Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

In the last post, we saw that Jesus became the sin offering on the cross and that he announced the fulfillment of the Old Covenant in declaring, “It is finished.” According to Wright, Mounce, Piper, and MacArthur, redemption basically stopped here. According to them, Jesus’s mission was complete. But we have seen that His mission cannot be deemed complete at that moment because His blood had to be ceremonially applied to cleanse.

And according to the law, I may also say, all things are cleansed with blood, and apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)

The Word establishes that Jesus had to “go behind the veil of His flesh” in order to apply His blood for cleansing.

by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. (Hebrews 10:20)

In other words, Jesus had to die as the sin offering for mankind, but somehow also apply that offered blood before the Father to effect redemption. That is why Paul does not say in I Corinthians that if Jesus did not shed His blood then we are still in our sins, but rather says that if Jesus be not resurrected then we are still in our sins.

On the third day, the day that Jesus said in Luke 13:32 “I am perfected,” He ascended into heaven. (Many Christians do not know this. They have been taught that the only ascension is in Acts 1:9). In John 20:17, Mary encountered Jesus on the day of His resurrection
and He says to her,

Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father, and your Father; but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and to your God.

In the Greek, the verb “ascend” is in the present tense which means that Jesus was in the present process of ascending to the Father when He spoke to her. On the Day of
Atonement, the high priest had to undertake ceremonial washings and wear special linen garments in order to enter into the presence of God unblemished and offer up the
blood sacrifice for the sins of the people. Consistent with that type, after resurrection Jesus was also clothed with “special linen,” a glorified body, where He could enter into the Holy of Holies in heaven to present His blood. Consequently, he told Mary not to touch him.

We also know of Jesus’s third-day ascension because another scriptural proof. On the very same day, in the evening, he appeared to his disciples. When they appeared frightened by his appearance, He said to them:

Why are you troubled? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having.

Jesus invited the disciples to “handle” Him because He had already performed His priestly duties before the Father.So what did He do when He ascended? With His glorified body, He ascended into heaven as High Priest to ceremonially present His blood upon the heavenly Mercy Seat. We read:

But Christ having come a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once and for all into the holy place … in heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us … when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God. (Hebrews 9: 11, 12, 24; 10:12)

We see that Jesus entered into the Holy Place, the temple in heaven, (see Rev. 11: 19 - “there was opened the temple of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His covenant”), as High Priest of the New Covenant and sprinkled His very own blood ceremoniously upon the Mercy Seat to obtain our eternal redemption. Without this entering and without this sprinkling, we would still be in our sins.

So we see that when Jesus said, “It is finished,” it was not the end of His mission. In fact, it was only part of the beginning. The Old Covenant was fulfilled so that the New Covenant could come into effect. The cross was the means to a glorious end where Jesus triumphantly entered into the Holy Place in heaven and sprinkled His own precious blood before the face of God. This blood was accepted for our redemption. Indeed, Hebrews says that it did what the Old Covenant could not do; cleanse our very consciences from sin. After He did this, He sat down on God’s very right hand and God glorified Him (see Hebrews 1). Some have characterized the cross as some kind of humiliation; the Word shows us that it is part and parcel of the triumph of the ages, the apocalyptic event of all time.