Dead Works Are Worm Food

According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.

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) He 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. 

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 9:9-14

So, we’re picking up where we ended last time.  We saw that the earthly tent and the sacrificial system practiced within the veil simply didn’t measure up to Jesus.  Remember that the real tent is a heavenly one and that we need something better than calf blood to have access to the Most Holy Place.  We need Jesus. 

So now we come to the above verses.  We see that according to the arrangement practiced in the earthly tent, the conscience of the worshiper is not calmed and is not perfected.  All of these ceremonial rituals and cleansings are only dealing with the flesh, the body, and are failing to have any impact on the conscience and internal state of the worshiper.  The external might be cleansed to enter an earthly tent that man has set up, but the heart and soul remain defiled because no cleansing has taken place on the spiritual level.  As the text says, these are all regulations for the body. 

But look what happens at the time of reformation.  Jesus enters the real tent by His own blood and does what all of those rituals couldn’t do, He cleanses our hearts and gives us a clean conscience.  And by so doing, He secures for us an eternal redemption.  One sacrifice, not a repeated yearly offering of the high priest that points out our ongoing dilemma of sin, but one Sacrifice for all people and for all time to end the separation between God and man and offer access to the Most Holy Place, the very presence of God. 

Imagine it.  If the blood of a bull could purify the flesh so that the high priest might enter the presence of God on a physical level, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience.  This spiritual level, this internal heart of hearts level, is what must be dealt with if we are to enter the presence of God.  We are fooling ourselves if we believe that we can make one step towards earning the right to see God’s glory, or that we could even turn in the direction towards it! 

And don’t we so often operate under that assumption?  Don’t we expect that our dead works contribute to our finding favor with God?  Don’t we have a little more spring in our step on the days when we think we are making God happy with us and so our prayers are more confident because of all the dead works we’ve done for Jesus today? 

And don’t we then sometimes get mad at God when He doesn’t give us what we want after we’ve done so many dead works for Him?  Don’t we sometimes prove to believe that we really are doing all these dead works so that God will like us and give us the things that we think will make us happy? 

Friends, I know I do.  But God is not mocked.  We will reap what we sow.  And so if I go around sowing dead works, I’m going to have a barren field.  If I operate under the assumption that my dead works should produce an abundant crop of God’s blessing, I’m sorely mistaken. 

***Note:  Good works are good.  And we should do them.  We just shouldn’t do them expecting that they contribute to God’s favor towards us.***

But do you see what Jesus does for us? 

He’s not up in the heavenly tabernacle offering Himself for sins year after year because He has already dealt with sin once for all!  He’s not up there reminding us of our ongoing need for a bunch of rituals and dead works in order to limp into His presence with fear and trembling.  He’s bidding us to come and enter God’s rest (Hebrews 4 if you are really eager to read more about this). 

Because Jesus died for our sins, we are freed from dead works!  Let’s let this settle a bit.  Because Jesus died for our sins, we are freed from dead works.  We are no longer bound to some self-imposed New Year’s resolution, 10 ways to a better you, how to make God happy type of existence.  No.  We are free from dead works.  We have Jesus Christ.  Our conscience is clean and we have been cleansed by pure water.  We can approach the throne of grace and stand in the holy presence of God by the blood of Christ. 

This is the work that keeps dead works in the grave.  His is the work that shovels dirt on top of all the fleshly rituals that our deceitful hearts would have us resurrect in order to feel better about ourselves and fool us into thinking God accepts us because of our compost heap of works. 

So what are yours?  What are the dead works that you perform expecting God to be pleased?  Maybe it’s sweating away at work without any desire for appreciation…or maybe with a big desire for appreciation!  Perhaps it is being such a generous giver of your time and efforts and energies and monies.  Do you expect God to accept you because of your big heart for others? 

You and I have dead works in our lives that we expect will bring God’s favor and blessing.  We must find them.  We must put them back in the grave and bury them.  We must throw them on the compost pile and let them rot. 

Shovel six feet of dirt on top of those works.  Feed those works to the worms, friends.  They need them a lot more than we do. 

We’ve got Jesus. 

And His blood sets us free.