Put a Lid on It

Sermon Transcript

Well, surely you’ve heard someone say to you at some point to put a lid on it. Am I right? Put a lid on it. And sometimes you need to because you have a jar that needs a lid, or a paint can that needs a lid, or your thermos that needs a lid or whatever, your coffee cup. I mean, there are plenty of things that need lids on them and we put them on all kinds of things, right? You have lids everywhere, your Tupperware, even your butter needs a lid. Well, starting way back in the book of Exodus, God said that Moses should have a box made. He said go make an ark. An ark, by the way, means box. That’s what it means. Noah built a big one for supplies and animals, but Moses was to make a much smaller one and he was to overlay it with gold on the inside and the outside, and he was to make some molding around it, make it look kind of fancy. That’s what he’s supposed to do. When you have a gold box do you know what you need with a gold box that looks like what we have here on the platform? You need a lid. Right?

So the next thing God tells them to do is to make a lid, go make a lid or a cover for it in Exodus Chapter 25 verse 17. Do you want to know what that lid looked like? Say yes at this point. (audience responding) Yeah, it looks something like what we have here. That’s what it looked like. Now the lid was fancy, really fancy because if you look carefully at what the Bible says, everything about the box was to be made of hardwood, Acacia wood, and it was to be covered with gold, but the lid was to be made of pure gold. So the lid was different than the rest of the box. The lid was special, the lid was special in a lot of ways and we learn this throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. The lid was very, very special. Special even in how it was made and what it was made of.

So I want to talk about the lid tonight. It may not seem to have a lot of bearing to Good Friday but as we’ll see it does, and we’re going to have to learn the Hebrew word. We won’t have to learn any Hebrew because I’m just going to bring it into English for you. It’s a consonantal language made of consonants, of course, as you know. So we’re just going to have these letters represent the Hebrew consonantal root, okay? KPR. You can all remember that, KPR. I’m sure at the end of the night you’ll be tired of hearing it, KPR, right? “Kapöret” if you must in Hebrew, but KPR, that’s the Hebrew for the word “lid.” And when the Bible talks about making a lid it’s talking about the object that sits on top of the box. Now, of course, that’s written in the Old Testament so it’s in Hebrew, all the Old Testament with a few sections in Aramaic, is in Hebrew. And then, of course, the New Testament is going to talk about the Old Testament things like the Ark and the lid on top of the Ark. So we have a New Testament equivalent word that’s going to show up all throughout the New Testament that’s equated to the Old Testament Hebrew word KPR, and that’s the word, and we’ll just use this English equivalent, “Hileōs.” That’s the stem of the Greek word. And it’s a very important word in the New Testament.

So KPR is Hebrew. Hileōs is in the New Testament. And the first thing we learn about it is that it represents the lid, a very literal lid, the covering, the top of the box. Because you have a box you need a lid for the box if you’re going to cover it. So we’ll take this as the one concept that is going to have a lot of different semantical ideas that go with it and we need to make sure we understand it. So if you were to read the text and try to think this way, which is how I want us to think tonight, you would read the scriptural text and it would say, okay, you shall make a KPR of pure gold. And we know, okay, what does that mean? What’s a KPR? It means a lid, a top, a box top. That’s what we have at the top of this lid.

Now, if you want to go look at the lid on top of the box, well, you’re out of luck. Unless, of course, you are the high priest, because he’s the only person who gets to see the lid, the fancy ornate lid on the top of the box because it’s in this thing that is called the tabernacle, the tabernacle means a tent. It’s a tent. Now, it started there in 1445 B.C., coming out of Egypt, and Moses was told to have the craftsmen make it, and they were filled with this great craftsmanship, and the Holy Spirit was moving them along to make these amazing things that they made, two of them in particular that were the heads of it all. And they made this and it was not just inside a tent. It was within a tent, a tent within a tent. Matter of fact, if you took a cutaway of it, you’d find that it’s way back, not only between the veil that gets you into the tent, several coverings over the tent, but it was a tent within a tent, and it had a second veil that you had to go through. And if you know anything about Sunday school or the Bible or you’ve studied this in your own study you know that this is called the Holy of Holies. The whole thing was a holy tent but this was the Holy of Holies or the inner sanctum, it was called a lot of different things. But the main thing that was in it is the box, the Ark. And the very important part of the box was the lid, the top ornate lid on the top.

Okay, now in the Old Testament, the tabernacle was called very often before it ever became a temple, a permanent structure, as it moved around the desert and finally made it into Canaan, the Promised Land, it was called the Tent of Meeting. The Tent of Meeting. 146 times in the Old Testament before we ever got to the temple it is called the Tent of Meeting. Think about how often it’s called that. Now it’s not like the Elks Lodge or the Boys and Girls Club where you just go and you meet people. That’s not what we’re talking about. Like going to church and it’s a meeting place for people. No, we’re talking about God meeting with mankind, right? God meeting with people, right? And people meeting with God. But here’s the thing. It isn’t all the people meeting with God. It’s one representative of the people meeting with God, because it’s only one person who gets to meet with God. And we’re not talking about everyone who gets inside the fence line, or everyone who gets inside the first compartment of the tabernacle, we’re talking about right there on the inside of the Holy of Holies, who gets to stand right here in front of this box and gets to look at this lid of the box. That’s the Tent of Meeting. That’s the place of meeting. That’s the meeting of someone representing the people meeting with God. That’s the key.

Now, if you think, okay, well, that’s where God was. Well, sometimes the language of the Bible speaks that way. But clearly we learn from the Bible that God is omnipresent. You all know that word, right? Omnipresent. He’s present everywhere. Right? And when Solomon dedicated the building that made the temporary structure of the traveling tent, the tabernacle, and turned it into a permanent structure, this was some, you know, 400 years later. Now what we have is a permanent structure and in that permanent structure he dedicates it with a prayer and he says this, right? We know “heaven and the highest heavens can’t contain” God. We know that. And certainly not “this house that I’ve built,” and certainly not this, you know, this box top. This is not where you live. Not in this box, not on top of the box, this is not where you live. And yet when the box is described and the lid is described, look how it’s described. Very specifically regarding the presence of God.

Look at this verse, First Samuel Chapter 4 verse 4. This is during the time of Samuel. “So the people sent to Shiloh,” that’s where the Tabernacle, or in this case the Ark was, “and they brought from there the Ark of the Covenant,” this box right up here on the platform. Not the same one, by the way, just in case you’re wondering if it’s the same one. It’s not like I found it and brought it here tonight, right? No. They brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of hosts. Right? That means the armies of heavens, angels, “who is enthroned on the cherubim.” Now, if you’re paying attention to the book of Exodus, you know that the very ornate things about the top of the lid were these two angelic, high-ranking angelic beings that were placed on top. They were crafted on top of gold. Okay. And now all of a sudden, we see God enthroned, right? What’s a throne? A throne is where the king sits, on top of the cherubim. So if you’re thinking about going in and meeting with God, where do you meet with him? You meet where the throne is. Where is the throne? Well, there’s no chair here, but it’s as though he’s sitting on top of the wings of the cherubim. That’s a weird way to put it, but that’s the way it’s described.

Even David, before he gave all the money to his son to build the temple because God didn’t let him build the temple because he was this warrior, here’s what David says. King David rose to his feet and he said, hear me, my brothers and my people. I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the Ark. I wanted to not be a traveling place in a tent. He said the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God and I made preparations for the building. Now, of course, if you’re picturing a man, which God, of course, is not a man, he does not have a body, right? It doesn’t have feet, he doesn’t have a rear end. Right? Think about this now. But if God is dwelling here, so to speak, sitting enthroned upon the wings of the angel it’s like his feet are on the lid of the Ark. This is the picture. It is his footstool. Now in Isaiah Chapter 66, it’s like “heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” Okay, well, if the earth is his footstool, he has pretty big feet it seems in that analogy. But when it comes down to this tent, or in this case, the temple, which he wanted to build, it’s as though it’s all coming down to this one focal point of God’s presence enthroned upon the cherubim and feet upon the lid.

Well, they would sing songs about that. And you see both images merged here on the screen. You can see it throughout the Old Testament, but they would sing songs like this, Psalm 99, “The Lord reigns; let the people tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim.” They’re going to know exactly what we’re talking about when they sing that. “Let the earthquake! The Lord is great on Zion,” which is in Jerusalem, “he is exalted over all the peoples.” “Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!” It’s like out of all the places in the world, God has a special vocalized presence right here, seated upon the cherubim, feet upon the Ark of the Covenant. This is the picture that we have in the Old Testament. This is the most important piece of furniture in all of the Old Testament because it was the place where people were supposed to envision, not that God has a material body, that’s not the case at all. The Bible’s very clear about that. God is spirit, he doesn’t have a body. But the idea is if you want to go meet with God, we know where you’re going to meet with God, at least in a symbolic way, as though he’s been thrown on the cherubim with his feet here on earth, on the box, on the lid. That’s the idea. Okay? That’s what we see in Scripture. So the one thing we know about KBR or hileōs, if we’re reading in the New Testament about the box lid, the item. Right? What we know is this, that it is said to be the meeting place of God with mankind through one representative, the high priest. That’s one thing we know about it. Okay?

Now here’s the question we should ask ourselves. Why two cherubim? Cherubim, we have a lot of words that rank the angels. These are the high-ranking angels that are often found in Scripture. The first time we find them in Scripture is in Genesis Chapter 3. We don’t get three chapters into the Bible until we meet cherubim, and we meet them at a very rough time in Scripture, there to be made on the top of the lid, two, one on each side, and you can read all the instructions in the Law of Moses facing each other, wingtip spread at each other. Right? Well, where do we meet them? Well, I’m sorry, New Testament. Hileōs. Right? There’s a New Testament Greek word of this equivalent. What do we know about the cherubim and this box? Well, one thing we know about this box, the most important things we know about this box are these things I have in my hands. Do you remember these things right here that came down the mountain? You saw Charlton Heston do this once, right? (audience laughing) These are the Ten Commandments, right? He came down the mountain with these and then God said I want to put these inside the box. Let’s just imagine you have X-ray vision. You can look into the box. Here is the law.

So you have the rules of God. It’s the one thing that remained in the box even after the manna and the rod of Aaron were taken out. At one point, the passages talk about those being put in front of the Ark, but the law remained in the box. And so we have the tablets of God’s law representing all of God’s law. But here are the top ten, nine moral, one ceremonial in the box. Okay. Now it makes sense that you might have the high-ranking cherubim on the ark here because we meet these cherubim for the first time in Genesis Chapter 3. When? When Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden. Why were they driven out of the Garden? Because they broke the rule. What’s the rule? They didn’t have ten. They had one. What’s the one rule? Don’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They did it anyway. They broke the law. And when they broke the law, God says you’re out of the Garden. You’re out of the Garden you can’t eat from the Tree of Life, right? You’re gone. You’re out. And I’m going to guard Paradise, the Garden. I’m going to guard Paradise in the Garden with two cherubim. And they’re going to guard this with their swords. You can’t come back in.

Now they’re going out with their faces down. They’re shameful. They’re covering, you know, their bodies when God shows up in whatever manifestation he is there in the Garden. They’re hiding from God. They’re shameful. They know their sin. They recognize the sin that they have, the evil that they’ve committed by breaking God’s law and the angels are the barrier to it all. That’s the picture. We see it here, Isaiah 59:2. The concept of breaking the rules keeps you from God, right? Your sins have made a separation between you and your God, right? Iniquity does that. Sin does that. That’s the idea. Initially in the Garden and the things that were guarding you and God were the cherubim. That’s the picture in the original story of sin. So if you think about meeting with God and then all of a sudden you run into cherubim, what does that mean? I’m not going to meet with God today. Cherubim were there, right? It’s like I want to go to a meeting place with the high-ranking official. Guards are there. No, I can’t get in. This is a weird kind of oxymoronic picture of, hey, come meet with God. No, you can’t meet with God.

So it’s not only a meeting place it is also a guarded boundary. There’s a picture of the cherubim reminding them of the guarded boundary of the presence of God. So it causes you pause, not only because God says only one person can represent the people in meeting with God, but you have to remember the problem of sin because what’s in the box, the primary thing in the box, is the law of God which you broke, and you can’t access God because you blew it. You’re sinners, God’s holy. If God’s going to come down and want to meet with people. Sorry, sinners can’t, blocked, angels guarding the presence of God. That’s one thing I think by inference and implication we can make of this. Okay.

It gets worse. “The day that you eat of [the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil] you shall surely die.” Okay. Did they die the day they ate of the tree? Absolutely they did. They died relationally. That’s why they were ashamed. That’s why they covered their privates. That’s why they hid in the shadows. Why? Because they died relationally. They had a great relationship with God. They broke the rules. That relationship died. Relational death and then he kicked them out of the Garden, guarded them from the Tree of Life and they started to die physically. And then they eventually did die. He said you’re going to die. You’re going to return to the dust of the earth, and that’s going to be the end of your biological life. So relational death, biological death, right? That was the imposed penalty upon them for their sin. That was what was going to happen.

So we do know this: the meeting place and the barrier are also now the second thing we know about KPR and hileōs is that it is a problem represented here. And the thing about the lid that is always a reminder, here it is, that it reminds you of a problem. Because whenever the high priest was to come and view this, which he only got to see it one time of year, he was going to view it with a great reminder of death. Why? What do you know about the temple? What do you know about the tabernacle? What do you see before you ever walk through the first curtain of the tabernacle, you see a giant altar, a giant hibachi, a giant barbecue out in front. Right? And the first thing that you do when you’re going to come there once a year and you’re going to come and meet with God in the place where he’s sitting enthroned with his feet on the lid, is that you’re going to take a bull and sacrifice that bull because you’re a sinner, high priest, and then you’re going to remember that because of your sin, you deserve to die but you’re not going to die. By God’s grace, you’re going to have a picture of a substitute die. And what’s going to happen now is we’re going to have you on this day where the trumpet sounds Tishrei the 10th, the seventh month, we’re going to have the day of KPR.

That’s interesting now. We have a new definition, a new facet of the definition of KPR. We’re going to have a day of KPR where we’re going to remember this thing, and we’re going to remember it in a different way. We’re going to remember it with blood involved. We’re going to remember it because you’re going to kill the goat for the people. Look at this. Leviticus Chapter 16 verse 15, “He shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull.” He did that for his own sin. Now he’s representing all the people sprinkling it, he has a bowl, he has his fingers, not with a hyssop branch or anything else. He’s taking his own physical fingers, putting his fingers in the blood, and “sprinkling it”, notice this sentence, “over the KPR and in front of the KPR. Thus he shall make KPR (atonement) for the Holy Place.” Why? Because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel, and because of their transgressions and all their sins. Do you see the shift in meaning in the word KPR? Okay.

You’re going to sprinkle it on the literal object of the KPR and in front of the literal object of the KPR, and you’re going to make KPR. Why? For the people. Why? Because they’re sinners. What are you talking about? Well, we go from an object that is a meeting place and a barrier. All of a sudden now it’s a problem that is being solved with the word KPR by somehow doing something to mitigate, mollify, to cover the problem through some ceremony that shows that God is saying, we can meet anyway. We’ll meet anyway. You’re a sinner. We’re going to meet anyway by the symbolic substitution of you, even though “the wages of sin is death,” you don’t die, the animal dies. Let’s sprinkle the blood of a dead animal on this so you can see it stained year after year after year. The golden box is stained with blood and you now get to come and meet with God even though you’re a sinner. We get past this in some symbolic way, and you come on the blood of bulls and goats to at least symbolically have a meeting representing all the people of Israel, even though they’re sinners because you’ve made KPR. You’ve done what? You’ve made some kind of covering for sin.

Well, that’s what Jesus says he did. He came and was made like us, just like the high priest was like the people of Israel. He came and made like us in every respect, fully human, “so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God to make, here’s our word, hileōs (propitiation). If it were in Hebrew it would say KPR, to make whole hileōs for the sins of the people. What is that? The same thing we read here in Leviticus 16:16. He’s making that covering. He’s bringing his own blood and taking the problem of a barrier trying to meet with God and Jesus’ blood now is taking care of the problem. By what? Covering the offense, covering the problem, representing all the people for their uncleanness and their sins. And he’s doing something with his own death to solve the problem. KPR is a word that is used or hileōs in the New Testament, the equivalent, to try and show the solution of the problem, at least the first facet of the solution of the problem. There’s more.

Not only is that animal killed, the first one’s killed. There’s another animal involved. There were two little goats up there. “Aaron shall cast the lots over the two goats.” Right? You already killed a bull for your sin. But now for the people there are two goats. The one lot, the dice, is going to be cast for the Lord’s goat and the other for Azazel. What in the world is that? Azazel. “And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering.” We’ve already learned about that. All the blood goes on the KPR, in front of the KPR, to make KPR for the sins of the people. But you have another one. “The goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make KPR (atonement) over it.” I thought this was making KPR. Oh, it is in one sense. But there’s another facet to KPR. There’s another thing that KPR is. Well, what is it? It makes KPR over it that it may be, here’s what KPR means now, to be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.

Now Azazel in some old translations will be translated “scapegoat.” Have you ever heard of that? You’ve been made the scapegoat, right? The idea is, as it says later in this passage, the one goat that is taken by someone by the rope, out by the neck, out into the wilderness and let go, taken way out into the wilderness, sometimes they think this is the name of the goat, and it means scapegoat, the escaped goat. Okay, that’s what they think it means. I’m not sure that’s what it means but here’s what happens, right? The idea is we’re putting two hands, Aaron is the high priest, on the head, he was the first high priest, “on the head of the live goat, and confesses over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel,” using superlatives about all the things that they might have done wrong, “and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness.”

Now when you think about how sin was symbolically taken care of you often think about “the wages of sin is death.” KPR is that, the covering of sin by death. But KPR is also this: having your sin taken away. Azazel is probably, here’s my guess at least, a lot of scholars think this, a lot of Bible students think this, is a place of extreme wilderness, way out in the middle of nowhere. It’s something like no man’s land. We might use words like no man’s land, in the boonies. Right? Well, you might use a word like that. It’s way out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a place where we’ll never see that goat again. It’s way far away. Okay, that’s the idea. When John the Baptist, by the way, sees Jesus for the first time, the beginning of his public ministry, he’s seen him before. But the first time in his public ministry, he says, look, right? Here’s “the Lamb of God who,” noticed the wording, “takes away the sin of the world!” He doesn’t say his blood modifies the problem and covers our sin. He says he takes it away, right? If you’re really keen in to the two goats on the one day when the priest comes in to meet with God to represent the people, let’s get the people together with God. Right? And you know there are two goats. One goat takes away the sin, the other goat dies as a symbolic substitution. Right? You’re thinking, oh, he takes away the sin of the world. And you would probably think about that. The goat that goes to Azazel, to boonie land, out to the edges of the wilderness. And of course, that’s the way we talk about sin. That’s what we hope happens to our sin. We want our sins to be removed from us “as far as the east is from the west.” Of course we do, right? And that’s exactly what we hope happens. And in the Bible, that word hileōs is used in the New Testament, in the concept in First John Chapters 1 and 2, about being cleansed of all sin, having all unrighteousness away from us, cleansing us from all unrighteousness.

Now if we sin, he writes these things to them so they don’t sin. But if they do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the hileōs for our sins. KPR, hileōs is used not only about a picture of covering our sin but removing it from us, taking it from us, and removing it as far away as it can possibly be. Hileōs, KPR, right? Certainly. Obviously. Meeting place, clearly a boundary, also a covering and also a removal. There are four aspects of the one word that is so important in the Old Testament and also in the New. All those aspects are represented by the words KPR and hileōs.

In a simple little verse you can see the gospel everywhere in the Bible, like in Psalm 89:14. Look at this little verse. “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.” Look up to God and I think here are two primary things about you. Two, like of the sine qua non of God. You have to have these two things: righteousness and judgment. Those two things put together, great problem for sinners, right? Am I right? He’s righteous and he’s just. I’m not righteous and I don’t want him to be just with me. That’s the problem. We’re in big trouble if he’s righteous and just and those two are pillars and they can’t be moved. Well, that is the problem that we have. And what that means is that if I’m a sinner, if he didn’t judge me today, he’s going to have to judge me soon. He’s going to have to judge me eventually. Why? Because the foundation of his throne is righteousness and judgment. I’m not righteous. I have a debt of sin. It’s going to have to be dealt with. That’s a problem, right? The Bible says that’s going to be dealt with, this racking up of debt as it says in Romans Chapter 2, this storing up for my self-judgment for the day of God’s judgment. All that, right? The Bible is very clear about the fact that I want hileōs to deal with that. I want to be justified by grace. I want it to be as though all of that has been dealt with. All of that has been paid for. I want it to be given to me as a gift through the redemption. Remember that, redemption?

I know you’re too young for this, but they used to turn in stamps in books to go to the redemption center. Anybody on a walker or on a cane who can remember that? (audience laughing and clapping) Redemption. Right? There you go. It’s hard to clap. Redemption center. This is buying back. Now in the ancient world this is about you buying someone, right? It could be the debtors’ prison, it could be a servant, a slave. You would buy them out of the slave market. This is a purchase. You have some debt and it needs to be paid and you’re redeeming them, right? Matthew Chapter 20 verse 28, “He gives his life as a ransom for many,” right? That is in Christ, Jesus, whom God put forward as a hileōs, as what? As a payment by his blood to be received by faith. I get to have this righteous, just God somehow take my debt and deal with it. That’s a huge thing and it all fits under the very broad concept of hileōs and KPR. That’s the idea. That’s why Jesus on the cross cried out the Greek word “Tetelestai.” You all know this story, right? Tetelestai, paid in full. That’s an accounting word but in English “it is finished.” It is finished. Well, what are you talking about? It is finished. Well, it’s the idea that at the end of his life he says I’ve done all that I needed to do to pay for their sin debt. That’s the thing.

So when we look at KPR and hileōs, we’re talking about a divine requirement that is being met by what Jesus is doing. This is part of what it means. And the idea is all of this, which was very important to the symbolism of all, you broke the rules, we need the covering of sin, we need the removal of sin, and we need the justice of God to somehow be satisfied. That’s what we need. That’s the picture. The symbols were just the symbols. The real thing needed to be is God needed to be satisfied in his justice. That’s the picture, right? That’s the picture. The blood of Christ is going to do that for us. It’s going to cleanse us from all sin. It’s going to pay the penalty, it’s going to take care of it. Or to put it this way, First John Chapter 4 verse 10, “He loved us and sent his Son to be the hileōs (propitiation),” to be the KPR “for our sins,” to deal with that, to settle the score, to make us as though we don’t have a debt anymore. That idea is there. So yeah, meeting place of course, guarded boundary? Yes. Covering of sin? Yes. A removal of sin? Yes of course. But it’s also the satisfaction that God is saying, yeah, you paid in full. Paid in full. You don’t owe me anything. The debt that my righteous and just foundations require, a just judge and I’m a righteous judge, it’s all paid for, it’s all dealt with. That’s what the work Christ came to do, which was symbolized in this word and he used it in that way.

Moses comes down the mountain with these Ten Commandments tablets. Do you remember that? What does he find? He comes down the mountain and what does he see? A golden calf. Is he happy about that? He’s not happy about it. He throws the tablets down. It doesn’t go well. Grinds the golden calf up. Puts it in the water, makes them drink it. Rough leader. Right? Bad day. The next day thankfully he says this, Exodus Chapter 32 verse 30, “the next day Moses said to the people, ‘You have sinned a great sin,’” understatement of the day, “‘Now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make KPR (atonement) for your sins.’” What is that? I’m going to ask. I’m going to go before God. I’m going to intercede. I’m going to hope that somehow I can fix this problem, right? I’m going to ask God to fix this problem. I’m going to try and make this right. I can’t make it right. But I’ll ask God that he would do something as though it were made right. Now follow me on this. This is another facet of KPR, and hileōs, follow me now. This is the result that Moses is asking for. Make it as though this wasn’t the problem. Make it as though they’d never done this. Fix this as though it hadn’t happened.

For example, this one might blow your mind because you know this passage well. It’s in Luke Chapter 18 verse 13. Jesus tells the story of the Pharisee who is so glad he’s not like everyone else, and the tax collector who can’t even look up to heaven and pray. Do you remember this passage? This might blow your mind. Here’s what the Greek text reads. “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes up to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, hileōs (be merciful to) me, a sinner.” Hileōs me. What? KPR me if it were in Hebrew, KPR me. Hileōs me a sinner. What is that? It’s the same thing Moses is asking for here. I’m going to go and see if somehow God can fix this situation. You’ve sinned a great sin. I want it to all be fixed. I want the result to be that God will be so merciful to you that it will be as though it never happened. Now these words I hope you Sunday school grads are thinking of other words you’ve been taught. That’s exactly what those words mean. Well, the elasticity, the facets, the many facets of KPR and hileōs, that’s what is involved in the definition of this.

I know you know that verse and it means have mercy on me. Well, it’s not the word “mercy” and it’s not to have mercy on me, it’s hileōs me. That’s what he’s saying. And of course, these are words that God is putting in the mouth of this tax collector. And it’s a great word because it’s really about what? It’s about the call for mercy that we see even in Hezekiah when he finds the book of the law and he says, Hezekiah prays and he says in Second Chronicles Chapter 30 verses 18 and 19, “May the good Lord KPR (pardon) everyone who sets his heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers … And the Lord heard Hezekiah.” Now Moses asks for it. I hope that we can fix this. You’ve sinned a great sin. The tax collector, Christ puts this in his mouth, hileōs me and maybe we can make this right. Now we have the divine commentary that if God you KPR people and then we get the commentary. He does it. And how is it described? He healed the people. It was as though they didn’t do it. We went all these years without doing the right thing. We found the law. We confess our sins. We said we’re sorry and you healed us. You made it as though we didn’t do it.

Or how about this, “For on this day shall KPR (atonement) be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins.” How can that be? You did wrong. It’s going to be remembered. It’s going to be lived. It’s going to not be forgotten. No, no, no, it’s going to be as though you hadn’t done it, Leviticus 16:30. KPR is going to be made. And when KPR is made, when hileōs is made, when God does hileōs you, it’s like you’ve been healed of that. It didn’t happen. It’s as though you’ve been cleansed as though it never happened. Right? It is the merciful result, Hebrews Chapter 8 verse 12, “For I will be,” look at this great text, “hileōs, (merciful) toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” Here is a different facet. You can ask for the mercy, right? That is, hileōs does deal with that. KPR is that. I want it. God please. Right? KPR these people who have sinned a great sin. The tax collector, hileōs me, fix it. But now we see it. Yeah, he does. When he fixes it, he heals them. When he does it he makes them clean like they’ve never done it. Or he remembers their sin no more. That’s the fix of it all.

Notice the word that Jesus puts here in the commentary of the tax collector who said, God, please, hileōs me, right? He says this. He went home, and he used this word only once in the gospel, went home “justified.” That becomes the cornerstone of Paul’s discussion in the book of Romans. This is a big word, a big accounting word, this theological word, justification and Jesus uses it here. It’s justification. And what did you learn about justification in Sunday school if you grew up in church? Right? Just as though you hadn’t sinned, right? Just imputed like you’re clean. This is a great concept. Or to put it in terms of one of the most famous texts in all of Scripture, Second Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 21, God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” How in the world are you who is a sinner the righteousness of God? Well, you had to be hileōs’d. You had to be KPR’d, right? Which is not just covering sin. It’s not just removing sin. It’s now that you’ve been made righteous, you’ve been healed. You’ve been no sin. You’ve been made the “righteousness of God.” That’s how big the concept is of God saying, nope, can’t pass here, you’re a law breaker, barrier. You want to meet with God. That’s great but you’re a sinner. But we’ll fix this, substitutionary death, removal of sin, right? We will now satisfy your debt. You call for mercy. We’ll bring complete healing to this. We will completely bring the merciful result.

It’s all of this, right? It’s the merciful, here’s the word you also thought of, not only justification, but reconciliation. Right? That’s the idea. Second Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 18, the reconciliation. He’s bringing us reconciliation and he’s made us ministers of reconciliation, where we’re calling people to be reconciled to God. And they’ll be as though they’ve never sinned before God. God will bring the merciful result of saying if you trust in Christ’s hileōs work, right? His KPR, the work of the thing that we’ve been talking about, it’ll be fixed. You’ll be fixed. That’s a great part of this. All right.

Now, you said a lot of weird things with the KPR and hileōs, why didn’t you just use the English words? Because the English words are kind of a mess. They’re kind of a mess. So let me just try and wrap this up by dealing with the translation problem because you’re going to go home to read your Bibles and you’re going to go like, I don’t even know what he’s talking about. Okay. This will help you because you’re going to run into these words and I have to explain just a little bit of how we got here. You’re going to read, for instance, if you’re part of Compass Bible Church, you probably read your English Standard Version. That’s what we preach from here so a lot of us carry that and we read from that. So you’re reading the English Standard Version, for instance. And you need to know what these two words, Hebrew and Greek, KPR and hileōs, translate into. Which because it’s a multifaceted word it translates into different things. You have to connect a few dots. So let’s try and connect those dots so the next time you read them you’re not confused.

We know it’s a meeting place when we talk about an actual item in a guarded boundary. That’s the picture, the cherubim. It’s a covering of sin, as a rule of sin, it’s satisfaction for sin, it’s a call for mercy. So it’s a mercy of reconciliation, that’s the result. Great. Well the translations… Right? Let’s go back to the Reformation. Here’s a picture on the screen of this guy, Martin Luther. One of the things the Reformation was known for was getting the Bible into the language of the people, a very important part of the Reformation. And Martin Luther was very big on doing that, particularly for his German folk. So he translated the Bible into German. And as he translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into German, he ran into all the passages that we’ve talked about tonight. And when he ran into the passages that we’ve talked about tonight that dealt with the lid itself, the item where we started, when we talked about the actual meeting place where the high priest would come in and say, okay, here’s where the God, you know, when throwing upon the cherubim, the footstool of God, going to meet, right? He took the concept of that which is a literal thing and talked about, well, that’s where the meeting of God symbolically took place. And the end result kind of went to both ends of this discussion and he jammed those together with a German word. Right?

Here’s the German word “Gnadenstuhl.” Every word sounds like it’s angry, gnadenstuhl. Okay. That word is the compound word in German, which you might be able to put together the last part, “stuhl.” We get the word like “stool” from “stuhl.” The word like chair. Mercy. Really more like grace is more at least a cognate derivative from the first part of that, grace, mercy, right? Grace is received where? At the place where God is seated. Now, this is where people read that and they don’t have any idea what it means. But he injected this word whenever we got to the literal lid and he said gnadenstuhl. and then it made its way into our translations KPR and hileōs into the word “mercy.” Have you ever read the word mercy seat in your Bible? I bet you have. I haven’t mentioned it so far and I’ve been talking for a long time. And so you’re thinking you’re going to read Mercy Seat, and you’re going to go I don’t even know what… Is that a KPR? I’m not sure. It is, right? But I didn’t use it because I don’t even know what people are thinking when they read it. What are you thinking? You probably didn’t think about God’s throne. You didn’t think about the seat of God. It’s all the theology at the end, and all of the literal things that are envisioned as where God is enthroned and therefore here’s how it made it into our Bibles.

Because this guy, who is now on the screen liked the idea. Tyndale, right? And Tyndale puts in the English translation the English equivalent. And that makes it all the way into our English Bibles. And he uses the words “mercy seat,” and he translates passages that end up in our English Bible, like this. This is the English Standard Version Exodus Chapter 25 verse 17, “You shall make a KPR (mercy seat) of pure gold.” That’s the first thing I put up on the screen. Right? You shall make a lid or a covering for the box. Well, it’s translated in the English Standard Version, “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold.” Now, I don’t know the first time you read that what you thought of. “You shall make a mercy seat.” What did you picture? What did you think of? What came to your mind? I don’t know, probably not the lid of the box. Right? And if you could envision it because you kept reading and you learned about this ornate fancy lid with cherubim, you still didn’t know what a mercy seat was. I want you to know tonight what a mercy seat means. And then why does it come into our English translation, which, if they had asked me, which Luther and Tyndale were never going to ask me, right? I would have said, let’s go with something else, right?

Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the hileōs. Well, in the New Testament, Hebrews 9, they call it the mercy seat. So you find this in the New Testament, right? All of this, though, representing the idea of the reality but the reality is described through the symbol with the words “mercy seat.” The closest we get to the concept, though the word is not used, is the idea of the real thing, not the symbol, because the symbol is described as representing the real thing, is when we go to prayer and we say things like this, let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, there’s the mercy seat, that we can receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. Now those are words that are just the words directly. Grace, mercy, throne. They’re not the words hileōs and its endings, right? That’s the stem of the Greek word. It’s not that but it’s the idea because when we pray we’re really going to God, and God is enthroned in the out of the way, unidimensional, different place, dwelling in unapproachable light. And we’re praying in the name of Christ. And we want God to help. And we can because through Christ we have access to talk to God. We come in the name of Christ and we get help. But that’s the idea that gets into the translation in English. So get used to that.

There’s another translation word that you need to know, and it comes from this guy whose picture is now up on the screen, Jerome. Jerome writes or translates from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. And when it comes into Latin, many, many years ago. What is that? I don’t know, 1,400 years ago, more than that, 1,600 years ago, we get the Latin Vulgate. When he runs into the concept of KPR, and hileōs, representing something related to the facet of KPR and hileōs regarding the satisfaction for sins. And there are plenty of references where it talks about that and it means that, and it certainly leans into that facet of the idea. He likes this Latin word “Propecia,” propecia. And in that he leans into it and translates it so many times, he loves it. What does that mean? We get the word “propitious” from that which many of us don’t use anymore. But what does that mean? That means something good, right? A propitious sacrifice is one that is satisfactory. One that is favorable. A sacrifice that God is satisfied with.

Now we know when you think about something that God is pleased with, the sacrifice that God is pleased with, we read in the Old Testament that when God offers up his Son and this prophetic passage about the Messiah coming, he is going to crush his own Son, offering him as a guilt offering and when he sees the anguish of his soul he will be satisfied. And we know that idea. And when Christ calls out and says “Tetelestai,” which means “it is finished” the Father here prophetically says, I’m satisfied. The transaction of that makes its way into English translation sometimes that KPR and hileōs translate into the word “propitiation,” and you’ve run into that word in the New Testament, right? They like that in the King James Hampton Court when they translated, you know, and they certainly were looking at the Latin Vulgate, but they were translating from Greek and Hebrew, of course. But they said, hey, we like that word. And it made it into English translations, and it made it all the way into modern translations like the English Standard Version.

So in the New Testament, like 5 or 6 times, you’ll see the word “propitiation,” like Romans Chapter 3 verses 24 and 25. We “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a hileōs, as a propitiation. What is that? A satisfactory, favorable sacrifice that God says this is good, I’m satisfied with it, paid in full by his blood, received by faith. That’s what the English translation said. We quoted it before, but I didn’t give you the English translation because propitiation, people don’t even know what that means. But we need to know what it means. It’s the word hileōs, the hileōs stem.

Here’s another one. First John Chapter 4 verse 10, for “he loved us and sent his Son to be the,” hileōs for our sins, “the propitiation for our sins.” So mercy seat, we need to know, propitiation we need to know. Here’s another one we need to know. And we can go back to Tyndale for this. Tyndale wrote the first English text before the King James Bible. He translates the New Testament into English. And when it comes to the covering of sin and the mercy of reconciliation, he likes this word “At-one-ment,” something that creates at-one-ment. You know that word. We use it a lot. What is it? Atonement. Atonement. But really what it is being at one with one another. What does that mean? It means the means of being made one. That something happens with Christ, the shedding of the blood of Christ, that makes the two alienated parties at one. Well, we’ve covered that idea. We’ve dealt with that. It not only covers sin, but it brings together reconciliation. And the word in English that was used by Tyndale that certainly made it through from hileōs and KPR, it made it into the English translation “atonement.” And it’s used in the Old Testament. Now, that’s just how it is. I don’t have time to explain it, but in the English Standard Version you’ll still find it in the Old Testament, the word “atonement” for the word KPR. You don’t find it anywhere in the New Testament. They have reasons for that in terms of leaning into other English words. But the word is so popular still in our English vocabulary, partly because of the phrase in Hebrew, Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur, by the way, Kippur is KPR, right? There’s our KPR Hebrew root, the consonantal language KPR, the root. Kippur we translate that “Yom” as “day.” Day of what? Atonement. So it’s always in the vocabulary even of people today that you know, like Jewish friends, Yom Kippur, it’s Yom Kippur, it’s Tishrei the 10th. That word is very familiar and it makes it into our Old Testament English Bibles. And it’s all over theology. Everybody who talks theology has to learn about the theories of the atonement, the history of the atonement, what’s your view of the atonement? Atonement, atonement, atonement. Everybody talks atonement. What is it? Well, it came into the text of Tyndale from the translation of KPR and hileōs, because he was trying to translate that based on the many facets of the word. For instance, in the Old Testament, Leviticus 4:20, it says “the priest shall make KPR (atonement) for them.” What is that? Atonement. It’s translated in the English Standard Version, “and they shall be forgiven.” How about this? Psalm 78:38, “Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and he did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often.” I love this one. The 70-week prophecy talks about the coming of Christ. Right? He will “put an end to sin, and to KPR for iniquity,” atone for it, “to bring in everlasting righteousness.” All of it’s back to this, right? This is the picture, ultimately, of the KPR, which started with an object and made it all the way into these facets of the theology. So you need to know mercy. You need to know propitiation. You need to know atonement.

One more. This is it. And I know you can choke on languages so I understand. We put a barf bag under everybody’s seat. If you need it, (audience laughing) you can pull it out. Hopefully no one will throw up. One more. Okay? We can go back to Jerome, blame Jerome for this one. In the Vulgate, many, many times, 95 times, he took this concept of the rule of sin almost 100 times in the Vulgate, he used this word “expiate” and expiate made its way into our English texts. Expiate, by the way, “ex” means “out,” “piate” we get the word “pious” from that, it means “pure” or “holy” or “godly,” to make “out,” and then make it “pure” to get this “out,” and then it will be “pure.” Remove the offense and it will make it right. Okay. That’s the idea. KPR and hileōs sometimes translate into the word “expiation” or “expiate.” And sometimes you’ll hear people use it, sometimes it creeps out of my mouth and I don’t mean to use it, but occasionally it does. And in some translations, a lot of them older translations, even though the King James translators for some reason didn’t like the word and they didn’t use the word, and it didn’t end up in the King James Bible, but it does end up in some translations.

You’ll have translations like the New Revised Standard uses it, like when Eli’s sons were so bad, you’re never going to expiate any of their sins by sacrifice. The New American Bible uses it, right? Christ the Righteous One, he is the expiation for our sins. Or Hebrews 2:17, right? He will make expiation for the sins of the people. So depending on some translations that probably a lot of you don’t use every day, you will still see the word “expiation.” And, of course, it’s in theology. If you read enough theology you’re going to run into the word expiation and expiate. That’s why occasionally it comes out of my mouth and I apologize for that. But occasionally I’ll say something about the expiation of our sins that it’s taken away. It’s removed. And I think about the scapegoat, as it’s called in the King James. I think about the goat that is taken to Azazel, and I say he takes away our sins “as far as the east is from the west.” He removes our sins, “the Lamb of God who expiates (takes away) the sin of the world. That’s the idea, the picture of expiation. So we need to know that, mercy, seat, propitiation, atonement and expiation.

Now get this in your mind. If you can just picture this and take this home with you. Right? The one word that has to be translated into Greek, KPR the consonantal root and the stem of the Greek word. Right? This word hileōs here on the left side of the screen, all the facets of the word in the New Testament. And then the words that are often translated into the vocabulary of the modern speaker. Mercy seat I’m not real keen on, but that’s the idea. I’d rather use the word “lid” for it. But there’s the idea, right? All of that is tied together in the reality of Christ dying. Now, y’all saw the movie, right? And you remember when the German opened the box? What happened to his face? Yeah. It melted off. Anybody? Nobody? Like you didn’t watch the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? You watched the movie. Now, I’m not afraid of that happening to me. Not that those are the real ones. And you know why? Here, I’ll tell you why. Because if you open the lid on the Ark of the Covenant, the only reason your face would melt off is if you don’t have the atonement. If you don’t have the expiation of sin, if you don’t have the propitiation of sin, if you don’t have in some way the mercy seat, the lid, having all of your sins dealt with, right? If you don’t have the covering, the satisfaction, the removal. If you haven’t cried out for mercy, if you haven’t had the reconciliation of mercy, which is all because Christ spilled his blood on the cross, absorbing the penalty of sin.

So the cross I’m now holding right here takes care of this problem. And because we’ve all broken the law, this became a roadblock that has been overcome by the cross. Good Friday solved this problem. And for us, if you know and trust in Christ then I invite you to participate in what we do every Good Friday. We remember the death of Christ, right? By doing what Christ told us to do in remembrance of him until he returns. And that is to take that piece of bread and this cup of juice of the vine, right? The fruit of the vine. And what we do is remember what Christ did for us. If you’re trusting in the finished work of Christ, if you’ve cried out for his mercy, if you’ve said, God hileōs me then I invite you to partake. If you’re not a Christian and you’re not buying any of this, or you’re just checking it out and you don’t know where you stand with God, just let it pass by. Right? But you sit here and think either way about where you stand with God. Maybe by the end of the time it will only take a few minutes, but you’ll be calling somebody back for the trays because all of us should get right with the living God.

You have no idea how much time we have left, but what we need to do is to realize this most important piece of furniture ever built, this Ark on the platform, was to remind us of the biggest problem we ever had. And here’s what God said I “so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes on him,” trusts in him, “should not perish.” Right? This is not going to be the end, but I’ll give you everlasting life. The love of God has provided the propitiation, the expiation, right? The satisfaction of the justice of God. So the cross overcame the Ark, and there’s no penalty, “no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” Let this sink into your mind. Let those words all make sense in your head. And let’s with devotion and thanksgiving to God partake of these communion elements. I’ll come back up and we’ll take them all at the same time. But you speak to God as these elements get passed.

A very interesting thing that God would have cherubim put on the top of the box. Certainly I have to think it’s the reminder of the guardianship of God. You can’t as sinners approach God. Certainly not without the shedding of blood, which was symbolic of the shedding of blood that we needed. What’s interesting, the interesting twist when you think about this as I studied and thought and contemplated that these were like in Genesis 3, the roadblock. By the time we read the New Testament, First Peter Chapter 1 for instance verses 10 through 12, here is Peter by God’s Spirit talking about the fact that the prophets were all being moved by, he calls it the Spirit of Christ, the third person of the Godhead was driving them to write about the coming of the Christ. And they would write things and they would wonder about the person and the timing of it, when it’s coming. And they would just struggle with like where is this going to happen? When is this going to happen? Who’s it going to be? And then in the next verse, it talks about the fact that they realized they were serving people who were coming. And Peter says, it’s you guys, it’s the first generation of Christians, right? Christ was coming to your generation. And of course, now we are looking back on it. We’re part of that thing called the Church.

And then he adds this line. He says then the good news was preached to you, this good news. It was good. Here we are the sinners and the cherubim, the seraphim, they’re angels who serve God, the elect angels, as Jesus put it. They’re all serving God. They’re godly. They’ve resisted temptation when temptation confronted them. And they see us as sinners who break the law of God. And that line there in verse 12 of First Peter Chapter 1, it says “things into which angels long to look.” I just think here they are like protecting the lawbreakers from the Holy God as beings who never sinned. And now they’re looking at sinners for whom Christ has come and shed his blood for. And now they’re like, mind blown. Like they can’t process. And yet they’re going to welcome us, along with Christ, into the kingdom. But whatever posture, and God made them have this posture, there are different variations that artisans now try to draw but it’s the same concept. But now it’s different. Now it’s like, hey, I guess you get the blessings of God, you sinners, because it’s as though you hadn’t sinned because the hileōs, the KPR, it’s been given for you. All of it. I mean, the covering, the removal of the satisfaction you called for mercy and mercy of reconciliation was granted. That’s amazing. The angels are mind-blown. Now they’re rolling out the red carpet for us. And Christ will be at the front saying, enter into “the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Amazing. If you’re trusting in Christ even though it blows the minds of angels, let’s eat this bread and drink this cup.

God, thank you for our time, even for nothing else just thinking about the most important piece of furniture you ever had them construct in the Old Testament. When you think about the word and that solid gold most important part of that piece of furniture that became this multifaceted word that represented so much of what you were going to do to provide us with salvation and forgiveness. And God if it enriches us, great. I know it was dense and detailed. But God, I pray it would somehow lead us to worship you even more to know that your Spirit over close to 1,500 years of biblical writing, 40 different authors pulling together this tapestry of concepts that were clearly guided by you and your Spirit to give us this great story of redemption that fits together so perfectly that we could spend the rest of our lives studying it to see your hand of wisdom. I think of your word that tells us in Romans Chapter 11 just how incredible, inscrutable, how untraceable is your wisdom. It’s beyond our comprehension and we’re grateful for it. Thanks for letting us learn a little bit more about it tonight. Let us appreciate the cross even more because we’ve spent some time together and remembering your Son on a cross for our redemption.

Thank you even though it baffles angels and that they’re even with all of it being fulfilled still wondering how this all works. Trying to comprehend the redemption that their fallen angels never get. Their cohort that fell never got but we get by your grace. We’re so thankful, God and we want to profoundly thank you throughout this weekend as we turn to the vindication of your redemptive work, the resurrection. We think of that tomorrow and Sunday. I just pray that you would give us great hearts of joy and hope and a great sense of celebration as we think about how you’ve conquered death for us. Thanks for our time together. We worship you. We thank you humbly and contritely for what you’ve done.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.