February 28 Sermon: Once For All
Consider these questions as our message for this Lord’s Day has us in Hebrews 10:1-18:
1. How does the author of Hebrews emphasize the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant in terms of understanding and clarity? What is the significance of viewing the old covenant practices as shadows of the heavenly realities, and how does this impact the author's message to the audience?
2. In what ways does the author illustrate the insufficiency of the Old Covenant rituals, particularly the sacrifices, in achieving true forgiveness of sins? How does this contrast with the purpose and effectiveness of Jesus' sacrifice as explained in the passage?
3. How does the concept of Jesus "sitting down" after offering himself serve as a powerful symbol of the completion and finality of his redemptive work? How does this assurance of forgiveness and sanctification impact our worship and daily lives as believers? How can we find rest in the truth that God remembers our sins no more?
Transcript:
Isn’t it amazing how clearly we see when we move on to the next phase of life? Aren’t we unbelievably wise when we’ve been through something and we can look back on it. I’m sure that wisdom is often annoying to those that we pontificate our knowledge to but it is a fact that it is much easier to look back on something and understand what was going on. Our experience gives us wisdom. We understand what is important about dating once we arrive at marriage. Maybe we get to college and suddenly we figure out what we should have done better in high school to be a better student. Chances are that I’ll experience the same thing when I move from being a parent to being a grandparent. We say hindsight 20/20 and while I doubt we have perfect vision on our pasts, we are able to understand things more clearly when we have moved on from them.
The author of Hebrews is able to do the same thing with the experience they had with the Old Covenant. Having moved on to the New Covenant suddenly the rituals and practices of the past have come into a clear focus but to have this level of insight would not have been possible when they were participating in them. And we have seen throughout this book how concerned the author is that the people might go back to those practices. And so, he wants them to see clearly. He wants them to put on their new covenant glasses so that the old covenant will properly come into focus. The purpose of what they did during the old covenant was to point to Jesus and so we will see once again today how important this is to our understanding of the Christian faith.
And so, as we land in this tenth chapter of Hebrews this morning to dig into the first 18 verses we have three main points to guide us.
First, the law shows us that we are sinners and that we could never be perfected by it. We have seen this unfolding for us throughout the last several weeks. If the rites and rituals of the Old Covenant would have been sufficient, we never would have needed the fulfilment that came in the Lord Jesus. Instead, the perpetual nature of the sacrifices made the people fully aware of their sin because they had to be repeated.
Secondly, we see that Jesus came in order that his people might be set apart. As we’ve seen the word holy means to be set apart. You and I set apart or made holy through the sacrifice of himself. And we see in the verses we will be looking at that this was his mission. As we have seen so many times Jesus is not merely a guru teaching in the middle of nowhere in the middle east. He came to die for his people and to sanctify them.
Third, we see that what Jesus has done for us is final. It is finished. It is once and for all. There isn’t a constant need for sacrifice. Jesus accomplished his work, and he sat down at the right hand of the Father. Because of this we have the utmost confidence that our sins and evil deeds are remembered no more.
As we start off we see a word you’ve heard me use many times. It says that the law has but a shadow of the good thing to come. You’ve heard me say many times that the practices of the Old Testament were but a type and shadow of what was to come in Jesus. That’s exactly what is being said here and it’s a really helpful way for us to understand it. When you look at a shadow of say, a tree, what do you see. You see the shape and form of the tree but it is clearly not the tree itself. As kids didn’t we all see the shadow of someone we knew on the ground while we walked and we would step on them. While we might have joked that we were stepping on their head we knew that wasn’t the actual person. The idea the author of Hebrews is putting out there for us is that the law is a shadow of the heavenly things and not the actual thing itself. Now, this can be a little confusing for us because we naturally hear the word law and our minds are going to go to the moral law. We hear law and we think Ten Commandments. But what the author of Hebrews here is referring to is what you and I would call the ceremonial law. The sacrifices. The ceremonial washing. The incense. The way the priests were required to dress. That is what is meant here and so the idea coming to us is that the tabernacle and all that was done there was like a shadow. It has the shape of the heavenly things but it is just a shadow of what is there. It’s not the true form of the realities in heaven.
We’ve seen in the past weeks how the holy place and the most holy place in the tabernacle and the temple show the realities of God’s holiness and his perfect glory and holiness. But the earthly representations while important in the old covenant were nothing compared to the real deal. Again, the idea of them being a shadow really helps us get this idea.
And so, because of this even the sacrifices aren’t enough. That’s why they are offered over and over again. They aren’t what was actually needed. There was no way for a sinner to be made perfect through them.
If we think about the point the author is making just makes sense. If they could really atone for sin. If they could give the worshiper a clear conscious, why would they have had to continue over and over. As I’ve said many times the sacrifices were bloody and it was a terrible mess. They weren’t making sacrifices because it was a good time. They were doing it to atone for sin. If it really could have purified them why would they have had to continue.
And that’s just the point. The sacrifices were there to remind them that they were sinners. The point was not just to just have a sacrifice for the sake of having sacrifices. The sacrifices not only were a payment for sin but they were a vivid and bloody reminder that blood was being shed for their sin. A life was taken in place of theirs. But, as the author of Hebrews says “It was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins”. And I can imagine this was hard for the Hebrew ears to hear. This was their system. This was what they knew but it was never enough and would never be enough.
And so, with that in mind, we move on to our second point where we see that this was the purpose of Jesus coming. He would offer himself to set his people apart.
And as we look at this set of verses we see that the author of Hebrews goes back to the Old Testament again to quote from Psalm 40. What the author does here is draw out the contrast between what God desires and what he does not. Look at what it says here. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. And we get language like this in other parts of the Old Testament too. You likely remember the phrase I desire mercy and not sacrifice. The idea is that God would rather that the people do his will than just show up on the feast days with an animal for a sacrifice and then go out and not love their neighbor. You can easily imagine what this must have been like in the old covenant because we are prone to the same thing in our day. It would be easy to think all you need to do to be right with God is to show up once a year with the animal you are required to give, have the priests sacrifice it, and then check off the box that you and God are good to go until the next time you are required to bring a sacrifice. AS I said, we are prone to the same thing. Even though we intellectually know that we don’t receive points for going to church or that we can’t check off the box because we’ve kept a command of God. We still find ourselves thinking we’d better do this or do that to keep God happy with us. But, we know the truth is that God would much rather we love him and our neighbor than just put on a religious show.
But it is important that we understand that this doesn’t mean that the sacrifices are nothing. As we saw they reminded the people of their sin. The issue was not the ritual itself but the heart of the worshiper. We can sing a song or say a prayer but if we are not doing it with conviction, then what does any of it mean? That is why we want to be careful not to just go through the motions when we worship God. May God the Holy Spirit be at work in us convicting us and working in us as we hear and speak the word of God and as we declare his wondrous works. That is what is meant here. God takes pleasure in us acknowledging his holiness and his rule in our lives. If we are just doing something to do it, then it doesn’t mean anything.
And we see that the author of Hebrews is letting us know that this was the purpose in the work of Jesus for us. When the one comes who does the will of God it is to do away with the first covenant and to establish the second and we see what that is. The body being offered is that of the Lord Jesus, once for all. This sacrifice, the blood of the perfect lamb of God who is God the Son who has taken on human flesh, is what is needed. It is the body that was prepared to be the one time, ultimate sacrifice. And it sanctifies us. This means that we are set apart and holy. We receive the perfect righteousness of Jesus in place of our sin.
This is what Jesus did. He sanctified us so that we can be in the presence of God. While Jesus taught us and showed us how to live his ultimate purpose was not to come and give you a list of ways to be a better person. He came to sanctify his people. To set us apart as holy and then from that we live our lives in such a way that we reflect that great gift that he has given to us. We desire to live as those who have been set apart to the glory of God because that is who he has made us to be.
And so, we’ve seen that the law shows that humans are sinful and that Jesus came to set us apart and to set us free from sin and finally in this passage we see that this is final. It is have been done to save us once and for all.
And the argument is continuing to unfold here and the author is using imagery that we can understand. We read that priests stand every day and offer repeatedly the same sacrifices. Now, you and I probably would miss the significance of this. Of course he was standing. He was doing a job. And that’s just the point. He was standing. His job was never going to be done if this was the only way that sins could be taken care of. The blood of bulls and goats over and over and over again. You can easily imagine the imagery right, hopefully it isn’t too gruesome in your mind, but you can easily see someone day after day, sacrifice after sacrifice, and the job never ends. And as we’ve seen earlier in Hebrews this includes generation to generation. Levite after Levite standing there offering sacrifices. It would never end because as it says here in verse 11 they can never take away sins. But then we see the contrast to what Jesus has done. After Jesus offered himself what did he do. He sat down. His work is done. He didn’t have to make an offering over and over again. He is seated at the right hand of the Father.
Again, I’m going to remind you. This calls us back to Psalm 110 verse 1. It is a messianic Psalm that is fulfilled in the ascension of Jesus and it is the most quoted Old Testament verse in the Old Testament and in this use of it we get a hint of why this is the case. His work is done. He isn’t offering himself over and over and over again. Instead, he has sat down. His work of redemption is accomplished and it is spelled out clearly.
By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. His work is done.
I’ve shared before that I’ve been trying to instill in the Catechism students an easy way to remember the difference between the law and the gospel. I’ve boiled it down to two words. Do and done. As we’ve seen the law shows us our sin and commands us to do. The gospel is what Jesus has done for us and as we see here it is a single offering and he has perfected for all time those that are being sanctified and set apart as holy. It has been done for you. Jesus sat down.
And the author of Hebrews goes back to where they have gone so many times. The Old Testament is used to back up the argument that has been made. The Holy Spirit has inspired the words that say there is a new covenant coming. A law that is put on the hearts and minds of the people of God and there is such unbelievably good news in this statement for us. He will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.
In Christ, God is not holding your sin against you. You and I do that. We remember what people have done against us, sometimes even when we say that we have forgiven them. But God does not hold our sin against us because they have once and for all been paid for. That wasn’t something that could be said in the old covenant because the sacrifices were continual but Jesus sat down. He took care of them once and for all and the author of Hebrews puts an exclamation point on it all by offering some commentary there in our last verse for today. Where there is forgiveness there is no longer any offering for sin. It’s done. Why? Because they have actually been atoned for. They have been truly forgiven because the blood that was shed was not of bulls and goats but instead it was the precious blood of God the Son in our very own flesh.
And once again, the book of Hebrews unfolds for us the beauty of the gospel. It shows us the foundation of the truths we cling to and from those truths we pull out two points of application to step out from here today with.
The first thing I want us to take home is to prayerfully assess our hearts in relation to worship. We saw today that God took no pleasure in the burnt offerings of the people when they were just using it to check off an obligation off the list. What God desires for us to to worship him with humble hearts full of conviction of his holiness and joyful that we have been rescued by him. The greatest blessing we have in this regard is that we have the greatest possible motivation to live in that way because he has saved us by his grace. We have been saved to the uttermost. That is why the Word of God is the primary catalyst in our worship. It calls us to worship, it calls us to confess our sins, it assures of our forgiveness, it comforts our hearts and challenges us to turn from our sin and rest in God’s grace, and it sends us out from here to serve God and our neighbor. That word that is proclaimed is used by the Spirit of God to convict us of sin with the goal of us turning from it and resting in Christ alone to save. And so as we assess our hearts may we be filled with joy that we are able to worship God and that he has brought us to himself. We can find great peace knowing that even if we find our hearts to be in the wrong place God’s word will call us to himself and we can trust in the Word and the Spirit to do its work in us.
I acknowledge that this is a tough assessment to make. I struggle some Sundays but if we really believe in the power and sufficiency of the Word we can trust that we do not do this on our own. God is at work as he always has been for his people.
Secondly, find rest in the truth that God remembers your sins no more. This is something that we know to be true but I think that we struggle to truly believe it. We sin and we ask for forgiveness but we can’t let it go. God has remembered our sin no more but sometimes we sure can’t let it go. When we read that what Jesus did is once and for all it gives us assurance that our sin is forgiven and we can move on in repentance. Remembering that the work of Jesus is final and absolute should motivate us to live in holiness. Jesus sat down because his work was complete and so the forgiveness you have is absolute and sure.
And so may we get up from here today and rest in the awesome, once and for all work of Jesus on our behalf that gives us peace and hope. May the truth of God’s word be at work in you this week as you bring glory to our savior in your life.
