The Book of Hebrews 10:11-18 One sacrifice for sins for all time
Hebrews 10:11-18 · Vern Peterman · Feb 2, 2014
Hebrews, No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926415586491

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to be continuing with our study of Hebrews here in Hebrews 10, 11 through 18 that Courtney just read for us. And one of the things we wanted to bring out to speed, we haven't looked at this chart for a while because the passage we've been looking at from Hebrews 6.13 to 10.18 has been the longest stretch that we're going to see in this pattern of explanation for a passage and then followed by exhortation.

So I bring that up today, however, because we're today finishing up the chapters on explanation. started in Hebrews 6.13, now finishing with 10.18, and then we'll proceed next week into the passage on exhortation.

Hebrews 10.11 reads like this, Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. One of the things that you may have noticed in the book of Hebrews, it's rather distinct compared to the other New Testament books, and that is that there's sort of a cyclical pattern to it.

He keeps coming back to a theme. And so this is something we've been hearing previously, and he makes it very clear here. Here's the priest. They're doing this daily, time after time, the same sacrifices. It doesn't take away sins. Now, every priest stands daily.

Being a priest in the tabernacle, or in the case of the time when this book was written, in the temple, was a real stand-up job. In fact, you had various pieces of equipment and furniture that were used there, and none of them was a chair. It didn't have chairs and pews for these guys to sit in. You were standing, moving, and doing things the whole day long. Your entire job was done standing up.

They did it all, and there was no other way to carry out their duties but to stand. It was a constantly moving kind of occupation. The priests did it daily, and they did it annually, and they did it time and time again. The priests worked hard because they had to keep on offering and offering and offering and offering. And there was never a time when you could say, okay, we're done.

Because it required that you do it again the next day and the next month and the next year. So, while the sacrificial system was given to Moses by God himself, it was actually inspired scripture, doing it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, for decades and centuries, time and time and time again.

You can imagine, here is the tabernacle and the temple sacrificial system. If it weren't for the fact that it was fairly intense, I mean, you're slaughtering animals, right? You're burning things. I mean, this is intense stuff. It would have been monotonous and repetitive and just ineffective. Again and again and again.

Are we done? Oh no, not even close. When are we going to be complete with this? Well, there isn't any such thing, right? It went on and on and on and on, but it was just an illustration. Imagine if you were coming from the southern part of the state of Colorado and it said that Yale exit so many miles right every tenth of a mile gave you the distance to the Yale exit starting from I-25 and the southern part of the state right just monotonous I get out of where are we ever going to get there would be your thought what's this big deal about the Yale exit right we don't do it that way it would get monotonous and you'd basically learn to turn it off But the point here that he makes is that it can never take away sins. As a matter of fact, we saw earlier in this chapter in verse 4, for it is what?

Impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. It doesn't do it at all. It does not say that it's difficult, or, yeah, it'll do it, but it sure takes a lot. It never gets there. It doesn't take away sins. It doesn't even get part of the job done. It is only an illustration. It is not effective for dealing with sins.

So Hebrews 10.4 and 10.11 use the words impossible and never. So the ineffectiveness of the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins is what? Absolute. Completely and absolutely ineffective for that purpose. If you wanted to deal with sins that way, sorry, it's not going to do anything. Nothing.

Let's take an example. Here are two dragsters. I remember one time I took my two sons to go see the dragsters in Fremont over in the East Bay in California, and they would have been terribly disappointed if the dragsters just sat there and made a bunch of flame and smoke but never got off the line. That's not what you do with dragsters.

But that's essentially what the sacrificial system was regarding sin. It never got off the line. There was all kinds of smoke and flame, and boy, a bunch of noise and roar, but it never went anywhere. Instead, what you really want is the dragsters that actually go somewhere. The sacrificial system was only pointing to what was actually effective.

So Hebrews 10 11 through 13 goes like this Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins Verse 12, but he Christ having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time sat down at the right hand of God the father Waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. Okay, let's take a look at this. I So if he's doing the offering, that makes him the priest, right? He offers himself as the priest, but not an animal. himself. He, being the priest, and the sacrifice, offers himself.

The priests offered sacrifices of animals that were not at all effective. They weren't just partially effective, or slightly effective, or eventually effective. They weren't at all effective. The animals that were offered had no choice. They didn't let the animals vote. How many of you would like to be a sacrifice? They didn't let the animals vote for that. The animals had no choice. Jesus, the sacrifice, did have a choice. He willingly sacrificed himself.

There have been those in Christendom who did not understand that Christ voluntarily offered himself as a sacrifice as both the priest and the sacrifice in one. Over many centuries, the Jews, by Christians, those who at least called themselves Christians, the Jews were thought upon as a hateful, awful people, the Christ killers. And it came about because of a misunderstanding. Christ offered himself.

Christ was not a victim. Christ was not a victim who was contrary to all justice, killed, but rather he, in order to satisfy God's justice, offered himself to be killed on our behalf. It was voluntary on his part, not accidental, not a horrible tragedy of history. It was the one essential event in history. One, just one, sacrifice for sins.

The priests in the temple kept going and going and going with countless sacrifices. Even just Passover. Approximately on Passover day, when they're getting ready for the Passover, they would start around noon, They didn't have watches to look at. They couldn't pull up the cell phone. But it started around noon and they started sacrificing and sacrificing and sacrificing. They had all priests on duty because they sacrificed, just for Passover, about 200,000 lambs that afternoon. This was a huge slaughter process. Countless sacrifices.

Other than an illustration of what Christ would do, they accomplished nothing. It was a great illustration, but it didn't by itself accomplish anything. All the tabernacle and temple sacrifices went from 1446 B.C., starting with the tabernacle, to 70 A.D. with some breaks. There were breaks like the Babylonian exile. Christ got it done in a few hours on the cross. Christ was effective in a few hours.

So far as really dealing with sins, all these sacrifices year after year after year, hundreds of thousands and more. Think of that. If there's 200,000 lambs approximately just for Passover, And that's only one of the fees. That means five years, you got a million, right? Two million in ten years. Did it do anything with sins?

Nah. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Jesus gets it done. One hundred percent. Completely and fully in a few hours. It is finished. Tetelestai. It's all paid. The words for all time don't just mean that Christ's sacrifice was dealing with sins from that point forward.

The all sins of all time were dealt with at the cross. This morning Randy was teaching the elective on Bible survey and we started of course with Adam. Adam fell, that's the first one, for whom Christ died. And everyone Even all those wicked people that died in the flood He died for the sins of all all the way to the last person to be born on this planet as soon as 1,000 seven years from now All of those sins were dealt with on the cross the sin from the first man Adam to the last one born the planet all those sins of the whole world were lifted off of us and placed on Him.

He paid it all. When we use the term take away sin, it's not just making it go away. It is taking it off of us and placing it on Him. He voluntarily took the sins of the whole world for all time for you and for me and voluntarily took those upon himself, and took the condemnation from the Father on our behalf. He paid it all. That payment was not only complete and total, but it's effective forever. It's good forever.

One of the things that you'll see that's real interesting as you go through the book of Revelation, there are patterns, and one of those patterns is Christ is called the Lamb early in Revelation. But He is called the Lamb on into the new heavens and new earth. When this present earth is gone, we will on into eternity know Him as the Lamb, the One who paid the price that we could never pay for ourselves. Here in Psalm 110, 1-3, it says, The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. There's two and three, which we won't cover here directly, because it's that passage right there that is quoted.

Psalm 110.1 is the most referenced and quoted Old Testament passage in all of the New Testament. And I only have the Hebrews references here, but they start in Matthew. They keep referencing this particular passage again and again more than any other, either by direct quote, or by making references using parts of the verse.

Now here you have the chart that shows the sweep of time, and it starts with Christ's first coming and extends up into his second coming. And at his first coming, he was crucified and buried and resurrected, ascended. We have, starting with Acts 2, the church age.

And then that will be ended with the rapture, the time when the Lord comes to take us to be with Himself. And then there will be, following that, a seven-year tribulation period, at the end of which Christ will come again. By the way, I was talking to an Orthodox rabbi here locally a little over a decade ago, and he said, when Christ comes, we'll ask him, is this your first or second time? Because essentially, the Orthodox Jews look at a seven-year tribulation period, a horrible time on the earth, at the end of which the Messiah will come.

So their outline in this second half is identical. So it's between that first and second coming that's sit at my right hand. That's the place of our Lord. He is sitting at the right hand of the Father, that place where you and I are seated. He's sitting at the right hand of the Father, that place where you and I have our citizenship. He's sitting at the right hand of the Father, that place where you and I are to set our minds. That place.

And then there's this Huge, huge word, until. So anyway, here's where we are, right about here, just so you know. So until I make, and so the rest of that passage there on the previous slide refers to the time of Christ's second coming and following. Now we have to kind of expand on that word until, verse 13, waiting from that time onward until, And then it has this set of words, his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. Now, what does that mean? This is an ancient figure of speech.

And it was tradition that you would ridicule a captured king, if you happen to capture one, you would ridicule a captured king, and then kill him. And so one of the ways that they would ridicule the captured king by ancient tradition was they'd have the captured king be a footstool for the king who was victorious, right? And they would have him bow down, and that was the pattern there. So you'll have, here's a footstool in a modern reconstruction. Here is an ancient coin where they had a footstool for the king shown there. Here is a human reenactment where they have someone serving as a human footstool.

And later on today, an example, here is Valerian I, and this was a couple centuries after the New Testament era. He was the only Roman emperor ever taken alive. He was forced to kneel as a footstool for his captor, the king of Persia. After which they killed him, but first they ridiculed him right now later on today.

There's going to be another footstool for some feet Okay, and we and so we know how that's going to go all right now Okay, now Hebrews 1014 goes like this whereby one offering is perfected for all time those who are being sanctified So let's take a look at that So let's talk about perfect here this word perfect is When it comes to perfect, there is a position of being perfect that is true of every believer. So it's a positional truth.

And so Hebrews 10.14 is one of those places that refers to that. And when we say perfect, it doesn't mean in this context without flaw, per se, but what it's talking about is being complete, fully accomplished. That's what it's pointing to.

God is the one who has completed us in our position and accomplished our position fully. It is His work through Christ. It's not our efforts to be complete. It's not our efforts to have some full accomplishment. It's God's doing. All we did was to believe Him. That's it. We believed Him and He accomplished it. We have our position by His doing. We believed. That's all. God says, you believe? That's good, I'll do the rest. That's the way God does it. Because having been made perfect is about completion and full accomplishment by God's doing, our place is not to try to get there, but to rest in what He's already done. There's a huge distinction there. We're to rest in what He has already done in our position.

But sanctified, in the latter part of that very same verse, is a process. To be sanctified is to be separated from the secular and sinful and set apart for a sacred purpose. That's the definition of sanctified. While the believer is perfected, complete in his position, that's a done deal. God accomplished it. There's also a process of sanctification.

So we have position and process. Now let's go through position and condition and process, because those are three different things, and the Bible talks about all of them. God has done things in you that are permanent and complete. That's your position. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you. You are seated in the heavenlies. That is your position.

And it's not going to get undone. Nobody's going to go, and fall out of the heavenlies. Not going to happen. You have a position in Christ that is complete and fully accomplished. It's not going to get undone. Not either by accident or intent. God has done things in you that are permanent and complete. That's your position. It includes you being in Christ and Christ being in you. And that won't slip out or get undone.

God calls you to live moment by moment consistent with your position, that is a question of condition. That is, we are called to live moment by moment consistent with our position, but each believer at any moment could do that or not, right? The calling is consistent. The calling is consistent. So that's the question of condition.

And by the way, how do we live moment by moment consistent with our position? Do we do that by self-effort? No. It's done not by our efforts, but Christ's life living through us. That's how that happens. We don't try to live moment by moment consistent with our position. It's His work to do. Our position is His work to do, and living according to our position is also His work to do, in and through me.

One of the things that's kind of interesting, Nancy and I will have various opportunities of talking with folks in marriage counseling situations, or even pre-marriage counseling situations, and one of the things that we are inclined to point out is, here's a couple and they're having some trouble, and we'll say, does Christ in you have a problem with Christ in you?

No. Okay. Now you know what the problem is, right? Now you know what the problem is. Okay. So there's position and condition. The position is fixed and eternal. The condition varies from one moment to the next. The calling is for us to walk in fellowship with Him. The last one is the process. Living moment after moment in your condition.

That's how God carries out the process. See that? living moment by moment in your condition, according to your eternal position, that's how God carries out the process. So we have position, fixed and unchangeable, God accomplished. We have condition, that's living according to our calling, consistent with our position by His life, and that's God's to accomplish. Then we have the process, and that's also God's to accomplish. Because it's moment after moment, walking in fellowship with Him. That's how God carries out the process. That's being sanctified as a process.

Now, we've got Hebrews 10, 15 through 16, and let me explain the letters. I didn't just go crazy with the alphabet or something. The A, B, C, D is to break down because we actually have a part of 16, an E, the last part of 16, that is connected to the next verse. So I'm holding off on that. And the A, B, C, D gets counted by just between the punctuation marks, right? So you've got A as the first letters or words between the punctuation marks, then B, then C, then D. OK.

So it goes like this. starting with verse 15, and the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, this is the covenant I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws upon their heart and on their mind I will write them. So let's first take a look at this Holy Spirit testifies.

The Holy Spirit is the ultimate author of all of Scripture. Human authors, we've got about 40 human authors in Scripture. Most of them are Jewish. We have an exception in the Old Testament, probably with the book of Job. And you have an exception with Dr. Luke, writing the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Other than that, they're Jewish. So you've got 40 human authors, mostly Jewish, writing over a roughly 1,500 year period of time. But ultimately, the author is the Holy Spirit. The author behind the authors is the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 1.21, For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

So what is he doing here? He's quoting from Jeremiah 31.33 in the Greek Old Testament regarding the new covenant for Israel as he did previously in Hebrews 8.10.

So why keep harping on the new covenant? Why is that a big deal? Why does he keep coming back to this thing? Not only did he quote the same passage in chapter 8 verse 10, but he's talked about that again and again and again, including the passages we've had for the last couple of weeks. He does it because it says the old covenant, that is all 613 laws under Moses, was set aside and was going to be replaced. That's why. So what's so great about this new covenant? The Law of Moses was 613 individual laws that said, just do it.

Actually, I have to augment that a little bit. 365 of them said, just don't do it. So you have that variation. There was no empowerment to carry it out. None whatsoever. Here's the 613, learn them, do them. Or don't do them, in that case. But no empowerment. It was up to you to pull it off. But if you failed, well, you might be studying rocks up real close, right?

With the new covenant for Israel, however, the Jews will be given a mind to know the law and a heart to live it. A mind to know the law and a heart to live it. Some people will try to tell people in the church, you know, we have the law written on our heart.

Okay, you do, huh? start reciting them. And that right there throws it off. These people in the coming millennial kingdom will know them just right off. Bang! You know how Adam was able to talk to God immediately and he was able to listen to what God said immediately. God had given him the ability to carry out language, as we call it. These Jews will automatically, by God's doing, know the law. It will be like that. God-given that they know it.

They won't need a rabbi. They won't need somebody to go down and drill on these things. So what's going to happen? They'll be given a mind to know it and a heart to live it. So they will all be blessed physically and they will all live. None of them will be stoned to death. They won't need to because they'll know them all. They'll have a mind to know them. They will have a heart to live them. No rocks. Nobody gets stoned to death. All blessed all the time.

Ezekiel 36 27 and 37 14 the same words I will put my spirit within you and it's promised to Israel Okay, promise to Israel. I will put my spirit within you the Holy Spirit indwells us For what purpose to know and live out the law know? The Holy Spirit indwells us to carry out ministry in us apart from the law but these in the Millennial Kingdom are will know the law, they will have a heart from the law, because the Holy Spirit will indwell them for that purpose. A different purpose. So the indwelling doesn't mean the same thing for them as it does for us. So here's the rest of verse 16, E, and verse 17. So Hebrews 10, 16, E, and 17. Then he says, And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.

Salvation is by faith, let's make this clear, for all people of all time, from Adam to the last person born on the planet called Earth. But that salvation by faith is different for each of these people groups. It's expressed differently. Gentiles, Israel, and the Church, and even for different times, as we'll take a look at here. There's a variation in how that salvation is expressed and lived out in each of these groups over time.

Here are the Jews. They're told, okay, you're saved by faith, right? But now live these 613 laws. Just do it. Come to the church, and Christ dies on the cross to pay for the sins of those Jews who lived under the law. But one of the things he accomplishes is for those in the church, not one law is in effect. For you Jews, 613 of them, for us in the church, zip. Zero. None. No laws in effect for us. But we're both, us now and the Jews back then under Moses, saved by faith. Saved by faith. For instance, Israel is baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea.

That's 1 Corinthians 10.2, right? And if it happened today, this is the way it would look. Can you imagine that? Here's Moses. He goes and parks the waters, and all the buses and cars and trucks and motorcycles go running away. So that's the way it would be if it were to happen today.

But under the New Covenant, how is that going to be? They will be empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit to know from the head and to live out the law from the heart, they will be blessed in earthly ways as a result. We in the church are saved by grace and we stand in grace, but Israel, get this, will be graciously empowered to live out the law. Isn't that amazing? Graciously empowered to live out the law. But that's not us. We are graciously empowered, but not to live out the law. You see the difference?

So, what's the problem with sins here that he keeps bringing up? Is God just obsessed with sins and He can't think about anything but human sins? He's thinking about human sins all the time. Is that what He's doing? Does God want us to focus on and think about our sins? Meditate on them? Contemplate them? Does He want us to confess them one by one slowly? Is it more righteous to speak with a southern drawl? And really say your sins slowly.

In this little valley that I went to high school in my high school years, this little valley, there was a guy I knew who was a logger. And his brother came to visit from Arkansas. And they were in a pickup truck, and they come up to the highway there. You know, it's one of those highways where you got, you know, trucks going by and whatnot. So he asks his brother, who's in the passenger seat, anything coming? Nothing coming. And he starts off, nothing but a big ol' loggin' truck. Okay, anyway. So speaking slowly won't necessarily help you. All right.

God dealt with the sins in our position once for all through Christ our Savior. In our condition, He wants us to have fellowship with Him, so He just wants the sins out of the way of the fellowship. That's the only reason God cares about sins in your life as a Christian, because He's really dealt with them in our position completely. The only reason he cares about it, he's not obsessed with them. He just says, I want them out of the way so that you and I can have fellowship.

That's all. He doesn't want to sit there and meditate on our sins and contemplate them. Some people feel like that. I've got to feel really, really bad for my sins. God doesn't care how you feel. He wants fellowship. And He doesn't particularly like it for you to sit there and feel really bad for your sins. He really doesn't care about that. What he cares about is fellowship. He just wants the sins out of the way for that.

Here's Hebrews 10.18. Now, where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. Now, here's the picture on forgiveness. Christ was God's Lamb who offered up himself for all sins of all time and once for all. All sins of all time and once for all. In our eternal position, the sins are dealt with once and for all. We've been 100% forgiven. Which is one reason why God doesn't want to have you sit there feeling bad about your sins. Blues! Blues for the sins, right? No. He doesn't want you to spend time thinking about that. He wants you to fellowship with Him. So we have in our daily condition, moment by moment, the forgiveness of sins if we but agree with God about them.

One of the analogies I used to use, Nancy and I lived for some years over in an apartment building nearby. It was a 12-story apartment building, and it had a garbage chute. We had a visitor come and stick their head in there. I'd go, don't do that! Somebody might be dropping something from seven stories up here, and you'll get it in the face. With the garbage chute, we would just take the garbage, right? It's ready to go out, right? I'd check with Nancy, yeah, ready to go out, okay. Take it, put it in the chute, drop it, and then go on with life, right?

We did not sit there and take the trash out and put it on the table, hey, I remember these are the eggshells from yesterday morning, you know? Those are pretty good eggs. And then this over here, you know, that's a can that we had, and boy, this got spoiled. That was terrible. Moldy. You know, we don't do that, right? Hey, we agree it's garbage? Good, drop it and move on. That's what God wants, not for us to sit there and meditate and contemplate our sins.

We may also need to both forgive and ask forgiveness of others as well, restoring fellowship with them as much as is possible, as much as they will allow. So there may be a human, a horizontal need to both forgive and be forgiven. Ephesians 4.32 puts it this way, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God and Christ also has forgiven you.

Notice in Ephesians 4.32 that last line, Are you forgiven? Yeah. Having been forgiven is the motivation. It is no longer, as the Jews were under the Sermon on the Mount, you better forgive or you won't be forgiven. We are already forgiven. That is the motive for forgiving. Grace motivation.

Under the Law of Moses, the sacrificial system just kept offering and offering and offering for sin, not really dealing with it. But with the offering of Christ, God's own Lamb, the huge sin problem was dealt with once and for all. In the relationship between God and man, it's a done deal. It did it completely, it did it permanently. Even when we take the Lord's table, what is it? It is a remembrance until, here's that big word until again, until He comes. Not in order to accomplish something spiritually. Christ already accomplished it.

The reason we're remembering it is because we're remembering what He did and accomplished 100%. fully. Christ died once and for all for everyone. He accomplished in his death all that needed to be done to deal with sins finally and forever. Completely. Everyone who believes that Christ died for their sins was buried and rose again has all of the eternal advantages of salvation.

It is a salvation so phenomenal, so amazing, that we spend the rest of our lives catching up to what God has already done. Got that? We spend the rest of our lives catching up to what God has already done. If we're going through times of guilt and dealing with unforgiveness, and maybe it's even we can't forgive ourselves, it's a matter of our catching up to what God's already done, isn't it?

Oh, now I understand better. He really did pay the whole price. He really does mean grace with all capital letters. See, we've been placed graciously into Christ's death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding entirely by grace, and forgiveness is no longer an issue.

Let's ask this question. Do you have to ask God to forgive you? What does this word say? We have the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians chapter 1. Have it. Forgive one another. Why? God and Christ has forgiven you. It's a done deal. We are forgiven. Isn't that great? That's really great.

Let's thank Him for it. Lord, we do thank You for this forgiveness that we have because You paid the price entirely. All at Your expense. Thank you that we can move on not because we take something for granted, but because we know we have the forgiveness. God in Christ has forgiven us. We thank you for that.

And Lord, that even has an impact on our relationships. We are grace motivated to forgive because you have indeed forgiven us. We are grace motivated to both give forgiveness, have forgiveness for others, and even to ask it because of what you've accomplished. Thank you for that amazing grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.