Definitive Sanctification through the Body of Christ
Notes
Transcript
Our text that God gives us with the Supper this morning is Hebrews 10:10
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Naturally we will want to know with the Supper the offering of the body of Christ - got to understand and remember and keep before us the infinite cost he paid.
But even before that in this verse we must understand the will and the action that Christ doing this will accomplishes - namely the sanctification!
A. I would like to start with the sanctification.
A. I would like to start with the sanctification.
While this is refering to something that happens to you and m because of Christ’s work, it’s not what you have come to think of with your sanctification. Most often this word in the NT - is about what - ongoing, progressive sanctification. We get that straight - justification is morergistic - one work of God alone ; and sanctification - you and I becoming progressively like Jesus, becoming holy, not in status but in our actual habits and behaviour and character - that’s a synergistic work - Holy Spirit with your earnest effort!
But the word sanctification is not ongoing, cooperative work here. We come to this table to celebrate not only a monergistic justification, but also - a once for all sanctification that Jesus accomplished, devoting us to God. This is a definitive sanctification.
Perhaps an example would help. Do you have any keepsakes - family heirlooms - this big canoe - set apart restored, now saved up - no amount of money buy it out of the generations to come - like the name Elisha - or our daughter Elissa - consecrated to the LORD, like the vessels of the OT - common use - but God sets apart, elevates says going to be used for Him. Well Christ’s accomplishment of this will, his perfect obedience, his life in the body with a perfect heart-obedience to the will of God - that’s the offering we also see in the Cross, not just the punishment paid, but a whole life , our lives offered up in Christ to be dedicated to him.
Maybe you remember that from our series in the wilderness in Numbers. The difference between the sin offering and the burnt offering - one focus on payment for sin, or think of the fellowship or peace offering - ate together - but burnt offering - very specifically about I am offering my whole life to lived for you LORD. Jesus did that in our place and God accepts it on your behalf, so Jesus doing this will for you, Jesus offering up His body for you - God says Yes in Him, I accept that you are now Devoted to Me. You are my Keep Sake, My Elisha, Elissa - Consecrated unto the Lord.
B. But what is the will?
B. But what is the will?
And here we must understand Psalm 40 and its connection to Christmas. Christ comes into the world and God says my sons job isn’t to do more sacrifices, to perfect rituals - Such strong language God doesn’t delight in the rituals themselves. Why not? Kind of like imagine a writer an author, cares more about his fountain pens, type of ink, than about the words it can write the poems or story or the songs. Or a wood carver forever on Amazon.ca looking for just the right chisel but never get around to carving.
The rituals,s the sacrifices, even the whole ceremonial OT law can point to the great poem and the real wood carving, but in themselves they aren’t the real McCoy. God sends his Son into the world, and the declaration.
Even though Christ’s life is to be the ultimate sacrifice, the goal is what the sacrifice represents - sin truly paid for, but a human life completely devoted and dedicated and accepted by God … that is why Psalm 40 says: Hebrews 10:7
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.’ ”
And the writer of Hebrews says, no one under the law with its ceremonies and rules was ever able to offer up a total life dedicated to God, law was unable to accomplish that … So the ceremonies and the law in the Old Covenant were temporarily there to point to the future work Jesus would do - trust in that. But now Jesus is here, God prepared his human body, his human life - to be what the offerings pictured. So we read: Heb 10:9
then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second.
Do you here that good news of Christmas and GF, and Easter. To be right with God, to have your life dedicated to God - God’s not looking for your offerings, your obedience, or your rituals - Christ put that all away, and now His life offered to God is given on the Cross for you. Christ perfect fulfilled the law and God’s intention for your human life -
And that is what the body of Christ represents to us, this is what we must discern as we take up and trust in symbolically the bread! In this body that was prepared for Christ, He lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father, culminating in his death as an unblemished sacrifice. And that once for all sacrifice in reality - ends the sacrificial system, and brings about the obedience to God which he always wanted more than the tools of the rituals.
And so you and I receive the emblems of Christ’s body and blood - understand: yes sins forgiven, , yes law written on my heart. But understand, my union with Christ’s body - means I am perfected in Him for all time - accepted - and now my definitive sanctification … must be matched with my progressive ongoing sanctification - that is my thank offering back to the Lord!
Hebrews 10:14
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.