There's a will and an inheritance. There's one who died in my place to release the inheritance.

And not only that, there's one who's risen from the dead and he's the executor and he comes and he executes the will on me in me for me and my job

trust him, love him, rest in him, receive his executive power in your life.

What had to happen in the past for us to receive the future inheritance God has

promised us? In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens Hebrew 9, 15 to 22, to explore the

redemptive events that secured our eternal inheritance.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on January 26, 1997.

So we give verse 15 together. Christ is the mediator of this covenant because a death has happened.

That's the death of Christ and that death now redeems us from what the law couldn't redeem us from because there were only animal

sacrifices and animal sacrifices can't take away anybody's sins.

They can only point forward to the real sacrifice. And this happened in order that those who are called might receive an eternal

inheritance. So far, verse 15 is familiar. Nothing new in verse 15 that we haven't seen

already in the book of Hebrews, but you get to verse 16 and it's very jarring. The comparison with a last will and testament, let's read it.

For where a covenant is, or where a will is,

same word in Greek, if your translation says will or covenant,

sympathize with the translators because it's tough to

translate the Bible. Really tough, really hard to translate the Bible because the word

D'Aethake, Greek, is the same words used all the way through.

There's no different words here, but that word can mean covenant in a non-testimentary sense and a covenant in a last will and Testament sense.

And so the context has to decide which one you're going to translate and the NASB made one choice.

They left it Covenant and most of your versions, the NIV and the RSV and others,

translated will, new English word, same Greek word, and that's probably good because it's clearly

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