It is all about Jesus

 

 

READ Hebrews 9–13

Recently a cousin said that she tried always to do what is right, but then admitted that she fell short adding that salvation was all of grace. As she repeated it, my heart felt the joy of that truth. Being saved from the penalty, power and consequences of sin is a great gift, the grace of God through the work and person of His Son.

This reading today is too long for one day, too rich to distill into a summary. Even so, the Gospel is so clear and such a source of joy!

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:13–14)

The author of Hebrews compares OT sacrifices with the sacrifice of Christ and the necessity of it. He tells how the priests sprinkled the blood of sacrificial animals on “both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (Hebrews 9:21–22)

He also explains that this sacrifice had to be made repeatedly, but Jesus had to die only once. Those OT rituals were never good enough:

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. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 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. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 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. (Hebrews 9:24–28)

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Hebrews 10:1–4)

Jesus came to do the will of the Father by doing “away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all . . . . For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:9–10; 14) “Therefore, we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” and can “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:19; 23)

The Gospel is all about Jesus, not about making sacrifices and not about trying to do all things right. His sacrifice secured my eternal destiny. Because I have “received a kingdom that cannot be shaken” I can “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28–29)

This reading gives me encouragement to faith and to do God’s will, not by my own efforts but because He has given all that is needed . . . for His glory!

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20–21)