060 - The Final Sacrifice (18 Sept 2021)

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, in the backyard, when your chickens see a shadow of a hawk on the ground, what do they do? Oh, they go to ground and they look up because there's a reality that they have to deal with. Right, a reality they have to deal with. Shadows can be helpful to tell us about.

Something that's really there. Yeah, today in Hebrews on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. This is Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we are here again at our dining room table. We say that all the time. Well, that's because that's where we always are. That's where we do this. I can't think of a better place. I can't think of a better place to study the Word. You could do it anywhere. Well, actually, during the week when I am preparing to teach the studies that I lead, I always have my stuff spread out here on the dining room table. It's a great place to do it.

It's my central spot. So we are continuing in the book of Hebrews and actually coming to something of a high point and a conclusion this week and next week. But it dawned on me, it dawned on me that this section in Hebrews right now, it's apropos for this part of the calendar of this year in 2021.

Because this broadcast is coming out on September 18th. September 18th on Saturday. Two days ago was Yom Kippur on the Jewish calendar. And that's the Day of Atonement. Probably the biggest calendar date for all Jews is the Day of Atonement. That's where their attendance peaks and stuff. But it's where they really come to a peaked, what do you want to call it, realization of their sin and dealing with their sin.

There's fascinating, there's a lot of stuff that goes on. You can look it up, just Google Yom Kippur. That's what it's called, Yom Kippur. But interestingly enough when you go back in Leviticus, and we always mention back in Leviticus and those books. It describes what goes on in the Day of Atonement. It happens on the tenth day of the seventh month and that's what this is two days ago was on the Jewish calendar. But it really is dealing with the issue of sins and dealing with kind of a preeminent sacrifice for the nation of Israel. Remember the two goats and the bull that are sacrificed and that's mentioned in Leviticus 16.

And so it's interesting as a lead into this because that's very much on Jews mind right now as we do this broadcast. Is we're a couple days after the Day of Atonement. It's consciousness of sin, the conscience of sin is really what they're dealing with. Well and as I understand it in these days in which we live as they come to the Day of Atonement it is a reconciling and a closing the books on last year's sin.

And starting over with a fresh page on the coming year's sin. Right and it's very you know in the Jewish mindset repentance and confession are big deals at this time of year. But what I wanted to point out to as a nice segue into this section in Hebrews 10 today is the fact that they focus on this sacrifice which they cannot do right now because the temple's not there.

But in old time Israel that was the case. The case was you need to do something to atone for the sins of the entire nation. And so every single year, year after year after year on the tenth day of the seventh month you offered sacrifices. And as the writer of Hebrews brings us in here in the middle of Hebrews 10 he's saying this repeated offer of sacrifices now that Christ has come is obsolete, no longer needed. And that sort of sets up for where we are today as we come into Hebrews 10. Well and this idea is going to come up again and again that the law had said offer sacrifices. God had set up this system. That was his law yeah.

But why did he do it? He did it as a shadow, as an indicator of the greater reality. And so that's really what the writer of Hebrews is kind of finishing up that thought in this chapter 10. So we come into chapter 10 talking about the superiority of Christ's sacrifice.

And as I think about Yom Kippur two days ago I'm thinking yeah Christ is the superior sacrifice. So you want to lead us off in chapter 10 verse 1 and just read us in through the first couple of verses. Sure so we're starting right at the beginning of chapter 10. And if you remember the writer has talked about the better things to come and the good things to come. He said we have a better covenant. We have better promises. We have a better priest. We have eternal redemption.

All of these betters he has talked about up to this point. And now he's beginning in chapter 10. Well 10 for us it wasn't for the writer. It was just simply this is where we are. This is the number address we have chapter 10. So four since the law was 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. Oh okay wait. That's a good stopping point. He uses the picture of a shadow right. And I was thinking about that a little bit. The fact that there's a shadow of something indicates that there is a something. There's a real concrete reality that the light is stopping on so that the shadow is created. And that's a really helpful image because sometimes we get confused and we think that the shadow is the reality.

Right we confuse them. Exactly. I mean that was in Psalm 23 when David says though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Right so anyway the writer says the law is the just the shadow of those good things to come and not the concrete reality. And the shadow is useful to tell you a lot about reality. Oh because it tells you there is a reality. Exactly but you don't want to stop on the reality of the shadow.

There's a real reality that casts that shadow. Right okay so that's that's all in verse one he says those sacrifices because they were a shadow can never make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshippers having once been cleansed would no longer have any consciousness of sins. But in these sacrifices there's a reminder of sins every year for it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

That's a good stopping place. I think it is. He's really coming to the end of this superior sacrifice kind of thing because even even the shadow the shadow which is these sacrifices the goats and the bulls and all that kind of stuff. They don't get you to where you need to be that's why he says you know they fail to make you perfect and that you know we talked about that perfect word a lot. It's about coming to the end of the process and the completion of the process.

Right nothing more is needed. Yeah so it's so actually that sort of makes sense because they're doing it year after year so they're never really getting there. And they're being continually reminded because it's never eternally dealt with. Right right so it comes as a reminder every year as they do it about what's going on and what the problem is in their lives and that problem is sin itself. So that idea of that no longer having any consciousness of sin well you know that's that kind of abiding awareness that testifies inside me. It's that little voice that says wow you really messed up.

That's right my own condition before God I have this little voice in me going not good enough not good enough not good enough. Right right and so so offering the blood of bulls and goats will never satisfy that. All it does is it very graphically portrays to you that something dies as a result of your conduct.

Right. Oh boy and it just reminds you that over and over it never really takes care of it. And that you are the one who's deserving the death. Right right and so we already talked about this but this picture of the blood that life is in the blood and so the blood is shed for you.

And you benefit you benefit with life from another losing its life that's the picture of the blood. So this is all that he's talking about he's saying this is this is not going to get you there. This made me flash on a presentation that the apostle Paul made when he was on one of his missionary tours. And he was up in the middle of what is present day Turkey up in Antioch up there. And in Acts 13 he closes his presentation to the Jews up there and says basically this. You know he says so let it be known to you therefore brothers that through this man Jesus forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And by him everyone who believes is freed or justified from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Right right. So he just cuts to the quick and says this law the sacrifice of bulls and goats it's not going to justify it's not going to free you from this problem of sin. Keeping the law period does not free you. Yeah and that was that was Paul's big messages he traveled around the world and spoke to Jews. He was in a synagogue here for the Jews so he's saying look that that sacrifice stuff it's not going to get you there. And here the right of Hebrew says it's not going to get you there. You're not going to you're not going to come to completion because of that.

But it is a potent reminder of your problem. Right. So that's what he goes over through and through. And so he says what's the answer to that? The new covenant is the answer to that.

The answer to the problem of sin not a reminder of sin but the problem of sin is the superior sacrifice in Christ. And so he's been talking about this new covenant through the blood of Christ really from the very beginning of the letter. And again if you've just joined us we're in the letter to the Hebrews in chapter 10.

So let's read on. Consequently when Christ came into the world that's God's anointed appointed one came into the world. He said sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you've taken no pleasure. Then I said behold I've come to do your will oh God as it's written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above you've neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and sin offerings and these are offered according to the law. Then he added behold I've come to do your will. He does away with 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. Oh my gosh how many times has he used that phrase once for all in Hebrews.

This is a good study technique. When you come across a phrase that is repeated every time you find it spoken afresh go back and see where it was before. Because this is oh it's probably come up half a dozen times in the last couple of chapters.

Once for all. Yeah and it's always in the context of sacrifices. Again it reminds me of Yom Kippur this year you know you do these sacrifices over and over and over but there is a once for all sacrifice. So there's a huge question here when he says in burnt offerings and sin offerings you've taken no pleasure. He's quoting Psalm 40 right. But if God wrote the burnt offerings and the sin offerings into the law how is it that that doesn't please him. So what is in this passage that helps us.

So that's a kind of a question that should be arising in your mind as you read this. If God asks for it why is it not pleasing to him. Right indeed actually in Isaiah 1 God says it's worthless.

I'm counting all of your trampling of my courts with the blood of bulls and goats as worthless. Because they were coming without the heart. They were thinking oh we can slaughter enough bulls and shed enough blood and that will satisfy God. Yeah and it even makes me flash back to when you know God's talking about circumcision way back in Genesis. And even at that very beginning he says you know the circumcision the physical circumcision is not the deal. It's the circumcision of the heart.

Right. And that comes out in the very beginning in Genesis where he talks about this circumcision as a physical mark to show that you belong to God. Right and then Moses unpacks that in Deuteronomy. Exactly so the heart issue the internal issue with this consciousness of sin that's really the reality.

That's the issue. Not just the cutting not just the external stuff. Circumcision is a shadow. Yeah they're a shadow they're a shadow of something that's going on internally.

But if the internal thing doesn't happen then the shadows don't mean anything. So it says over and over again I've come to do your will to make it real to act it out. Yeah. Right and Psalm 40 says I delight to do your will oh my God your law is within my heart. Yeah.

So that raised the question in my mind just even as I was reading this today. Well what does please God? What is his will?

If this passage says so clearly know that he's come to do the will of God. Right. And that by that will God's will we've been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus. Well what is it that God requires? Right.

Well all through the Old Testament God requires his people to be holy. Right. To love what he loves to be who he calls them to be. Right if you think back to the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 love the Lord your God with all your heart your soul your might. Right.

You know and I know I'm these are the things that struck me as I was kind of preparing to talk with you all about this today that the doing of God's will is where we get confused. Right. Right that the doing of God's will comes from the heart.

Yeah and it's clear Jesus says this a couple places as I recall I think it's in Matthew several places that you know out of your heart comes things that you say. That's right. Out of your heart comes evil stuff. The heart is actually the reality of who you are. That's right. Not just the stuff that comes out.

The stuff that comes out is kind of to clue you in about what's inside your invisible heart which is just junk. Right. So that's the real reality. So to do your will and to love your will and to love what God loves and to love God himself that's the real heart of the issue. Yeah. That's the heart of the issue and these bloody sacrifices were meant to remind you that you're not lined up with God's will if you're doing sin. You're kind of going off the rails in the wrong direction and because of that life is not coming your way except through the death of another.

Right. So it's a very strong and you know when we say we use that word sanctified in here in this passage and you have to remember every time you see that word sanctify that's the process of bringing you to complete separateness and holiness. Becoming holy. And it really always has the idea of pulling you out of something and into something and so when he talks about sanctify he's talking about pulling you out of the muck that we live in. Pulling you out of the influence of evil and sin.

All that stuff that messes you up. He's actually going to pull you out of that. The stuff that your conscience says man I am all messed up. He is actively pulling you out of that and the place you get to when it's finished you know the telos when you get perfected that's where you're outside of that. So God's in the process of pulling us out of this world of junk and sin which is so pervasive it actually is not on the outside of us it's on the inside of us. And that's God's will that we be sanctified.

That we be pulled out of that. Made holy. Pulled away out from the death and the sin.

To be near him. Yeah so if you really wanted to simplify the old and new covenant the old covenant told you how up to your waist you were in sin and the new covenant says I'll pull you out of that through the blood of Christ. And that's a whole different thing. So there's really nothing wrong with the first covenant you know the original covenant. The covenant which.

Well with the central idea but God said though he found fault with it. Yeah. And the fault he found with it was the fact that we couldn't keep it. That we couldn't keep it and he always knew we couldn't keep it. Right. And it's a very powerful purpose like Paul says to tutor us and point us to our need and our need is Christ and that comes in the second covenant the new covenant.

Together the first one is kind of like bad news the second one is like good news in a sense. But even you know even he says that the law of Moses was good but it was limited and it had its usefulness but its usefulness is now kind of waned and now that Christ has come we move on to the new covenant about not just coming to a reminder of sin but coming to a solution to sin and that's what he does in the body of Christ. That's why he's a superior sacrifice and that's why you only need to do it once. Okay so we need to read on.

Yep. And every priest is verse 11. Verse 11. We're in Hebrews 10 verse 11. 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. Right. Right. There it is again. Sanctified. Once for all for all time he's done it.

There's nothing more to be added. Yep. Yep. And he says he sat down right. That takes us clear back to the beginning of the book. Right. And it also emphasizes when you sit down on the right hand we've talked about this before but he's returning to his place of authority and power actually symbolically speaking you know throne room and stuff like that. But what he's saying is what he was sent to do is done. He did. Right.

It's telos. It's done. And done once and that you don't have to keep redoing. Christ does not need to come back every couple years and die again for the people because that one time sacrifice paid for everyone. Once for all. The single offering. Not the repeated offerings. And it's done. Well and again it's God's will that we be holy and he has made that so through the offering of the blood of Christ. Right.

It's not anything. We don't sign up for it and say I will, I will, I will because the new covenant says God says I will, I will, I will. It's God who does all the pledging in the new covenant.

And where the first covenant was misinterpreted by the Jews they thought if I'm really dutiful. If I do this good enough. If I just do this really, really well. Toe the line on doing these sacrifices and it's up to me to do that. That if I do that perfectly I'll be okay. And that mindset kind of bubbles over into the time of Christ and even bubbles over into the time of now. It's basically what I do is going to change whether or not I'm saved or not. And in this passage and all the passages in the new and old covenant that's not the issue. It's not what you accomplish that does that. And the sacrifices in Moses' time they were just reminders of the fact that man you messed up this week and you're going to mess up next week and you're going to be offering sacrifices and blood all the time for your pervasive sinfulness.

That's a bummer message. But the whole point of the new covenant is that what Jesus did is enough. And I think I said this last week or maybe the week before when Paul says it so succinctly in 2 Corinthians 5 21.

He made him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Yeah. Yeah. So this is the completeness of this one sacrifice.

So nothing more needed. So the writer of Hebrews is using a very familiar image they know about the sacrifices they go through and he says look that that's all done. And in fact I've always wondered whether a Jew when they would go in over and over and over and over and offer you know sacrifices and lambs and goats and bulls and doves and all this blood. I always wanted to think to myself when will this be done.

When can I stop doing this. And the problem is if you're sinful and you can't and there's nothing you can do to stop that. But in Christ you can put all that down and say it's done. Well and those who who really had hearts for God and have hearts for God always understood.

I think so. That this was a shadow. I mean David wrote about it in Psalm 51. I think a lot of Jews picked up the imagery. They got it. They really got it. A sense of desperation where you throw your hands up to God and say God help me.

I am in a bad way. Yeah. And so it's just great good news.

Should we push on. Yep. Yeah.

OK. So in verse 15. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us after saying this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days right after the sacrifice of Messiah. This is the covenant I'll make with them after those days declares the Lord.

I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. And then he adds I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there's forgiveness of these there is no longer any offering for sin. Amen.

Yeah. Amen. We do not have to drag a goat down to the temple and slaughter that poor animal's blood in order to cover our sin. Or in a modern context volunteer for more voluntary things at church to do kind of work off your sinfulness by doing more good you know change the balance of good to bad in my life.

That doesn't work. Actually the writer of Hebrews in the next chapter I think is going to say you know let's offer to God a sacrifice that's pleasing to him which is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. Exactly. So things change. Sacrifice is different for us now. So here in these words right here he really he brings this the sacrifice issue of Christ over and he brings us to a close it's like bingo we're done that's the end of that once for all and he comes back and he reinvokes this Jeremiah 31 passage which is brought before and what a fascinating thing. And you can't underscore this enough the law of God which is a statement of righteousness a heart of righteousness is now written on our hearts and it's not applied externally to our actions it's actually written on our hearts. Which means that we delight in righteousness from the inside out. So it's the opposite of what Jesus says from the heart comes all this evil he says well now guess what's in your heart now my law my statement of righteousness is in your heart and you delight in doing this. And we don't have to apply and you know a speeding law in your life applied from the outside because you'll love doing righteousness. So you remember that when that young man came to Jesus and said tell me what is the greatest commandment in the law right because essentially I got to find that one and do it. And Jesus's answer was and I think three of the four gospels record this.

Yeah important. Here's the greatest commandment love the Lord your God with all your heart your mind your soul your might your strength love him with everything you are and love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah that has always been the heart of what God requires of man that we love God and then we love what he loves. And that comes from inside us.

Yeah that heart issue is the true reality rather right rather than the shadow right that's the true reality. So Jesus came to change the true reality of your heart by writing on your heart righteousness something that you'll love. And you know Jesus also said if you love me you'll do my commandments you do what I say because you love what Jesus loves. So that package is all tied together and here we are finally finally in reality being transformed from the inside out so that our outward actions match a transformed heart. And I always say Jesus told people you'll know people by their fruits by the outside of their life you'll know what's in their heart based on what's on the outside.

Right because what you are inside is going to find its way out your mouth whether you are aware of it or not or in what you do. And so now instead of trying to fake it on the outside God can transform you on the inside and that now that righteousness leaks out into your actions. It looks like the same thing on the outside but the flow is different it's not faked fruit it's real fruit from a transformed heart. I would say it might look the same on the outside.

People attempt to make it look the same. I call that fake fruit you know I need to do these good things and stuff like that. And so now you don't have to sit down wondering what you have to accomplish. What good things do I have to do today?

What good things do I have to add to my list? That was the equivalent of the warp thinking on the first covenant by you know what do I have to sacrifice today because what did I do bad this week? No he's transformed you from the inside out for one time once and for all which applies not only to my sins in the past but all the sins I'll do in the future as well. Completed nothing more is needed. So you know that is an essential study skill is to look for those repeated ideas and phrases and that's really what he's driving home here the once for all the accomplishment the perfection the nothing more being needed as the common phrases that we run into so often in our body of believers that Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. And because of that embracing that truth we can rest.

We can rest. And so we start this wonderful place that God had always intended for us to live and rest because of that. But sin always destroys that. Always brings separation from God destroys that rest. And so he's going to slowly make his way toward that idea again of what God intends for us this rest.

But he had to deal with the problem of sin first. And here we have the superior sacrifice in Christ once for all. And so next week as we start into the rest of chapter 10 he's going to start off with a nice summarizing word therefore. And so he'll wrap it all up and talk about the superiority of the new covenant the superiority not only of the sacrifice but of the high priest. So we hope you join us then because it's a wonderful wrap up of what he's been talking about for many many weeks here in Hebrews.

Before he gets real practical in chapter 12. Exactly exactly. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we are just delighted with it. We hope you're keeping up with us because we think this is kind of like the best stuff in the entire Bible just about. So join us next week as we continue in Hebrews here on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. You got to get to the reality.