“… so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of man, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”
Hebrews 9:28
We were discussing some passages from Hebrews this past Sunday night at church, being encouraged by the promise that there is a high priest who mediates between us fallen people and a holy and just God. Indeed, that reality, one which is too easily forgotten about when we consider the work of Christ, is included by the writer of the Hebrews at the beginning of the letter as part of the very gospel message itself. After highlighting Jesus' "making purification for sins," he concludes that Jesus then:
“... sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs” (1:3-4)
It is a big deal that the man Jesus went to sit at God’s right hand. Indeed, the whole book of Hebrews is given to explaining and applying this reality. It wraps up the whole system of sacrifice and atonement as the people of God had experienced it throughout history.
He came once
Tim Mackey has recently said that Leviticus was written to show how an unworthy people could close to God. God’s glory had come down on the tabernacle when Moses obediently oversaw the building of it (Exodus 40:34). But Moses couldn’t enter the tabernacle because of the glory. Then, when the priesthood is established, the glory descends again, but only after Moses and Aaron had left the tabernacle (Leviticus 9:23). So priests are going to act as mediators between God and people, so that the people, subject to the fall in Adam, can still have working and active relationship with Him, though they are cast out of Eden, where God lives. This is why the tabernacle has a menorah (because it resembles the tree of life), cherubim over the mercy seat (because cherubim guarded the way into Eden after the fall), and the mercy seat itself where sacrifices are offered (which resembles God sacrificing the first animals to cover the shamed sinners). The tabernacle is meant to resemble Eden in it’s meant-to-be, ever-expanding over the whole earth glory, as Psalm 78:69 says.
But Hebrews says these practices connected to the tabernacle system were shadows and types of the heavenly realities. God doesn’t truly live in a little room in a tabernacle or in a temple. He lives in heaven. So the plan is that one day One is coming who will bring people fully into God’s presence by God’s Spirit (Isaiah 11), by Mediating between the living God and the people by means of His own blood and sacrifice. The whole system which predates Him is set up to make clear what He's come to do, so people will follow Him into life.
This is what Hebrews addresses, concluding that, because of Jesus’ work on earth, He was thus worthy to enter,
“not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (9:24).
Priests under the old system had to purify themselves extremely before doing their work in the tabernacle or temple. This Jesus is perfectly pure in himself, and He actually enters into the direct presence of God. And that was the point of the resurrection – that He’d live forevermore post-death, and be able to enter God’s presence on our behalf. This is what Graeme Goldsworthy says is the point of the resurrection: not to show that Jesus is God, but to show that he’s man, the man who can enter God’s presence on our behalf.
He's coming again
But the passage above speaks to Jesus’ second coming, not his first. Since he dealt with sin in his first coming (what the Bible says is our real problem – not just our actions but the disease in each of us that manifests different ways; see Romans 1:23-32), he is thus worthy to enter God’s presence to keep sinners in God’s grace. Thus he is “able to keep us and present us before” God "with great joy" (Jude 24). But His work as Mediator at God’s right hand won’t continue forever. He will come again, like he came the first time (Acts 1:11), not to bear the sins of anyone, but to save those who wait for him. That is to say, there is a remnant of people who have seen, by virtue of his first coming, that He is indeed the Savior of the world and the hope of the nations who fixes the real problems regardless of popular opinions’ diagnosis. And the remnant knows that the only reason they know and walk with God presently is because of His continued work in heaven.
But further, they know that His carrying out of true justice, righting all wrongs, and making all things new, which will be finalized at his second coming, is their only hope for life and freedom. This is why Hebrews 9:28 says they wait eagerly for Christ to return. And indeed, they are partners with the fallen creation in waiting eagerly for Jesus’ return (Rom. 8:22-23). They chomp at the bit to see Jesus, and they guard their hearts from loving the things of this life too much. Thus they set their treasure in heaven (Matt. 6:19f).
This is what CS Lewis referred to when he ingeniously wrote of longing as a proof of heaven – the “scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not yet visited."* The one who knows the living Jesus knows what Lewis refers to. It is the experience of having life with God now, but knowing it is only a foreshadowing of the eternal life with God which we were made for. And Jesus’ sheep eagerly wait for Jesus to return and bring them into it fully.
They are not sleepily waiting for him, tired and wearied by the battles of life, though life is a battle (and it is wearying). They are not content to long for things to get better in this world, and thus only eager for change today, because they’re afraid of being so "heavenly minded they’re no earthly good" (and I’m convinced whoever said this either didn’t know Christ or repented after it became a famous quote). No, they are eagerly waiting for Christ’s return. They know that only at God’s right hand are “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). Indeed their only pursuit in life is God’s presence (Ps. 27:4). So the prospect of being with Him is all they long for.
I was driving in New York the other day, trying to escape the city in the 4:00pm range. Bad decision. I sought to leave by way of the Lincoln Tunnel, because it was the closest way to Jersey from where I was. The problem is that everyone else was looking to leave that way as well. And the eagerness to simply escape the city at that time of day was manifest by cut-offs, last-second lane changes, and gridlock. People were willing to do whatever it took to get ahead in line.
While this is a poor illustration of the eagerness of the believer to see Jesus with their eyes and have the work finished, it isn’t Biblically inappropriate. Discipleship is sometimes called a race to the finish (1 Cor. 9:24, 2 Tim. 4:7, Heb. 12:1). Jesus said that people force their way into the kingdom (Lk. 16:16). I can’t help but picture the seemingly thousands of cars forcing their way into the tunnel the other in Manhattan, doing whatever it took to get to the “Promised Land” of New Jersey (and mark this as the only time NJ will ever be called that). This is how Jesus says people enter His Kingdom. They long for His presence, and they'll do whatever necessary to get there.
Therefore, the believer's eagerness is intensely practical. Christian, live like you are running a race, eager to get to the finish line in one piece. It is through your labors and endurance that Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep and High Priest, will keep you and present you clothed in His life before the Father. Indeed, we are guarded and secure in Him, but we are guarded "by faith" (1 Pet. 1:5). He'l get you there. And once there, you’ll be home forever.
*CS Lewis, the Weight of Glory, pp. 4-5
