For 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. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?
3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
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.’”
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. 11
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
15
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16
“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”
17
then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
After our short break into the last week of the life of our Savior, we are back to our study in Hebrews. We are still in a section that speaks to us about the Old
and New Covenant. The argument that we are making is that the problem with the old was not the covenant itself, not its administration or its mediator, Moses. The problem was in the people, they had no faith. They did not believe nor trust the God who had
brought them into relationship with Himself.
The generation that is being highlighted is the wilderness generation. The Old Covenant is not a chronological thing, it is faith versus unbelief. Therefore, Abraham,
Ruth, Isaiah, John the Baptist, Paul were New Covenant believers as the characteristics of the New Covenant relationship with God as we studied in chapter 8 belong to all who have faith. The Old Covenant would include the wilderness generation and all who
are joined to the people of God but who have no faith, no trust, no belief in the Lord.
Second, we looked at what the author of Hebrews calls types and shadows. The OT sacraments which included all the sacrifices, feast days and holy convocations. All
of those things had effect as long as the people had faith and trust in the promises of God through those rituals and rites. It is the same for us. We too have sacraments, the Eucharist and Baptism convey truth to faith. They are gifts the Lord has given to
keep our eyes on the promises that God has made in His Anointed one.
As our text says these shadows had to be offered over and over again as a reminder of sin and the provision of God for sin. Christ had not come, Christ who is the
substance of all of those rituals. Christ came and became everything those pictures were pointed to.
Perhaps you think, do we really have to have a reminder of sin? Come on…do you really think that only the Old Testament folks needed to be reminded of their sin? You
never rationalize your sin? Never? You never distract yourself so that you don’t have to deal with yourself? You never look down on others so you feel better about your own moral failings? Have you ever told yourself that your sin, although not what you want
to be or do, is not really that bad? And what about the prescriptive commands…that is all the things we are commanded to be doing that we are not doing, nor even thinking we should?
Among other things, isn’t that what the Eucharist does? Does it not remind us of the body and blood of Jesus? Is it not a re-enactment of what He has done for us precisely
because we are sinners? Jesus comes, as the text says, as does the will of the Father…perfectly. He is perfectly obedient to everything God the Father called Him to. The sacrifices of the Old Testament, the Eucharist itself, finds its telos, its end in the
Christ of God.
All of this brings me to the quandary of the text although I admit it is easy to miss. I want to draw your attention to verse 10 and verse 14.
In verse ten we read that we have been sanctified through Jesus Christ, once and for all. And then in verse 14 we read that for those for whom He died, we are being
sanctified. So, one verse says we have been made holy and acceptable once and for all and the other says, no, we are still in the process of being made holy. The word that is used in both cases means set apart, we use the word sanctify or to sanctify.
So…what is the relationship between Christ’s once for all sacrifice which has MADE US HOLY and the continuing seeking for forgiveness, the continuing process of our being
made holy that is required in the Bible from page to page? This ties in with our message yesterday, Easter Sunday.
If we have been, past tense, made holy, what does it mean that we are being made holy…being made something that we already are? It is not an easy question
to answer, not least because the Bible never seems to address it directly. Or to put it another way, how can it be true, which we know it is that, “there is therefore now no condemnation to the man who is in Christ Jesus” and, at the same time,
that we must seek over and over again the forgiveness of our sins.
And what is interesting is that there is no place in the Bible where the tension between those two truths is faced head on, and resolved. They are both simply stated
as being true, with no explanation. And to make things even more tangled, we see that both truths are taught by the same Biblical author and in the same book!
Paul talks about the finality of Christ’s work on our behalf as though it is done, once and for all. But he also talks about our need for continuing forgiveness. Let
me state it for you again: We believe that the pardon granted to us when we believe in Jesus Christ, applies to all our sins: past, present and future. Paul says not only that there is no condemnation for the person in Christ, but that no one can lay a charge
against us because it is God who has justified us.
But there is no doubt that believers continue to sin after they have been justified and are required to pray for the forgiveness of their sins and even spend a lifetime
mortifying those sins…putting them to death, a process that we will engage in all our days.
In the Lord’s prayer Jesus taught his disciples to always pray “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” We include in our worship every Sunday morning
a confession of our sins, as we are taught to do in Holy Scripture. This sermon we are studying, that we know as Hebrews, is a summons to these Jewish Christians to repent of their sins, to seek forgiveness from the Lord, and to put on new obedience. The Bible
not only teaches this a thousand times, but you and I know it from painful, bitter experience.
The Lord Jesus by his terrible sacrifice and perfect obedience may have made us perfect forever, but he certainly did not take sin out of our lives or make it unnecessary
for us to confess our sins or to seek forgiveness. The punishment of death that is due to all of us because of our sin, has been removed, or rather has been endured by Jesus on our behalf. However, the culpability of that sin, the ugliness of
it, the unworthiness of it, this has not been removed.
The inherent evil of our sin remains, we know it does, and we feel the evil of it and the offense of it. And that offense produces in us, and properly so, a sense
that we have offended our heavenly Father.
We rightly at times, feel separation from him, we rightly grieve that we have offended him by our disobedience, we are conscious that having failed to do right and
having done wrong we need to acknowledge that to our Father and ask his forgiveness and seek to change our behavior so that it IS pleasing to Him. We may even fear our heavenly Father’s paternal displeasure and his discipline.
Fathers can punish their children, and rightly, very severely for their sins without any suggestion that the child’s place in the family is in jeopardy. In a family,
sins must be confessed and forgiven, because sin disturbs family relationships and because fathers want their children to grow up in holiness and goodness. Sins must be confessed, forgiven and behavior must change, that is the Christian life and it reaches
into every human relationship.
When the joy and peace that is ours because we HAVE BEEN forgiven is disturbed or is troubled by our sins, when it is obscured and clouded over, we are right to look
up to him in humility, honestly acknowledge our fault so that our relationship with our Father will be renewed and restored.
It is our Father who extends us that forgiveness, that kind of pardon. It is not God as Judge, but God as Father who cleanses us from our daily, already pardoned
sins. Of course, we get that forgiveness day after day, still and only on the basis of Christ’s perfect and finished work, that once for all made them perfect before God. When John, for example, says that if we confess our sins God will forgive them, he goes
on to say that
“…if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours
but also for the sins of the whole world.”
The only basis for our forgiveness is made possible only because Christ gave up his life on our behalf and suffered the punishment our sins deserved in our place
and for our sakes. We get the daily pardon only because we already have the once-for-all pardon. In the Upper Room, Jesus prepares to wash the feet of his disciples. Peter, being Peter, objects to the Lord washing HIS feet. Jesus says, if I don’t wash your
feet, you have nothing to do with me! Peter says, well then, not only my feet but my whole body! Jesus says, you are already clean, only your feet are dirty.
You belong to me, you have been cleansed, you have been made holy…However…you have walked through this life, you are walking day by day through a world of sin…your
feet are dirty…you need ME, you need Jesus and only Jesus, to wash your feet as you are being made holy.
My friends, you are in Christ…you are clean, you have been made holy, and you are a child of the Most High…However…you walk through this life…through this world of
sin…battling in your words, actions and heart with the sin that remains…Jesus must wash your feet…Jesus must cleanse you, daily…and praise the Lord…He does exactly that…because He is making you holy.
Prayer: Father, thank you for your covenant promises, may we your people embrace them and expect to see Your faithfulness to Your Word bearing fruit in our lives. The attacks of the
evil one come against our faith and at times we feel the weakness of our faith and so we pray, “we believe, help our unbelief”!, Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Children of the Heavenly Father
