Fr. Stephen De Young: Chapter 9 verse 1, “Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.” So in the tabernacle, they had ordinances, rules, liturgics for how they celebrated. Verse 2, “For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary,” the holy place. So you have that outer area, which is now what would correspond to the main part of our church, where folks are for services, but which only priests could go into in the tabernacle. And there was a table with the showbread, and we’ll go more into detail on these things when we loop back around and go through Exodus and go through all the details. But those are the things that are there.“And then behind the,” verse 3, “behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,” the Holy of Holies. Verse 4, “which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which,” [under his breath] that in which is… Okay, so I’m going to pause a second. Pet peeve urban legend. The pot with the manna and Aaron’s rod that budded were not in the ark. People think they were in the ark. They’re not in the ark, if you read carefully. They were put into the Holy of Holies along with the ark, whereas the The Tablets of the Torah were  inside the ark. But those are the things that were back in there in the holy of Holies. [The second half of verse four is omitted.]Verse 5, “and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.” So I’m not going to either, like I said, when we loop back around to Exodus. [Laughter] But comment on that mercy seat: our friends the King James translators invented that whole idea, I’m guessing because their misread of the idea— So God wasn’t enthroned on the ark. The ark was the footstool of his throne. But they’re trying to translate kefir verbs in Hebrew, hilastērion in Greek, which is the word that we translate as atonement. And they come up with mercy seat for the top of the ark. So here’s the thing: kefir verbs literally mean— like Yom Kippur, the Kippur in Yom Kippur, Yom is day, Kippur is atonement— but the root meaning of those verbs is “to cover.” Like, to cover something over. So when that word is used to describe the lid of the ark of the covenant, [as if whispering a secret] it just means the cover. Like the lid, the cover, [Laughter] the cover of a book. Mercy seat is going way out of your way! [Laughter]Interlocutor 1: So it should be translated as “lid”?Fr. Stephen: As cover, yes, the cover. The two cherubim overshadowing the cover of the ark. [Laughter] On the lid.Interlocutor 1: Most unfortunate.Fr. Stephen: So yeah, this became a running joke when I talked about this on Lord of Spirits, with the Lord of Spirits people, where they started talking about mercy seat bands that perform songs from other bands, instead of cover bands. So anywhere where you have “cover,” just plug in “mercy seat,” to take cheap shots at the King James translators. They were doing the best they could! But they way overdid this one. [Laughter] It’s much simpler.But so as I said, “of these things we cannot now speak in detail.” This is one of several places in— This is another one of those things, when I talked about the genre, that this seems homiletic and rhetorical. This is one of several places where it says, “well, we don’t have time to really go into this right now,” which would be odd in a written text, if it’s purely written text. But makes perfect sense if it’s someone speaking, and they don’t want to go on and on and on like I do. Try to, we got to, for the sake of time we’ve got to keep this short, that you wouldn’t go down certain rabbit holes, you’d show more self-discipline than I do, and not have to go on about mercy seats for five minutes. But so that’s another tip-off to the genre here.Verse six, “Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services.” Remember, first part of the tabernacle, that’s where the priests went in and did pretty much all of their services, which was mainly offering incense, morning and evening trimming the lamps on the lampstand, and the showbread was there for them to eat while they were conducting their service.Verse seven, “But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance; the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.” So noone could go in there except that one day, and then they tied a rope to him in case he dropped dead and all that. But also, he had to, when you read the day of atonement ritual, he had to go in and set up this huge cloud of incense, because that was the day on which Yahweh the god of Israel would appear in the holy place. And if he saw him, he would die, so he had to set up this huge cloud of incense so he wouldn’t see him. And he had to come in with the blood that he had to smear everywhere to cleanse and purify everything. Now remember, we’ve been taught to think “blood for the blood god,” he comes in and he offers the blood — God is drinking the blood or something — which is not it at all. What did he do with the blood on the day of atonement? He went in and he smeared it on the physical objects, on the furniture, on all these things that were these golden things that were just named, to purify them from the residue of the sins of the people. So the whole thing is about making it so that God can safely remain there and dwell there among the people. So this is then what that next verse says the Holy Spirit is indicating by this, that the way was not open. Because if you take it the other way, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. “Well, it was open for one guy, once a year.” But it wasn’t really open! He couldn’t come and stand in the presence of God. He couldn’t see him and live, when he appeared there bodily. He had to set up the smoke and then had to smear blood everywhere. They had to do all of this, so that way wasn’t open.And so what St. Paul’s saying here is that when you read that ritual and you look at all that, this should indicate to everyone that the way to God — we were just talking about the new covenant, knowing God, the way to stand in the presence of God and to know God — it was not open at that time. It was closed. And this whole structure, culminating in the day of atonement, the whole Torah itself, was all aimed at trying to manage this, so that it didn’t all fall apart. So what’s implied here now is that Christ has now opened this way, and if Christ has opened this way for us to come and stand in the presence of God, then we don’t need all of that Torah stuff anymore. We don’t need all that.So Verse nine, “It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience—concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.” Wow, that transformation, or that translation, is aimed at somebody, “the time of reformation.” So notice here again— So by the way, some people will read that, verse eight, and say the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. And they’ll say, “ah see, that means the temple had been destroyed.” Right, let’s tip it, that’s what that is. So this wasn’t written by St. Paul; this had to be written later, after the temple was destroyed. And of course, as usual, the problem with that is context, because in the very next verse, “It was symbolic for the present time and with both gifts and sacrifices are offered.” Well, if in the present time, gifts and sacrifices are being offered, then the temple still has to be there. But the tabernacle isn’t still there.Interlocutor 2: And even the first temple isn’t still there.Fr. Stephen: And the first temple isn’t even still there, yes. So St. Paul is saying that this select ritual, the way this ritual was done, the way it was enacted, was teaching us something about what’s going on at the present time and what’s going to happen in the future, “was perfected.” And notice what he says here, “These gifts and sacrifices are offered.” He talked about all high priests, beginning of the last chapter, “offered gifts and sacrifices.” So these current Levitical priests are offering gifts and sacrifices that “cannot make the one who performs the service perfect in regard to the conscience.” They can’t make you perfect because they’re “concerned only with food and drink washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time when the fullness comes.“So, remember how perfect needs to be read. I’m trying not to go too polemic here against against our Protestant friends, but the way perfect is here read by a lot of them is: perfect here means morally perfect, keep the Torah perfectly, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. Keeping the ordinances of the Torah can’t let you keep the Torah. That’s self-contradictory. When we understand that perfect means mature, complete, it couldn’t bring that person to the fullness because the high priest— what have we just been talking about: context— the high priest was never, no matter how faithfully he served, he could never just walk into the presence of God. He could never stand there face-to-face with the god of Israel on that day and not die. It never gave him the ability to do that. And why does St. Paul say it never gave him the ability to do that? Because he couldn’t keep the Torah? No, because that’s not what the Torah was aimed at. That’s not what the commandments of the Torah were about. They were not about enabling him to do that. They never promised, remember promises, they never promised to make him able to do that. That’s not what it was all aimed at. They were aimed at this other purpose, preserving pureness, so that God could remain there until the time when Christ comes and the new covenant is granted. It’s not that people couldn’t keep the Torah, and the Torah was perfect. That’s the opposite of what St. Paul is saying here. Torah wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t aimed at making people perfect. It wasn’t aimed at salvation. It wasn’t aimed at eternal life. It had this purpose that it served. And now that it has served that purpose and the new covenant has come, it’s obsolete. You don’t throw it away, but it’s now fulfilled. It’s now present in a fuller, richer form. There’s greater promises right now attached to the new covenant.Verse 11, “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.” So we’re now talking about something superseding even creation. This is what I was talking about with “this is also before.” This isn’t just the new thing. This is also the heavenly reality. And notice, he’s the high priest of the good things to come. So there is still that future reality where heaven and earth become one.Verse 12, “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” So he’s offering this comparison. So the day of atonement in Leviticus, when it was practiced, the blood and the ashes of a sacrificed animal, the sprinkling with those cleansed the flesh. It purified from that stain, that residue left by sin. That’s what the day of atonement is about, purified from that. So Christ’s blood does not do something different. It’s not God wanting to be appeased by blood. But it also purifies— that’s the verb, that’s the language— but it purifies our conscience, it purifies our heart, our soul, our nous. That is, it’s doing the same thing, but with much greater fullness.Interlocutor 1: It’s not just flesh.Fr. Stephen: Right, it’s not just washing or taking a shower and getting your body clean. [Laughter] Right, it’s having a clean and pure heart and soul and mind, greater thing, still within the concept of cleanliness, but much bigger and deeper. And that’s what Christ’s blood does. And notice, it doesn’t say from works. It says “from works of death.” All right, we’re cleansed from works of death. Why is that important? Because we’re talking about the day of atonement, the works that bring death.Interlocutor 1: Sins, in other words.Fr. Stephen De Young: Yes! That’s what the day of atonement in the Old Testament was about, purifying the residue of. But Christ’s blood purifies us from sin entirely. And so that’s the first piece of that, that greater and deeper cleansing and forgiveness through Christ’s day of atonement. And you see this in Second Temple literature. There are a lot of texts, the Testament of Abraham is one, Second Enoch is one, there’s a bunch of them that prophesy an eschatological day of atonement. They talk about the Messiah as a priestly figure. In fact, some of those texts talk about two Messiahs. And we see that come up a little bit, a king Messiah and a priest Messiah, and we see that come up a little bit, a few times, in the gospels. Like, a href=“https://www.esv.org/Matthew+11” title=“English Standard Version Bible”>when St. John the Forerunner a href=“https://www.esv.org/Luke+7:18” title=“English Standard Version Bible”>asked Christ, “Are you the one or should we expect another? Are there two?” And those ones that talk about a priestly messiah are talking about it in terms of, there’s going to be this final day of atonement, where sin and the demonic powers that lie behind sin are going to be dealt with once and for all, not this recurring thing. And so this is the idea that St. Paul, when he talks about Christ’s priesthood, is talking about here. When he talks about Christ entering into the heavenly sanctuary, once and for all, that this is this eschatological day of atonement. Because it’s in this eternal space, it’s not part of this creation, where things change and happen over and over and over. It’s part of the heavenly reality. And then that enters into our human experience at various points.So when I get baptized, when I receive the body and blood of Christ, I receive this purification and this cleansing, which Christ has already accomplished eternally. He doesn’t have to die again, for me in particular. This is in the heavenly realms. And it enters into our experience at particular points in time in our creation.Interlocutor 2: It’s mind-boggling to somebody, I mean, I think even Catholics have the idea that Christ is propitiating an angry god. I mean, I never liked that idea, but that’s so ingrained, that it’s sort of like, “no, it’s not that, it’s purification.” I need a little recording I can play back every fifteen minutes.Fr. Stephen De Young: Yeah, well, there’s none of that in the day of atonement in Leviticus. And St. Paul here is choosing to describe what Christ does in atonement in terms of Leviticus 16, the day of atonement ritual. Could have chosen something else. He could have talked about penal substitution if he wanted to. He could have talked about criminals being punished. He could have just laid that out. There’s no language in Greek that St. Paul didn’t have access to, to lay that out clearly and he didn’t. The reason he didn’t is he didn’t think about Christ that way because he thought about Christ in terms of the Old Testament. And that’s nowhere in the Old Testament. So St. Paul is immersed in the Old Testament, he sees it, interprets and understands everything in terms of the Old Testament. So when he’s thinking about Christ’s sacrifice, he thinks about Old Testament sacrifices, and he thinks about the day of atonement. He doesn’t think about pagan sacrifices. He doesn’t think about jurisprudence in the Roman legal system. He does— that’s not where he goes to because that’s not where he lives and is at. That’s not how he processes these things.And I don’t want to leave off mentioning the second piece of that, there’s that “cleanse your conscience from dead works from sin.” But that also has a purpose, to serve the living god. The works are works of death. God is a god of life. Both of those pieces are there, and serving the living god involves doing things. So yet another point where works here doesn’t just mean doing things. So there is a purpose for which we are saved, that second element of bearing fruit of the works that God has prepared in advance for us to do. That element sometimes gets cut off by some of our friends talking about salvation. It’s, you receive purification and forgiveness from Christ, and then you try to be a relatively good person as best you can until you die and go to heaven. That’s not how St. Paul describes it here or anywhere else.Verse 15, “And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” Okay, so there’s a bunch of words there that we need to go into a little more. So how did he— this is what he means is— how did Christ become the mediator of the new covenant? Moses was the mediator of the old covenant. He went up the mountain, as we just saw described and went into the tabernacle and saw the— And Christ moves in the opposite direction. As we saw at the beginning of Hebrews, Christ was in the heavenly place, and then he came here and then brought us back up. So it’s a reverse move for Moses going up the mountain and coming back down. How does he become the mediator of the new covenant? By means of death, by means of his death. Christ’s death is the means by which he does it, for the redemption, for the purpose of redeeming the transgressions under the first covenant. Redemption, remember, is like redeeming a coupon. It’s buying back or setting free.So this is this is the other piece. The two great Old Testament feasts are the day of atonement and the Passover. So the day of atonement, we’ve just been talking about. What’s the Passover about? The Passover is about manumission, which is a word not enough people know. [Laughter] The buying back of slaves, the redemption of slaves, of people from slavery, setting them free from slavery. That’s the redemption of the transgressions under the old covenant. Because the one who sins is a slave to sin. See,  there’s an irony here, because when is the Torah given? Fifty days after the Passover, after they’ve been released from slavery. But as St. Paul has laid out, in Romans especially, the people who are under the Torah are still slaves to sin. It doesn’t free them. It doesn’t— Because again, what does it do? The ordinances aren’t aimed at that. But Christ now has set them free through his death.Interlocutor 1: Why is his death a necessary means for doing this? Could this just… I’m missing something.Fr. Stephen: When did Christ die? What time of year, I’m going for.Interlocutor 1: At the Passover.Fr. Stephen: Right? So by his death, he accomplished another Passover. The Harrowing of Hades is standing behind this.Interlocutor 1: Okay, so we’ve got to connect that, his death, through the Harrowing of Hades?Fr. Stephen: Yes, it leads to Christ filling all things. Christ died so he could go to Hades, so he could defeat the devil, so he could set free the captives.Interlocutor 1: That’s very different from what I—Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Right, so that’s why he dies. And Moses becomes the mediator of the new covenant fifty days after the Passover, when he goes up the mountain. Christ dies at the Passover and then forty days later, ascends is seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly tabernacle. That’s the parallel going on here. And so Christ becomes the mediator of this new covenant, the way with— an inversion of the way Moses was.Interlocutor 1: Now I think in the fifty-something years that I was raised kinds of Protestant, I don’t think anyone ever mentioned the Harrowing of Hades in church.Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Other than the Apostles’ Creed; it does show up at the Apostles’ Creed, but you’re not supposed to ask questions about that part of the Apostles’ Creed. Yeah.And so the result of him being the mediator of the new covenant is that those who are called, those who are party to the new covenant, may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Because what was the promise of the old covenant? It was an inheritance. It was a piece of land for you and your family and your clan, but that’s not an eternal inheritance. That’s a little piece of land in this creation. So Christ becomes the mediator of the new covenant so that those in the new covenant can receive the eternal inheritance, the full inheritance. That’s the greater promises that he was talking about.Verse 16, “For where there is a testament,”—this is the same word, this is diathēkē, this is the same word as covenant—“For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.” English common law, it’s lovely. “For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives.”Interlocutor 3: It’s talking about a will.Fr. Stephen: Yes, so this is interpreting it as talking about a will. Your will only comes into effect when you die, which is kind of a weird translation, but we’ll come back to it.Verse 18, “Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood.” Okay, so let’s pause. If we want to interpret this as being about a will, who was it who died in the first covenant? Was it the last will and testament of a bunch of sheep and… calves?

Interlocutor 3: I was wondering how he got that.

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Right, so this is a reference to the covenant with Abraham, in terms of what’s going on behind these, and then he’s just going to move on to Moses. So, there’s this episode in Genesis where God formalizes his covenant with Abraham, where he has Abraham cut a bunch of birds in half. This is one of those stories people don’t read a lot. You usually don’t cover it in Sunday school because it’s weird. And he cuts these birds in half and lays the two halves on either side of a path, and then this flame like a torch, that is God, passes between the halves of the animals, and that formalizes the covenant. Everybody goes, what?!

So the word in Hebrew for covenant is bereet [בְּרִית], and you don’t write a bereet or make a bereet, make a covenant, the verb that’s used is you cut a covenant. That cutting is a reference to exactly that. So when you made one of those covenants, the sort of oath that was taken was that you would take these animals, cut them in half, and then the person who passed through the midst would be taking an oath that if I break this covenant may I be like these animals. Cross your heart and hope to die, kind of. That I would be killed like these animals were killed.Interlocutor 1: You’re talking about covenant not only in the big religious sense, but as an agreement, right?Fr. Stephen: Yeah, it’s a legal term today, a covenant. And so it was an oath-taking thing. So what’s going on in this covenant with Abraham is: God is saying, “If I break my covenant with”— he’s not having Abraham do it, he’s doing it, “If I break my covenant with you, Abraham, may I end up like these animals.” The idea at the time would be, “obviously God can’t die, so he can’t break this covenant.” But what happens? Abraham’s descendants end up breaking that covenant, but instead of Abraham and his descendants all dying, God does die. God does die in the person of Christ. And so this is what lies behind this, that St. Paul is alluding to. Where’s this covenant that’s been broken, then the person who took the oath has to die.Interlocutor 1: So, when he says, “Not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood”, he’s talking about the sacrifice of these birds?Fr. Stephen: No, that’s part of the segue into talking about Moses. So he says this was about Christ and that now he’s going to make a comparison to the sacrifices that were offered by Moses when that covenant was made. So he’s talking about Christ dying.So we just had, remember in verse 15, Christ became mediator of the new covenant by means of his death, so he takes care of the broken old covenant. And talking about giving the eternal inheritance, the eternal promise of eternal inheritance, was given to Abraham. That’s what that covenant was about. So for Christ to be the mediator of the new covenant and bestow that inheritance, he has to receive that inheritance by taking care of that old covenant.Now St. Paul is going to compare that to, with Moses he’s saying, “even if you look at Moses, there was this oathtaking.” As we’re going to see as it unfolds, because that’s the context for this, a bunch of animals were killed and then what?Verse 19, “For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book”—book, like he had one, but the tablet—“the book itself and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.’ Then likewise he sprinkled with blood,” well, we’ll stop there. “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” Right before he did that, they all vowed to follow it and to keep it. So the ritual he describes here, again, it’s not just about the deaths of the animals. You need the deaths of the animals to get the blood. But he’s talking about the oathtaking. With the first covenant, Moses read it to them. They said we’re going to do all that stuff. Lies. [Laughter] But they said we’re going to do all that stuff, and that’s when they got sprinkled with the blood of the animals symbolizing what?Interlocutor 1: Purification?Fr. Stephen: No, in this case, they’d be to us like those animals. That blood is part of this oath. And what happened when they broke the covenant?Interlocutor 1: Nebuchadnezzer.Fr. Stephen: Well, yeah, eventually in this case, these folks all died in the wilderness, these actual folks. But yeah in general, they broke the covenant, and that’s what happened.Verse 21, “then likewise”—so now this is another piece—“then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” Some translations add “of sins” there, I think the original KJV adds “remission of sins.” Okay, how many times have you heard that last part of that quoted, “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins”? Something has to die because someone has sinned, to enforce that point. But of course, the first half of the verse, according to the law, according to the Torah, almost all things are purified with blood. Because as we know from Leviticus, the blood is life. So if you have stuff that’s covered with death stuff, this taint of sin, you use life stuff to get rid of it. And of course, Christ’s blood is the ultimate life stuff. Which is why, unlike the commandment to never drink blood in the Torah, we in the Eucharist drink Christ’s blood, his life. He’s giving his life to us. And that blood then purifies us, that’s the function it has, from all the death that’s inside of us.Verse 23, “Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.” So the idea is: we use this animal blood to purify these physical objects on earth, but in terms of the heavenly reality, the spiritual reality, it requires something greater than just some animal blood.Interlocutor 1: I don’t understand why the heavenly things need to be purified. Aren’t they already— They’re heavenly things.Fr. Stephen: Well, would you like to be a heavenly thing someday? Would you like to be a heavenly thing someday?Interlocutor 1: I have some hope.Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] And to get there—Interlocutor 1: So It’s not the pre-existing—Fr. Stephen: It’s not heaven qua location. It’s heavenly qua spiritual. The full reality. Remember, you talk about the cleansing of the flesh, like washing our body and taking a shower versus the cleansing of our soul and our mind and our heart. So our soul and our mind and our heart has to be purified with something greater than soap and water.Interlocutor 1: So we are the heavenly things?Fr. Stephen: Yes. Because when heaven and earth become one, we want to be there still. And remember that this whole purification thing is about being able to come into the presence of God. That’s the overarching thing with the day of atonement. And for us to do that, we need a greater purification than you can get with the blood of animals. Because we saw how far you could, the high priest could get once a year with the blood of animals, that’s not very far. So we’re going to need something much greater than that.Verse 24, “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” So this is the marker point of the end times, of the last days, is that Christ appeared among us. Didn’t come into existence. Who appeared among us to bring this about. This is where it enters into our experience.“And as it is”—verse 27—“as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” That “apart from sin” is a weird translation, but here’s where it’s going. So Christ entered in before God, he’s gone back in. It’s appointed for men to die once and after this, we experience the judgment of God. And when is that judgment? That’s when Christ appears the second time. But Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. What is this reference to bearing sins? This is the other goat in the day of atonement. If we’re talking about the day of atonement, we’ve got one we didn’t cover: the scapegoat, the goat for Azazel. So we talked about the one goat whose blood is used to purify the sanctuary, the other goat, the sins of the people are placed upon it. That goat is not killed, not sacrificed, that goat goes out and takes away the sins. So that’s the bearing sins. That goat’s not punished for people’s sins.So Christ is both goats This is thematic through the New Testament. St. Matthew’s gospel, His account of the Passion is based on the idea that Christ is both goats. First John, when we get there, we’ll see in First John, Christ is both goats. And here in Hebrews, Christ is both goats. So he appeared once and took away our sin, so that when you come to the judgment— And what is the judgment? It’s us standing in the presence of God, what all of this has been about and leading up to. It’s when we stand before God face-to-face, like the high priest couldn’t on the day of atonement and live. And so in preparation for that, because that’s where we’re headed as humans, Christ came and took away our sin when he appeared the first time, so that when he appears the second time for that judgment, we could experience salvation. We could stand before him with a conscience that has been purified. When the heart’s been purified, we can stand in his presence and receive salvation, receive the eternal inheritance because he has dealt with all of that once and for all.Interlocutor 1: Isn’t it a Catholic doctrine that Christ is sacrificed again in every Mass?Fr. Stephen: They would not accept that.Interlocutor 1: That is not—Fr. Stephen:  That’s been, yeah, Protestants have since the sixteenth century accused the Mass of doing that. They say that the one sacrifice of Christ is presented again and again to propitiate God and free people from purgatory. Problematic in and of itself, right, but a lot of times if you hear Protestant commentary on that, they focus on, in this section, they focus on that. “Oh, it’s just once, so that’s why the Mass is bad.” Clearly there are problems with Roman Catholic doctrine, including on this, but they don’t actually see it that way.So part of the problem in the couple chapters we just read is that they get pulled apart like that. They get pulled apart for proof texts. We’ve seen even halves of verses, like “without the shedding of blood there’s no remission of sin” gets quoted by itself all the time, and that whole part about purifying things with blood just gets dropped off, even though it’s the first half of a sentence. And different pieces get pulled out. But when you put it all together and run through it like we just did and walk through verse by verse, you see this is all talking about the day of atonement and walking through the day of atonement ritual and how it works and how it’s connected. And what the day of atonement ritual is about was just about standing in the presence of God, which we’re going to do at Christ’s second coming and being able to do that now. Whereas that was impossible in the old covenant. That’s where it ends up, and that’s what makes Christ’s high priesthood so much greater than the Levitical high priesthood because the Levitical high priesthood could go in that one day a year and physically clean up the flesh and the residue of the sins so that God could remain. But he couldn’t even stand in the presence of God and see him, let alone allow anyone else to. Whereas Christ has now done that. Christ has now opened that way and made that possible for those who are part of the new covenant So we’ll leave off there. That’s probably enough for tonight. And next time we’ll pick up at the beginning of chapter ten. So thank you everybody.