Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduce the Text

Hebrews 9, focused on verses 26b-28

Introduction:

What is advent?

Who all has an advent calendar?

Who all does an advent devotional personally, or as a family?

Who all knows what advent means?

Advent (General):

The coming, arrival, or appearance of someone or something of prominence, typically into being.

Advent (Christmas):

The four weeks of preparation for Christmas or Christ’s coming to earth as a baby.

Advent (Theology):

Christ’s coming at the Incarnation, and Christ’s second coming.

At Christmas, we look to Christ trying to understand who He is and what He has done in coming to earth.

This season, we are seeking to answer the question, Why did Christ come?

So tonight, I want to answer this question and raise a few others.

You’re welcome!

Tonight I want you to look with me and see that Christ Came, That He May Come Again.

And if this is true, if Christ has two advents, how are they unique and how are they similar?

Do they interact with one another?

Was the first necessary for the second?

What are the purposes for each advent, or do they share a purpose?

Ultimately, why does it matter that He came and why does it matter that He will come again?

Read the Text

Transition with Prayer

THESIS (In Bold):

Christ Came, to die and bear the sins of many.

Christ CAME.

He came as a man.

Christ came for man and that warranted Him becoming man.

He was made man according to the Father’s will and of His own accord.

In His emptying himself, Christ was for a little while made lower than the angels according to Hebrews 2, referring to Psalm 8.

He came once.

Christ came and did a definitive work.

Christ need not be sacrificed repeatedly.

His work in coming was fully effective, unlike the OT system of Levitical sacrifice.

Hebrews–Revelation (Commentary by Dennis Johnson)

...the fact that the Day of Atonement ritual took place over and over, year after year, showed that Levitical rites could never remove defilement from human consciences.

If “the blood of bulls and goats” could take away sins, they would not have been “offered every year” (10:1–4).

Christ brought infinitely more costly blood when he entered once for all into the heavenly Most Holy Place.

Whereas the Levitical high priest presented “blood not his own,” that of slain goats and calves (9:12), Christ put “away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (v.

26) when he was “offered once to bear the sins of many” (v.

28).Because Christ’s offering was his own death, it is unthinkable that he would undergo this suffering “repeatedly since the foundation of the world.”

Rather, he appeared “at the end of the ages ” the climactic moment in redemptive history.

Christ’s incarnation, ministry, death, and exaltation form the complex of events marking the arrival of “the last days” (1:1–2; Acts 2:17) and “the end of the ages” (1 Cor.

10:11; cf.

Matt.

13:39–40).

He came at the end of the ages.

Christ’s coming was the culmination of history.

His coming to earth and uniting His deity with humanity to deal with sin is the pinnacle of history which served to usher in these “last days” in which the Spirit is poured out on His people and the church is built until Christ returns on the Day of the Lord.

He came to die.

As we’ve already started to see, Christ had a purpose in coming.

He came the first time to die.

As we saw, His body was prepared that the will of God may be fulfilled.

Christ had to be a man, perfect in every way, put to death to fulfill the requirements of man’s sin.

Death is not natural, it’s not a mere process.

It is appointed by God as the fruit of sin.

He came to put away sin.

In Christ’s coming, in His living, in His dying…He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

He offered himself…the perfect priest and sacrifice…to deal with man’s sin.

That He May Come Again, to save His people from judgment.

Christ WILL COME again.

He will come as glorified.

Christ will come personally, in flesh as He did the first time.

This time though, He will come not as humiliated, but as exalted.

Christ will come in power and with authority on the clouds and as lightning in the sky.

He will come finally.

Christ will come at a definitive time like before, but rather than inaugurate the “last days” he will now bring the end of time.

He will come to usher in eternity when He and His people will forever dwell in the presence of the Lord.

He will come at the end of all things.

This end of all things is marked by the Day of the Lord, when all things will be judged and give account for the time and resources they were given.

This judgment is the second appointment of man, appointed following death.

He will come to save.

As Christ died in the likeness of man, dealing with sin…He also has a second appointment in which He will save His people from judgment.

Those found in Christ need not fear this dreadful day as Christ has already dealt with sin and now comes to collect His people.

He will come to collect His people.

In the collecting of His people, they will be rescued from judgment and free to enjoy the promised eternal inheritance.

Christ will come to complete the salvation of His people.

He Appears Now Before God, so we may come before God also.

Christ has a third appearing in this chapter you may have missed.

Christ the Better High-Priest

He appears in heaven.

Christ does not appear in mere recreations ere on earth.

Earthly things could be ceremonially cleaned, but the actual things of heaven (us) needed a better sacrifice.

And this to be offered in heaven itself, not a recreation of the Holy place.

He appears before God.

Christ, in His heavenly ministry is before God.

The one to whom offering must be made.

Only a Holy God can grant pardon.

It is the One True God whose wrath must be appeased, therefore as the earthly offerings were made to God, how much more the offering of Christ for man.

He appears on our behalf.

Christ does this work on our behalf.

Christ need only be sacrificed once.

His sacrifice fully and totally effectual, but He resides as our Great High-Priest for all of time.

The perfect mediator between God and His people.

He appears by means of His own blood.

Christ appears on His own merit.

As greater priest and sacrifice, it wad necessary that Christ spill His blood for the payment of sins.

A costly blood, the blood of God, be spilled to atone for all of man.

Thus it was necessary that Christ in His work was fully man and fully God.