day you will be raised unto eternal life as Jesus promised And so the beneficiaries of the will are sure to receive the benefits of the will because of the mighty power of God. Believing that His body and blood shed for us is all our hope of life. Like Jesus taught us in John 6, eating His flesh and drinking His blood is trusting in His life and death at Calvary. So how do we know if we've been called Well, we know when we trust in Jesus and we believe His promises. And if you've had much experience in this world, you know how hard it is for anybody to trust in Jesus. It's not physically hard to trust in Jesus. It's just that people won't trust in Jesus because their eyes are blind and their hearts made of stone. without the work of the Holy Ghost to open their eyes and change their hearts and give them the faith to believe they won't believe. It's an amazing thing, isn't it? But that's because the benefit is something that we can't see in this life. It's a spiritual benefit. It can only be discerned with the eyes of the Spirit dwelling within us. But then it becomes most precious indeed to us, doesn't it? More precious than the concrete things of value that we know and love so much. So, it had been foretold many times in the Old Testament Scripture how Jesus would redeem us from our sin by dying for us and making a propitiation to God for our crimes laid upon Him. Think of Isaiah 53, think of Psalm 22, think of Psalm 40, Psalm 69, other places in the Old Testament where all these things have been laid out, the sacrifice of Christ for sinners. But perhaps the greatest example is what the angel told to Joseph when Mary was seen to be with child and Joseph wanted to know whether he should divorce her because she'd been unfaithful. In verse 20 of Matthew 1, "...but while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." Notice how the angel appeals to Joseph's former royal heritage. He was like a dead tree. His line was almost cut off. His line had been barred by God. from ever sitting on the throne of David. So he was broken down and pathetic as far as royalty was concerned, but the angel reminded him that he was technically of the royal line from the house of David and assures him that this child is conceived by the Holy Ghost. And then verse 21, she shall bring forth a son, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people. from their sins." Now this is an interesting proof of the deity of Christ. The word Jesus is from the Hebrew word that means Jehovah saves or Jehovah will save, Yahweh saves. And yet the angel applies it to Christ by saying, he, that is the child, will save his people from their sins. So you see, there is an identity there between Yahweh, Jehovah, the God who saves, and the Lord Jesus, who is the person about to be born who will save His people from their sins. He will save them from their sins. The promise of the new covenant, mercy on your transgressions and will remember your sins no more This is the promise which this angel is telling Joseph that little Jesus one day will execute, will carry out. He will save his people from their sin. And now Joseph might not have understood that it meant he would die to save his people from their sin, but somehow he would save us from our sin. Then the new covenant promise of forgiveness of sin for the Lord's people would finally come into force, wouldn't it? And notice third, there's this personal aspect. He will save us from their sin, that is, the people's sins that are on themselves, not the sins of others. You know, we like to always want a Savior that will save us from all those evil people down the road or across the country or on the other side of the world. Not so much does anybody want to be saved from their own sins, the angel told Joseph the Lord Jesus would do, he will save his people from their sins. And sure enough, Hebrews 9.15 tells us, by his death, he did it for redemption of the transgressions that were under the law. The Lord Jesus saved his people from their sins. And finally note this, and this is most precious to me. The person who executes a will, that is, signs it, declares his purposes and beneficiaries in it, we say that person executed their will. And then we confuse everybody by saying, and then after they're dead, there's an executor who carries out the will. So when we say a person executes his own will, that means he signed it, drafted it, had it drafted, signed it, and filed it someplace safe where it could be used to follow his wishes after he dies. And then we say that there's the executor who carries out the will on behalf of the person who signed the will. But once the person who signed the will dies, he has no power to see that his will is enforced. That's up to his executor, isn't it? The maker of the will executes it by his signature or his attestation or whatever. The executor, after the will is probated, is supposed to carry it out. And this is always the source of some shenanigans, isn't there? Where people claim the executor is not carrying out the desires of the testator. or that the testator was out of his mind and some court should set the will aside and do what they want. And so the person who signs the will doesn't have any control ultimately. He's dead now over whether his wishes are carried out. But the New Covenant is a unique last will and testament. It's the only will in the history of the human race whose executor is the same person that signed it in the first place. The Lord Jesus. It was His last will and testament and He died to bring it into force and to fulfill its promises to the beneficiaries. But now He's alive again and He's in a position to see to it that His last will and testament is carried out to the letter. He both executed it by signing it and He executes it now in glory and for eternity to make sure that the will is carried out the way He intended and given the price that He paid. He came into force when Jesus died at Calvary, but He rose from the grave and now He serves as the executor of His own last will and testament. No doubt Christ will carry out perfectly the promises and inheritance that he died to put into force in the first place. And no one will be able to question him about it, or haul him into court, or claim there was some defect in the will that needs to be set aside. No way. This man who is our Redeemer and our Savior and is also our High Priest and the King of all the universe, nobody can make him overthrow his last will and testament. or not see, that it be carried out. What God has promised to us, He will now carry out, surely for us. On Jesus' shoulders rests the entire fulfillment of what He died to procure for us. This is Christ's kingship, rule, and high priestly work. No wonder God has comforted us by His oath to Christ. He will be our high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now He's in a position to execute that will with all those precious promises that He paid for in His own blood. Jesus is sitting now at the right hand of glory in His human body, interceding, pleading, and superintending to make sure that His new covenant promises are perfectly carried out. The very promises He died to put into force He ever lives to see their application to us completed for our good and for God's glory. And it reminded me of what Horatius Bonner wrote in that glorious hymn that he penned. It is the old cross still, its triumphs let us tell. The grace of God here shown through Christ the blessed Son who did for sin atone. Hallelujah for the cross. It was here the debt was paid. Our sins on Jesus laid. So round the cross we sing of Christ our offering. of Christ, our living King. Hallelujah for the cross. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah for the cross. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It will never suffer loss. Praise God. And so around this table, we celebrate how Christ's blood executed the new covenant promises for the remission of our sin. And it is a sure thing. And it's all legally ship shape. And God is just when He justifies sinners on account of the bloodshedding of Jesus. Christ has redeemed us from our transgressions under the law that we might receive the promised eternal inheritance. What a blessed truth we have as we gather around this table. Well, let's give thanks for the Lord's table. First, for the bread that pictures the body that was broken for us. on the cross. So God, our Father, we rejoice that Your Son was faithful unto the end and beyond the end for all eternity to die for us in our place, to give His body, give His life a ransom for many, as He said, to execute the new covenant promises, to take away our sin, and that You laid on Him all of our crimes and He bore them in our place and was numbered with the transgressors and was treated as guilty instead of us that we might be treated as innocent and just and righteous before You because our crimes have been transferred upon His sacred head on the cross. We thank You for this bread that He left us to picture, His body that was broken and torn for us. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. And the Scriptures tell us that on the night our Lord was betrayed, He took the bread and He blessed it and He broke it. And He said, take and eat. This is My body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. I'd like to ask my Father if He would give thanks for the cup that pictures the blood of the Lord Jesus poured out to make atonement for our sin. And the scriptures tell us that after they had supped, he took the cup and he blessed it. And he said, drink ye all of it. This cup is the new covenant in my blood for the remission of sin. Do it as often as you do it in remembrance of me. And the scriptures tell us that as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do preach the Lord's death until he comes. Let's stand and sing number 180 in the black book. The Lamb of God to slaughter led the King of glory see. The crown of thorns upon His head. They nail Him to the tree. The Father gives His only Son. The Lord of glory dies. For us the guilty and undone. A spotless sacrifice. Number 180.