Eternal Redemption

Eternal Redemption

Hebrews 9:1-14

By Everett Wilson, Pastor

To be precise, this message should have the title “Earthly Religion and Eternal Redemption,” but it’s okay that the title in the bulletin is “eternal redemption,” because that is the message. Earthly religion is never the message; only eternal redemption. We have to talk about religion sometimes, because, though it contains the promise of eternal redemption, the Old Testament is mainly about earthly religion. The New Testament is mainly about eternal redemption, though it also teaches us something about earthly religion.

Earthly Religion

In Hebrews 9 we are given a brief look at the religion of the Old Testament as it was connected to the Tabernacle, and then later to the Temple. Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. The regulations taught what had to be done, how to do it, who was to do it, and where it was to be done. The regulations described the religious practices by which God was to be honored and worshiped.

The place was an earthly sanctuary, a huge portable tent that was actually a tent within a tent. It was magnificently furnished and decorated. The outer tent was where most of the work of religion took place. For a tent was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence; this is called the Holy Place. Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent to carry out their ritual duties.

Once a year, the religion was much more than routine. On the Day of Atonement the high priest alone went into the second, inner tent, taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people.

This sounds quite a bit like church! We also have our ways of doing things, some of them actually commanded of us, like the Lord’s Supper. We do them on schedule in a dependable way. Then during Holy Week and Christmas we make a bigger deal of it, because these days represent Big Things to our faith—the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the coming of God himself into the world in the person of Jesus. As the people of the Old Testament responded with remembrances of Passover and the Day of Atonement, so we respond with remembrances of Christmas and Easter. We dress up the church more than ever and have special services. If we are serious and faithful to the story we have been given, we are taught and inspired by what we are doing.

All of that is religion. It is good, it is helpful. But like the visit of the high priest once a year in the holy of holies, it is still earthly religion. It is a high and true religion, but if earthly religion is the best we have, it is still earthly; and it is still just religion. We need to move beyond earthly religion to eternal redemption, just as the Bible moved from the Old Covenant to the New, from the Old Testament to the New Testament. The New Testament does not replace the Old Testament. Rather, what the Old Testament symbolized the New Testament fulfilled. That fulfillment is not earthly religion but eternal redemption.

Few people use the words “eternal” or “redemption” in everyday speech. They are not very common words even in church, where they mean a great deal. So here are quick definitions.

“Eternal” means “without either beginning or end.” It does not mean “unending time” because then it would still have a beginning. We are stuck with the question that comes up in every confirmation class. Where does God come from? In the beginning he created heaven and earth; to do that he had to be there before the beginning. God was around before time began—therefore, he is eternal—without beginning or end. .

“Redemption” is a picture word for the cost of our salvation.

O Listen to the wondrous story, counted once among the lost,

How Christ came down from heaven’s glory,

Saving us at awful cost.

What did he do? He died for you.

Where is he now? In heaven, interceding.

Eternal Redemption

Eternal redemption means that the cost of our salvation has been paid once for all, not just for all time but for all eternity. That is the message this morning. Most of you have heard it before. Maybe some of you have a hard time believing it, and think you would rather have earthly religion than eternal redemption:

I goes to church and I gives my money and I does the best I can;

And then somebody comes up and says, you must be born again!

If all that happens is what you do, even if it is very good stuff, you are caught in a perpetual repetition. Like the high priest, you have to keep coming back. Again. And again. The high priest’s offering of blood had to be made again and again, until the end of time.

If that is the best that can be done, “gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper,” there is no eternal redemption. There is only earthly religion.

We praise God that earthly religion may be the best that we can do, but it isn’t the best that God can do. The time comes to set things right.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 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.

The writer of Hebrews offers the gospel of salvation by reflecting on the Old Testament religion. What the high priest could only symbolize, Jesus accomplished. The true offering, the true sacrifice that paid the cost of our rescue, the true redemption, was the offering of Christ himself on the cross. We know where and how that happened, on a little hill outside Jerusalem around A.D. 30. Then Hebrews tells us that the death on that hill was the entrance of Jesus into the holy places, where he offered his own life to God for our sake.

Once for all. You are not saved on a pay-as-you-go basis, hoping that this week you can scrape up enough good behavior to pay your dues. You are not saved on the installment plan, 60 payments plus money down and the car is yours. We are not saved on the same terms on which we enter a good retirement home because we can afford it. We are saved because Jesus died for us once for all, and secured an eternal redemption. Don’t even think of paying for it yourself, because the whole world together cannot meet the price of redemption.

It wouldn’t be enough, no, it wouldn’t be enough

To buy one splinter of the cross that Jesus died on.

And I couldn’t pay the price of a single drop of blood

That was shed for my salvation.

Salvation is free to us, but it was not free to the one who paid for it. Grace means that we receive without paying for it ourselves. It doesn’t mean that nobody paid. Jesus paid.

When Jesus broke the bread and shared the cup with his disciples on the last night of his life, he commanded, “Do this in remembrance of me” and Paul picked up on that. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” In Holy Communion we remember and proclaim that Christ entered once for all into the holy places, and “by means of his blood he secured an eternal redemption.”

An eternal redemption cannot be undone; it is permanent in its consequences. It is not just a nice try. Every one who wants to be saved can be, if they accept the gift. The price has been paid, the victory has been won, the sacrifice has been made. To overlook this, or dismiss it, is to miss eternal life. Don’t do that! Amen.