Jesus Offered Himself to God

Jesus ascended into Heaven—we all know that. But what did he do when he got there? The Bible tells us what Jesus did upon his arrival to Heaven.

When Jesus got to Heaven, he entered the Heavenly Temple and very reverently walked into the Holy of Holies. Can you imagine what that must have looked like? Only if you have paid attention to Scriptures that detail the glory of the Almighty God will you be able to visualize that encounter, one the Scriptures call the moment Jesus ‘came as High Priest.’

… when Christ came as High Priest… he went through the… Tabernacle… he entered the Most Holy Place… (Hebrews 9:11-12)

Do you have a clear concept of what it means for the Lord Jesus to act as our High Priest? Most people don’t because they want God to be a mystery. They want him to be unknowable, so any clear explanation of Jesus’ relationship to the Father destroys their theology of God who (for them) is a being of Three.

They would prefer that you not get to know what's really going on in Heaven: That Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, offered himself to the One God. They don't want you to know the dynamics that exist between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They want to hide that...

... Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God (Hebrews 9:14).

Too bad for them. Jesus did, in fact, become our High Priest. And he continues to intercede for us in the presence of the Father till now. Can you picture him walking through the Heavenly Temple? Can you imagine him entering the Holy of Holies? Can you see him standing before the One God?

But when Christ came as High Priest… he went through the Greater and more perfect Tabernacle... He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11-12).

Did you get that last detail? Jesus entered Heaven’s Holy of Holies by his own blood! The Scriptures tell us that Jesus did not enter the Heavenly Temple by means of the blood of animals (which is the way by which the Old Testament priests used to get God's permission to enter the Temple), but by means of his very own blood.

Yes, we've go to be clear about this: God let Jesus enter the Heavenly Temple as a Priest--God granted Jesus that sacred role--because Jesus had a measure of his blood with him.

Was it literal blood? Yes. It was plasma, hemoglobin, white and red blood cells, in liquid form. It was real. It was a sample from the blood our Lord Jesus shed at the Cross. And it was a goodly amount. It was enough of Jesus' blood for Jesus to sprinkle around that place, the place where God Himself dwells—the Heavenly Holy of Holies.

How to Carry Blood

How did Jesus move around with that measure of blood? How did he carry it? Did he enter the Holy of Holies with his blood in a glass vial, like a lab technician? No. Did he have it in a blood collection bag, like the ones used for blood donors at a Red Cross blood drive? No. Perhaps Jesus’ blood was transported in a chalice, as Catholic Medieval art often depicts it? No. That wasn’t the means of delivery either.

God prescribed the use of bowls in the Old Testament. We’ll talk about that shortly.

In the meantime, a tougher question is how did Jesus even obtain a bowl of his own blood? Who gave it to him? Did an angel recover some blood from the spillage at Calvary? Was an angel present at the Crucifixion when the Roman soldier pierced Jesus’ side? Did an angel capture some of the flow of blood in a vessel? We don't know.

What we do know is that the Old Testament priests would enter the Temple in the Old Testament because they presented a sacrifice of bulls, rams, goats, or sheep. Sometimes, they would sacrifice oxen, calves, or lambs. They would sacrifice them at the altar in front of the Temple. Then they brought some of the blood into the Holy of Holies in bowls. Jesus, likewise, sacrificed himself at the altar of the Cross, then walked into the Temple with blood to be offered to God.

The Value of Christ’s Blood

If this all sounds boring to you, then you may be ignoring the fact that this was the costliest payment ever made in the history of the Universe. Nothing on Earth or in Heaven has greater value than the blood of Jesus Christ. With it, Christ has redeemed innumerable souls for God. He has purchased a people for God with this payment.

The blood Jesus presented was his life. 'The life is of the flesh is in the blood' (Leviticus 17:14). So Jesus' blood is the value of his life. Let’s say that the richest man in the World decided he was going to buy the most expensive car, the most expensive house, and the most expensive piece of property on the planet. Wouldn’t you be interested in knowing how he was going to spend his money?

Well, Jesus took something of much greater value than money, and he invested it at Calvary, then used it for a payment to God in the Temple in Heaven. With it he bought the most valuable commodity, human souls. He bought a people—you and me. He purchased untold numbers of believers—the Church—Christians from all ages. Now we belong to God.

You are not your own. You were bought for a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Never Without Blood

Look at what the Scriptures say about how the High Priest ministered atonement for sins on the Jewish annual holiday called the Day of Atonement:

But only the High Priest entered the Inner Room [Holy of Holies], and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance (Hebrews 9:7).

You see that the High Priest never entered the Holy of Holies without blood. Never. That’s because ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness’ (Hebrews 9:22; NASB). That annual offering prefigured the actions of our Lord Jesus Christ who also entered the Holy of Holies with blood. Jesus is the true High Priest, the one that the Old Testament High Priests foreshadowed.

To Make Atonement

Just as Aaron went into the Holy of Holies with blood, so did Christ. No one else was allowed to do it but the High Priest. No one else was allowed to be there when Aaron did it and nobody else was there when Jesus entered the Temple in Heaven as High Priest. No other people. No angels. Just Jesus the High Priest.

No one is to be in the Tent of Meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel (Leviticus 16:17).

In fact, now that Aaron’s ministry is over, he's not allowed to enter God's Temple either. There’s only one man permitted to be the Mediator between God and man—Jesus.

For there is One God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).

Remarkable. And the passage goes on to mention the bull and the goat for the sin offerings, talking about how their ‘blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement’ (Leviticus 16:27). That's just more proof that blood was always the means by which forgiveness was obtained—both then and now.

Just as God forgave the sins of the people through the work of the High Priest then, so does he forgive us through the work of Jesus now.

His Blood Works

Now we have Jesus. Today he is the only High Priest. And Jesus’ blood works much better than the blood of bulls. Do you realized the privileged times we live in? Pay attention to how the Bible asks rhetorically ‘How much more?’ in the following passage:

... the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the Living God (Hebrews 9:13-14)?

Jesus’ blood cleanses our consciences from sins, making us useful for God’s service. Without it, we’d be unsuitable for service to God. We would have the weight of our sins on our conscience, and we’d feel very guilty.

With such guilt on our consciences, we couldn’t approach God in prayer. We wouldn’t have access to power. There would be no Christian ministry.

Pay close attention to the words you just read: Jesus ‘offered himself unblemished to God.’ Why should you pay attention? Because Jesus did just that. It’s a cosmological reality. It’s a spiritual Truth. Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice to the One God.

Most certainly, Jesus’ entry into the Heavenly Temple was an offering. He offered himself to God. So then, what does that make Jesus? A mediator. But not just a mediator. He is the Mediator of the New Covenant.

For this reason Christ is the Mediator of a New Covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the First Covenant (Hebrews 9:15).

So, Jesus’ blood cleanses our consciences. It sets us free from our sins because it cancels our sin debt. His life redeems our life. But how exactly and when exactly is his blood applied to us? We’ll review that next, but here’s a starter verse to spike your interest. It says that Jesus’ blood has been sprinkled on our hearts. Yes, by faith we have...

… our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water’ (Hebrews 10:22; NKJV).