Today we begin a short series on what I believe may be the best chapter of the bible in terms of explaining exactly what Christ has done, because it puts in the historical perspective of why sacrifices were necessary in the first place. You can read more about the old covenant in chapter 9.
That is why I am including this in the most important sermons I will preach, because if you get this chapter, you will truly understand the nature of Christ’s sacrifice, and it will greatly help you share the gospel with others. And of course if we are living like this is the last year on earth before Jesus comes back, that becomes very important. Because of the importance of this passage I am keeping the sermon relatively short so that we really get the point.
When a person or team rehearses or practices for a main event, it is not the event itself. It looks like it in some respects, but it’s not perfected. The hope is that through the rehearsals, the kinks and imperfections can be noticed and ironed out. Once the main event comes that’s it, its over and you can’t have a do over.
Before Christ gave up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, there was a system that God put into place through Moses that resembled what was to come in Christ. This system of sacrificing animals and shedding blood was the people’s effort to gain forgiveness of their sins through the necessary blood that was required in order to fend off the death penalty, because the wages of sin is death. But these were only shadows of what was to come in Christ. In essence these sacrifices were imperfect rehearsals for what Christ would ultimately do.
I. The Sacrificial Law was a Rehearsal (vv 1-2)
And Jesus through those many centuries was sitting in the shadows of these bulls and goats preparing to give the final performance at Calvary. But do you realize that God actually made the first sacrifice for human sin long before Moses? God makes the first and the last sacrifices necessary to cover our sins.
In the Garden of Eden after the first sin, which brought death into the world, how do you think Adam and Eve got those skins to cover themselves with? God said to them the penalty of sin is death, and by all rights He should have killed them right after they ate the fruit. But instead he chooses to kill for the first time in the history of the world, animals to cloth Adam and Eve and cover their shame.
There’s a shadow right there. Adam and Eve walked with God (very likely the preincarnate Jesus, the physical manifestation of God) in this garden, and they in essence spit in his face by willingly disobeying him with Satan’s help. But here already is a beautiful picture of God’s incredible loving grace toward humanity.
It would have made perfect sense for Him to turn Adam and Eve back into dust on the spot and start over, but instead he turns to another one of his innocent, precious creations, and kills it for their sake, effectively covering the shame of their deed and saving them from immediate death. They tried to cover themselves but that was impossible. God had to do it. Imagine how they felt every time they looked at those animal skins they were wearing.
Let me show you this clip form the first Narnia movie, to give an illustration of this sacrificial law…. After this if you’ve seen the movie, Aslan the lion goes and allows the white witch to kill him instead of Edmond, only to come back to life of course.
In the same way that these skins would have reminded Adam and Eve of their guilt:
II. Rehearsals Show us our Mistakes (vv 3-4)
Every time they looked at those skins they would have felt the guilt of their sin. When the sacrificial laws were introduced through Moses, every time the sacrifices were made, people were reminded of their sin. The sacrifices didn’t take away their sin, they actually reminded them of their guilt and gave them a temporary stay of execution.
As they watched the priest solemnly enter behind the curtain to the Holy of Holies to give the sacrifice, the people were reminded graphically of their separation from God. But the curtain of the Temple was torn for a reason when Jesus died on the cross. It was to be a vivid display showing that that separation is now done away with. To me this is one of the most unfortunate things that our Catholic brothers and sisters have not realized. Jesus is our high priest and intercessor, and there is no need for any others.
The animal skins didn’t take away Adam and Eve’s guilt, it reminded them of it while they were allowed to continue living. It was not forgiveness, it was mercy. It also showed people that death and blood were necessary to appease God’s righteous wrath over sin. All of it though, was simply a foreshadowing of the sacrifice that God himself would again make once and for all through His Son Jesus.
Do you understand that God doesn’t just forgive your sins when you accept the covering of the blood of Christ? If I forgive you for something, do I forget that it happened? No, I do my best not to bring it up, but I never forget, I never remove your guilt, I can’t do that. In fact forgiveness kind of reminds us that we are guilty. If you accept the forgiveness, you are admitting your guilt. What did Christ’s blood actually do beyond forgiveness? Psalm 103:12 says he has actually removed our sins as far as the east is from the west.
He takes away our guilt, he makes our sins exist no more. Do you know how far the east is from the west? It is actually farther than the north is from the south. If you keep travelling west you will never start going east, and vice versa, so it is an endless distance. While if you start traveling North or South, you will eventually start going the other direction. Have you ever noticed that?
Acts 3:19 says our sins are wiped out, Acts 22:16 says they are washed away, here in Hebrews and in 1 John it says they are taken away. If we were merely forgiven we still couldn’t be with God, we would still carry the guilt, carry the nature of the sin. But through Christ they are literally removed as we claim his perfect righteousness, we become as pure as he is even though we’re not. That’s all God’s doing. We can’t live good enough to make that happen ourselves, just as the blood of goats and bulls can’t do it, only the sacrifice of the perfect man could do it, and that’s why God had to come as a man.
So as we move into verse 5 we see that:
III. Christ is the Main Event (vv 5-8)
These rehearsals were pointing to what Christ was going to do on that day of the final performance. Christ quotes from Psalm 40 saying, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings”. Well, wait a minute wasn’t it God who instituted those things through Moses, through the Old Covenant? Yes it was, but it wasn’t because that’s what he wanted anymore than he wanted Adam and Eve to sin so that he would have to kill an animal. These things had to be done in order for God not to wipe out humanity as he promised after the flood. There has to be justice in the Holy economy of God. There is no other way to keep perfection perfect.
Then there’s a great line from that Psalm, “You have given me a body to offer”. The only body that could provide an acceptable permanent sacrifice was the completely obedient body of a man. The burnt offerings were not acceptable, only the obedient sacrifice of a sinless human.
This is wholesale doing away with the old Levitical system of sacrifice including the animal sacrifices and everything associated with them – the tabernacle in which they were sacrificed, the priesthood that sacrificed them, and the law-covenant that regulated them. Jesus here set aside the first to establish the second.
Not only did this provide the perfect permanent sacrifice, it also showed us, again like a rehearsal, how we can continue to live with God, through a desire for complete living, sacrificial obedience to Him through our physical bodies as mentioned in Romans 12:2, where our acceptable act of worship is to give our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice.
So after centuries of rehearsals, we finally get the main event at Calvary some 2012 years ago, and:
IV. The Show is Over (vv 9-10)
No more rehearsals, nothing else necessary, the props are gone, it is finished. No sequels, no coming out on DVD, it is history and it will never happen again, because it doesn’t have to.
The first covenant is cancelled, no more animal blood needed, no more permanent death required. Just an acknowledgement that you saw the show, believed it, and you loved it. All we have to do is that, and then from that we should have a growing desire to be like the star in the show. This is one time it’s good to emulate a celebrity.
Through his Spirit he coaches us every step of the way so that we can be as good as him. In fact the same award he got, we get. It isn’t an Emmy or academy award, it is resurrection from the dead and eternal life in paradise as an equal heir with Christ Jesus.
He has done it all, and yet this last verse tells us that it is also God’s will for us to be made Holy by Jesus’ sacrifice. We can look at this two ways. Yes we have been made spiritually perfect by the blood of Christ. At the same time, he wants us to be progressively more Holy as we continue to live in Him. This is sanctification. I guess you could say the show isn’t really over until he comes back for the curtain call. But we are to be the imperfect actors in the reruns until he comes back.
We should not be ashamed, or surprised that we still need to grow. We are still continually being cleansed and set apart (which is what Holy really means), for his special use.
When we believe in Christ’s perfect sacrifice he makes us completely right with God. But he is not finished with us. Our loving relationship with Him because of this sacrifice and adoption leads us to follow him with willing obedience. We go through a continual growth process by deliberately applying Scripture to all areas of our lives, by accepting the discipline and guidance Christ provides, and by giving Him control of our desires and goals.
Besides can you imagine how inconvenient it would be if every time we sinned we had to come to church and sacrifice a goat or a bull? Do we fully fathom what Christ’s sacrifice has accomplished? Just imagine what life would be like if he had never done what he did, both now and for eternity.
Accepting Jesus Christ as your Saviour should remove all guilt. You are free from all guilt even if you continue to sin at times. Continual deliberate sin we learned last week is a different story and likely reflects that you have not been saved. But when you allow the blood of Jesus to cover your sin you are free from guilt even from your future sins.
Therefore we are free to follow Jesus out of freedom rather than guilt and obligation. If you are holding onto your guilt and trying to follow Jesus out of guilt or obligation, you have not fully allowed the blood of Jesus to do what it is intended to do, completely remove your guilt. I wonder how many Christians are serving Jesus this way. “I better obey or else I’m in big trouble”.
The attitude should be more like this, “I am finally free to follow Jesus because I have been cleansed by Him”. Maybe it would be similar to having to work on the highways because you are on a prison work crew versus choosing a job working on the highways because that’s what you really want to do with your life.
We then serve Jesus joyfully knowing that I am perfect in God’s eyes, I can make no mistakes as long as my heart is centered on Him. Every choice I make will be used for good because I love Him and am called according to his purpose. If that is my focus I will not make intentionally evil decisions, but I still may make some mistakes.
I remember having a very important life choice to make, and I spent weeks agonizing over what God’s will was. They were both good, God honouring choices, either one could have been His will, and he was not giving me any clear direction one way or the other, other than what I was feeling about it, but I had to make a choice. I was sitting alone by a lake when God brought Romans 8:28 to my mind in a slightly new way. He was basically saying, do you really trust that I will make all things work for good for those who truly desire to follow me.
I felt this great relief as God said to my heart, “I would make it very clear to you what choice I want you to make if I wanted to, but I want you to just rest in me knowing that I know your desire is to please me and follow my will, so whatever choice you make, I will make it work for good because you have shown me that you love me and desire to obey me.
I have predestined your life, I know what your choices will be, I have called you, I have justified you, and I will glorify you. Just trust me and make the decision, let me worry about how it will all unfold. You just continue to desire my will and follow me the best you can”.
That is the benefit of Jesus sacrifice for this life. Sure we will have eternal life with him, but the benefit in this life is freedom. Knowing that if our hearts are set on him, even our mistakes will carry no guilt, and God in His sovereign power will use anything we do for good. The key is just loving Him and trusting Him, wanting his will.
Because how does Romans 8 end? “For I know that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.
Does that change how you look at obedience to God? Whether you get baptised or not, whether you go share your faith with someone, whether you decide to quit your job to follow Jesus in some kind of ministry he’s calling you to? We don’t have to live in fear or guilt anymore, that is the freedom that Christ’s once and for all sacrifice gives us the moment we accept it.
Have you truly allowed the blood of Christ to wash you completely clean? If you are holding on to any guilt it is either because you have not confessed and truly accepted His atoning sacrifice. Or you don’t really understand what he has done. Hopefully this passage and the next couple of weeks will confirm this for you.
