So if you have your Bibles, please turn first to Hebrews 9, and we’ll read verses 27 and 28, then Hebrews 10, verses 11-18.
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Scripture: I’d like to tie that in with today’s scripture by reading Hebrews 9, leading up to our scripture verse this morning. Verses 27 and 28 say:
27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
In other words, raise those who are dead in Christ and then raise those who are yet alive. Now let’s go to today’s scripture verse, Hebrews 10:11-18
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16 “This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”
18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
If you remember, last week, we talked about the high priest, and one of the duties of the high priest was to offer a yearly sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins on The Day of Atonement. Other priests would offer daily sacrifices.
The writer of Hebrews was trying to teach his Hebrew audience that Jesus is The Great High Priest, the one who offered the “once for all” sacrifice for all sins for all people at one time. Not only was he The Great High Priest, but he was also The Lamb of God.
As we celebrated Good Friday, which was the day to commemorate the atonement for our sins, and Easter Sunday, which commemorates Jesus’ defeat against death, let us remember that Good Friday and Easter Sunday are to the believer and receiver a 24/7 act of worship. Not just once a year.
I would like to go back a couple of chapters to the end of chapter 8 and go through a couple of things that lead up to our scripture verses this morning. In the last verse of the chapter, the author says, “By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”
So he’s stating that the old is gone, and the new is here. This is why our Bibles are split between an Old Testament and a New Testament. The Old Testament delineates God’s old laws for the atonement of sins, and The New Testament teaches us about Christ being the fulfillment of the atonement for our sins. This is not only the New Testament, but it is the Last Testament. There will be no other testament. There will be no other blood sacrifice or nothing more needed. It is sealed with the very blood of God. This is a promise, and this is God’s will and testament for all eternity.
Kind of hard to imagine God creating his own will and testament, isn’t it? But if we go to Chapter 9 and read verses 14-17, that’s exactly what the writer of Hebrews says.
“14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
16 In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood.”
So this testament between God and man is to atone––or pay the price or restitution for the acts that we commit that lead to death. God told Adam and Eve that if they disobey God, death would surely come.
Death wasn’t a concept until that point. It wasn’t a concept that existed alongside God from eternity past. God isn’t just immune from death; He actually created death for his whole creation. It’s part of the curse of this world, but it has a good purpose. The Bible calls this “the first death,” and eternal Hell is the second death.
I want to talk about the first death for a moment.
Genesis 3:21-23 says:
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
So God, in his mercy, didn’t want mankind to live forever with a sinful nature. So He made a way for us to escape this sinful nature and enter eternity with Him where sin does not exist.
Romans 5 says this:
“18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam], the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus] the many will be made righteous.”
So, because of our sinful nature, there had to be a provision to enter eternity with Him––a price paid, a ticket bought, so to speak. Heaven is an exclusive club. I know people don’t like to think of it that way, but it is an exclusive club where everyone is invited and the price is already paid. The price that was paid was the shedding of the innocent blood of the Son of God, who is also God himself. That is the love of God, and that is the good news of the gospel.
God wouldn’t be God if he didn’t rise from the dead. Remember, God created death. He knows how to cheat it. He’s got the cheat key. He developed a cheat code when he developed death.
If we go back to the very beginning of our sermon and read from 1 Corinthians 15 again, verses 20-22 say this: “20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
And a little further down, the apostle Paul talks about Christ’s second coming.
He says: 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
Going back to our Scripture verse out of Hebrews 10 this morning, we read in verses 12 and 13 that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, and last week we talked about how Jesus intercedes for us as Satan accuses us. Here, it says something similar:
“13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.”
So, Jesus ascended into Heaven, he is interceding for us, and he is waiting until the day of his second coming. At that time, he will not come as a peaceful king on a donkey, but he will come on a triumphant white horse.
But I want to talk about the interim, at least from our perspective.
We talked about what the sacrifice 2,000 years ago meant at that time and what it means for us now who need salvation, but what about those who are saved?
Verses 14-18 say:
14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16 “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”
17 Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” 18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
David Guzik says that: “This makes it plain that the work of Jesus is effective only for those who are being sanctified. The work of Jesus is capable of saving every human being, but it is only effective in saving those who are being sanctified (set apart to God).”
Charles Spurgeon said, “Those for whom Christ has died were perfected by his death. It does not mean that he made them perfect in characters so that they are no longer sinners, but that he made those for whom he died perfectly free from the guilt of sin. When Christ took their sins upon himself, sin remained no longer upon them, for it could not be in two places at one and the same time.”
Also, from Precept Austin: First, the position of believers before God is that they are perfect. God has forgiven all of their sins through Christ’s sacrifice, and He has imputed Christ’s perfect righteousness to them. These great facts are the basis of our standing before God.
Second, the practice of believers is that they are being sanctified. They are growing in holiness in thought, word, and deed. The position is granted instantly at the moment of saving faith. The practice is worked out over a lifetime of growth in obedience.
So this means, as Paul points out in Romans, that because we are made righteous by the one act of Christ, that is no excuse to sin but a reason to move forward in a new life.
This piece of the passage also helps us to understand the Trinity a little bit. I mentioned a moment ago that God died for us, or shed his own blood for us; I said Jesus died for us in another sentence, then saying The Son of God…which is it? Well, it’s all of the above.
Jesus, The Great High Priest; Jesus, The Lamb of God; Jesus, The Son of God; Jesus, God himself…How can he be God and The Son of God at the same time?
Part of the Easter story includes the night of his arrest. Remember when Jesus prayed in the garden just before he was arrested? He prayed that the disciples would be one as “we are one.” So it gives us a clear indication that as the disciples were in one accord, yet individuals, there are three individual persons who make up one trinity. When Jesus was baptized, he stood in the water as The Father spoke, and the Spirit descended like a dove.
In this passage in Hebrews, Enduring Word says, “We have the threefold revelation of God in this passage, a very definite spiritual and practical exemplification of the Holy Trinity, in the will of God (Hebrews 10:9), the work of Christ (Hebrews 10:12), and the witness of the Spirit (Hebrews 10:15).”
As I mentioned last week and a few weeks ago, we don’t have a “hope so” religion but a “know so” religion. We know that we know that we know.
And how do we know? We have an active Holy Spirit––the spirit of God himself living within us.
“I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them in their minds.”
There is a supernatural cleansing that happens when we come to Christ. Then there is a sanctification process that occurs in the believer, and we sense God himself within us. Verse 15 says that The Holy Spirit testifies to us about this.
Remember when I spoke about being witnesses and what that means? We have The Holy Spirit bearing witness in us about our salvation. The Greek word for witness is martureo––it’s actually where we get the word ‘martyr’ from––and it means “one who has information or knowledge of something and hence can bring to light or confirm something.”
Precept Austin says that Martureo in some contexts is used in the sense of making an important and solemn declaration. It can be used in the sense of confirmation or approval and so to affirm in a supportive manner.
So that means that The Holy Spirit within us is alive and active. He is not dormant within us, nor is it some kind of religious thing to say. It’s not metaphoric as you may hear Oprah Winfrey or her religious ilk say. God himself dwells within us, and as the Newsboys say, “He’s living on the inside, roaring like a lion.”
Let the power of the resurrection mean something to you personally. This is not just a historical event that happened to Jesus and set a new church age or a second section of our Bible in action. This is a day to celebrate something personal for the believer. It is something to personally rejoice about. And it is something that, as nice as it is to celebrate yearly, is a 24/7 celebration.
Let us remember to never take this for granted. Let us remember never to take communion for granted. It’s easy to do. I used to think that. But not anymore. Not now that I understand the great sacrifice of the Great High Priest. Let’s commit to making every day a day of praise and worship and rejoicing for what the cross and the resurrection mean to us.
And let’s not be selfish and keep this exclusive to us. Remember, Heaven is exclusive. Not everyone can enter, yet everyone is invited. Let’s make sure we let others know that they, too, are invited and the blood of Christ has paid their price.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by CRISTIANO DE ASSUNÇÃO on Unsplash
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