A Better Covenant Guarantee

0:00Amen. Alright. Well, thank you all for that, for letting me have a slight diversion there. As I was as I was going through those notes, I realized that I had made some significant changes to a few things and they were not updated. So I didn't want to give you all the wrong uh sermon. So forgive me for that again. Okay. Let me begin then. Uh I'm going to turn your attention first to Hebrews 6 for just a moment. And when we went through Hebrews 6, that wasn't that long ago, so I'm sure that's still fresh on your minds, and you will quickly recall this. In verse 13 of Hebrews chapter 6, if you want to kind of just turn and look at that, the author shows us that when God made those great promises to Abraham, he secured it with an oath. Okay? When God made those great promises to Abraham, he secured it with an oath. Since God has no one greater by whom he can swear, he swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you and multiply you. So the surety of that promise to Abraham and his descendants was not only because it was a promise given by God, which it certainly was, but because God himself swore an oath by himself that such things would indeed come to pass. And it was by those two unchangeable things then, right, a promise and an oath in which God cannot lie, that we have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. That was the end near the end of chapter 6. Naturally, then we should consider it a great encouragement to receive a promise and an oath from God, but what about when that promise and that oath concern this better covenant? This better covenant that we have been laboring now to grasp throughout Hebrews 7. What if this better covenant with us concerns conditions only God Himself has to fulfill? And in that contains promises and oaths that only God can make. Imagine an agreement that is constantly having to be renewed, in a sense, because the parties involved keep changing. I suppose that would be an underw underwriter's dream, or maybe nightmare, I don't know. Job security. There is something better, though. There is something better. From our text that Brother Stephen graciously read, starting in verse. Sorry. Nope, not twenty-four. Darn it. Either way. Uh this is uh, yeah, I don't know. I'm just gonna read the verse. But this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, Lord has sworn, and he will not change his mind, you are a priest forever. That was verse 21 I found it. Verse 22. This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. Imagine now that you enter into a covenant to buy a house, but instead of you being the principal party, another comes in and says, I will be the guarantor of this agreement. How good is that agreement? Before you say great, it's still only as good as the guarantor, right? But what if this guarantor cannot lie? What if he is so perfectly trustworthy that everything he says is true? What if this person cannot and will not ever change his mind about anything? What if this person can never break a promise? What if this person can never back out of an oath? That sounds great. I'd love to be backed by a person like that. But what happens if that person dies? Then what do I do? That's the best part of all. Our surety. This guarantor cannot die either. Can you be assured that an agreement would stand if that kind of person was your guarantor? That's what Hebrews is showing us this morning. And by using the word guarantor there in verse 22, is communicating really something foundational to us. This word guarantor in the Greek is a legal term. It's reserved for legal documents. Much like a mortgage, perhaps, whereby one puts forward something to stand as a security for a loan. Right? Someone signs all of their donkeys away as a security, saying, if the agreement is defaulted, you can have all my donkeys as a payment. But in this case, the security that Christ offers to seal and secure this covenant is not a flock of sheep or a paid-off vehicle. He offers himself as the security of the agreement. So that as long as Christ lives, this blessed covenant concerning our salvation will be ever secured by him. And a couple weeks from today, we celebrate the glorious reality that Christ walking of reality of Christ walking out of the grave. And in that we will certainly celebrate the fact that in his resurrection he has fulfilled all prophecy. And in doing so, right, he has dealt with our sins. He has made peace with corrupt man, and he's reconciled us back to God, right? Praise be to God for that. Let us not forget, though, that in the death or the defeat of death, through his crucifixion, death, and resurrection, and his ascension into the heavenly places at the right hand of the Father, he has guaranteed our salvation. We can and must have the full assurance that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. How can we know that? Because He has made an agreement with us. He has sworn it with an oath. He has sealed it with His blood. He has secured it with His eternal life and unchanging character. That is why this new covenant is a better covenant. Not only because of the terms of the covenant, though they are certainly better, but if they didn't contain this rock solid guarantur, then the best covenant in the world would eventually be broken. This new covenant is better. And infinitely great, both because of the terms and because of the oath on which it was founded, and by the perfect eternal life by which it is eternally secured. You're going to have to come back next week to hear the precise terms of this better covenant, but rest assured that it is secured. Because it is guaranteed by the unending life of Christ. Okay. We'll continue now. Let's now consider the ongoing intercession that our text this morning describes. This will be starting in verse 23 and following. And I did reference a little bit the idea of or the concept or the reality of Christ's intercession with respect to his intercession as he helps us through various trials, which is certainly true. But in the text this morning, it is the ongoing intercession of Christ that is the basis of our ultimate salvation. That's the focus of the text this morning. Christ's intercession and its aid in our ultimate salvation. I'm not really on uh social media at the moment, uh, but I do peek in from time to time at some of the happenings in the evangelical world just to make sure I don't miss anything big. Uh I saw this past week that our dear brother uh John Piper did stir up uh some people, as is done, uh, with uh some comments he made about the assurance of salvation and justification. I'm not gonna get into all those comments. I don't have time for that, and I do value uh Piper very much. Uh but I would perhaps differ slightly from him on his emphasis of assurance and precisely who we should depend on for our ultimate justification and salvation, and I will explain. From our text, it says in verse 24, but he holds his priesthood permanently because he lives forever. He holds his priesthood permanently because he lives forever. And the this priestly ministry of Christ is permanent because he lives forever. And like I know we get that. He is also those able to save to the uttermost, as our text says. That is, totally and fully save for all time those who draw near to him, draw near to God through him. How? Our text tells us. Because he always lives to make intercession for them. So someone like Piper may emphasize that our assurance comes strictly from our perseverance. And I think there is some nuanced truth to that. We are certainly assured because we persevere. But I want to emphasize for us this morning, as I think our text does, that assurance comes from our perseverance. Yes, but our perseverance comes purely by the intercession of Christ. You will be saved to the uttermost. Because the eternal Christ is constantly keeping you. And this too is tied with the new covenant and the promise and the oath of God. It's so good and so gracious that he does all of the saving. It's so good and it's so gracious that he does all of the keeping. Well, don't tell people that, because then they're just going to live however they want, right? If our response to the pure grace of God in Christ is sweet, now I get to live however I want. You've gravely missed the mark. And the Spirit of God has not opened your eyes to the sweetness of his grace. If you want to memorize and hide a verse in your heart that will surely be used by the Spirit to comfort you and encourage you, memorize Hebrews 7, 24, and 25. That's another law I'll give you this morning. But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. There's a quick aside here, worth mentioning, a couple of common errors with respect to Christ's intercession, since we're talking about Christ interceding for us. It's certainly relevant here. The first error that I don't want us to fall into assumes that Christ's intercession is not sufficient. Or that somehow Christ is too busy for everyone, and that we should include prayers and pleadings to other saints to supplement. Or so that maybe we need to get Christ's attention on things that he might have overlooked. This is a significant error because it robs Christ of the sole position as our help, as our shepherd, that he himself has claimed for us. I know at least one person has had a familiar experience, and forgive me if I've used this analogy or this example before. There's an episode I love Everybody Loves Raymond. Maybe that's a, maybe I shouldn't admit that. There's an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Deborah, Ray's wife, is asked to bring a casserole for Thanksgiving dinner. I think is a casserole. When she arrives, she finds that Ray's mom has made a duplicate of her casserole. And when Deborah questions her about it, Ray's mother says she wanted to be safe and have an extra just in case Deborah's didn't turn out. So the idea of supplementing there demonstrates a fundamental lack of trust, right? Like a somewhat demeaning one, actually. When we supplement the intercession of Christ with anything else, we are effectively telling him, I just want to be safe in case yours doesn't turn out. We either put all our trust in him and him alone, and get everything, including eternal salvation and everlasting life, or we spread our trust around to be safe, and in the end we get nothing. Spread out your investments for security, but with Christ it's all Him or nothing. Another error we make is the pit um we pit the Father and the Son, right, against one another. This is a common error that we do, right? That the Father is quite angry and full of wrath against us, and um he's just waiting for an opportunity to smote us down, and that Christ is pleading, saying, no, no, let me, you know. We need to remember who it was that sent Christ in the first place, right? Was it not the Father? Did the Father not love you so much that he sent his son for you? That through believing in him you might have eternal life? The Father is not angry with you all the time. He knows you. And because of Christ, he sees you as he sees Christ in love. Okay. Final thing I'm covering this morning is the idea that it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest as Christ. This is 26 through the end, and I'll just read that again, for it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for those for the people, since he did this once for all. When he offered it up himself. What is meant there by indeed fitting? As translator notes, perhaps a better translation there in the Greek is such a high priest was fitted to us. As opposed to it was indeed fitting to have such a high priest, perhaps we could read, such a high priest was fitted to us. Have you ever been working outside on a hot day? You're full of sweat, your mouth is dry, and you come inside and your lovely wife hands you an ice cold glass of lemonade. You take a few long drinks, and what do you say? Just what I needed. And that way, an ice cold glass of lemonade is perfectly fitted to that situation. And far be it from me to compare our Lord to lemonade. But I hope you see that with respect to our present situation, Christ was and is a perfect. Perfectly fitted priest that we need. He is all the things we are not or weren't. Holy, innocent, unstained, exalted above the heavens, and in that way he was separated or separate from us. He wasn't like any of the other priests before him who made intercession, was he? While being like us in the fact that he became humans as we are, and he was tempted as we are, he was also as much unlike us as could possibly be. He was God. And who is like God, really? But by becoming flesh and becoming a priest forever on our behalf, and the one who is human like us, he was and is and is exactly what we need. The God man. The God man priest who stood in the chasm separating man and God. These two, man and God, being so far apart that reconciliation was hopeless. There was no hope for reconciliation. But Christ enters in as both God and man, like us in humanity, but also not at all like us in his divinity, so that in this miraculous union of God and man we have the very thing that we need. A worthy priest, a worthy guarantor, a worthy Savior, a worthy substitute for us, a worthy redeemer, the perfect fit for our needs. And if we want to know what true refreshment feels like, we come and drink from the well of living water. There's something else then to note about how fitting Christ is. That is alluded to us in those traits that are laid out to us in our text. Those were holy, innocent, unstained. What was established under the old covenant as an appropriate or fitting sacrifice for sins? It was to be spotless, it was to be unblemished, right? You couldn't just grab any lamb for the offering. Had to be the right one. It must be fitting, must be worthy of the sacrifice. And in that way, of course, we see another foreshadowing of Christ's spotless, perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The fitting and worthy sacrifice who the Father looks upon, and because of Christ's infinite worthiness sees fit to accept it as an eternal offering for our sins. Once for all paid in full. Signed, sealed, and guaranteed to the very end of time. This is the blessed and better covenant guarantee. And this is freely offered to all who in faith come to Christ to receive him and him alone as their guarantor forever. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, as now and evermore shall be world without end. Amen and amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you again, and as always, for your word. We know and confess that you are the priest that we all still need. We pray for those who have not received you as their priest, Lord, and as their guarantor. Would you, by your spirit, open the hearts of those to see you for who you are, to receive Christ as the only means by which they are saved. And for those of us who have, Lord, by your grace, we thank you for your continued intercession for us. That it is you alone who are keeping us. We pray and confess, Lord, that if you left it up to us, we would fall. But you are praying for us. And it's too much at times, Lord, but we thank you. We thank you, Lord. We thank you for this hope. Pray that you would give us that hope this morning. Give us an encouragement. Give us the strength to keep on, Lord. To keep running the race that you have set before us, Lord. To receive you in glory. Ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.