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If you would remain standing and turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10, we’ll be reading
verses 1 through 18, looking at that as our passage this morning for our sermon.
Hebrews chapter 10, verses 1 through 18.
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.
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 is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for
the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have
not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.
In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
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.
When he said you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and burnt offerings
and sin offerings, these are offered according to the law.
Then he added, Behold, I have 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.
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.
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us.
For after saying, 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.
Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
And then let’s pray.
Lord in heaven, we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit these living words that sit
before us that we have heard, we have written down, would merely be death to us if we do
not have your powerful Spirit working in our hearts and minds to give us the light of the
knowledge of Christ.
So Lord, we ask that your Spirit would be present in the proclamation and in the hearing
and in the believing.
Lord, we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen, may we be seated.
But why didn’t you obey me?
This is the question that little Callie Cleary, future English, found herself being asked
repeatedly in middle school by her mom, especially in terms of being picked up after dance and
soccer practice.
No matter how firm the deadline, how specific the time, set beforehand of where to be and
when, other things took priority.
It wasn’t that they were bad things.
Most often it was different forms of ministry.
This friend needed a listening ear, but that friend really needed to be evangelized to.
And all other commitments were immediately unimportant.
I’m glad you’re trying to minister to your friends at school, but that’s no sanction
for disobedience, her mom told her.
I’m your mother and what I want is for you to obey me.
You don’t get to independently determine that my commands are suddenly less important than
whatever good thing you want to do in the moment.
Despite these instructions, middle school Callie continued to struggle to stick to her
prior parental instructions.
Until she came across the story of the famous president, Abraham Lincoln, from his own childhood.
In the story, young Abe went out to the woods with his older sister to try out his new ax
on the forest trees.
His father had told Abe to look behind him before every swing and only choose a certain
species of soft-wooded tree for his first felling.
In his excitement and overconfidence, Abe failed to choose the correct tree and to look
behind him after his first few swings and inadvertently cut his sister’s leg quite deeply.
In a courageous effort to save his sister, he quickly picked her up and ran barefooted
the several miles back to the house.
The doctor, when he got there, told Abe that his courage and strength to bring his sister
back so quickly had definitely saved her leg and possibly her life.
But all Abe could think about was the fact that if it weren’t for his disobedience, his
sister wouldn’t be in that position in the first place.
For him, it became a lesson that he took into adulthood.
For the young Callie, reading about this herself, it became a turning point as well.
Observing the devastating consequences of disobedience in Abe’s life helped middle
school and later high school Callie to prioritize her own obedience to her mother’s commands,
to be at the car for pickup after school at the right time.
Our passage this morning is talking about obedience and sacrifices.
The sacrifices were needed because obedience hadn’t happened and it wasn’t happening.
But both were lacking in the Old Testament sacrificial system.
Something better, or rather someone better, had to come and fix both.
This morning we’re looking at the first half of Hebrews chapter 10 and we’ll consider
three things that God wants.
Number one is obedient sacrifice.
Number two, God wants sacrificial obedience.
Number three, God wants sanctified fellowship.
Number one, obedient sacrifice.
Look at verse one, 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.
Up to this point, the author of Hebrews has mentioned various aspects of the Old Testament
worship, which he said were shadowy sketches, which were effective at pointing ahead to
Christ, but were quite ineffective at eradicating sin or achieving atonement.
He mentioned the tabernacle and the sacrifices in chapters eight and nine.
But in chapter 10, he turns his attention to the law.
He’s already mentioned the law in chapter seven in regard to the priesthood.
The law-appointed priests of Aaronic descent from the tribe of Levi have been superseded
by the Melchizedekian priest-king who was individually appointed by God’s direct oath.
This carries an implication for the law.
In chapter seven, verse 12, the author says, for when there is a change in the priesthood,
there’s a change in the law as well.
The author of Hebrews dismisses the law further in verse 18 of chapter seven.
He says, for on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness,
for the law made nothing perfect.
And we see a return to the ineffectiveness of the law as we begin chapter 10.
In chapter seven, the criticisms were leveled at the priesthood.
But in chapter 10, the sacrifices themselves are the target.
The change in the law became clear at the change in the priesthood.
It’s revealed to impact the sacrifices as well in our passage.
We don’t just need a sinless, indestructible high priest who is also a king to offer our
sacrifices.
We also need him to offer the sacrifices in the heavenly tabernacle, namely God’s very
presence.
But we don’t just need a better priest and a better tabernacle.
We also need a better sacrifice.
The law made provisions for, quote, the same sacrifices that are offered every year.
The writer of Hebrews says right there, that ought to have been a clue.
They weren’t actually doing the job.
Look at verses two through four.
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 is a reminder of sins every year.
For it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls and goats to take away sins.
If you ever have had to call a plumber or electrician or an HVAC contractor, you wouldn’t
consider it a successful visit if you had to keep calling him back to fix the same issue
over and over again.
When you’ve called the same guy to fix the problem multiple times, it’s not his ability
that you’re assured of.
Usually, by the second time, you’re looking for a new technician.
The writer of Hebrews is saying the repetition which was baked into the Old Testament sacrifices
was not a sign that they were fixing the problem.
It was meant to signify their insufficiency.
And he’s saying that to a certain extent, the sacrifices which were representing the
cleansing of the people ought to have reminded the people just as much of their ongoing sinfulness.
But don’t let this critique by the author of Hebrews make you think that no one in the
Old Testament ever realized this.
The Psalms and prophetic books are full of references to the inadequacy of sacrifices,
even if it wasn’t fully clear what God’s final solution would be.
The author of Hebrews portrays Christ as quoting Psalm 40 to make his point, verses five and
six.
Consequently, when Christ 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 have taken no pleasure.
Here’s one of the many hints in the Old Testament that the sacrificial system was ultimately
not able to take care, complete the job of taking care of sin.
The inspired psalmist says that ultimately the sacrifices God instituted weren’t fully
pleasing to him.
And the writer of Hebrews emphasizes this in verse eight.
When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings
and burnt offerings and sin offerings, then he adds, these are offered according to the
law.
Sandwiched in between statements about God’s displeasure with sacrifices, we find the phrase
a body you have prepared for me.
What may have been obscure to an earlier audience is clear when looking back from our vantage
point as a reference to Christ.
The problem with the sacrifices was that they weren’t human.
One of the reasons that the previous sacrifices were insufficient is that they were not human.
It was not animals who sinned, it was man.
Yet day after day, month after month, year after year, animals were killed as a substitute
for sinful men and women.
This would never do.
Now on the one hand, God explicitly forbade human sacrifice and repeatedly reminded Israel
how much their infant sacrifices to foreign gods disgusted him.
But on the other hand, it wasn’t animals who sinned.
Animals are not made in God’s image.
They’re not held morally responsible for their thoughts and intentions the way that humans
are.
Only a human could truly be substituted for another human.
Humans have sinned and their atonement must involve a human substitute.
But additionally, animals lacked the ability and responsibility for their willing actions.
The substitutionary sacrifice must also be voluntary.
Look at verse 7 of Hebrews 10.
And I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the
scroll of the book.
In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis viewed this as a central element of the atonement.
His character, Aslan, upon his resurrection after being sacrificed the night before, explains
his actions like this, quote, It means, said Aslan, that though the witch knew the deep
magic, there is a deeper magic still which she did not know.
Her knowledge goes only back to the dawn of time.
But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness
before time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.
She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed
in a trader’s stead, the table would crack and death itself would start working backwards.
Jesus made very clear throughout his ministry that his death was intentional and a purposeful
part of his mission.
You can look at John chapter 10, verses 17 through 18.
In John chapter 10, Jesus goes out of his way to make clear that his death is by his
own design.
John 10, verse 17, For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that
I may take it up again.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again, and this charge
I have received from my Father.
No bull, goat, lamb, or dove were asked for their sacrificial cooperation.
But not so with Christ.
He laid his life down.
There was no coercion involved.
The one sacrifice that was effectual was performed by a willing victim, a sinless man willingly
dying in the place of sinful men and women.
Christ’s death was a voluntary sacrifice on his part, but it was an act of obedience
towards God as well, which leads us to consider the second thing that God wants.
Number two, sacrificial obedience.
We see this in verses 7 through 9.
Verse 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.
And 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.
Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will.
Christ was given a body for the purpose of doing God’s will, of obedience.
As God, Christ owes no one anything.
He answers to no one.
So he became man, taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul in order to fulfill
the righteous requirements of the law.
Christ became a man in order to offer to God true obedience as the only being, God, who
didn’t owe God anything.
All throughout the gospels, from Jesus’ birth to his death and his resurrection, there’s
a constant refrain as it was written.
This is not an unconscious fulfillment of prophecy about Jesus’ life either.
Jesus repeatedly tells those around him of the necessity of his fulfilling these prophecies
concerning himself and his ministry.
From the time that John the Baptist tries to refuse baptizing him and Jesus tells him,
Let it be, for it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness, to the devil tempting him,
to the disciples trying to dissuade him from going to the cross, as Jesus told them, it
is necessary that the Son of Man suffer as it was written.
Jesus faced opposition to his self-conscious obedience everywhere, yet he never wavered.
God was displeased with the sacrifices he instituted because they only pictured cleansing
from sin without ever effectuating it fully.
In order for a sacrifice to be effectual, it had to be offered by the right person,
in the right place, and most importantly, it had to be the right sacrifice.
For the blood to cleanse, it had to be the right blood.
And we’ve seen how Christ is the right priest to offer the sacrifice.
How he’s in the right place, the heavenly tabernacle, aka God’s presence.
Now we’re looking at how he is the right sacrifice.
The animal sacrifices had to be a spotless animal because what they were picturing was
that the sacrifice needed to be sinless.
This means the only man suitable as a sacrifice was a sinless one.
He had to be perfectly obedient all of his life.
But a perfectly obedient, sinless man could only earn life for himself under God’s conditions
with the first man, Adam.
In order to provide life to another sinner, this sinless man would have to positively
keep all of God’s commands and then negatively submit to the final obedience required by
the sinner, which was death, to pay the penalty obediently for his own sin.
For both of these things, Christ needed a human body.
He needed to obey positively in all the ways that only a human could.
We’ve already seen the writer of Hebrews emphasizing Christ’s full humanity repeatedly.
And he was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
You and I regularly fall to temptation.
Sometimes we even run headlong into temptation, letting it lead us down familiar paths, resentment,
self-pity, pride, lust, self-centeredness, lying, anger, and all the rest.
But Christ repeatedly resisted time after time after time.
Every time the temptation was presented by Satan, Christ firmly rejected it.
He was always, every minute of every day of every week of every year, acting, thinking,
and speaking in accordance with God’s will.
Now you will sometimes hear theologians or read in books or in our own denominational
standards, language of Christ’s obedience in two categories, Christ’s active obedience
and Christ’s passive obedience.
Now these two terms can be confusing if you don’t know where they come from.
In this case, active doesn’t mean what Christ actively did to obey God, and passive doesn’t
mean what he didn’t do to disobey God.
In this case, passive comes from the term passion, which means suffering.
You may have heard of the passion of Christ.
This doesn’t refer to his emotions or his zeal, it has to do with his suffering, particularly
centered on what he suffered on the cross.
So Christ’s active obedience is the way that he lived his life at all times and always
in accordance with the will of God.
This is what we, as sinners, need positively in order to be viewed by God as righteous.
You will sometimes hear the term double imputation in terms of Christ and his righteousness,
and that refers to the fact that not only is our sin imputed, counted to Christ’s account,
in order for him to receive the punishment that we deserve, but also his righteousness,
his active obedience, is counted to our account so that God rewards us with life that Christ
deserves.
Christ’s passive obedience is his willingness to undergo the suffering, death, and judgment
of God for sinners on the cross.
Jesus told his disciples in John 14, verse 31, that his death was an act of obedient
love for his Father.
He said, I do as the Father has commanded me, that the world may know that I love the
Father.
Christ’s willingness to do God’s will, his complete obedience, both active and passive,
come together in our salvation.
Verse 10, and by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all.
Christ’s body, his willing, human, sinless body, was what God wanted.
Only the body of Christ was sufficient to cleanse sinners from sin.
This idea is reiterated in verse 14 of our passage, for by a single offering he has perfected
for all time those who are being sanctified.
So what Christ accomplishes through the offering of his body once and for all is intimacy with
God, which leads us to the third thing that God wants, which is sanctified fellowship.
Sanctification in the book of Hebrews is less about progressive improvement of character,
what we might call progressive sanctification, but rather consecrated godlikeness, which
happens the moment of our salvation facilitates our intimacy with God.
Back in chapter 2 verse 11, he ties it to our brotherhood.
He said, for he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.
That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.
And then if we look ahead in chapter 12 verse 14, Hebrews says, strive for peace with everyone
and for the holiness or sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
The author of Hebrews is not as focused on the progressive aspect of sanctification that
other parts of scripture highlight.
And while it is true that Christ is perfected for all time, justification, those who are
progressively conformed more and more to the image of his son, the progressive sanctification
that we often speak of, the author of Hebrews has a slightly different point in view.
His point is not that it’s incomplete, but that it is ongoing.
For instance, in chapter 12 verse 10, he says he disciplines for our good that we may share
in his holiness.
Holiness or sanctification, being sanctified, is a state of being holy, which allows for
intimate fellowship with God.
God is holy, so in order to have fellowship with God, we must share in his holiness.
But that holiness is not divorced from obedience, in fact it produces obedience.
Now Christ did not come with a human body to do God’s will in order that we wouldn’t
have to, but rather to enable us to do God’s will as well.
When I’m sharing the gospel with strangers, especially on the boardwalk, I often explain
it in terms of three problems.
You have a rebellious heart that’s like a cobra.
You have a filthy past that’s like manure and you have a poisonous life.
In order to help people understand how this impacts their relationship with God, I ask
them, would you like to have a cobra running around in your house?
Would you like me to track manure from my shoes all over your bedroom?
Would you like me to put even one drop of poison in your food or drink?
Now you can begin to understand why God does not want you in his kingdom the way that you are.
This is important because it highlights our need for total transformation.
We’re not just good people that need a few things expunged from our record in the past.
Our problem starts in our heart.
There was only one man who said, behold, I have come to do your will, oh God.
And if we’re to have any hope at all, we need deep heart change.
Verse 1 in chapter 10 says, for since the law is 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.
The law was limited in power.
It could only condemn the guilty.
It couldn’t produce that obedience that was required.
The old law couldn’t bring perfection because it came with shadowy sacrifices, but Christ
is the true form of those realities that the law pointed to.
Only Christ’s obedience is able to both satisfy the requirement for our cleansing from sin
and produce whole person transformation.
Christ’s obedience doesn’t make our obedience unnecessary.
It makes it possible.
And this is what we see in verses 15 to 18.
The Holy Spirit also bears witness to us, for after saying, 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.
And then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
The new covenant that Christ mediates, effectuates the implantation of God’s will onto the hearts
and minds of his people.
Obedience for them starts coming from the heart, not merely from external threats of
condemnation.
And in verse 14 it says, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are
being sanctified.
The wording being sanctified might at first have prompted thoughts of progressing sanctification,
which wouldn’t be wrong in general, but I think the author’s real focus is that our
sanctified fellowship with God is an ongoing reality.
It’s in the present tense in the Greek.
That’s what they’re trying to get across with the word being sanctified.
It’s not a past reality, but an ongoing present reality.
Rather than stressing that a once for all offering for sin creates a progression of
improvement, which it does, the author is instead stressing this new reality in which
we are cleansed from sin produces ongoing, holy fellowship with a holy God.
The animal sacrifices reminded the people day after day, year after year, the debt wasn’t
paid, sin hadn’t been fully atoned for, payment was postponed but not completed.
But Christ’s final, once for all, perfect sacrifice offered by the perfect priest himself
in the perfect place, God’s presence, brings sanctifying forgiveness for the purpose of
holy fellowship with God forever.
On January 1, 1937, J. Gresham Machen, the founder of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
who was quite ill and near death, dictated his final words in a telegram to his colleagues
John Murray at Westminster, I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ.
No hope without it.
In Christ’s passive obedience we find our punishment removed and in his active obedience
we find ourselves heirs of eternal life and blessed fellowship with God forever. Amen.
Let’s pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you that there was one who had come to do your will, that
you gave him a body, a fully human body that he might fulfill all the requirements of your
law, even the cursed death that we deserve and the perfect active obedience to give us
eternal life.
We thank you for the obedience of Christ and the way that that empowers and enables us
to also live now through Christ in a way that pleases you as well.
We thank you for this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Well in response let’s turn to hymn 436, my faith has found a resting place.
Let’s stand and sing number 436.