Once For All Time

Hebrews 9 and the Superiority of Christ’s Sacrifice

Turn with me, if you will, please, to the ninth chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 9. We return to a study we began seemingly long ago and took a brief break from and now return to it. Hebrews chapter 9, but before we look into the Word of God, let us ask Him to bless our time together.

Our great and gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you for, once again, this opportunity of opening your Word and especially this day, Lord, we seek your presence with us for we confess that as we deal with this sacred text and its high and lofty subject, that unless your Spirit works within us to grasp the meaning of these words, we will not profit.

And so we ask that you would be with us at this time. Bless your people with an understanding of your truth. If there be any here who have not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, that they would see Him in all His glory.

You would be merciful to them. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. As those of you who are regulars in our fellowship know, a couple of years ago we began a study of the book of Hebrews when I have the opportunity of being here behind the pulpit.

So at this time we are studying Romans and Hebrews at the same time. That's pretty heavy-duty stuff on Sunday mornings. And we have come to the end of the ninth chapter, and I have been saying for a long time that in essence we've been working toward this.

We're sort of climbing to the pinnacle, I think, of the argument that is presented in the book of Hebrews. For those who have not been here, let me just briefly summarize the fact that the book of Hebrews is an epistle clearly written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

It assumes the continuing of the sacrifices in the temple, and it is written to Hebrew Christians who are under pressure to go back to the old ways. They are under pressure to go back to Judaism, to see Christianity and their commitment to Christ as basically as a mistaken cultic adventure.

And you can understand how in that day that would be possible when you think of the fact there is no church history at this time to look back upon. This is a new movement, this Jesus movement at the time, and of course there would be many rabbis who would speak out against it.

We just read from Acts chapter 14 and further examples of this very thing taking place. And so it would be very easy to say, well look, I understand how you got caught up in a fervor of excitement, but you see, look back at what Moses actually said.

Look back at what Abraham actually said. Look at what the great rabbis have said. Come back to the old ways. Offer sacrifice upon the altar, and in so doing, the person, the former disciple of Jesus would be saying that, well, Jesus wasn't who he claimed to be.

He was not the final sacrifice. He was not the Messiah. Offer sacrifice. Come back to the old ways. And throughout the book we have been seeing the supremacy and the superiority of Christ demonstrated in many ways.

In the first chapter, in the fact that He indeed is Yahweh in flesh, and we have been seeing this development through the middle chapters of the supremacy of Christ's priesthood to the old Levitical priesthood.

And in this process, we have been learning much about the cross. We have been learning much about redemption. And I have argued that indeed the deepest, most specific teaching in all of the New Testament about what the cross is about, about how redemption is accomplished, is found in the book of Hebrews.

But because the book of Hebrews is so dependent upon the Old Testament context, because the book of Hebrews is so focused upon that Old Testament text, that many times in modern evangelicalism, where we are, I have often said, canonically challenged, where even if we say there are 66 books in the Bible, functionally we have less than that.

We have established somewhat of a priority to where the Old Testament books are just sort of there. That's the law, and that was back then, and that was just for Israel. And so as a result, many people just are not as aware of what the Old Testament teaches as they should be.

And so given how often the writer of the Hebrews just assumes a deep familiarity with the text of the Old Testament, sometimes the depth of his argument is lost upon us because we don't see what he's drawing from.

And so as we've gotten into the ninth chapter, we now have encountered the concepts of intercession, Christ appearing in the very presence of the Father in our place, and the supremacy of His sacrifice.

And now we're getting ready to move into the strong emphasis that will take us into chapter 10, the once-for-allness of the sacrifice of Christ, and specifically in contrast to the repetitive nature of the sacrifices that were still ongoing at the time in the temple in Jerusalem.

Christ Appears in Heaven for Us, Not in an Earthly Holy Place

Now I know the last time we got into verse 26, but I want to go back to verse 24 and pick up the context as we look at what the writer would have us to understand specifically about the sacrifice of Christ and the temple, the heavenly versus the earthly, the once-for-all versus the ongoing sacrifices of the old.

Verse 24, For Christ did not enter into a holy place that was made with hands, a handmade holy place, a mere model or a copy of the true things, it's literally the term anti-type, of the true things.

He's talking about the earthly here. Christ didn't go into the earthly holy of holies. But into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence, literally before the face of God, in our place.

Verse 25,.

Nor was it that he would offer himself often, notice the phrase offer himself as a priest, offer himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place each year with blood of another. I know most translations say not his own, but it literally is blood of another.

Otherwise, verse 26, He would have needed often to suffer from the foundation of the world. But now, once, at the consummation of the ages, the very focal point of history, to put away sin by his own sacrifice, he has been manifested.

He has been manifested at the consummation of the ages to put away sin by his own sacrifice. Verse 27, And inasmuch as it is appointed, or it really could be translated inevitable, for men to die once, and after this judgment, so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

Amen. Now, there is just so much here that one of my greatest challenges is not to run ahead of the headlights, to go too fast, and to hence pass over something that's extremely important. As I said last time, we got into verse 26, and I'm sure that everyone who was here then remembers everything that I said about verse 26 from many months ago.

Well, since I don't remember everything I said about verse 26 from many months ago, I really sort of doubt that anybody else does either, and I think it's important that we have the context so we understand exactly how the verses fit together.

We see in verse 25, after the discussion has been given about Christ doesn't go into the holy place on earth. He's not in the lineage of those high priests. He goes into a different holy place. This holy place is the true holy place, which is in heaven itself.

The one on earth was a mere shadow. It was a mere type, a copy of what is truly in heaven itself, and he entered in for a purpose, verse 24, to appear in the presence of God for us. And I hope you remember what we have said, because we have emphasized this over the past couple of years.

The centrality of the intermediation, the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ, he enters into heaven and he has a purpose now to appear in the presence of God for us in our behalf. And we strongly emphasize the glorious nature of that truth, that we have one who appears in heaven in our place because of the union of the elect with Christ, because his death is our death, his burial is our burial, his resurrection is our resurrection.

If you are united with Christ, then you have a representative in the very presence of God. And he is there not to bring about your destruction. He is there not to bring wrath upon you, but he is there as one who has died in your place and he presents a perfect finished sacrifice.

And that is the foundation of the peace that you have with God the Father, is that there is one who stands in his presence in your place who has perfectly fulfilled the law. His wrath has been perfectly satisfied in him and therefore in him you have a right relationship with God and you have eternal life.

But remember, the writer is seeking to establish the consistent superiority of this work of Christ over against what's going on in the temple. And so in verse 25, nor was it that he would offer himself often.

As the high priest enters the holy place year by year with the blood of another. And so now this contrast begins to come out and we need to understand how important this was at that time and I want to emphasize it is important for us today as well.

Yes, some people might say, well, you know, there are sacrifices going on, the temple has been destroyed and doesn't that sort of render this somewhat unimportant? No, it doesn't render it unimportant because of one simple fact.

Mankind in his wild and desperate desire to grab some glory for himself is constantly creating religious mechanisms whereby to control the freedom and grace of God. And in that process has over and over and over again in the history of the Christian faith since these words were written, created mechanisms, created structures to undo what God has done in the sacrifice of Christ.

That is, while the death of Christ opens the way directly into the presence of God by union with Christ, the veil in the temple is split open. The way is made clear for us to go in the presence of God by Christ.

You see, those who want to have religious power over others create structures and mechanisms whereby they then can stand between God and others. And they say, you must come by us. And we will see that this undoes the finished work of Christ as we consider the once-for-allness of the sacrifice of Christ.

And so the writer says, he would not offer himself often as that old high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood.

It's not his own blood, it's the blood of another.

Obviously, the high priest couldn't take his own blood in there. He'd have to be carried in there because the blood is the sign of life and so he would have to die. Verse 26, otherwise, he, Christ, the Messiah, the God-man, would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world.

But now, once, once at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now, we need to understand what is being said in these words. It sounds like an odd argument.

Well, he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world, but God has been gracious, has he not, since the foundation of the world? There has to be some grounds upon which God has shown his grace and forgiveness.

The argument is, is that if he were to give an imperfect sacrifice, if his sacrifice would be one that could be repetitive in nature, then it would have had to have been a sacrifice that took place over and over again from the very foundation of the world, which, by the way, if you're thinking with me, indicates that the author of this book believes that the Son of God, as a divine person, pre-existed his birth in Bethlehem.

He has existed from the foundation of the world, and indeed we know before that. We know he said that in Hebrews 1, but I make mention of that simply because, well, as those of you who are regulars know, when I start moving toward debate mode, I'm always thinking about the people that I'm debating.

Well, I've got two debates coming up in Australia in a few weeks,.

And one of them is with a Muslim.

That's not what I'm thinking about here.

One of them is with a oneness Pentecostal, and the oneness Pentecostal believes that Jesus is two persons, and the Son is merely a creation, came into existence in Bethlehem. Oh, he had been planned from eternity past, but the Son does not have an eternal conscious existence.

He's not a divine person. Jesus was two persons, and when Jesus prayed, it was his human side praying to his divine side, in essence, is what's going on there, rather than the eternal Son in communion with the eternal Father.

And so, when we see passages like this, it sort of catches my mind. There's another example of why it is what we believe about the Christ. We believe about the fact that he was one person with two natures, and that the Son has eternally existed as the Son.

It's substantiated in Scripture. So, the argument is he would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world, but that's not how God has done it. That's not how this has taken place. Instead, we have this idea of the consummation, the summing up, the climax of time itself.

Everything points to this time, and you may recall last time I mentioned to you that especially in Paul's thought, and this is another place where Paul's thought and the thought of the writer of Hebrews, and they may be the same person, I'm not saying it's impossible, we just don't know, but Paul's thought and the writer of Hebrews' thought comes together because the Apostle Paul, what is the cross?

The cross is the very center point of history. Everything before it looked forward to it. Everything afterwards only makes sense in light of it. And so, this is the consummation of the ages. But notice, but now once, and you've heard this term, hapax.

You're going to hear it a lot again over the next few verses and in chapter 10. Hapax, once. Whenever you hear, for example, someone refer to a hapax legamina. Hapax legamina means a word, or sometimes a phrase, normally it's just a word, that is only used once within a certain context.

Normally, when we're talking about the Bible, it's a word that only appears once in all the Bible. It could be a Hebrew word, a Greek word, whatever. Hapax legamina, named once. Well, here the term is hapax.

Now once, at the consummation of the ages, not at the beginning, not at the end, but at the consummation of the ages, the center point of time, He has been manifested. He could have been manifested at the beginning, had that been God's choice.

He could have been manifested at the end, and He could have destroyed the glasses that He's trying to hold.

There we go. There you go.

I really hate to have to hold these things, but over the past about two months, even blowing the fonts up ain't doing any good anymore.

Let me tell you something.

I have joined the group that either needs bifocals or just needs to carry these things around. So, I'm just going to have to start getting used to waving these things around up here. Anyways, at the consummation of the ages, this is the point in time, and notice that He is manifested for a purpose.

For a purpose.

There is a reason why He has been manifested. For the taking away, He has been manifested to put away sin. Now, there's all sorts of other things that we can look at about the incarnation, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There's all sorts of wonderful benefits to all of the universe in the incarnation, but the specific purpose that is laid out in Scripture is that He came to put away sin. Notice that the use of the term sin here is left very general.

It's not, well, He came to put away certain kinds of sin, or He came to deal with the real big sins and left the little sins to us. None of that. Sin, as sin, is put away by His sacrifice. Now, whatever else His sacrifice accomplishes, it accomplishes the putting away of sin in totality.

The False Gospels of Human Cooperation and Priestly Mediation

Now, contrast that, if you will for a moment, with what you so often have in what can only be described as, at best, sub-biblical Gospels and, in probably better language, false Gospels. How does man deal with the fact that the Bible teaches us that God sent His Son into the world to really deal with the issue of sin?

To make an end of it. Not just to make it possible. Because, you see, if this is the case, you'll notice, there's nothing in here about our additions,.

Our cooperation,.

What we can do to help God along. Yes, you can go elsewhere in Scripture, and if you think that God's purpose is just all focused upon mankind, you can find something here and you can find something there.

But, you know, when the Bible actually starts talking about what God's purpose in Christ was, you just can't stick man in there very well to make him the deciding factor. And when man comes up against these clear statements of Scripture, that by His sacrifice, Christ has put away sin, He dealt with it.

Well, mankind sort of struggles with that. It says, well, if He did all that, what's left for me to do? And so what has man done over the ages but come along and say, oh, that's wonderful, yes, He has.

But you see, there's all sorts of things you need to do to get the benefits of this. And the list can be very short, or the list can be very long. But instead of a veil that is torn down the center and moved out of the way and free access by the Spirit of God and the finished Word of God into the very presence of the Father, they sort of come along and they pull that veil back together again and they start stitching it up with man's traditions.

And even though the old priesthood has been done away, and nowhere in the New Testament do you ever have anyone being identified as some type of sacerdotal priest who stands in the presence of the people of God in the place of Christ.

It doesn't happen. It isn't there. No one ever can. That developed hundreds of years later. Yet there are many who stand this day before people and they're called Christian priests. And in fact, in the Roman Catholic communion, when they are ordained, they are called an Alter Christus.

Another Christ. And they stand before the people and they engage in sacraments. And these sacraments are supposed to bring grace. And what you've done is you have gone back to the limitation. Man controls the finished work of Christ.

Now controlled by someone else.

And the benefits of Christ's finished work doled out slowly. This day, many thousands, many millions are walking into churches and they believe they are attending to the very sacrifice of Christ and yet not a one of them is perfected by it.

And what we're going to see is what this text says is one sacrifice perfects forever those for whom he dies. And if that's not the sacrifice you're trusting in, you're not trusting in the real Jesus. Jesus was manifest to put away sin by what?

One sacrifice.

He's only manifested once. He's not going to be manifested again or again or again. He doesn't have to be represented upon an altar by a priest thousands of times. No, he has been manifested once at a point in time.

We know when it was.

Unlike all the religions of mankind that didn't really care about history and things like that, our Scriptures for some reason talk about what happened in history. In the days of Herod, when this guy was ruling over here and this guy was governor over there and the government was doing this in the ninth year of that.

And sometimes that bothers people. Why do we need all that detail? Because what the Bible is saying is God has acted in history. It's not a myth that someone decides, well, you know, this is a nice way to think about God.

It happened in time and history. Christ has entered in and He had a purpose. And it was to put away sin, not by moral teachings, not by providing a means and a mechanism whereby we might improve ourselves.

He put away sin by one means, the sacrifice of Himself. Now, see, that was something that a high priest could never say. The high priest could never say that. And in just a matter of sentences, the writer is going to say, the blood of calves and goats and bulls can never bring about forgiveness of sin.

Yes, the high priest did exactly what God commanded him to do. It was a schion, a shadow. A shadow. Not having the very substance of what it was a shadow of. And so by one sacrifice, Christ has been manifested by His own offering to put away sin.

Death Once, Judgment Afterward, and Christ’s Second Appearing

Then verse 27 is a verse that probably, if I had passed out a little quiz as you came in, I would imagine even if you're not overly familiar with the Bible, you have probably heard verse 27 before. Especially the phrase, it is appointed for men to die once and after this the judgment.

I've heard that phrase for years. One of the first verses I think I remember as a young man. And when do you normally hear that one quoted? Well, not so much funerals. I mean, that's a given at that point.

But you normally hear this verse quoted out of context, in the context of dealing with those people who believe in things like reincarnation, right? You know, reincarnation, the idea, the real idea. Not the Sedona type of reincarnation, okay?

The Sedona type of reincarnation. You know, I remember when you could go to Sedona and not be surrounded by woo-woo hippies. That was nice. But now, you know, the people out there burning incense and hugging trees and things like that.

And they're into reincarnation, but they're into the westernized, cleaned up, scrubbed up. You know, I was once Eleanor Roosevelt. You know, some of that type of reincarnation silliness. The real kind of reincarnation, the Hindu kind of reincarnation, is if you're like the guy in the big, huge truck with the trailer this morning that almost killed me, that just drove me off the road coming across the Indian school.

Well, in Hindu type reincarnation, when that guy dies, he's coming back as a cockroach, okay? Not as a nice human being, not even as somebody in the lower levels. He's coming back as a cockroach, and I'm going to spray him with raid.

That's the kind of reincarnation, okay? Real reincarnation, you can come back as all sorts of stuff. And I'm not really sure how you learn anything and progress on the wheel of samsara or whatever by being a cockroach and getting sprayed with raid.

But, you know, that's the idea, is this concept of reincarnation. And I have over and over again heard preachers saying, well, we know the Bible says there's a boy and a man, one's to die, and after this, a judgment.

And you know what? It's not so much that it's out of context, and that is a true application. That's what it says. But it is always important for us to know what the original context was, and then make application from there.

Because if you don't know that, well, you're not really using the Bible correctly. Verse 27 is just a general statement. It's not a part of the argument in the sense that he doesn't say, well, now let's have an extended discussion of God's decree that man's only going to live one life, and then let's have an extended discussion of judgment.

None of that.

That's not there.

But the reason that I find it very interesting and very important for us to understand its role in the argument is that it is basically said in passing. And it can be said in passing because it is speaking of a general, timeless truth that the Bible very rarely seeks to defend because, well, we know it's true.

See how it's functioning in the argument. The argument is men die once, and then they're judged. Jesus is truly a man, and therefore he can only die once. He's not going to die over and over and over again.

It actually has a role in the argument proving the hoppox, the oneness of the sacrifice of Christ. And in fact, it's interesting in our English translations, you'll notice when I was translating, I said, well, most of the translations say it is appointed for men.

And what does it mean to be appointed? The idea of the original language term is that it is inevitable. It flows from the circumstance of man's creation and the way that God has ordered the world. It is inevitable that men die once.

And it is inevitable that after their death comes judgment. God has appointed this in the nature of his own creation. And so it is appointed that men die once. Now, you know, some of you are probably sitting there, maybe if you're an engineer or something like that, you're going, oh wait a minute, Lazarus died twice.

Well, you know, resurrection might sort of generally, and in fact, there are some people, I know one very, very well-known scholar that he actually, because he's so focused on this idea of what resurrection is and that it hasn't happened yet except in Jesus, that he actually goes so far as to say that Lazarus actually didn't die.

I heard him defend this against an atheist once, and the atheist response was, but he stinketh. And so it was the one time that the atheist just won the debate rather easily on that one. There's an exception when God works a miracle.

We're talking about a general rule here. And the general rule is that God has ordered the universe in such a way that men live shorter or longer lives and then we die. Our time on earth is short. That's why it is wiser to spend a day in the house of mourning than in the house of feasting.

Because that is the end of all men. And we know that we are mortal. That's why we frequently avoid contexts and situations that remind us of our own mortality. We don't want to think about it. Our bodies may be screaming at us that that time is coming.

God gives us all sorts of warnings. And what do we do? We ignore them because the one thing we don't want to think about is how brief life really is. But it is taken as a given that if we understand the economy of God, if we understand creation around us, it is appointed to men to die hotbox once.

And then just four little words. And after this, judgment. There's no argument made for this. It is a given. And in fact, when you think about it, remember when Paul in Romans chapter 3, at one point, part of his argument is, well, it has to be that way, but how else could God judge the world?

And what's the given there? Well, God's going to judge the world.

We all know that.

And you know, when you look at how men and women behave, even those who seemingly have been given over to their lusts, so often people who engage in certain behaviors, all of a sudden you whip up a camera and what do they do?

They try to hide.

Why?

Oh, there are some that actually love to pray. They're evil. But for most people, when you're about to do something and you know it's evil,.

There's this furtive glance.

There's this looking around as one of those closed circuit TV cameras around here.

There's shame. There's a conscience.

Some people seem to get to the point where their conscience is absolutely burned out. It's charred to a crisp.

But there is a recognition. There will be judgment.

And so, these are general statements. In God's creative order, it is appointed to men, you die once. No reincarnation, no wheels of samsara, whatever else it might be. And after you die, there's something called judgment.

What you do in this life actually matters. God will call for an account of the life that he has given to each one of us. It's a given. Now, it functions as a part of this argument. So, Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

And so, Christ also, in the same way, thus is the first word, hutos, hutos means in the same way Christ died once, hapaks, but his death was an offering. But did you notice something? Here, it speaks of Christ having been offered.

Before this, it was his offering of himself.

You have both.

I love how Hebrews moves back and forth between the high priest who gives himself, but here, just as it is God who has set the sovereign boundaries for man's creation, it is God who has provided this offering in the person of Jesus Christ.

Even so, Christ, having been offered, that is the term for sacrifice, hapaks, once. There will be no repetition. There will be no repetition. For what reason?

There is no need.

There is no need. Here, the foundation will be laid for the conclusion that we will see in verses 10 and 14 of chapter 10. And that's this. You want to know if you believe the truth about Christ's death in light of all the falsehood and false teaching that's out there?

Do you want to have a litmus test?

It's pretty clear from Hebrews.

By one offering, he perfects for all time. Now, if you are in a religious tradition that has no room for the freedom and sovereignty of God and salvation, you're going to have to start tacking things on to the end of that.

For those who work up by themselves some kind of faith and repentance and go and do these things and go and do those things and keep pulling it out of yourself. You see, you always have to find some way of saying, Oh, that's a wonderful work that Christ has done, but unless there's this, Oh, and he's done 99 .9 of it.

But it's all in vain unless, don't get me wrong, no one who has not believed, no one who has not repented, will have the benefits of that death. But you need to understand something. The reason that a true believer believes and repents is because God, by his Spirit, has worked a work in that person's heart, has freed them from the tyranny of sin, has taken out that heart of stone and given them a heart of flesh.

And the faith that endures to the end, and only enduring faith, saves. But the reason it's saving faith is why? It's the work of the Spirit of God in his elect people unto his own glory and never to mine.

That's the dividing line. That's the line you have to draw. Who is glorified in this process? Is it God who tries really, really, really, really hard, and we couldn't make it without him,.

But he needs me.

Or is it God who has the capacity in and of himself to save to his honor and glory?

That's the question.

And the argument of the writer of Hebrews is this. There's nothing to go back to because there is only one sacrifice. It has been offered. And if you dare, if you dare, in light of that knowledge, trample underfoot the blood of the Son of God, if you dare go back and offer that sacrifice, there's no repentance.

Remember the hard words we had in Hebrews 6? We're going to have harder words in Hebrews 10. In light of the finishness of the work of Christ, we're going to have harder words. And that is, if you know, if you know the truth about who the Messiah is and what he did, if you know the truth about what he accomplished,.

And you go back, there's no forgiveness.

That's the sin that John talks about. He says, I don't say that you should pray for anybody who does that.

Did you hear that?

Yeah, don't pray for anybody.

Really?

Yeah, no forgiveness for that one.

Really?

Really?

Unforgivable?

Trampling underfoot the blood of the Son of God.

You know?

Say, alright.

No.

Going back. Offer that sacrifice. I'm going to curse the name of Jesus. You say, well, glad we don't live in a day where we have to worry about that anymore. How many ways are there to go back for us today?

How many religious systems are there that will say to you, yeah, that biblical stuff, that's a little harsh. You don't really get to control yourself and your own destiny there.

It's all of God.

We'll offer you something else.

You can still be religious. You can still talk about the grace of God,.

But come on back.

There's still a great danger of that happening. Christ has been offered once.