The text this morning is from the Letter to the Hebrews, the fourth chapter:
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Imagine you are a Jew. Imagine you live in the time before Jesus. Imagine that you live a hundred miles away from Jerusalem and every year you must make the long trek, by foot and caravan, to that holy city and its Temple in order to bring the sacrifices required for the atonement of your sins. Every year. Every year, you have, not a vacation, but a journey to give to the priests bulls and goats and doves so that your sins may be taken away.
It has to be every year, because only once per year is the high priest of the Temple allowed to go into the Holy of Holies. The high priest, a sinner, is only allowed to approach God once per year, walking into the Holy of Holies with bells on his robe so that you can hear him when he moves. And you want the high priest to keep moving, because if he doesn’t, he’s been killed for his sin, for his breaking the Law of God. And if he dies, he has a rope tied around his ankle so that the other priests can pull him out without entering the Holy of Holies and dying themselves.
That’s the Law. The Law demands that you be there yearly when the high priest enters so that you can have the sacrifice offered to God for you. You have to do that. It’s required. And if you don’t, you will die in your sins. They will not be taken away. They will be bound to you and you cannot escape them. Praying to God for forgiveness wasn’t enough; you had to make the sacrifice. That’s what God’s Law said. Just asking for your sins to be forgiven by God wouldn’t do it. There would have to be spilled blood. And if there was no blood, there was no forgiveness.
You can’t just skip your trip. You can’t just leave one of your family behind. You have to take all that you have, all your loved ones, all your everything, and travel to Jerusalem to make sure that blood would be spilled for each member of your family. This was every year. It was required. There’s no way around it. It was burdensome, yes, but much less burdensome than the idea of dying in your sin, separated from God. The Jews, those who were faithful to God and His Law, delighted in this for the promise of God was that all their sins would be forgiven, taken away from them, and the animal would die in their place. What joyous news that would be to them!
They knew how far they had fallen short of perfect obedience to the Law of God. They knew their sins. Only one God? Broken. Honor the Sabbath? Broken. Obey your parents and authorities? Broken. Don’t covet? Broken. Don’t lust? Broken. They knew their sins and they knew they were in trouble. They didn’t want to break the Law, but they did. And unless there was a sacrifice made for them, they would always be in trouble, they would die.
You see, that’s what we even know the Law demands. Perfect obedience. Perfect obedience is absolutely required to the Law in order to be saved by the Law. But, the Jews of old and even we today know that this cannot be accomplished by us. Try as you might, there is nothing you do perfectly. And of course, we can then either suffer for our sins eternally, or we can be like the Jews of old and look to the shed blood of the sacrifice.
Only, today, there is no Temple. There are no animals. And there are no earthly priests. There is only the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And this Lamb of God is also the Great High Priest, higher than any priest who has come before or since. And this High Priest offers His own blood up as a sacrifice. His blood would be spilled and offered up to God the Father to make atonement for the sins of the entire world.
This is unlike anything that has come before, except that this is the way it has always been. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, has been standing before the Father since the very beginning of creation mediating, standing between, going to the Father for all humanity. He has always been the Great High Priest. He has always been the one who blood was shed for the forgiveness of the world. He has always been the Lamb of God, the sacrifice who would take away the sins of the world.
All that was written in God’s Law regarding the sacrifices needing to be made in the Temple was always a poor copy, a shadow, of what Christ Himself was doing. The sacrifices of the Temple were always to point to something greater, something fuller, something that would take away every sin, not just the sins of the last year. Everything from of old has always pointed us to Christ, and thus we continue to look at Him and the sacrifice He has made, laying Himself down upon the altar of God for God not to see the sins of the people but to count them, you, righteous.
This is what the author of Hebrews is telling us. Jesus Christ, once, once for all, made the sacrifice that would take away your sins. Jesus Christ is not repeatedly dying, He’s not repeatedly offering Himself up. He did it once and that was enough. Once it is appointed to man to die. Thus, Christ being man can only die once. And when Christ died, as when we die, He faced the judgment of God. And, because Christ Himself was perfectly obedient to the Law of God, the judgment of God was, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Though the wrath of God was poured on Christ on the cross, for He had been made sin, taking every sin to Himself to have it crucified with Him, the wrath of God did not rest on Him forever. Rather, the sacrifice that Christ made there upon that cross, for your sake, for your forgiveness, was pleasing to His Father and your Father, so that God declared Him righteous by His obedience.
But what of us, what of me, who still struggle in sin? I sin all the time. I’m a sinner. I know that when I die, I will face judgment and I will not be counted righteous by my obedience. I know it. Neither will you. But, in Christ, for He is the Mediator, He is the one praying for you, the one delivering your needs to the Father, He is the one who is showering you with His righteous blood, protecting you with His body, in Christ, by these means, Christ washes away your sins. And when you then appear before the Father, having been cleansed, having eaten the flesh and blood of the Sacrifice, having been forgiven, the Father looks at you, and declares you righteous, not by your obedience, but by His Son’s obedience.
You see, when the blood of Christ is on you, in you, the blood of Christ covers over you so that the Father judges you by Christ and not by your own works. When the blood of Christ, the blood of the sacrifice, is on you, you and Christ are one. His works are your works, and your works are His. You are unified with Christ. Not that you are the Mediator, but that you are in the Mediator, and He knows you, prays for you, has given up His sacrifice for your sake.
Thus it is that our Lord has done His work. He has offered Himself up once, and, thus, having ascended to the right hand of the Father, reminds Him, even as we plead His very blood, that Christ has made us His own brothers and sisters, adopting us in the very name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Our Great High Priest is able to stand before God more than once per year; He does so always and never tires. We never have to wait for His forgiveness; His blood is available to us always, and so He is always available. He is not constantly making atonement, but He is constantly going to the Father for your sake, so that the Father would hear your righteous prayers asked in Christ’s name. Christ, the Holy One, is doing this for you.
Because of this, we need have no fear. Our sins are not seen or counted by any person of the Godhead. They only count us righteous on account of Christ. Through this, we may be free to serve, to live, to breathe as righteous people who sin. We may be free in our sin, not that we should seek to sin, or that we should hold onto our sin, but we are free in that we find forgiveness in that sin through the blood of Jesus. Sin no longer holds us captive. We can do all the things we desire to do to love and serve our neighbors. We may mess them up, we may sin, but in Christ, we find forgiveness from Him and from each other.
That’s the reason for this community, this congregation, so that we may come before God, approaching His altar, receive the blood of His sacrifice, and that we, as a kingdom of priests, may forgive one another their sins, not holding them against them. For Christ is not coming back to convict you of your sin. That’s what the Holy Spirit is doing now. And He’s not coming back to offer Himself up again for the forgiveness of sins. That’s what the Holy Spirit is delivering to you now. He’s coming back to save us who await Him eagerly. He’s coming back to give you the eternal life promised in the obedience of the Law. He’s coming back to show you the life He won for you, the life He earned, and to give it to you. He’s coming back to bring you out of the grave. He’s coming back to save you.
That day will be glorious. For the High Priest will descend from the heavens, showing for all to see the Holy of Holies, Christ Himself. And there is no need to fear that day. He will not strike you dead, you who await from the Lord great and abundant mercy. He will give you life, for there His sacrifice will be made clear to all, and all in Him will live under Him in blessed assurance of the forgiveness of their sins, for even sin and death shall be no more when the High Priest comes back for you. Come, Lord Jesus. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment