Sermon Tone Analysis

Hebrews 10:1-14

Shadow and Substance

 

Since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin?

But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

 

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body have you prepared for me;

in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”

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

He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.

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

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

[1]

 

Multiple messages lie buried in the words of our text.

I was delayed in preparing the message because I focused for a while on the issue of worship [latreuvw].

Worship, the ritual of serving God, is prominent in the text.

I might have contrasted the futility of human effort compared to the receipt of divine grace.

That is certainly prominent in the text.

However, due to the restrictions placed upon me by the demands of time, I am compelled to focus on the primary message of the text.

Christ is central to worship.

He has abolished the demands of the Law, setting us free to obey God.

This is the primary message presented by the text.

I spoke in a previous message of the sacrifice of Christ our Lord.

The reason I am focusing on Christ—His incarnation, His sacrifice, His grace—throughout these summer months is that as a society we have been distracted from these truths.

We have unwittingly turned aside from grace to pursue justification through our own efforts.

The great tragedy is that we are unaware of our focus on someone other than our Saviour and Lord.

We have become enamoured with secondary issues instead of focusing on Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.

We have neglected holiness and righteousness and thus we discover that we are powerless before the enemy.

The writer of this letter has come to a critical point in his argument to Jewish believers.

He is contrasting past practises with present reality.

It is a contrast between shadow and substance.

Rite and ritual of the past were but shadows of the substance of all that God has planned for those who are pleasing in His sight.

In the previous chapter of the letter, the author has spoken of the area known as “the Holy Place” that was situated both in the Tabernacle and in the Temple.

This He contrasted to the work that Christ has performed in presenting His own blood as a sacrifice because of man’s sin.

Christ did not appear as our Great High Priest in the earthly Holy Place, but rather He appeared in Heaven itself where He appeared on our behalf, presenting His own blood because of our sin.

Now, the author is compelled by stubborn nature of mankind, to drive this point home.

This is where the message begins.

Ritual and Righteousness — The Law possessed only a dim outline of the benefits Christ would bring and did not actually reproduce them.

Consequently it was incapable of perfecting the souls of those who offered their regular annual sacrifices.

For if it had, surely the sacrifices would have been discontinued—on the grounds that the worshippers, having been really cleansed, would have had no further consciousness of sin.

In practise, however, the sacrifices amounted to an annual reminder of sins; for the blood of bulls and goats cannot really remove the guilt of sin.[2]

The writer looks back to what was surely  familiar to the first readers—the rituals prescribed by the Law of Moses.

Though we no longer practise those particular rituals, I fear that far too many professing Christians have learned to depend upon rituals prescribed by the various communions of Christendom.

Why do we worship?

Why did the ancient Hebrews bring an annual sacrifice at Yom Kippur?

Why, even in this day of grace, do multiplied thousands of Catholic priests continue to insist that they offer again and again the body of Christ in the Mass?

Why, we might well ask, do countless multitudes of professing Christians insist that it is necessary to participate at the Lord’s Table, though their lives fail to reflect the presence of God’s Spirit and they are disobedient to the call of God?

Why is this?

Far too often we perform the rituals associated with the Faith because we seek forgiveness instead of participating in the rites because we are forgiven.

According to the text, the very fact that the ancient Hebrew worshippers repeatedly presented bulls and goats as sacrifice on the Day of Atonement was evidence that they were contaminated with sin.

In similar fashion, the Catholic priests seeks to offer continually the body of Christ because he is conscious of his sinful condition.

Just so, far too many professing Christians seek to participate in the rituals of the Faith because they sense their helpless condition.

They know they are sinful and they long to be free to come before the Lord.

Frequently, during the years of my ministry before the Lord people have asked if they could participate at the Lord’s Table.

Inevitably, when I am asked if an individual may participate, I turn the question to ask why they would wish to participate.

What motivates an individual who is not part of the assembly to want to partake of the Lord’s Table?

Why would someone who is not under the authority of the assembly want to observe the ordinance?

Without exception, when the question has been pressed, the individual seeking to join us at the Lord’s Table has a desire to be cleansed of sin.

Inevitably, they see the Meal as a means of making themselves acceptable to the Lord.

May dear people, I warn you that rite and ritual, cant and creed, are incapable of making the individual right with God.

Righteousness clearly cannot come through the performance of an act of human will.

The mere fact that we attempt to perform religious ceremony, the fact that we attempt to rename the ordinances by calling them sacraments, indicates that we are attempting to do what is impossible—that we believe that it is through our own efforts that we are able to please God.

Looking back, according to our text the rituals associated with the Law were able at best to dimly reveal the glory of God and only dimly could those ceremonial acts suggest His grace.

They were meant to ceremonially purify those presenting the sacrifices and those bringing the offerings; they could never take away sins and they could never make the presenter righteous before God.

In a similar manner, the rituals familiar within this Holy Faith are not designed to take away sin, but rather they must always serve to remind us that sin has already been taken away through Christ.

The benefits Christ has brought—the forgiveness of sin, peace with God, access to the throne of God, the joy of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the hope of Heaven—these benefits are not obtained through the observance of rituals, but rather these benefits are freely offered as we receive His sacrifice because of our sin.

At issue is not some nebulous claim that we are absolved of guilt through rituals, but rather the issue is that we now celebrate the absolution that is provided through Christ.

There is a difference!

What, then, was the purpose of the ceremonial aspects of the Law of Moses?

Clearly, the prescribed rites pointed to the reality, but they always painfully reminded those participating that they had not yet been purified.

They did this by virtue of the fact that they were repeated again and again.

Had you asked an Israelite worshipping under the Law if God forgave sin, he would have answered in the affirmative.

If you followed up with the question of why he performed the ritual sacrifices, he would have been compelled to confess that it was because of his consciousness of personal sin.

He would attest that he longed for peace with God, that he wanted assurance that he could come into the presence of Holy God, and that he longed to know that he had an eternal home with God in His Kingdom.

To ensure that he continued in a right relationship to God, he was compelled to continually provide the same offerings.

It is important that we realise that peace with God comes because we are forgiven and no longer under sentence of death.

The joy attending access to the throne of God can only be muted if we have no assurance of salvation.

The Word of God consistently and loudly trumpets the fact that we are forgiven in Christ and thus we are acceptable in Him.

I do not mean to imply that we will never again feel guilty.

Guilt comes when we know that we are wrong.

God’s Spirit convicts the Christian so that she or he will set right the wrong that is performed.

Then, the child of God will again enter joyfully into the presence of the Saviour.

Nevertheless, the Father forgives our sin.

Forgiveness is not forgetting.

It is not that God forgets our sin, but it is rather that He has dealt thoroughly and effectively with our sin so that we will never again face the consequences.

The author is more concerned, you will note, with the perfection of those who worship.

The perfection he has in mind is not a flawless condition, but rather it is the state of a right relationship with God.

Had the Old Testament worshippers been once for all cleansed from sin, they would have been delivered from a sense of guilt.

The fact that they were required to present the same sacrifices continually was mute, though effective, evidence that they were not yet in a right relationship to God.

George Guthrie has provided insightful comments on this passage.

Listen to these words and apply them in your own life.

“Most religions involve some form of human ‘doing’ for God—‘sacrificing’ something to win favour with the Almighty.

At the heart of Christianity stands the core truth that God has done something for us, through the sacrifice of His Son, that we could never do for ourselves.

He has taken our sins out of the way, forgiven us completely, and relates to us, intimately and eternally.”[3]