Hebrews 9:22
"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission."
That’s what The Epistle says. And that’s what I in agreement with Paul and the Father call ‘the absolute’ – the last half of this verse, and you’ve heard me teach and stress this. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission." Now in the Old Testament economy, it had to be animals. But as we saw earlier in chapter 9, the blood of animals couldn’t take away sin nor clean and cleans mans conscientiousness. Therefore it was just a shadow, of the Better that was to come.
I read an interesting thing on the shadow. You know, we see this term all the time that this is a shadow of things that were coming. Well, I had a pretty good idea what it meant but I like this description even better. This old gentleman had a large and very tall pine tree in the back yard and his friend wanted to buy it, to cut it up for lumber. So they were out there looking at it and the sun was shining brightly. The guy asked $150-200 for that pine tree. The potential buyer said, "That’s more than I want to pay." "Well," the owner replied, "I’ll sell you the shadow for $50." See? Well what was the shadow? It was the likeness. It had the same dimensions with the sun shining in the right way. But hey, it wasn’t the tree.
Then we can take it a little bit further. Sometimes we use the word ‘image.’ The image of things. All right. You could have taken a camera up to that tree and taken a few pictures, then you would have been able to determine by the bark and the leaves and the shape what kind of a tree it was. Well, are you going to buy a picture for $200 bucks? No. Because that picture won’t build anything. But, you see, this is exactly what you have to understand. That when we speak of the Law simply being the shadow of things to come, it in itself had no substance. But, when the Truth came, then God expects the human race to latch and lock in to it. Now that can be seen in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 when it speaks of our being formed in the image and likeness of God. Then else where it reveals that God is called the Father of spirits, the very thing that man was first created to be, a receptive spiritual being in God's image and likeness.
All right, so "Without the shedding of blood." All the way from Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3 to Cain and Able in chapter 4 and on up through the Old Testament, until we get to the night of the first Passover – the lamb’s blood had to be applied to the doorpost or the death angel would strike. Remember too that the lamb that was eaten also shed the blood that was applied, just as the first animal which God slue and used to cover man not only with the blood but also with its skin. The life which was in that animal which the Hebrew children ate at that Passover was the symbol which Jesus used when He said, "You must eat of His flesh and drink of His Blood in order to have His Life in you" (John6:52-57 and paraphrased). And that then became the beginning of the whole system of Judaism or the Mosaic Covenant of Law. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Thousands of animals were killed every year and that blood was shed to placate a Holy God, but it couldn’t take away their sin. The veil (a smoke screen) remained in the Heavens that separated man from the presence of God. For God took no pleasure in the sacrifices Psalm 40:6-7, where we find that the word “law” and it means to teach or instruct.
And for that reason the Old Testament believer, even the best of them, David, Moses, they couldn’t go into God’s presence. Their sin was never atoned for. It was only covered with animal blood and so they, too, had to wait down in Paradise [in the center of the earth where Christ went (Matthew 12:40 and then Luke 16) until Christ had shed His perfect, sinless, atoning blood Ephesians 4:8-9, Psalm 68:18]. So whether you’re dealing with Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3 or whether you’re dealing with you and I today in 2002 – "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin." It’s an absolute. It is the enter into the beginning of our learning process designed and planed by God to bring us all through His, first redemption wherein His gives us the first blessing the Holy Spirit and then into the second blessing His Salvation. Its in two parts but cause there are two, no less and no more than two Covenants.
God will not even look at someone who tries to approach Him without the shed blood. Now what percentage of Christendom does that take in? A big bunch of them. Most of them don’t want to even think of the blood. I told you – I remember back in the 1960’s, one of my friends up in Wisconsin was all shook up (and I’m not even sure he was a believer) because his denomination had called in all their hymnals. Later, they issued new ones with all reference to ‘the blood’ taken out. A whole denomination. Well, you see, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But I’ve got news for them. ‘Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.’ It’s impossible. Now we've finished a rewrite of a work by Andrew Murray, titled “The Holiest of All” which he wrote back in the 1890's from which I'll share somethings from time to time as the Holy Spirit leads. All right, let’s move on.
Hebrews 9:23
"It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these."
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