Contemplating the Glory of the Gospel

Hebrews 10:8-10 ESV

8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

I have always believed, not only because of biblical witness, but also due to personal experience, that it is indeed a miracle, wrought by God for someone to hear orthodox biblical truth and to understand it in such a way that they believe it and trust in it to such an extent that they are saved through it.

We see this all throughout the Gospels when Jesus would utter parables. Many of times after Jesus would utter such a parable, He would say something like, “Those who have ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says.”

Now, I’m sure that everyone in the crowd who gathered around Jesus had ears, and I’m sure that just about every one of them, if not all of them, had the capacity to hear from their ears.

So, because that is the case, it wouldn’t really make a whole lot of sense for Jesus to say what He said if He simply meant that those who had the capacity to hear audible words should hear what the Spirit says.

Rather, what it means is that those whom God has appointed to be saved will hear in the words of Jesus, the Word of God Himself. What Jesus is saying is that those who have been appointed to “hear” will hear through the words of Jesus, the words of life, the orthodox gospel. And when they hear it, they will believe it, because God has ordained them to believe it.

And those who don’t have these ears to hear, to them, what they hear they may deem as fascinating, inspiring, maybe even moving, but they won’t hear like those whom God has personally given ears to hear.

Therefore, for one to hear the Word of God, the legitimate gospel proclaimed to them, and to believe it and understand it to such an extent that it alters their eternity, it requires something out of the ordinary, something miraculous, what it requires is an act of God Himself.

And as we continue our series of messages from Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 1-18, what we see in our message for today is a brief, yet very profound explanation of that orthodox, biblical gospel, which if heard with the assistance of the Spirit of God, the one who hears it will indeed be saved.

For the one who hears it who is not assisted by the Spirit of God and thus disbelieves, God’s judgment against such a one will be further solidified, and God will be glorified in the administration of His justice.

And for the one who has already experienced the miracle of believing through the assistance of the Spirit of God, when you hear once again the explanation of this gospel today, God will ensure that you are brought nearer to Him and that you come to love Him more than what He has already caused you to love Him, and He will be glorified.

In other words, no matter where you find yourself today, God is going to touch you somehow, someway, for His own glory.

In our message last week, we discussed how the author of this book of Hebrews described the ineffective nature of animal sacrifices. And as he described this truth, it was noted that the author had quoted Psalm 40:6-8. Now, in our reading for today, the author dwells a little bit longer on this quotation from the 40th psalm and makes even more manifest the proper interpretation and fulfillment of what is written there.

And in opening up and delving into our reading for this morning, we see once again the ineffective nature of animal sacrifices in actually providing one with salvation from sins.

So, let’s go ahead and look at this, in verse 8, when it says:

Hebrews 10:8 ESV

8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law),

So, like I said, the author is using this specific quotation from the Psalms to prove both the ineffective nature of animal sacrifices and the completely effective power of the single sacrifice of Christ.

And in that psalm, the One Who is speaking, Who is in all actuality the preincarnate Christ, says to God the Father “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings”.

Now, there a few things that we discover here in this verse. We see that the words sacrifices and offerings are plural, meaning more than one. Thus, there was more than type of sacrifice and more than one type of offering, and they were sacrificed and offered repeatedly: over and over again.

We also see that God did not desire them or take pleasure in them. We spoke about this last week in our message. When it says that God does not desire or take pleasure in sacrifices and offerings, it means that these sacrifices and offerings are unable to effectively cleanse anyone of their sins.

But though God did not desire or take pleasure in them, and though they did not effectively cleanse anyone of their sins, they were still required by God. That’s the last thing that we see in this verse.

You see at the very end of this verse that it says (these are offered according to the law). In other words, these sacrifices and offerings were instituted by God. But like we said, God does not desire or take pleasure in these sacrifices and offerings as they cannot ever atone for sin.

So, if that is the case, then why did God ever institute them? earlier on in this chapter, in verse 3, we find the answer to that question. God instituted that old sacrificial system to remind the Jews of their sins and their need to be saved by the grace of God alone… they served as a constant reminder that only God through His grace could save them.

But now there is a new institution, and we see the details of this new institution in the beginning of verse 9, where we read:

Hebrews 10:9a ESV

9a then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.”

So, we start this verse with the words, “then he added”. Now, like we already said, the One Who is speaking here is in actuality, the preincarnate Christ. And thus, with the inefficiency of animal sacrifices and offerings in mind, He, that is the Christ, says to God the Father, “Behold, I have come to do your will.”

Now, what exactly was God’s will concerning Jesus and the salvation of His people? Well, let’s take a look at just two verses in the Scriptures that tell us what exactly God’s will concerning Jesus was.

First, Acts, chapter 2, verse 23, we read the words of Peter when he said:

Acts 2:23 ESV

23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

So, Peter says that the crucifixion of Jesus and the blood that He shed was not something that just happened to happen, no, it was all according to God’s plan, according to God’s will.

But let’s look at an even more cut and dry reference citing what God’s will concerning Jesus and the salvation of His people was. Let’s take a look at the very beginning of Isaiah, chapter 53, verse 10, where it plainly says:

Isaiah 53:10a

10a Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

It was the will of the Lord to crush Him… that doesn’t sound very gentle. And what it means is that it was God’s will to put Jesus to death so that He would be the one-time sacrifice for His people, a sacrifice that unlike the animal sacrifices and offerings, it actually would effectively cleanse His people of their sins.

So, the will of God concerning Christ was that He would suffer and die upon the cross for the salvation of His people.

So, what does that then mean for the sacrificial system of animals that God had put in place? The last part of verse 9 of our reading tells us, when it says:

Hebrews 10:9b ESV

9b He does away with the first in order to establish the second.

He, that is, God has done away with the first, that is, He has done away with the animal sacrificial system, He has ordered for it to cease.

Like we said in our message last week, God ordained the animal sacrificial system to be, but the animal sacrificial system was but a shadow of things to come, and when Christ came to do the will of God the Father, and we already said that the will of God concerning Christ was for Him to die, when Christ came and done that, the animal sacrificial system had found its fulfillment. And because it had found its fulfillment, it was no longer needed. There were no more shadows, light had fully come.

Because the first sacrificial system had been done away with since it could not cleanse anyone of sin and because Christ’s one time sacrifice was the fulfillment of that first sacrificial system and it had now come, then, as the author of Hebrews says the second, more perfect system is now in place. And it is that sacrifice, the sacrifice that truly does cleanse us of sin that we are to look to and trust in.

And thus, in verse 10 of our reading, we see the effect of the sacrifice that Jesus made for His people, when it says:

Hebrews 10:10 ESV

10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The author says, in connection with verse 9, “by that will”. Back at the beginning of verse 9, “the will” that is mentioned here is referenced when Christ said to God the Father, “I have come to do Your will.” And we have already noted that that will was for Christ to suffer the humiliation of the cross and die for His people.

Thus, the author of Hebrews says that it is “by that will” namely, by the death of Christ in place of us, God’s elect people, we, speaking once again of God’s elect people have been sanctified.

Now, to say that something is sanctified is to say that it is set apart for a holy purpose. Thus, God’s elect people, the ones whom Christ died for have been sanctified, set apart as holy for God’s own purposes as God’s own people.

And the author says that this sanctification of believers has come through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.

This right here is the key focal point of the gospel. It is the key to truly understanding what our salvation involved. We are saved not because of anything good that we have done, not because we asked to be saved, not even because we believed that the sacrifice of Christ was good enough. We are saved solely because of the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. On behalf of God’s elect.

And here is the most beautiful part of it all as spelled out in the end of this 10th verse. This sacrifice, this offering of the body of Jesus Christ was once for all.

This means that Christ does not have to offer Himself year after year as was the mode in the animal sacrificial system, He offered Himself once for all time, as that one-time sacrifice is all that is necessary to legitimately cleanse God’s people of their sins.

What this says to us today who have been the recipients of God’s grace through the one-time sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf is that our salvation has been purchased, it has been sealed, and it will remain for all eternity.

You see, what the natural man believes is that if there is a God and if there is a Heaven, then one surely pleases God and enters Heaven through right living, through doing more good things than bad things.

But you see, doing good works is almost like the animal sacrificial system. Good works have most definitely been ordained and commanded by God, but the fact that we actively do good works accomplishes what the animal sacrifices accomplished, they remind us that apart from the grace of God, we are guilty and in need of salvation.

You see, the fact that we designate one set of works as “good” works reveals that we also participate in “bad” works. And to suggest that the partaking of good works somehow cleanses us of our bad works, of our natural enmity with God due to our sinful nature, is ludicrous.

Therefore, for us as Christians, to believe and live as though our salvation is dependent on our own good works, as we all so often do is unnecessary, unbiblical, and to be quite honest, ungodly.

Beloved Christians, it is our duty today to rest. To rest in the finished work of Christ, knowing that our salvation is forever safe in His hands.

Amen?