Sermon Outline • Hebrews 10:19–20 (KJV)
The door to God stands open. The blood of Jesus Christ is what opened it.
Primary Text
Hebrews 10:19–20 (KJV)
Supporting Scriptures
Hebrews 9:7; Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 9:22; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 10:14; Hebrews 10:21–22; Matthew 27:51; Romans 5:1–2; Ephesians 2:13; Ephesians 2:18; Exodus 29:4
Main Point in One Sentence
Because Jesus Christ shed His blood, any believer can come straight to God the Father right now. Water baptism did not open that door, and it cannot.
“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;”
Hebrews 10:19–20 (KJV)
I. What the Text Says
Step One: Read It Before You Explain It
Read the two verses slowly and notice what is there.
- A. We have boldness. That is a settled fact, not a hope.
- B. We have boldness to enter. There is a place we are allowed to go.
- C. The place is the holiest. That is the room where God met His people.
- D. We get in by the blood of Jesus. Those five words name the price.
- E. The way in is new and living, and Jesus Christ opened it Himself.
- F. The way runs through the veil, and the writer tells us plainly what the veil stands for. It is His flesh, His body given on the cross.
Some Bible passages have places where the old handwritten copies differ. This is not one of them. Every major Greek text of Hebrews 10:19 reads the same. One edition adds a single small word for “the” in front of the name Jesus, and that changes nothing at all. You can stand on these two verses without any doubt about the wording.
II. Where This Sits in the Book
Step Two: The Setting and the Kind of Writing
Hebrews is a sermon in the form of a letter. It was written to Jewish believers who were being pressured to go back to the old temple system with its priests and its animal sacrifices.
Chapters 8 through 10 make one long argument. The old sacrifices had to be repeated over and over because they never finished the job. The one sacrifice of Jesus Christ finished it forever.
- A. He offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, and then He sat down. Hebrews 10:12. A seated priest is a priest whose work is done.
- B. By that one offering He has perfected for ever the people He set apart. Hebrews 10:14.
Now look at the first word of verse 19. Having therefore. That word “therefore” ties everything together. Verse 19 is the payoff of the whole argument. Because the sacrifice is finished, the door is open.
III. What the Words Mean
Step Three: Grammar and Word Meaning
Boldness. Greek parrēsia. It means freedom to speak. It is the freedom a child has to walk into the room and talk to his father. You do not have to be nervous with God.
To enter. Greek eisodos. A way in, an entrance. There is an actual doorway, and you are allowed through it.
The holiest. Greek tōn hagiōn, “the holy places.” This is the room behind the curtain, where God showed His presence.
New. Greek prosphatos. This is the word to slow down on. It is built from a word that means slain, and it literally carries the sense of freshly killed. The way to God is called new because Someone was put to death to open it.
Living. The way is alive because the One who opened it is alive. He did not stay dead. The road is not a monument. It is a living Person.
Consecrated. Greek enekainisen. To dedicate, to open up, to put into use for the first time. Picture a road being opened where no road had ever been.
Veil. Greek katapetasma. The heavy curtain that hung in the temple and kept people out.
Now watch the small words, because they carry the argument. The text says we enter by the blood, and we come through the veil, which is His flesh. Those two little words tell you the means. They tell you what does the work. Nothing else in these verses is offered as the way in.
IV. The Background They Would Have Known
Step Four: History and Culture
Every reader of this letter grew up knowing the temple.
- A. A thick curtain hung across the way to the Most Holy Place. It was a wall of cloth that said, stay out.
- B. Only the high priest went behind it. Only one day a year. And never without blood. Hebrews 9:7.
- C. Ordinary people never went in. Not once in a whole lifetime.
Then came the day Jesus Christ died.
“And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;”
Matthew 27:51 (KJV)
Notice the direction. From the top to the bottom. No man tore that curtain. God tore it, and He tore it from His side. That is a picture worth preaching. God did not wait for people to find a way in to Him. He opened the way out to them.
V. What the Writer Is Actually Saying
Step Five: Drawing Out the Meaning
- A. The door is open. It is open now, and it is open to every believer, not to one man once a year.
- B. The blood of Jesus Christ is what opened it. That is stated, not implied.
- C. The way in is brand new, because a death purchased it, and it is alive, because the Savior lives.
- D. We are invited to come boldly. Not creeping, not begging for permission. Boldly.
Notice what is not here. There is no water in these two verses. Not a drop. When the writer names the price of our access, he names one thing only, the blood of Jesus.
VI. Does the Rest of the Bible Agree?
Step Six: Fitting It With the Whole Book
- A. He entered in once by His own blood and obtained eternal redemption. Hebrews 9:12.
- B. Without shedding of blood is no remission. Hebrews 9:22.
- C. Those who were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:13.
- D. Through Jesus Christ we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Ephesians 2:18.
- E. Being justified by faith in Jesus Christ, we have peace with God, and by Him we have access. Romans 5:1–2.
The whole Bible tells one story here. Blood opens the way to God. Every time.
The Honest Question Someone Will Ask
Verse 22 mentions water. So we should deal with it plainly and not pretend it is not there.
“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:22.
First. Verse 19 already told us what opens the way in. The blood. Verse 22 is not telling us what opens the door. It is telling us how to walk through it, with a clean and honest heart.
Second. The picture is a priest getting ready to serve. Under the old law, Aaron and his sons were washed with water before they could serve. Exodus 29:4. The writer is saying, come like a priest, cleaned up and ready.
Third. Sincere believers do not all read that phrase the same way. Some think it points to water baptism. Some think it points to the priests being washed. Some point to Ephesians 5:26 and the washing of water by the word. I am not going to hide that disagreement from you.
But here is what no one can get around. The verse that names the way in names the blood, and only the blood. Verse 22 never says the water opened anything.
So where does that leave water baptism? Exactly where the Bible puts it. It is commanded by Jesus Christ. It is right. It is obedience. It is a believer telling the world what has already happened on the inside. But it did not tear the veil. The blood of Jesus Christ tore the veil.
VII. What to Do With This
Step Seven: From Meaning to Response
- A. If you have never trusted Jesus Christ. The door is open and the price is already paid. You do not have to clean yourself up first. Come to God the Father through faith in His Son.
- B. If you are a believer who feels far from God. Read verse 19 again. You have boldness. That is present tense. Your feelings did not close the door, and your feelings cannot open it either. The blood already did.
- C. If you were taught that the water saved you. Put your trust where the Bible puts it. Be baptized because Jesus Christ said to. Do not rest your soul on it. Rest on the blood.
- D. If you have already been baptized. Good. Keep obeying. And keep remembering that your standing with God rests on what happened at the cross, not at the water.
- E. Starting today. Pray without waiting for a middleman. No priest, no schedule, no once a year. You may come now, and you may come boldly.
Salvation
Salvation is by grace alone, through faith in God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is through Him that the believer is brought into a personal relationship with God the Father. At the moment of saving faith in Jesus Christ the believer is instantly and permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who regenerates, seals, leads, guides, empowers, and sanctifies the believer in the walk with God.
Preaching Notes
Opening line. For hundreds of years there was a curtain, and it meant one thing. Stay out. Then one Friday afternoon it ripped from top to bottom, and nobody touched it.
Picture to use. A locked door with one key. Water is a good and commanded thing, but water is not the key. The blood is the key.
Line to repeat. The blood opened the door. Everything else is what we do after we walk through it.
Closing appeal. The way in is open, it is new, and it is alive. The only question left is whether you will come.
If you have questions about anything you have read here, we would be glad to hear from you. Two related outlines take up the same theme: The Blood of Christ and Salvation, and Water Baptism Is an Act of Obedience.
Common Questions
How does a believer come to God?
Straight in, by the blood of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10:19-20 gives boldness to enter by a new and living way which He consecrated for us. The door to God stands open, and the blood of Jesus Christ is what opened it.
What changed at the cross?
The veil was rent from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). What had been closed to all but one man once a year was opened to every believer.
Does anyone need another mediator?
No. Access is through Jesus Christ alone, and by His blood every believer has peace with God and access into grace (Romans 5:1-2; Ephesians 2:13, 18).
“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)
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