"Atonement" Hebrews 9:12-14 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Hebrews 9, I'm going to begin reading in verse 11.

When Christ appeared as high priest of the good things that have come, then to the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that's 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.

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.

This is the word of God, and I pray it would be sealed onto your own heart.

As I mentioned, this is our statement of faith Sunday, where uh the pastors and elders are teaching through different sentences the statement of faith.

Uh we are all asked to choose which sentence we wanted.

I chose this one because I can't imagine a better thing to teach on than atonement.

We don't live in a culture that has a functioning concept of atonement, and so it's possible that you might not appreciate what the Bible means when it talks about atonement or that Jesus' death provides atonement for sins.

The sentence from our statement of faith reads like this: quote, the death of Christ is the full payment for our sins and satisfies the just requirements of God.

The death of Christ provides full payment for our sins.

Payment and atonement are carefully linked.

Atonement is this idea of a sacrifice that is given for sins.

As I mentioned, our culture doesn't really have a grid for what that means.

We associate it more with like the pagan cultures or the animistic cultures that have the sense of like, you know, God is angry at me and I'm gonna offer a sacrifice for sins.

But you can't understand the Bible unless you see the thread of atonement that runs through everything.

From the very first sin in the garden with Adam and Eve, where Adam and Eve sinned and God came and sacrificed an animal to cover their sin.

That's the nature of atonement.

Atonement is the covering of sin.

And so recognizing that our culture is distant from the biblical culture in a lot of respects, we might have lost sight of what atonement means.

I do want to give you an overview of atonement this morning.

Here's five words I'm gonna walk through.

Uh, they're gonna remain on the screen all morning, so don't feel like you need to write them all down right this second.

Some of you can calm down.

See smoke coming out of your pins right now.

Five words atonement is payment, atonement is propitiation, atonement is personal, atonement is planned, and atonement is perfect.

The first word we're gonna look at this morning is that atonement is a payment.

Atonement is a payment.

And by this concept of payment, what I mean is redemption.

Redemption is the biblical word, and you see it used in our text this morning at the end of verse 12, for example, that the the blood of Jesus secures an eternal redemption.

Redemption is also something that is a bit foreign to our culture.

We used to have a functioning concept of redemption because we had coupons.

If you remember, coupons at the bottom had redemption value, and you'd bring in the coupon and you would redeem it, and now you just put in your phone number, and you know that's that's the decline of the biblical ethic right now.

You have to put in your phone number for the what's happening to our world.

But redemption is this idea that you have something and you're purchasing something else based upon what you possess.

That's this concept of redemption.

I can think of an example from our world that works quite well with this.

I've used this example before, but when I was living in Los Angeles, my car was stolen, and everything inside of it was taken out of it.

It was it was stolen, which in LA just means it's Tuesday.

And at first I was very upset my car was stolen.

I was very upset about it, and then I found out what my insurance company was gonna give me for it, and then I was very happy that my car was stolen.

And then about four days later, I received a call from the LAPD that they had found my car, and then I was very sad again.

But then I had to go to the car jail, the impound lot, and buy my car back.

I had to redeem my car.

500 bucks it costs to spring my car out of car jail.

And I complained about it because it's after all, it's it's my car.

I have the time, that's why I'm getting it.

It was stolen from me.

Certainly you remember, here's the police report.

But it was explained to me, no, 500 bucks is to incentivize the tow truck company, they get the money, it incentivizes them to go look for the stolen cars and recover them.

And in my skeptical mind, I think it's incentivizing the tow truck company to steal my car, is what it's doing.

But but no, I had to buy my car back from it.

That's redemption.

Even if something belongs to you, if it's taken over by somebody else, you have to redeem it.

You have to pay to purchase it back.

Now, in the economy of our world, there is this reality that your sin creates a debt towards God.

We looked at this last Sunday in the Lord's Prayer: forgive us our debts.

Your sin creates a debt towards God.

And that debt towards God grows every time you sin.

Because God is holy, he punishes sin.

And because God is perfectly holy, he will perfectly punish every sin.

So every time you sin, your debt to God grows.

Also, every time God gives you good things, and to use the language of Acts 17, good things would be your life, your breath, and anything, God is giving you good things, your debt to him also grows.

And so every moment of your life, what you owe God is increasing to grow.

It increases what you owe him.

And every time you sin, it just adds to that debt.

This is why the idea that you can, through good works, pay off your debt to God really is a little comical.

Because every moment your debt grows.

So if you think I did one good thing to God, or I do one good thing a day for God, or one good thing an hour for God, that should make up for my, you know, what I owe him.

It's just, it's absurd because every moment your debt to him grows.

The concept of atonement in the Old Testament is this concept of redemption that sacrifices were brought to offer before God to assuage the guilt of sin and to make atonement for your sin.

In the Old Testament, when a sacrifice was brought, the people would lay their hands on the sacrifice, and that demonstrated that your sins were transferred to that animal, that animal would then purchase your forgiveness.

It would purchase your atonement when the animal was sacrificed.

So the Passover lamb, for example, every year was you're standing under the curse of death, and then you put your hands on the lamb, the lamb becomes your substitute, the blood is put on the door, then that blood redeems you from the curse of death.

The angel of death passes over you.

There was the scapegoats that every year the hands were of the priest were put on the scapegoat, transferring the unintentional sins of the people to the goat, and then one goat would be killed, and the other goat would be sent into the wilderness, and that would demonstrate that the goat that died and the goat that fled, the goat that died provided atonement, the goat that fled shows that your sin has been taken away from you.

You've been redeemed from the penalty even of your unintentional sins.

This is what happens with the death of Jesus.

When Jesus dies on the cross, he is redeeming you from the penalty of sin.

Your sin means that you owe God a debt, you cannot pay that debt.

Jesus pays that debt in your place.

He dies for, the language of verse 12, for the redemption of your sins.

The Old Testament figured that redemption with the cows and the heifers and the goats and the calves and all the animals that were offered.

That was just kind of prefiguring the death of Christ.

But the death of Christ is the final payment for the redemption of sins.

Now your sins are not redeemed, as Michael read in our scripture reading earlier.

Your sins are not redeemed by blood, by gold or silver or those earthly things.

You can't buy, in that sense, with money your way out of sin.

You're redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And this is the most central truth in the scriptures.

That the only way for salvation is to place your faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which provides atonement for sin.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 3, Paul says, I provided to you that which is of first importance, meaning this is like, in terms of the hierarchy of things that matter, this is the tippity top.

1 Corinthians 15:3

The most important thing, that Christ suffered and died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

That is the Bible describes the necessity of atonement, Jesus provides that atonement by dying on the cross.

He redeems us from the power of sin.

That word's repeated in verse 15, by the way.

Therefore, he's a mediator of a new covenant, verse 15 says.

So that those who are called will receive the promised inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

This is even speaking of the Old Testament.

Jews under the Old Testament, they could offer sacrifices every year, but those sacrifices didn't truly redeem them.

They were pointing towards the future death of Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, which was inaugurated at the Last Supper, where Jesus said, This is the cup of the new covenant, which I make with you.

It's ratified on the cross as he bears dying, bearing our sin.

He is redeeming us, language of verse 15 says, from the transgressions committed under the first covenant, under the law.

Every time we sin, we owe a penalty for that.

Jesus pays the penalty for us.

1 Peter 1, verse 18 calls it a ransom.

1 Peter 1:18

We're held in captivity, and he ransoms us.

But understand, don't be confused by the word ransomed.

You weren't kidnapped against your will.

You were kidnapped by sin in accordance with your will.

Nobody made you sin.

You can blame Adam and Eve all you want, but you sin willingly just by yourself.

I mean, let me give you an illustration.

Think of like the last two or three sins you committed.

Nobody made you do that.

You did that.

You are a sinner by your own nature.

So you are held in captivity by your sin.

Jesus' death pays the ransom for your sin.

He redeems you from the penalty of sin.

That's what atonement is.

Atonement is paying the penalty that your sin demands and redeeming you from the penalty of sin.

So, first of all, atonement is redemption.

Atonement is a payment for sin.

Secondly, atonement is propitiation.

Propitiation is a biblical word.

It's used several times in the Bible.

It means to satisfy wrath.

Wrath has an agenda, wrath sees the guilty, and wrath is going to be poured out on the guilty.

And propitiation is the word that means wrath is satisfied.

That's what propitiation means, that wrath is satisfied.

It's more than just Jesus takes your penalty.

It's that Jesus' taking of your penalty actually satisfies the judgment.

I often think of the illustration, you know, in the movies of the Secret Service agent diving in front of a bullet for the president, you know, leaps in front of the bullet and he takes the bullet.

But what is the gunman going to do?

He's just going to shoot a second time.

But in the wrath of God, it's poured out, should be on us.

Jesus leaps in front of it and takes the wrath of God in his own body.

But he does more than take the wrath of God.

Meaning he takes it in himself in a way that satisfies the justice of God.

So he's not going to pour wrath out on Jesus and Jesus takes it for you.

And then turn around and pour it out on you also.

No, Jesus takes the wrath of God in a way that fully propitiates our sin.

It fully takes the wrath of God away from us.

Now in the Old Testament, Adam and Eve sinned, and they were covered.

Remember, God killed the animal and covered them to show how atonement is covering of sin.

But that didn't fully propitiate God's wrath.

They were still subject to living in a fallen world, and they were told that there will be a future Savior that would restore their relationship with God.

And so the animal sacrifice in the garden there just became an image of the future sacrifice of Christ.

And if that's a bit obscure for you, think of all the sacrifices in the Old Testament.

That's what's happening in Hebrews 9.

All the sacrifices in the Old Testament are pictured as patterns after the ultimate sacrifice in heaven, that Jesus' sacrifice is the true sacrifice, and the animal sacrifices, which were effective in some sense, they were effective in showing that you believe in the sacrificial system.

They were effective in propitiating God's wrath for the time, but they weren't ultimately effective because they had to be offered every year.

No, the full propitiation was not made until the cross of Christ.

Until the cross of Christ.

That's the logic in verse 13.

The blood and bulls of goats and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, they sanctified like the flesh for a period of time.

But how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit, sanctify us to serve God?

I mean, there's a perfection that comes with the death of Christ.

And this is picked up over and over again in Hebrews chapter 9.

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention

I mean, in Hebrews chapter 9, verse 25, it says the high priest would offer himself repeatedly.

Hebrews 9:25

Every year he would do it.

But Jesus in verse 26 offers himself once for all.

That's the final propitiation.

You know how you can tell if a sacrifice isn't effective?

Do you have to keep doing it?

You have to propitiate God's wrath today and then again tomorrow?

Or this Sunday and then again next Sunday?

And then again next Sunday?

There's a common teaching of the perpetual sacrifice of Christ that He's offered over and over and over again in heaven or on earth, and this is a repeated sacrifice of Christ.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible teaches that Jesus' sacrifice was final and complete, offered one time for all time.

And in that death, our sin is atoned for and God's wrath is propitiated.

Romans 3 verse 23 says this all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but are justified as a gift, so not by works, we're justified as a gift of God through the redemption of Christ Jesus.

Romans 3:23

That was the first point, redemption, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.

It's the death of Jesus.

God puts Jesus forward, and Jesus is the propitiation of God's wrath through his blood.

Blood here represents his life and his death, his perfect life culminating in his death on the cross.

It is the propitiation.

God pours out his wrath on Jesus.

So the Old Testament sacrifices were expatory, which means they could kind of remove sin.

They could expunge the wrath from the sinner for a time being.

But the New Testament sacrifice of Jesus Christ is final and sufficient and propitiates God's wrath for all time.

So what's the difference between the Old Testament sacrifices and the New Testament sacrifices then?

Why were the Old Testament sacrifices, why did they not perfectly propitiate God's wrath?

If God commanded them, why didn't they do the work?

And the answer that Hebrews 2 gives, earlier in the book of Hebrews, is that the Old Testament sacrifices were animals, so they weren't a kind of a one-to-one correspondence with you.

You could put an animal forward to die in your place, and the death of the animal represents God's justice and represents your own sin, that there had to be blood shed and all that, but it can't perfectly atone for your sin because it's it's a cow or it's a goat.

That's why Hebrews 2 says it was necessary that Jesus come and be like us in every respect so that he could make propitiation for sins.

That's Hebrews 2, verse 17.

Hebrews 2:17

He had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he could be a high priest to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

Think of all the pomp and circumstance that went in with the high priest.

He would go into the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement.

He would wear the gown, and the gown would have bells in it, and it would be blue and scarlet and all that.

And he would go into the inner part of the temple with blood from the heifer that was offered outside.

And he would remove the outer gown and just be wearing the ephod, the undergarment underneath that, and he would go and he would sprinkle blood on the Ark of the Covenant with the two angels overlooking each other, and then he would remove himself from the Holy of Holies and escape, and that was representing that atonement was made for the sins of the people that year.

It's Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

But it would be repeated again next year.

That was just the blood of bulls and goats.

It wasn't truly satisfying God's wrath.

And yet, Jesus is able to truly satisfy God's wrath because of his perfect life, because of who he is.

He's a true child of Adam in that sense.

He's a true human being.

And so he could truly be a substitute for mankind.

He could truly be your substitute.

He dies making propitiation of God's wrath.

He dies for your sin, in other words.

And that word for is so critical.

He dies for FOR, your sin.

That means your guilt becomes his guilt.

God's wrath is poured out on him for your guilt.

This doesn't work from a human perspective.

You know, if somebody committed a crime against you and they were tried and found guilty, and then the judge sent a random stranger to jail in place of the guilty person, you would not feel like justice was satisfied.

You know, if somebody vandalizes your car and the police arrest him, he's found guilty, and then some other dude is sent to jail, you would feel like that's not right.

That guy needs to go to jail because he's the one that vandalized my car.

But in the death of Jesus, God can truly take your guilt and give it to Jesus.

It's the imputation of your guilt.

It's imputed to Jesus.

So when Jesus suffers and dies, he truly dies for your sin.

So God's wrath can truly be satisfied by being poured out on Jesus.

And his death becomes the removal of God's wrath.

That's a one-time act, is verse 25 in Hebrews 9 makes it clear.

It's not repeated.

Every sin of every believer, past, present, and future, is atoned for in the death of Christ perfectly.

So all of God's wrath against all of God's children is perfectly satisfied or propitiated in the death of Jesus Christ.

So first of all, atonement is payment, meaning it provides redemption.

Secondly, atonement is propitiation, meaning it provides satisfaction to God.

Thirdly, atonement is personal.

Atonement is personal.

Atonement is designed for individual people.

It's not a blanket that is thrown around the world of atonement that you then appropriate to yourself.

Atonement is designed with specific people in mind.

The love of God from which atonement springs is not a distinctionless love.

The love that God shows the world is, of course, seen in the cross, as of John 3.16.

God loved the world so much, and in this way it's seen that he gave his only begotten Son.

The cross is lifted up over the whole world.

The whole world can see the love of God, that he would give his son to die for sinners.

The whole world sees the justice of God, that Jesus would die on the cross to bear the penalty of sin.

The whole world sees that in the cross, but that's not atonement.

Atonement is given to individual people by name.

And I was trying to think of an illustration for this.

You'll have to excuse the slight political angle of this illustration.

Just work with me.

Imagine, if you will, like a student loan forgiveness program, something like that.

You could imagine the government designing a program that would forgive all the student loans of everybody in our country.

All you have to do is apply for it and be accepted and then have your loans forgiven.

So the government provides this, you know, this big pool and says anybody who wants to can have their student loans forgiven, but you now apply and have your specific loans forgiven.

Okay?

That's very different than like a generous benefactor coming alongside you and saying, hey, I know you.

I want to pay your student loans.

I'm gonna write a check with your name in the memo line and pay for your loan.

Do you see the difference between that?

The big generic umbrella thing is not a demonstration.

Of personal love, as much as saying, hey, there's something that you could take advantage of if you want to.

That's so different than how atonement is presented in the Bible.

It's not something big that's accomplished for the whole world that you can then appropriate for yourself if you want to.

No, atonement is a check written with your name in the memo line.

It's for you personally.

God wrote your name in that memo line, by the way, before you were even born.

He chose whom he would save.

And he didn't look at all of people and do divine duck duck goose and choose some and not others.

No, he designed in his mind you in order to receive salvation.

That's what the doctrine of election is, that he elected, he predestined you to be redeemed.

That's Ephesians 1.

Chosen before the foundation of the world to be made holy and blameless in his sight.

In love, he predestined you according to adoption as sons.

His work on the cross is for you, if you're a believer, is for you personally.

It's not generic.

In this sense, let me put it to you this way: Jesus didn't die on the cross for Goliath.

He died on the cross for David.

He didn't die on the cross for Cain, who rejected the sacrifice offered to him, by the way.

God tells Cain, hey, the sacrifice for sin, it's crouching at your door.

It wants you to offer it.

And Cain said, no, and is banished, but he dies on the cross for Abel.

Jesus doesn't die on the cross for Judas to make atonement for Judas's sin.

He told Judas, woe to the person who betrays the Son of God.

Woe to you.

It'd be better if you were never born.

But he dies on the cross for Peter and forgives Peter of his sins.

This is a personal chosen.

I hope you, I hope that personal touch of it or the personal design of it affects the way you view the cross.

Yes, the cross towers over the world.

Yes, all of human history goes to the cross and from the cross.

I'm not saying the cross doesn't apply to the whole world.

There's obviously applications of the cross to all of creation.

You can say there's the trees and the sun and the forest in that sense are look long forward to the new creation that is purchased by the cross.

That's Romans 8.

Creation groans under the weight of sin.

It wants to be redeemed.

There's a sense in all of creation is affected by the cross.

But atonement is for specific individuals named and known by God.

It's personal.

And that should cause your love for Christ to grow even more.

And the language here in verse 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience to serve the living God.

Look at verse 15.

He is a mediator of the new covenant that those who are called may receive the promised inheritance.

He redeems those people for whom he died.

He redeems them.

So first of all, atonement is payment, which produces redemption.

Atonement is propitiation, which satisfies God's wrath.

Thirdly, atonement is personal, which is talking about elect or substitution, that he dies for your sins.

That's why, by the way, substitution is so critical to say your guilt was actually transferred to Jesus.

That's such a critical part of this.

And you can see why that only makes sense for the elect.

It wouldn't make sense to say that Jesus provided atonement for those people that are already in hell when he died, for example, or that will be in hell in the future to be truly paid for their sins.

And then fourthly, atonement is planned.

Atonement is planned, and by here I'm talking about eternal predestination.

This is designed in the mind of God before the foundation of time.

The word eternal is all over this passage.

You'll notice it in verse 12, for example, he secures an eternal redemption.

You notice it in verse 14 that it is brought to you through the eternal spirit.

You notice it in verse 15 that it produces an eternal inheritance for you.

In chapter 13, it's described the eternal covenant.

There's this language of eternality that's all over the book of Hebrews describing the plan of God for salvation.

Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who was slain from before the foundation of time.

Your names are written in the book of life from before the foundation of time.

This is not a plan that God made up yesterday.

God didn't get new polling information in to say, you know what would help us, our image in the world is, you know, presenting a way for redemption.

God designed this in his mind from before time began.

All of the world was made in light of the cross.

This has been God's eternal design.

And Paul is making this point over and over and over again in Hebrews 9, by the way.

Hebrews 9, verse 23, for example, you can jog your eyes down there, says that this whole pattern was necessary for the copies of heavenly things to be purified with these rites.

Hebrews 9:23

But the heavenly things themselves are better sacred with better sacrifices than these.

Notice that language of patterns.

Things in this world, the temple system, the holy of holies, the Ark of the Covenant, the angels, the high priests, the blood, all of this is patterned after something in heaven.

What does that mean?

Is there a bigger temple in heaven?

And the earthly one is acted out in light of that?

I mean, I deduce from this that it's patterned after the plan of God for salvation, that is in the mind of God before he creates the world, and the earthly system of the temple and all of this, it's demonstrating the heavenly reality of eternal atonement made in the mind of God.

The whole temple system was designed off of something in heaven.

The blood demanded in the Old Testament wasn't an ad hoc response here to sin, but the blood demanded in the Old Testament was an expression of God's eternal plan in heaven.

That's why I keep going back to Adam and Eve's sin in the garden.

It's so important to understand that.

That from the very first sin, God responded with atonement.

This is the way God made the world.

Do you know who didn't get atonement for their sin?

The devil.

He's not redeemed by the blood of Christ.

The devil and the third of the angels that fell, they're not redeemed.

They don't get redemption.

The devil fell chronologically before Adam and Eve, of course.

The angels rebelled chronologically before Adam and Eve.

But the first sin imputed to mankind is Adam and Eve's sin.

And they then get the model of atonement.

Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

In the mind of God, he made the world to express salvation.

Why didn't God just keep the world perpetually in the garden state?

And the answer to that question is because you see God's glory more clearly through redemption than you do without redemption.

You see the self-giving attributes of God, that the Father is always giving himself to the Son.

The Father and Son are always giving themselves to the Holy Spirit.

The persons of the Trinity are loving one another and pushing one another forward and giving themselves to each other, independent of mankind.

Long before people were made.

That's the nature of the Trinity.

God is a self-giving God.

And that is on display more in the world through redemption than in the Garden of Eden.

And that's why the center of all of history will always be the cross, even in eternity.

You'll be in eternity for 10 million years, and the cross will still be in the center of it.

Because it displays the love of God so powerfully.

This was in the mind of God eternally before creation.

Before creation.

That's why the word eternal is used all of us.

I wanted you to see one use of the word eternal in this passage.

Just zero in on it.

Hebrews 9, verse 14.

Hebrews 9:14

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit, offered himself to God?

Who's the eternal spirit?

That's the Holy Spirit, right?

He's called the eternal spirit.

He exists before creation.

Why does it say that Jesus offered himself through the eternal spirit?

Well, there's some temporal answers to that question.

In Jesus' ministry, the Holy Spirit came upon him at John's baptism.

When he was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended upon him to energize his ministry, so to speak.

He walked in keeping with the Spirit of God.

But I think there's even a bigger picture answer to that question, more simple than that.

That salvation was determined and designed by God before time by all three persons of the Trinity.

The Father, Son, and Spirit.

They wrote this script.

We often say the Father elected, the Son redeems, the Spirit regenerates, and that's true.

But you understand that all three persons are active in all three of those things.

The Father didn't come up with this plan and then make the Son do it.

The Father, Son, and Spirit are all in this together.

They conspired the plan of salvation together.

So when the Father elects and the Father sends the Son, the Son is going to earth knowing the Father's plan.

He knows he's going to be saved.

When the Holy Spirit comes to earth to regenerate people and give them faith, he doesn't come to earth independent of the Father's election and independent of the Son's death.

No, he's coming to save those whom he's chosen.

It is right to say the Holy Spirit designed the plan of salvation.

It's right to say that Jesus designed the plan of salvation.

It's right to say the Father designed the plan of salvation.

They all did it.

And they did it when?

In eternity.

That's why it's so often called the eternal redemption.

This is the divine plan of God.

I've heard people say that the Father chooses, but the Son dies for everybody equally, and the Spirit saves those whom the Father chose, but that separates the Son's work from the Father and the Spirit's work.

The Father, Son, and Spirit are partners in this.

They're partners in this.

They're all working with the same mind, the same will, the same goal.

And they're all working for our eternal salvation.

So atonement is a payment for sins, which is seen in the sinner's redemption.

Atonement is propitiation, which is seen in wrath satisfaction.

Atonement is personal, which is seen in the Alex substitution.

Atonement is planned, which is seen in eternal predestination.

And finally, atonement is perfect.

Perfect.

And I like the word perfect because it starts with letter P.

What I mean by that is the Christian's reconciliation is part of atonement.

Everything in the Christian's life is purchased by atonement.

Do you know your faith is purchased by atonement?

Your service of Christ is purchased by atonement.

Your conscience to serve God is purchased by atonement.

Your spiritual gifts are purchased by atonement.

Everything you do in the church is purchased by atonement.

The way you serve God in your families, if you're a Christian, is purchased by atonement.

And that is certainly what verse 14 means.

The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without blemish, speaking to Jesus' sinlessness, he's holy.

It will purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

We sometimes think, hey, atonement is made so that I can have my sins forgiven, and now I'll energize my Christian life, through my faith will energize my Christian life, and I'll then lead my Christian life based upon the Holy Spirit filling me, and the Holy Spirit will compel me to do a Christian life.

That's true, but that's happening because of atonement.

It's through atonement that your conscience is cleansed, it's through atonement that you can serve the living God.

It's called the New Covenant.

The church is a new covenant institution.

The new covenant is inaugurated by the blood of Christ.

It is an atonement covenant.

I have an illustration for you.

I think will help.

Maybe 10 years ago or so, I was supposed to speak at an evening service here, and uh one of my kids got hurt, and I had to take uh that child to the hospital, and this is about 30 minutes before evening service started.

So I get on the phone and I call my spiritual 911.

I call Steve Hawley.

I say, Steve, I'm on the way to the hospital.

You're gonna have to preach your evening service tonight.

And Steve says, Okay.

I live 25 minutes away from church, and I am in a pit right now in my backyard, covered in mud.

I was like, Well, brother, you got five minutes to get ready.

And he did, he did.

He got here on time, preached, all was well.

In your life, you are in the pit and you are covered in sin.

You are covered, the mud all over you is your sin.

Atonement takes you out of the pit and washes you off, gets rid of your sin.

But Steve Hawley getting out of the mud and taking a shower is not the same thing as getting to church and preaching.

He's still got to get on his polo shirt, drive to church, get behind the pulpit, and have something to say and then say it.

All of that is part of the whole deal here.

In your atonement, you're brought out of the pit of sin.

Your sin is washed off you.

You're then robed in the righteousness of Christ, and you're then empowered by the Holy Spirit because of atonement to get yourself to church and to serve Jesus.

All of that is purchased by atonement.

And it keeps going.

You recognize your salvation is purchased by atonement, the faith that you get from God is purchased by atonement, your regeneration comes because of atonement.

That's what verse 13 is saying and verse 14 is saying.

Then your sanctification comes by atonement.

Again, you're serving the living God.

Finally, your glorification comes by atonement.

You will open your eyes one day and be in glory because of the death of Jesus Christ.

That's all purchased by atonement.

Atonement is the full package.

Atonement doesn't simply save you and then leave the rest up to you.

The whole thing was purchased by God through the death of Jesus Christ.

This is why Romans 4 says that you've been redeemed, but you've been justified by the power of the resurrection.

All of your Christian life can trace itself back to atonement.

Do you think God's going to save you and not take you to heaven?

You think Jesus is going to die on the cross for you and the Holy Spirit's going to forget to save you?

Or you think the Holy Spirit will, Jesus will die for you and the Holy Spirit will save you, and the Father will forget to find you in heaven?

Like the Father will say, Where's Jesse?

I sent my son to die for him.

I guess I just forgot to bring him here.

Oh well.

This is Paul's language in Romans.

Do you think that he who gave his own son for you won't also give you everything you need for salvation, for life, for godliness, for ultimately for glorification?

If Jesus died for you, brothers and sisters, he's going to save you.

The Father's not going to give his son and then forget to save you.

And if Jesus saves you, of course the Father's going to take you to heaven with him.

He's not going to forget to bring you with him.

What more could he do?

Of course he's going to redeem you.

It all comes to the power of atonement.

And I know John Murray in his wonderful book on Atonement writes, quote, No element of atonement is more criticized than this.

Because you recognize if you see all of salvation, even glorification connected to atonement, you see how personal it is.

You see that God has you in mind.

He knows you and He loves you.

He knows you.

Jesus is not just the producer of your salvation and the procurer of your salvation.

He's also the administrator of your salvation.

He brings it to pass.

And the Holy Spirit regenerates you because of the atonement that God gives you.

Again, he doesn't do this for Goliath.

He doesn't do this for Cain.

He doesn't do this for those that are already in hell.

He doesn't do this for Judas, but he does it for you.

And you think, how do I know if Jesus died for my sins?

How do I know if Jesus died for my sins?

Well, you come to Jesus in faith.

You turn to him in faith.

You confess your sins to him and you receive the salvation that he offers in faith.

Where do you think that faith came from?

He calls you to come to him.

He says, if you're hungry, come to him and eat bread.

Who bought that bread, by the way?

It's purchased without cost by you.

Jesus paid for it with his death.

Drink wine without cost.

Who paid for that?

Doesn't cost you anything, cost him everything.

If you're burdened by your sin, come to him and have the burden taken off.

His burden is easy, his yoke is light.

If you're weighed down by sin, come to him for salvation.

The question isn't did Jesus die for Judas' sins or not?

The question is, did Jesus die for your sins?

Come to him in faith and receive the forgiveness that he offers.

Make no mistake, the cross of Christ is the supreme testimony of God's sovereignty over the world and of God's redemptive power, of God's atonement, of God's love, his personal love for you is seeing no place more clearly than the cross.

Lord, we're thankful that you have raised the cross high over the world.

It is high over our church, even stretching off the top of our building into the sky.

Let it be high in our hearts as well.

Atonement towers over Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

In heaven, your arms will be outstretched and the nail holes will still be there.

The power of redemption on display for your children through all eternity, forever and ever.

Now your same arms are outstretched, inviting people to come and receive the forgiveness that comes through salvation, that comes through placing their faith in Christ.

I do pray for anyone here today that has never placed their faith in you.

I pray that today they would turn from their sins and they would receive the forgiveness as a free gift that comes from placing their faith in Christ.

Not in our own works, as if our works could ever remove sin from ourselves, not in the perpetual sacrifices that are so frequently offered, but in the single sacrifice of Christ, one time for all, the just for the unjust, the righteous for the sinners, the eternal God of heaven for sinful and fallen men.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.