Hebrews 10

Hebrews 10

The Timeless Untamperable Contract:  Covenants – made between two parties in Bible times – were commonly “sealed” in one of these ways:  A shoe was exchanged (Ruth 4:7) salt was eaten Numbers 18:19, or an animal was slain Gen. 15: 7:21.  Of these, the third was the most binding and inviolable.  Hebrews 10:29 tells us how the “New Covenant” was sealed!

The sacrifice of Christ was only offered once.  It was the demonstration of its eternal efficacy. Had the Jewish sacrifices rendered the worshipers really perfect before God, they would have ceased to be offered. The apostle is speaking of the yearly sacrifice on the day of atonement. For if they had been permanently made perfect, they would have had no more conscience of sins, and could not have had the thought of renewing the sacrifice.

Very important: the conscience is cleansed, our sins being expiated, the worshiper drawing nigh by virtue of the sacrifice. The meaning of the Jewish service was that guilt was still there.  For the Christian, guilt is gone. The reason is evident: the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin. Therefore those sacrifices have been abolished, and a work of another character (although still a sacrifice) has been accomplished…a work which excludes all other, and all the repetition of the same, because it consists of nothing less than the self devotedness of the Son of God to accomplish the will of God, and the completion of that to which He was devoted: an act impossible to be repeated, for all His will cannot be accomplished twice, and, were it possible, it would be a testimony of the inadequacy of the first, and so of both.

Most solemn passage (v. 5-9), in which we are admitted to know which passed between God the Father and Himself when He undertook the fulfillment of the will of God.  Jesus takes the place of submission and of obedience, of performing the will of another. God would no longer accept the sacrifices that were ordered under the law. He had no pleasure in them. In their stead He had prepared a body for His Son. Thus, in taking this place, the Son of God put Himself into the position to obey perfectly. In fact He undertakes the duty of fulfilling all the will of God.

" Then said he, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God." Nothing can be more solemn than thus to lift the veil from that which takes place in heaven between God and the Word who undertook to do His will.

'"to do thy will," this in itself is absolute and complete submission. And this it is which the Lord, the Word, did. He did it also, declaring that He came in order to do it. He took a position of obedience by accepting the body prepared for Him. He came to do the will of God.

And it is very important to see these things in the free offer made by divine competency, and not only in their fulfillment in death. It gives quite a different character to the bodily work here below.

The Word then assumes a body, in order to offer Himself as a sacrifice. Besides the revelation of this devotedness of the Word to accomplish the will of God, the effect of His sacrifice according to the will of God is also set before us.  We are sanctified. We are set apart and by the means of the sacrifice offered to God.

Sanctification is a complete setting apart to God, as belonging to Him at the price of the offering of Jesus. The offering is "once for all." No repetition. Our sanctification is eternal in its nature. It does not fail. It is never repeated. We belong to God for ever according to the efficacy of this offering. The priests among the Jews-for this contrast is still carried on-stood before the altar continually to repeat the same sacrifices which could never take away sins. But this Man, when He had offered one sacrifice for sins, [5] at the right hand of God.

There-having finished for His own all that regards their presentation without spot to God-He awaits the moment when His enemies shall be made His footstool. Here (v. 12-14), the word " forever " has the force of permanence - uninterrupted continuity. He is ever seated, we are ever perfected, by virtue of His work and according to the perfect righteousness in which, and conformably to which, He sits at the right hand of God upon His throne, according to that which He is personally there, His acceptance on God's part being proved by His session at His right hand. And He is there for us. He is seated there forever. The Holy Ghost bears witness to us of it. The will of God is the source of the work; Christ, the Son of God accomplished it; the Holy Ghost bears witness to us of it. The Holy Ghost bears us witness, " Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."

Blessed position! The certainty that God will never remember our sins and iniquities is founded on the steadfast will of God, on the perfect offering of Christ, now consequently seated at the right hand of God, and on the sure testimony of the Holy Ghost. It is a matter of faith that God will never remember our sins.

Consider:    Complete pardon did not exist under the first covenant.

                        The One Sacrifice having obtained remission, no others can be offered in order to obtain it. A sacrifice to take away the sins which are already taken away, there cannot be. We are therefore in reality on entirely new ground-on that of the fact, that by the sacrifice of Christ our sins are altogether put away, and that for us, who are sanctified and partakers of the heavenly calling, a perfect and everlasting permanent cleansing has been made, remission granted, eternal redemption obtained. So that we are, in the eyes of God, without sin, on the ground of the perfection of the work of Christ, who is seated at His right hand, who has entered into the true holiest, into heaven itself, to sit there because His work is accomplished. Thus all liberty is ours to enter into the holy place (all boldness) by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, that is His flesh, to admit us without spot into the presence of God Himself, who is there revealed. For us the veil is rent, and that which rent the veil in order to admit us has likewise put away the sin which shut us out.  We have THE great High Priest over the house of God Who represents us in the holy place.

Believers therefore enter with entire liberty into the presence of God Himself!

By sin communion is interrupted; our righteousness is not altered…for that is Christ Himself at God's right hand in virtue of His work; nor is grace changed, and "He is the propitiation for our sins;" but the heart has gotten away from God, communion is interrupted. But grace acts in virtue of perfect righteousness, and by the advocacy of Christ on behalf of him who has failed: his soul is restored to communion. Nor is it that we go to Jesus for this; He goes, even if we sin, to God for us. His presence there is the witness of an unchangeable righteousness which is ours; His intercession maintains us in the path we have to walk in, or as our Advocate He restores the communion which is founded on that righteousness. Our access to God is always open. Sin interrupts our enjoyment of it, the heart is not in communion; the advocacy of Jesus is the means of rousing the conscience by the action of the Spirit and the word, and we return (humbling ourselves) into the presence of God Himself. The priesthood and advocacy of Christ refer to the condition of an imperfect and feeble, or failing, creature upon earth, reconciling it with the perfectness of the place and glory in which divine righteousness sets us. The soul is maintained steadfast or restored.

Exhortations follow. *Having the right thus to approach God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith. This is the only thing that honors the completeness and effectiveness of Christ's work, and the love which has thus brought us to enjoy God. *We are to persevere in the profession of the hope without wavering. He Who made the promises is faithful.

Not only should we have this confidence in God for ourselves, but we are also to consider one another for mutual encouragement; and, at the same time, not to fail in the public and common profession of faith.  Have an open identification of yourself with the Lord's people in the difficulties connected with the profession of this faith before the world. This guards Christians from turning back to the world, and from the influence of the fear of man, rather than the Lord's coming to take up His own people. Verse 23-6 are connected.  Perseverance in a full confession of Christ, for His one sacrifice once offered was the only one! If any who had professed to know its value abandoned it, there was no other sacrifice to which he could have recourse, neither could it be ever repeated. There remained no more sacrifice for sin. All sins were pardoned by the completeness and finality  of HIS sacrifice: If, after having investigated the truth, one chooses sin instead, there was no other sacrifice. Nothing but judgment remains.

We have heard and repeated two great privileges of Christianity…distinguishings it from Judaism, presented in order to warn those who made profession of the former, that the renunciation of the Truth, after enjoying these advantages, was fatal; for if these means of salvation were renounced, there was no other!!!!

They who despised the law of Moses died without mercy. What then would not those deserve at the hand of God, who trod underfoot the Son of God, counted the blood of the covenant, by which they had been sanctified, as a common thing, and did despite to the Spirit of grace? It was not simple disobedience, however evil that might be; it was contempt of the grace of God, and of that which He had done, in the Person of Jesus, in order to deliver us from the consequences of disobedience.

Every individual who had owned Jesus to be the Messiah, and the blood to be the seal and foundation of an everlasting covenant available for eternal cleansing and redemption on the part of God, acknowledging himself to be set apart for God, by this means, as one of the people…every such individual would, if he renounced it, renounce it as such; and there was no other way of sanctifying him. The former system had evidently lost its power for him, and the true one he had abandoned. This is the reason why it is said, " having received the knowledge of the truth."

Nevertheless he hopes better things, for fruit, the sign of life, was there. He reminds them how much they had suffered for the truth, and that they had even received joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had a better and an abiding portion in heaven. They were not to cast away this confidence, the reward of which would be great. For in truth they needed patience, in order that, after having done the will of God, they might receive the effect of the promise. And He who is to come will come soon.

There is a principle which is the strength and character of this life. In the midst of the difficulties of the Christian walk the just shall live by faith; and if anyone draws back, God will have no pleasure in him. " But" says the author, placing himself as ever in the midst of the believers, "we are not of them who draw back, but of them that believe unto the saving of the soul." Thereupon he describes the action of this faith, encouraging believers by the example of the elders who had acquired their renown by walking according to the same principle as that by which the faithful are now called to walk.