Perfect Forever
Hebrews 10:11 – 25
Last year we learned as went through Leviticus in Bible Study, that there are many different reasons that the Israelites were instructed to make sacrifices to God for their disobedience to the Law that Moses brought down for Mt Sinai and there were many different objects of sacrifice that were required, mostly the blood animals of one sort or another.
All adult male Israelites were required to give regular sacrifices to atone for their sins, whether they were aware of them or not. Offering sacrifices to God kept the Hebrews working the get back to “even” with God and kept the priests of the Temple busy 24 hours a day, 7 days of the week.
With that background, we come to today’s lesson in the Book of Hebrews, a letter whose author is officially unknown but the teaching sounds very “Paul-esque”, so maybe Paul wrote it, maybe it was written by his longtime friend and ministry partner Luke, maybe by Barnabas or Silas but any case, for simplicity’s sake, we will be assuming Paul as the author for today.
In this letter to the Hebrews, Paul is writing to convince them that now that Jesus has arrived, sacrificed himself, died on the cross, was resurrected and ascended into heaven and is seated beside the throne of God, that the ways of the Hebrews must necessarily change if they are going to truly believe in and accept the mission, ministry and purpose of Jesus.
Paul opens our lesson today with these words “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins forever”.
Granted these were the God given rules and rituals for the Hebrew people from the earliest time as God’s favored nation. These regulations were intended as a method, a righteous pattern if you will, to keep them in connection with their Heavenly Father, and to remind them that they were special to him and unique in a world that was enamored with pagan Gods. After all their God, our God, is a jealous God, jealous for his relationship with his people because he passionately loves them and does not want them to be destroyed by idolatry of secular gods. These rituals, this spiritual pattern, continues for centuries generation after generation even after the coming of Christ.
So, Paul is writing to these Christian Jews, some 30 years after the Christ event, and they are still adhering to the Law that prescribed repeated animal sacrifices for sin. The very repetitive nature of the sacrifices in fact, showed that they did nothing to change the long-term standing of the sinners with God. They could not make them complete; they did not make them whole. They did not deal with sin decisively, finally, once for all.
Nothing decisive and once-for-all-time happened to deal with their sin, with their disobedience, they remained imperfect. Because if those sacrifices had perfected the people once for all-time, God would not have needed to send more Divinely empowered force, one that not only could bring spiritual fulness to mankind but one that could also defeat eternal death, stop eternal separation from God for the children of God.
Paul continues in our lesson today by contrasting the effectiveness and efficacy of the offerings performed by earthly priests with the sacrifice by another priest sent from God. Paul writes: When this priest offered for all time, one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice alone, he has Perfected Forever those who are being made holy. So, let’s see if we can unpack and understand these amazing verses.
Clearly this other priest is Jesus, the High Priest sent to us from God to sacrifice one time, for all time, no further offering for sin is or can become necessary. What the earthly priests couldn’t do, is what Christ alone has done. After that the new priest sits down at the Right Hand of God.
Second, it means that God is satisfied with the sacrifice. God honors Christ with the seat at his right hand to show how fully he is satisfied with the payment for our debt of sin. Consequently, all of our sins are fully dealt with.
Third, it means that Christ, together with his Father, is the sovereign ruler over all his enemies, they ARE defeated. He is “waiting from that time onward until his enemies, (read that as all the forces of evil) will be made a footstool for his feet.”
In other words, everything Christ died to accomplish has been accomplished. No enemy can hinder his work in the end. The atonement for mankind was utterly complete; the Father was utterly satisfied; and all the enemies will fall utterly before the reigning Christ in heaven.
And finally, “Through “one sacrifice alone” he has Perfected Forever those who are being made holy”. In God’s eyes, when we come to Jesus in faithfulness, we have been perfected by virtue of being joined to Jesus through faith, then we are free to engage in our sanctifying journey to glorification through Jesus!
Friends, in salvation we have been made Perfect Forever, yet we still need to be “made holy”, to grow into the image of Christ. Through his death and resurrection, Christ, once for all, made his believers perfect in God’s sight. At the same time, he is also making us holy, progressively cleansed and set apart for his special use through the Holy Spirit. We should not be surprised, ashamed, or shocked that we still need to grow. God is not finished with us; the Holy Spirit continues to make us Holy.
As I have reminded you, we spend the better part of the church year, focusing on and concentrating in the faithful maturation of our souls. The weeks between Pentecost, which is the arrival of the Holy Spirit to be with us continuously and always, and the beginning of Advent, which happens in two weeks, is what I like to call the “Sanctification Season”, the season of being made Holy as Paul tells us today.
For this church year, this week is the 25th week of “Sanctification Season”. 25 out of 52, you do the math! Even though we were deemed “Perfected” by God, made whole and complete when we found salvation in the one-time for all-time and all-people sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Paul tells us we still need to continue to mature day by day, into the perfect human likeness of Jesus Christ until we reach complete holiness, or glorification in our return to the Father.
Paul reinforces this for us by telling us that The Holy Spirit testifies to us about the changes that are in store for us as we are being made Holy. “This is the covenant I will make with them; I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” That, dear ones, is Sanctification, being made Holy. “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” and to whom these sins have been forgiven, repeated sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. That, friends, is eternal, one-time for all-time forgiveness. In these truths we find that we have been made Perfect Forever and will be made Holy!
Hear the Good News my Friends………..
The old covenant requiring constant and repetitive sacrifice is done away with, and we have a God that has forgiven us for all time and claimed us as Perfect Forever. Now Paul tells us that we should respond in five ways which can be summed up this way.
Let’s keep a firm grip on His promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how determined that we can be in encouraging, loving and helping each other out, and staying in worship together, not avoiding as some do but rather be together in worship, spurring each other on and encouraging others as they encourage us for the sanctifying journey ahead!
Friends I leave you with these thoughts from C.S. Lewis:
If we let Him, and we can prevent Him, if we choose, He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating throughout with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said. — C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity (1952).
What he has said through the Apostle Paul is the through the one-time, for all-time and for all sacrifice that is accepted in payment for their sins; I will forgive their sins, I will make them Holy, and I will claim them for myself as Perfect Forever! Amen.