Christ's Sacrifice Once for All

Introduction

Hebrews is one of several books in the New Testament that the author is unknown. We know the author of the gospel accounts as well as Acts. We know of Paul’s letters, Peter’s letters, Timothy’s letters, John’s letters and John’s vision of Revelation. However, Hebrews remains a disputed book regarding its author. Some people believe it to have been written by Paul while others say it was written by a scribe of Paul. Others believe it to have been written by Apollos or Barnabas. As the early church father Origin stated, “Only God knows” who wrote Hebrews. This is not the only way that the book of Hebrews differs from New Testament books. The book of Hebrews is thought to have been a sermon given by this anonymous “preacher” rather than a letter scribed by an author. According to many scholars as well as early church fathers such as Clement of Rome, the recipients of this sermon were most likely urban Jews who had accepted Jesus as their messiah. This is important to note because as we read this text, we need to understand the context by which the preacher was delivering this sermon and the people who were listening to it. To a 2018 Christian, it might seem strange for this book to read as a sermon rather than a letter, however as pastor Phillip has mentioned several times regarding Paul and his missionary journeys to Greece, urban citizens would have been accustomed to hearing great orators and philosophers discussing the latest in philosophical thought. This brings us to the location of this sermon. This, too, is unknown however many church fathers believe it to have been penned for the Jewish Christians located in Rome while others believe it to be directed towards Antioch or Jerusalem. You might be wondering why we spent the first couple of minutes talking about background information, well it is important to note the background of this text because we must keep in mind, as 2018 Christians that yes, it is God’s letter to us, however it was first God’s letter written to these people! With this background in mind, let’s dive into this great text!

Hebrews 10:1–18 NASB95

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, But a body You have prepared for Me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure. “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (In the scroll of the book it is written of Me) To do Your will, O God.’ ” After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And on their mind I will write them,” He then says, “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

The Need for a Better Sacrifice (1-4)

No matter how many times the shadow is repeated, it always remains a shadow; it is never the substance itself! Right from the get go, the preacher of Hebrews blatantly states how the law and Levitical system cannot ever perfect those who draw near to worship. Marcus Dods goes as far as to say that “there is no relation between the physical blood of animals and man’s moral offense”. The preacher hits on this point even further in verse 3 when he states that “in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year.” This helps to illustrate the point of the Levitical law: remind people of their sin and their need for cleansing. The Old Testament law failed to secure this type of purification needed to be in constant fellowship with God, hence why Christ’s sacrifice was needed! Often times we fail to see the seriousness of our sin. John Piper puts it like this, “We are in a deadly dream world most of the time when it comes to how seriously we are in trouble with God because of our sin.” He goes on to state that we worry more about being stopped by a police officer for speeding than we do about the seriousness of our sin. But sin is infinitely more serious! It is good to be reminded of our sin because unlike Old Covenant worshippers, our sin has been dealt with! Our sin is still our number one problem with the Father and He detests sin, however as Phillip Hughes says, “the gospel transforms remembrance from a remembrance of guilt to a remembrance of grace!”

Isn’t this a tremendous blessing? Instead of being reminded of our sins each and every year and having a Day of Atonement for those sins, we are able to be reminded of the grace poured out on the cross for our sins. Think of how our lives would be different if we lived under the Old Covenant. We would have to come in once a year and offer up an animal sacrifice (ideally) and the blood from this animal would cover up our sins for one year, then this process would have to be repeated at the next Day of Atonement. Aren’t you thankful that we don’t have to endure this process year in and year out? Aren’t you thankful that Christ’s blood is enough for all time?

Verse 4 finalizes the preacher’s first point that there is a need for a better sacrifice as he concludes this section by saying that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Think if you were a Jewish Christian at this time, your upbringing and background would tell you to participate in the Day of Atonement, however the preacher of Hebrews is saying that it is unnecessary. In fact, there are 5 reasons why the Day of Atonement is no longer necessary:

· It is only a copy/shadow

· It is repeated annually

· It does not perfect the worshipper

· It does not cleanse the conscience

· It is an inferior vehicle of atonement

How many reasons

There are 5 reasons why the Day of Atonement is no longer necessary

The blood of bulls and goats could postpone God’s impending judgment; however it could not offer a complete redemption – only the Son of God could offer that. Just as it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to save you from your sins, it is impossible for things such as church attendance, VBS attendance, scripture memory, your church tithe and the amount of mission trips you’ve been on to save you from your sins. Now this does not mean that those things do not matter to you as a Christian, you should strive to commit scripture to memory so that you have God’s word inside you heart. You should desire to go on mission trips to help fulfill the Great Commission and proclaim the gospel to the lost. You should attend church on a regular basis because as says, if we walk in the light as Christ is in the light, we have fellowship and without this fellowship, it is impossible to walk in the light on our own! Our salvation is founded in Christ’s death on the cross, just not in these other entities.

The Provision of the Better Sacrifice (5-8)

In this next section, the preacher quotes a Davidic Psalm () in which the preacher shows how Jesus is in fact the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. As David does in several other psalms, he is emphasizing how God desires faithful hearts and lives instead of sacrificial rituals. Even here in the Old Testament, these “shadows” were pointing towards the coming substance – Jesus Christ. This should give us, as Christians, reason to pause and reflect in our own walk with Christ and evaluate if we, or have we ever, lived our lives and given to God because it is what we’ve always done or because our heart genuinely desires to. According to a study done by USA Today, between 70-75% of youth who grow up in church leave the church after high school, see we really haven’t come very far in nearly 3,000 years. If youth see church attendance as something of a “tradition” or something that their family does and that it is just an “expectation” of sorts, their heart is lacking this genuineness that David talks about. I have experienced this first hand at a Christian University. People come into school from a church background and within a year, they stop coming to church. There is a distortion of the truth. Whenever push comes to shove, we would rather do what we want to do and unless our heart delights in the Lord, we will push things like church, mission trips and worship to the back burner. Jesus came to do the Father’s will and through His death/resurrection He fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant and established the New Covenant. In the same light we should live our lives in such a way to accomplish what Christ laid out for us in the Great Commission and point other people towards Him. No amount of sacrifice can substitute for obedience! Pointing other people towards Christ with the way we live our lives is how we can worship and honor God today.

As Steven K. Stanley says, “sacrifices never were the ultimate focus of God’s will or desire”.

Only through the incarnation can Jesus accomplish the will of God and do away with sin. As verse 9 says, He establishes this New Covenant. Aren’t you thankful that He fulfilled the Old Covenant and established this New Covenant?!

The Effectiveness of the Better Sacrifice (10)

This process of sanctification, being made Holy, is unique to the New Covenant. Because God willed it, and by the means of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins on the cross, believers have been made holy! The Old Covenant worshipper had to by repeatedly made purified through sacrificial ceremony whereas the New Covenant saint is set apart completely! Paul hits on this point in when he says in verse 25: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and He was raised to life for our justification.” Meaning He died for our sins and resurrected so that we too could be made righteous before the Father. Paul goes on to show how sanctification is a lifelong process of being made more like Christ, however we don’t do this by sacrificing animals. We do this through prayer and applying Christ’s teachings into our daily lives. In the Greek, this construction highlights the permanence of Christ’s work and the continuing state of sanctification.

The process of us being made more like Christ is called sanctification

This is an example of dualism in the sense that we are already justified before the Father, however we are not yet like Christ. Sanctification is progressive and it is something that we all have to work at, however we are able to be more like Christ because of His sacrifice. Without Christ’s sacrifice, there would be no hope to be in constant fellowship with the Father.

According to FF Bruce, there are 3 key effects that the preacher ascribes to the sacrifice of Christ: 1) People have their conscience cleaned from guilt. 2) We are fitted to approach God as accepted worshippers. 3) We experience the fulfillment of what was promised in earlier days, being brought into perfect relation to God

The Permanence of the Better Sacrifice (11-18)

This final section from the preacher goes to finalize the point how Christ’s sacrifice is superior to that of the blood of bulls and goats as well as a sacrifice that need not be repeated, ever. These verses show the difference between the high priest and the great high priest (Jesus). The priest is in the tabernacle, doing the same sacrifice over and over because their work is never done! Jesus, meanwhile, is said to be sitting down at the right hand of the Father (reference to ). Jesus’ work is completed and His work carries with it some huge benefits to believers. In the original Greek translation, the preacher of Hebrews phrases verse 14 in the “perfect tense” which indicates something that was done in the past that carries with it present implications. It is completed whereas a “present” tense would indicate something that is continually happening. Jesus’ work has made perfect or perfected those who are being sanctified.

Jesus’ work is completed

Jesus’ work makes us holy

We are not perfect, but we are justified and sanctified because of His work

Do you see the beautifully articulate construction here? The work of Jesus is completed (it is emphasized in the perfect tense) and is perfect while we, as followers of Christ are being sanctified (or being made “perfect” if you will). If we back up to verse 10, we see that by Christ’s sacrifice, we have been made holy! This is yet another perfect tense used by the preacher of Hebrews and this stands in contrast to what the preacher says in verse 1 of chapter 10 when he states that the law can never perfect those who draw near to worship. As Christians, both in the 1st century and 21st century, we have been made holy before God (we are justified)! With that said, we are progressively (being made perfect) made more like Christ as we live our lives on this Earth. This is what we call the process of sanctification. We, as followers of Christ are moved from a position of unholy alienation from the Father into a covenantal relationship with Him. Paul talks about this process numerous times in his letters and this would have most likely been something that the recipients of Hebrews would have been familiar with, especially if we operate under the assumption that this sermon was given to the Christians in Rome as Paul wrote the letter to the church in Rome about 10 years before this.

The New Covenant worshipper can approach the throne boldly because of the work of the Holy Spirit alive in their life. The preacher quotes in verses 16 and 17. He does this to show how this new covenant will be inscribed within the Christians heart and mind rather than written on tablets of stone! Because of the perfect sacrifice made by Christ, the Christian can now do the will of God and be led by the spirit. We are still not perfect in the sense of our sin, as we will get to in a little bit, but whenever we follow the spirit’s leading our intention is in fact, perfect. Aren’t you thankful that the “law” is within our hearts as followers of Christ? We, with the help of the Holy Spirit, are able to see things that the outside world has no idea of.

Verse 18 should be a cause to rejoice among believers in Christ as we see that there is no longer any offering for sin. There is absolutely nothing that we can do to remove the stain of our sin in the eyes of the Father. The only thing that can change that stain is the blood of Jesus Christ! Looking to some regularly repeated sacrificial ritual (or legalistic checkmark) as the basis of forgiveness, as his readership is tempted to do, amounts to a repudiation of the glorious gospel of salvation by the grace of God. Sin is man’s greatest problem. and 6:23 bear this hard truth out. What we see is that we are not sinners because we sin but rather we sin because we are sinners. With that said, though, we have a glorious and living hope in Jesus Christ and in His sacrifice on the cross that takes away our sin and the sin of the world once and for all!

Conclusion

In conclusion, this passage helps illustrate how in Christ the shadow has been made into substance, the temporary has been made eternal, the imperfect has become perfect, judgment has become mercy and law has become grace. We serve a savior who is currently in heaven interceding on our behalf! We, therefore, are called to point others towards Him regardless of the cost or negative outcome, our mission as Christians is to proclaim the name of Jesus to a lost and dying world that is in desperate need for the truth as states. There is but one way, one truth and one life – Jesus Christ – and there is no way that you can make it there on your own, it is only through the perfect sacrifice of Christ that we have the incredible hope of salvation. Because God willed it, and by means of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, believers have been made holy.