Hebrews 10:1-18

We Have Been Sanctified

While at seminary in Fort Worth, Traci and I attended a 2-week revival at our Baptist church led by a group called "Life Action Ministries," based out of Michigan.  For us the revival peaked on one particular night where we were taught, "How to Have a Clean Conscience."  We heard passages like the one from Acts 23:1 where Paul confessed:  Acts 23:1  "Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day."  Or, Acts 24:16   16 "In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men."  We were convicted and knew that we wanted a clean conscience before God and men.

That set us on a long and difficult journey.  We were told that we needed to pray and ask God to help us remember everyone we had ever wronged, down to the smallest infraction possible, to atone for all the wrong we had done.  We were told that if God brought it to memory we needed to confess it to Him, and go back and make any amends necessary to make it right.  We spent weeks, days and nights in deep introspective prayer and fasting trying to remember everyone we had ever wronged and putting those on a list.  We were to take responsibility for what we had done so we called up or went by in person to attempt to repair the damage we had done in people's lives.  We were to start with the big ones and work our way down the list until we had made amends for everything we had done.

The first ones were the hardest, but we sucked it up and did what we had to do to have a clean conscience before God.  We then worked our way down our lists until everything was crossed off with anticipation that our conscience would finally become clean before God!  But then something terrible happened.  As soon as we had finished our lists we thought we would feel clean again.  But then we found ourselves making new lists and we remember new things we had to confess and make right.  And when those lists were finished we were convicted of even more new things that we had not thought about before.  I found myself going back to people just in case I may have spoken an ill word or gave a dirty look and to confess what I had done and asked for forgiveness.

And then to make matters worst, not only did we have to remember what we had done years before but we found ourselves having to seek forgiveness for new sins and new wrongs we were committing even as we were trying so desperately to confess our sins.  In fact, we found ourselves having to go back to some of the ones we had met with and re-confessing because we felt that we might not have been sincere enough or given enough detail in our confession. 

What at first seemed like a most practical and hopeful task soon became an incredible burden that would never be lifted.  No matter how much we remembered, no matter how hard we tried, we could never feel clean enough to stand before God.  The weight just became heavier and heavier almost too unbearable to carry any longer.  Sometimes days became so difficult, after spending hours in tears and frustration with myself, thoughts of suicide began to plague my dark soul.  The deeper I went within, the longer the list of sins became.  Every day that passed was a new hour, a new list of sins that I needed to confess all to have a clean conscience before God.  After all, I was doing my best to always have a clean conscience before God and man.  But that just wasn’t enough.

And then one day, while sitting in a class on the theology of Romans a professor wrote the definition of justification by faith alone, similar to the one found in our confessions, on the board and began systematically working through the definition word by word.  It was nothing dramatic.  Just a cold, scientific presentation of the doctrine.  But I began to weep in class, almost uncontrollably.  I began to realize for the first time in my life that my right standing before God was not based upon anything inside me but by the righteousness of the resurrected God-man at God's right side.  I heard that God has accepted me fully and wonderfully into His arms not because of what I had done or not done, but for what Jesus has done for me at Calvary.  He had paid for all my sins and he had lived the righteous life that I had not lived and could never live.  In a moment my conscience before God was instantly cleansed not because I had made a perfect atonement for my sins, not because I had fully satisfied God's righteous requirement of the law, not because I was sorry enough or even had enough faith -- but simply and only because Jesus said, "It is finished!"

This week, as I reflected on our passage this morning, I began to think back over that experience that started that night at the revival and what my conscience had gone through over those terrible months of deep introspection.  That is how Israel lived their whole life under the Law.  That is what Paul spoke about in Romans 7 of the one who lives under the Law which only brought him death and condemnation (READ Romans 7).  And then those beautiful words of life follow in Romans 8:1-4.  What the Law could not do, Jesus Christ has done for us so that all who are in Christ through faith alone are no longer condemned but have eternal peace with God.

Now imagine how the words of the preacher to the Hebrew Christians spread comfort and peace over their souls like the healing balm of Gilead as he reminded them of the ineffectiveness of the Law to cleanse their conscience before God and then upon reaching those wonderful words in vv. 9-10:

Hebrews 10:9-10  BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL." He takes away the first in order to establish the second.  10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

What the Law could not do, weak as it was through our sinful flesh, God has done in Jesus Christ once and for all.

For the Israelites the Law was an unspeakable burden.  As the preacher begins in v. 1, the Law did not and could not contain the good things to come.  What is he referring to?  Look back to 7:11, 19 and 9:9, 14 -- cf. 10:1.  The "good things to come" refers to the clean conscience that we need to approach a Holy God.  The Law was only a shadow and not the substance or reality of this clean conscience before God.  It did not contain these good things, but only pointed Israel's eyes forward to a new day when they would rejoice and draw near before God with a perfectly clean conscience. 

Instead the Law itself had a very different effect on the people.  Like a huge burden on their back, the Law only produced a reminder of their sins before God.  Trying as hard as they could, the burden could never be lifted from their shoulders.  It was like a perfect prison, no matter how hard they tried to escape, it always found some new way to hem them in.  Paul describes this function of the Law in Gal. 3:

Galatians 3:22-24  But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.  23 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.  24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

The Law was Israel's prison, shutting them up, until a new day arrived when they would be forever set free through faith alone. 

But for the mean time, the Law served only as a constant reminder of how worthless they were and just how far they fell short of God's glory.  For how could the blood of bulls and goats ever make them right before a holy God (v. 4)?  Yes, they were clean for a moment, but then they sinned again and needed to do it all over again -- to make atonement, to make amends for what they had done.  A guilty conscience before men is a terrible burden -- but how can your conscience ever possibly be made clean when you are attempting to present your whole body and soul before a perfectly holy and omniscient God?

If the sacrifices had worked, why did they have to be offered again and again?  Why couldn't they just be offered one time and having their conscience cleaned, never to be sacrificed again?  But the problem wasn't with the sacrifices per se, but with the fact that Israel kept sinning.  You would think that they would eventually learn their lesson, right?  After all, why sin again when you know you have to kill another innocent animal tomorrow for it?  Wouldn't they just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, turn over a new leaf, and decide, "Today is the day.  I will quit cold-turkey.  No more will I sin against God."  But then reality sets in and the dirty stain remains.  Filthy!  Dirty!  A life covered in filthy rags, feeding yourself in a pig's trough, sustained on the leftovers of this world.  At the end of the day, the best that the Law could produce was a constant reminder that you are not worthy to approach a Holy God.

And then comes that glorious word in v. 5, "Therefore."  Here comes your day of liberty and salvation.  Jesus has come to rescue you from your own demise.  He comes to save you from His own wrath.  He comes to become one of you, to live within your own skin and He, with all the power of Heaven, will do what only He can do. 

The preacher places on the lips of Jesus Psalm 40:6-8.  He is the high priest of the good things to come (cf. 9:11).  What the Law only foreshadowed has now been born in a manger in Bethlehem.  And He will grow up under the Law and He will do what you could not do.  In the former section of the sermon, the preacher focused your attention on Christ's passive obedience where He willingly laid down His life at Calvary to pay your sin-debt in full.  But now he turns to the active obedience of Christ's righteous life where He obeyed everything God had commanded you to do in His Law. 

Jesus came and took up the body God had prepared for Him.  But why?  Why go through such humiliation and shame?  Because in v. 7 he came to obey all that God had said -- everything contained in the book of the Law.

But weren't the sacrifices of Moses and Levi offered according to the Law itself?  Yes! (cf. v. 8) -- the preacher makes that explicitly clear.  But compared to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ Himself, now you can see the complete ineffectiveness of the old system to do away with your sin forever and make your conscience clean before God.  The fact that they had to be offered over and over again shows just how inadequate they were to do the job.  In fact, the preacher goes on to point out the different posture of the two systems.  Under Moses the priests continually stands forever (v. 11) but Jesus now sits (vv. 12-13) because His one sacrifice has made you clean forever.

The best picture I can come up with to symbolize what is going on here is for those who have tried hopelessly to clean-up or fix-up your house, especially with toddlers running around.  Have you ever tried to keep your house clean, the floors picked up, the dishes cleaned, the clothes washed, all while a toddler is dead-set on destroying everything he touches?  You get one thing cleaned up and while you are in the process of cleaning, he or she is quiet in another room.  And then you come to your senses and realize that you have taken your eyes off of him or her for a second and you go with arms hung low and a burdened scowl on your face knowing that you are going to turn the corner and flip out.  So you go and begin to clean up that mess and yes before you know it, he is busy in the other room putting his peanut butter sandwich in the VCR.

Or perhaps you use your precious day off to mow the yard and make repairs around the house only to find them needing to be done again the next Saturday. 

The washing continues to rotate in and out.  The grass grows with each day.  The trash cans continue to fill up.  The vacuuming, the washing, the painting, etc.  It never ends.

And so you stand.  You work.  You are never finished.  And when you do finally sit down and look up you see dust on the ceiling fan that now needs to be cleaned.

That's what the Law produced.  That's Moses!  The work was never done.  The blood of the sacrificial animal continued to flow.  The priests got up every morning to do the same thing, over and over again -- accomplishing absolutely NOTHING!

That is until one High Priest arrived!  And through one sacrifice -- the sacrifice of His own body -- He did what no one else was able to do.  By one offering for all time He made you right with a Holy God.  And through that offering, all the blessings -- all the promises that were given -- have suddenly through one life came flooding in. 

And what the Law could only point to like a child reaching for a piece of candy on a table much too high to reach, Jesus Christ has come as the mature man to give you your reward.  He has accomplished everything that you need to forever draw near to your God. 

He has come to do the will of His Father in Heaven and with His one work, He has forever brought an end to Moses and the Law and He has forever established a right relationship between you and God (cf. v. 9). 

You see Moses and Jesus cannot operate together.  You cannot put new wine in old wineskins.  The two are like oil and water.  The one negates the other.  Moses and the Law stands for your works.  What you attempt to do through your own strength for God.  The old system is you taking the reigns in your own hands and trying to make your conscience clean by keeping the whole law.  And then end of that old system is only death and condemnation.  It is an unending system that no matter how hard you try -- no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you put into it -- you will always be standing, always running about, never being clean.

But Jesus has come to liberate you from that rat race.  To forever remove the burden.  To take away the anxiousness and the guilty conscience before God.  His one sacrifice brings an end to all your labor and through Him alone you now can have eternal rest.  Jesus says to each of you this morning:

Matthew 11:28-30   28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.  30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

The promise is yours.  But it will not be given through Moses and the Law.  But only if you rest in Jesus Christ.  Turn from your own labors and accept the labor of Jesus on your behalf.  Let Him serve you while you recline, then and only then will the promise be yours (cf. vv. 17-18).  For in Him you now have the full forgiveness of your sins -- a forgiveness that Moses and the Law could never have achieved -- and where there is forgiveness there is no more work to be done.  You cannot add one work - one offering - one sacrifice - to the finished, all-sufficient work of Jesus. 

It is because of Him and Him alone that you are able to now rest.  For in Him you have been sanctified and made perfect -- your conscience is now clean -- therefore, draw near to Him with confidence that you may today, tomorrow, and forevermore receive mercy and find grace to help in your time of need.

Amen! -SDG-