Introduction
Faith in Christ is always contested. Ideologies clash, worldviews collide, and truth claims compete for allegiance in the marketplace of ideas, tempting Christians to abandon Christ for His rivals. This is the primary pastoral concern that Hebrews was written to address. The original recipients were being tempted by suffering and social pressure to turn away from Christ and go back to Judaism. Hebrews, then, is to show the supremacy of Christ over every rival claim and to urge Christians to persevere in wholehearted allegiance to Jesus.
Text: Read Hebrews9:1-14 and pray.
Passage Summary: Hebrews 9:1-14 demonstrates the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over the weakness of the Old Covenant sacrificial system.
Discussion Questions
In this section, the author describes how the Old Covenant priests would enter into the tabernacle to offer the blood of bulls and goats (9:1-7). He notes, however, that the sacrifices offered under this arrangement only dealt with external things like ritual cleanliness, but were unable to “perfect the conscience of the worshiper” (9:9). That is, these Old Covenant sacrifices could never take away sins.
In contrast, Christ entered not into a tabernacle made with hands, but instead into heaven itself. And there he offered not the blood of bulls and goats, but his “own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (9:12). The author concludes, then, with an argument from lesser to greater, “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.”
- The Hebrew Christians were tempted to go back to Judaism, to a system whose sacrifices were impotent to forgive sins and cleanse their conscience before God. What are the things you are tempted to run back to (work, achievement, performance, a victim mindset, substances, entertainment, old addictions, etc.) to deal with a guilty conscience? In other words, what are the “Christ substitutes” you run to when your sins weigh you down?
- Hebrews 9:12 says that Christ’s blood secured an eternal redemption for his people! Yet often, when Christians fall into sin and temptation, they struggle with doubts about their salvation. Am I really saved? Will Christ keep forgiving me?
- Read Romans 8:31-39. How does this passage speak into those times of doubt and fear?
- Verse 14 says Christ cleanses our conscience from dead works so that we may serve the living God. How can a guilty or burdened conscience actually distort our service to God, and what kind of freedom does the author say Christ’s sacrifice is meant to produce?