Christ mediated a new covenant with His own precious blood.

 

Sermon for Judica, Lent 5, March 22, 2026

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  

Hebrews 9:15-22  ¹⁵For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant.  A death took place as payment for the trespasses committed under the first covenant, so that those who are called would receive the promised eternal inheritance.  ¹⁶For where a will exists, it is necessary to establish the death of the one who made the will.  ¹⁷For a will takes effect at the time of death, since it is never in force when the one who made the will is still living.  ¹⁸For this reason, the first covenant was not ratified without blood.  ¹⁹Indeed, after every command was spoken by Moses to all the people, in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and a hyssop branch, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people.  ²⁰He said, “This is the blood of the covenant that God established for you.”  ²¹In the same way he sprinkled blood on the tent and all the objects for worship.  ²²And nearly everything is cleansed with blood according to the law.  And, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. (EHV)

Christ mediated a new covenant with His own precious blood.

Dear friends in Christ,

            In our modern culture, most of us would likely be a little too squeamish to seal a contract with the blood of a sacrifice.  Yet, in the times the writer refers to here, God chose the sacrifice of animals to be the seal of His promise of forgiveness and salvation.  God used that system for a two-fold purpose.  First, it showed the deadly consequence of our rift with God, and second, it pointed the people forward to the sacrifice God would make to reconcile Himself with the human race.

In the Mosaic covenant with which the Hebrews were experienced, the sacrificial death of an animal was required to receive forgiveness and peace with God.  That old covenant was still a covenant of grace, but it showed very graphically that sin resulted in death.  Naturally, that should have surprised no one, since essentially every person who ever lived eventually died which fulfills God’s warning to Adam and Eve that if they broke their covenant with God and ate of the forbidden fruit, they would die.  Yet, a new covenant was needed because the first was symbolic of the sacrifice God was making to cover our sin.

A new covenant was necessary because the old covenant didn’t really atone for sin; rather, it was pointing forward to the one death that would indeed reconcile us with God.  You see, because it was man’s sin that required the consequence of death, the sacrificed animals could only picture the final sacrifice.  To truly reconcile people who are under the curse of sin with the righteous God who loves mankind, a Man had to die.  Furthermore, because all of us ordinary people deserved death for our own sins, our deaths couldn’t reconcile us with our Creator.  However, Jesus, being both true God as well as true Man and perfectly holy and righteous, could bear the sins of the world in our place.  It is for this purpose that Christ mediated a new covenant with His own precious blood.

In the explanation of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, we each confess that Christ “has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.”  This is precisely what the writer is telling his fellow Hebrews in this text.  Speaking about Jesus, he wrote, “He is the mediator of a new covenant.  A death took place as payment for the trespasses committed under the first covenant, so that those who are called would receive the promised eternal inheritance.”  The old covenant included the commands to obey God perfectly.  No ordinary human was able to meet that requirement.  Therefore, we all deserved death.

However, Jesus’ death was no ordinary death, just as Jesus was no ordinary human.  Still, I need to qualify that statement, because Jesus assumed the human flesh into the divine.  He is therefore completely human, exactly like us but without sin.  At the same time, He is completely God so His life has infinitely greater value than ours.  Because He had no sin, Jesus didn’t deserve to die.  However, in God’s eternal wisdom and economy, the sins of the world are counted to Jesus so that when He went to that cross of suffering and shame, He was doing so without having committed any infractions, but out of love for us, He was taking on Himself the judgment we deserved for all our sins.

This is why Jesus wasn’t just spouting a platitude when He said, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)  Justice couldn’t require Jesus to die.  As God’s Son who was and is perfectly obedient to His Father’s will, Jesus dwelled in heaven in absolute righteousness and peace.  Still, His love for you and me brought Jesus to earth to be the Mediator, the One and Only God-Man who could restore harmony between God and mankind.  This was the will and covenant God had written throughout the Old Testament.  So much of that history showed how great a need we have for this new covenant.

However, as the writer here says, a will and testament only becomes valid when the testator, the person writing the will, dies.  This example from daily life fits well with God’s will to save sinners.  The demands of the law require death for sin.  God would not and could not accept anything less than perfect righteousness in His presence.  Therefore, the only way we might enter heaven is if God provides the way.

The writer also explains how throughout Israel’s history, God commanded that blood be used to sanctify, that is to cleanse from impurity, all things associated with His honor and worship.  The apostle wrote, “Indeed, after every command was spoken by Moses to all the people, in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and a hyssop branch, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people.”  Time and again for centuries these rituals were repeated in their worship practices.  Why?  Because God wanted the people to see that only the blood of His Son could cover their sins for good.

When the original covenant was given, Moses told the people, “This is the blood of the covenant that God established for you.”  The writer further reminded his listeners that, “In the same way he sprinkled blood on the tent and all the objects for worship.  And nearly everything is cleansed with blood according to the law.”  Therefore, we can rightly conclude along with the writer of this letter, “And, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.”  Without Christ on the cross, no one can be forgiven.

All of this pointed to God’s plan which would be completed by His Son, Jesus.  Now, in our times, the world may scoff at all this blood and death and mediation talk.  Many around us wouldn’t give it a second thought.  Yet, it is unmistakenly true that each and every person living, now or yet in the future, will meet the Lord face to face at some point.  There is a Judgment Day coming for everyone, whether that be when the body dies, or if it should be when Jesus returns in glory to judge the world.  Neither of these things is negotiable.  You cannot buy your way into heaven or out of hell, either by works, or wishes, or wealth.  There is only one way to enjoy peace with God and that is through faith in Jesus, just as He declared to His disciples, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6)

That is why this letter is such good news, not just to the Jews of the first century A.D.  It is good news for us as well.  Christ mediated a new covenant with His own precious blood.  Many of the Jews to whom this letter was written were beginning to go back to the old ways.  Perhaps it was at the urging of friends or family who hadn’t yet believed in Jesus.  Likely, persecution from staunch Pharisees or the old guard of temple priests, or even from the Roman government was tempting those early converts to Christianity to go back to the old ways.  The world is always against those who follow Jesus, because the world is led by the deceiver who has hated us since the beginning.

You and I are not immune from these temptations.  In fact, Jesus promised they would come.  He foretold that in the end times, there would be many false prophets and teachers who mislead people into trusting their own ideas or simply letting the natural desires of their sinful flesh rule their lives and actions.  History is full of the evil of man misleading or abusing other people. 

Today, many people think times are getting worse, but there were also many other times in the last nineteen hundred years when opposition to Christ seemed to rule.  As Jesus was led to the cross and the women were weeping and wailing, Jesus quoted the prophet, Hosea, as He warned, “Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’  For if they do these things to the green wood, what will happen to the dry?” (Luke 23:30-31)

Still, if despair because of all the evil in the world should ever overtake you, remember that these troubles will not last.  Indeed, Jesus declared, “If those days were not shortened, nobody would be saved.  But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.” (Matthew 24:22)  The elect are all those people who have been brought into trust in Jesus as Savior, Redeemer, and Lord through the work of the Holy Spirit in the proclamation of the Gospel and the Sacrament of Baptism. Thus, the elect are those of us who have heard the Good News of all Jesus did to take away our sins and pay for our guilt with His own shed blood and by God’s grace have believed in Him.

No matter our physical age, our times in this troubled world will soon end.  That may seem like bad news when first heard, but our Lord’s plan is always to take His people out of this troubled world into the glory and peace of heaven.  There, we will never again have any torment, sorrow, sin, or death.  There, the devil has no influence on anyone or anything.  There, you and I will be blessed to enjoy everlasting peace with God, because Christ paid our debt of sin with His blood, and because we have been chosen by God to hear and believe in Jesus, His righteousness now covers us with holiness. 

Dear friends, “See the kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1)  Because we have been claimed by faith to be sons of God, Christ mediated a new covenant between us and God with His own precious blood.  Amen.

The Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.