"Once" Sermon: Hebrews 9:23-28

“Once”

[Hebrews 9:23-28]

May 12, 2013 Second Reformed Church

            We consider the end of the ninth chapter of Hebrews this morning, and we ought to ask ourselves:  considering what we know about what Jesus did – as High Priest and Sacrifice – did Jesus do enough?  Was His One Sacrifice enough?  Is there a need to repeat or re-present Christ’s Sacrifice to the Father for it to be effective?  Or did Jesus accomplish His Work on behalf of all those He came to save by dying once on the cross?

            “Thus”

            We ended last week looking at verse twenty-two, which reads:  “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22, ESV).

            We noted that this verse tells us two things:  first, it tells us that under the Sacrificial Law, most things were purified through shedding blood, but there were other methods of purification, including offering up other, non-bloody, items for sacrifice, and through baptism.

Second, it tells us that the only way sin can be forgiven is through the shedding of blood.  It is absolutely impossible for sin to be forgiven unless there is the shedding of blood.  If there is no shedding of blood, God will not and cannot forgive sin.

OK?  Do we get that?  If we do:  

            “Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”

            If we understand that most things were purified by blood under the Mosaic Law, and sin is forgiven only through the shedding of blood, then it would make sense to us that the copies, the shadows, the types, the patterns of the heavenly things – the Tabernacle and all its parts and the sins of the people – would be purified with blood and the sins of the people would be forgiven through the shedding of – animal – blood.

            But the Tabernacle and all its parts and, especially, the forgiveness of the sins of the people through the shedding of animal blood were only foreshadowings of the real things – of the heavenly things – which would require better sacrifices.

            Specifically, we have been looking at the forgiveness of human sin through the bloody sacrificing of animals – and we noted that though the forgiveness was real that was received through the bloody sacrifices, it was momentary – temporary – the forgiveness was not complete, eternal, or whole.

            In order for the sacrifice to merit heavenly standards, a human would have to shed his blood for a human – and, like the animal that was sacrificed, it would have to be a human that was without spot or blemish – it would have to be a perfect, holy, sinless human.  But that would only cover all the sins of a person’s past – if you could find a perfect human who would be willing to stand in for you to be sacrificed, your past sins would be forgiven through the blood of the sacrifice, but as soon as you sinned again, you would be under the Wrath of God again.  So, not only would you need to find a real human being who was sinless, but that human being would also have to be God so He could survive the Wrath of God for all of your sin – past, present, and future.

            And, if you have heard the Gospel before, you know that there is one and only one Person Who has ever fulfilled those conditions:  Christ Jesus, the Incarnate God.  John Owen writes, “The sacrifice of Christ is the one, only, everlasting fountain and spring of all sanctification and sacred dedication; whereby the whole new creation is purified and dedicated unto God” (Owen, Hebrews, vol. 6, 378).

            Through the shedding of the blood of animals, there was a temporary forgiveness which looked forward to the Savior Who would come to merit forgiveness for all those He came to save.  And, as Owen notes, this Work of Christ, while first for the salvation of His people, is also for the restoration of the entire Creation.  As Paul writes, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21, ESV).

            How did Christ obtain this for us?

“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.”

Christ did not enter into the holy place in the Tabernacle, or even into the Holy of Holies, itself – which were only shadows of the heavenly reality, rather, He entered Heaven, itself – the dwelling place of God, and resumed His Place on His throne at the Right Hand of God.

            Today is Ascension Sunday, and we may remember what happened on the day of Ascension:  “And when [Jesus] had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’” (Acts 1:9-11, ESV).

            Jesus spoke to the disciples and then physically ascended up through the air, through the clouds, and out of sight – and the disciples stood there stunned.  But God sent angels to tell them to be about the work that Jesus had given them to do, and Jesus will return from Heaven in the same way they saw Him ascend into Heaven.  And since the Ascension is not as popular as the doctrines of Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny, we may forget why this matters:

            First, Jesus is advocating for us before the Father.  Paul writes, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34, ESV).

            Second, since Jesus physically ascended, we are assured that our physical bodies will be raised to eternal life in the Kingdom.  Paul writes, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7, ESV).

            And third, Jesus has sent us God the Holy Spirit to indwell us as a guarantee of our salvation.  Paul writes, “And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22, ESV).

            Now, we get to the main question for this morning:  is Jesus’ One Sacrifice enough for all those He intends to save?  Yes!

“Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,”

We remember that the priests of the first Covenant had to continually offer blood sacrifices – and the especial blood sacrifice on the Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur.  Why did the priests have to offer blood sacrifices over and over and over?

“The repetition of the annual sacrifices under the law was mainly from hence, because they were not able to perfectly to effect that which they did signify;” (Owen, 387).   The bloody animal sacrifices had to be repeated because they were never enough to pay the debt for all the sins a person would ever commit, much less free a person from slavery to sin.

Someone might offer up a cow to be slaughtered, and God, in His Mercy, would count that in the person’s repentance and forgive him for the sin for which he gave the cow.  But if he stubbed his toe on the way out of the Tabernacle and used the Lord’s Name in vain, he would be under the Wrath of God again.  (Not even considering that he would still be under the Wrath of God simply because he was not freed from slavery to sin.)

Probably few, if any of us, have slaughtered an animal in the hopes of receiving forgiveness for sin from God.  But, if we did, we would understand it would not be enough, we would have to continually offer up animals, because we continue to sin, and we would continue to sin as slaves to sin, so we would never break out of the cycle, and, eventually, we would die, and not be forgiven, but would remain under the Wrath of God.  Does that make sense?

If God said, in His Mercy, He would forgive our sin – as He did in the first Covenant, if we offered up blood sacrifices for our sin, and we never stop sinning, we would never be able to stop sinning, right?  And if we died a sinner, which we all certainly would do, we would still be lost, damned, and under the Wrath of God, right?

But, as the author of Hebrews tells us, Christ did not offer Himself up repeatedly.  Why?  Because Christ perfectly accomplished what He intended to do through His One Sacrifice.  As a real, sinless human being and as God Himself, Jesus offered Himself up as the blood sacrifice – as the Substitute for all those He came to save – and He could receive in His Body all of the Wrath of God for all of the sins of all those people He came to save, and He could rise from the dead, victoriously, freeing us from our slavery to sin and crediting us with His Righteousness.

Through Jesus’ one life, one death, one resurrection, and one ascension, He was able to pay our debt, make us righteous, and secure our place in the Kingdom of God.  Nothing more need to be done to save us, because the God-Man did it all.

And this is one problem we have with the Roman Catholic Church and all the varieties of Eastern Orthodox churches in understanding the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper:  both the Roman Catholic Church and the variety of Eastern Orthodox churches say that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a re-presenting of the sacrifice of Jesus, but a bloodless sacrifice.

Do you hear two problems in that in the light of our Scripture?

First, they say that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a bloodless sacrifice.  We started out this morning as we ended last week, looking at verse twenty-two of this chapter, in which we are told, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”  If there is no blood, there is no forgiveness.  A bloodless sacrifice is a useless as a screen door on a submarine. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

Second, they say the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a re-presenting of the Christ’s Sacrifice to God the Father.  They argue that since we continue to sin, the Sacrifice must continue to be presented to the Father.  If the Sacrifice has to be re-presented, that indicates it was not effectual – it did not do enough.  Do we believe that Jesus’ One Sacrifice paid the debt for all of the sins of all of the people who would ever believe in Him?  Or do we believe that His One Sacrifice was not enough and has to be re-presented every time we gather that the Father might forgive our sins?

The author of Hebrews tells us there is no re-presenting of the Sacrifice:  “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.”

The author of Hebrews argues that if Jesus’ Sacrifice has to be re-presented every time we gather, then He must suffer every time we gather, but that is not what the Scripture teaches:  Christ appeared once for all those He came to save at the end of the age. 

We see the idea – again – that the author of Hebrews brought up at the beginning of his letter:  just as God sent prophets and preachers first, and then His Son at the end of the age, God sent priests to offer animal sacrifices for sin, and then sent His Son at the end of the age. 

The one offering of Christ for sin, puts away all sin by Himself and through Himself – as both High Priest and Sacrifice.  If you believed in Jesus Christ Alone for salvation, then Christ died to pay the debt for your sins, to free you from slavery to sin, enabling you to seek after holiness, and He has credited you with His Righteousness, so you are seen by God as righteous, even though, in this life, we continue to sin as we strive towards sanctification.

Paul writes:  “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:17-23, ESV).

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”

With a scant few exceptions in history, unless Jesus returns first, everyone will experience physical death and experience that death only once.  Because of the sin of our first parents, everyone (excepting a few) is appointed to experience a physical death.  “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:21, ESV).

Yet, whether we die or Christ returns first, all humans will be resurrected in their bodies to face the judgment.  This should not disturb we who are Christians, because we have been saved by Christ’s One Sacrifice.  However, even Christians will go through the judgment, but to a different end.

Jesus said, “For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27, ESV).  This is what the angels, on the Day of the Ascension, told the disciples would happen.

Lest we be confused, let us understand that we are not saved by our works – we are saved by Christ’s Works.  Our judgment is not to salvation – as Paul explains:

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:10-15, ESV).

Our works in response to the Gospel – and our believing it – will be judged, and we will receive some sort of reward based on the net purity of those works.  But all those who believe in Christ Alone for salvation will be received into the Kingdom – even if all their works burn up and they are saved, “but only as through fire.”

Such will not be the case for the non-believer.  All those non-believers who go through the fire of judgment will have their works burned up and they will not have the foundation of Christ and His Work to be saved by.  They will endure the Wrath of God for their sin.

            So, let us be confident and diligent in following after Jesus and doing all the good works that God has put before us.  The work that we do for the Kingdom is a joyful work, because Christ has been sacrificed once, and His Sacrifice accomplished everything it was intended to do.  There is nothing more to do to merit salvation – Jesus has done it all.  So, we can work for the Kingdom, not worrying about success or failure, because success is assured in Christ, no matter what happens on earth.  Christ is victorious, so we are victorious.

 “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.”

And we – above all people – have hope. 

Christ has paid the debt for all of the sins of all of the people He came to save.  As Isaiah prophesied:  “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,           and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12, ESV).  He has born our sin and freed us from slavery to sin, so when He returns and receives us into the Kingdom in all its fullness, we will not have sin to deal with – the debt has been paid by the One Sacrifice of Christ Jesus.  Instead, on that day when Jesus returns, just as He ascended, this time coming down through the clouds in His physical body, He will save all those He died for, welcoming us into the fullness of salvation and the place He went to prepare for us.

Christ offered Himself as a Sacrifice for all those who will believe in Him and ascended to the Right Hand of the Father where He intercedes for us and assures us of our salvation and our future hope.

Christ’s One Sacrifice was enough to pay all of the debt for all of the sins of everyone who would ever believe and to free them from their slavery to sin; Christ only needed to shed His Blood once for our salvation.

Due to our first parents’ sin, we are all liable to die once, and when Christ returns, all people will go through the judgment of their works.  Those who have been saved through Christ’s Sacrifice will be received into the Kingdom, after eagerly awaiting the return of their Savior.

            Let us pray:

            Almighty God, we thank You for sending Your Son and for His Work on our behalf being mighty.  We thank You that we do not need to be confused or worried, but we can be confident knowing that Christ’s One Sacrifice was enough to pay our debt and free us from slavery.  Help us to follow after You and do the good works that You have set before us, and keep us eagerly awaiting Your Return, until that day when we rejoice to see the clouds part and Christ descend to the earth.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.