Perfected Forever, Part 2 (Hebrews 10:14)

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Lesson 11: Defining and Defending the Canon, Part 3

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And now in your copy of God's Word, will you please open up to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, we're gonna be in verse 14 this morning.

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And when you've found your place, we will pray together before we begin. Our gracious God, we thank you for your word.

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It is our source, it is the revelation of our source of our hope, for that is in Christ.

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And in your word, you teach us all that is necessary for life and godliness, that we may know you, that we may place our hope and our faith, our confidence and trust in Jesus Christ and him alone.

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And we pray that as we look at your word and we look at a difficult subject and a difficult passage, that you would grant to us an ability to understand these things, to know how it is that we ought to live in light of this truth.

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And we pray that you would make the confidence and the trust of our heart to be in Christ, in Christ alone.

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May we look nowhere else for the satisfaction of your justice and the provision of all that we need for life and godliness and for the life and the world that is to come.

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Convince us again of how sufficient Christ is and what he has done, and bless this time we pray, in Christ's name, amen.

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Well, last week we stopped in the middle of a verse, verse 14, and it was not something that I thought we were gonna end up doing until about halfway through last week's sermon, and by that time it was really too late to stop the inevitable flow of everything.

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But I left you with a question last week, because I started with a question, and then I told you, promised you, kind of alluded to the fact that I would answer that question by the time we were done last week, which

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I didn't do, so I would remind you of the question. The question I left you with last week was this. Is there any way in which any of the features of the new covenant are inferior to the old covenant?

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Is there any way in which any of the features of the new covenant are inferior to the old covenant?

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In other words, is there anything about the sacrifice and the work of Christ that is just not quite as good as something that was provided under the old covenant?

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And I'm sure you spent all week thinking about that and mulling that over and researching it, reading up on it, probably books and volumes in preparation for this morning.

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And I do plan, if I can remember, to answer that question before we're done here this morning. That is my intention today.

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I promise we will get to that point, whether I'm able to answer it for you or not, that's a different issue. So we are considering this statement in verse 14, and I would just have you to read it again.

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Actually, we'll pick it up and read the context here, beginning at verse 11. This is the concluding paragraph of a theological argument that the author's been making in this middle section of the book of Hebrews, and he is now bringing the theology of this to a conclusion.

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And he ties in here a whole bunch of themes that he has already brought up earlier in these middle chapters, chapter really seven, eight, nine, and 10.

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Verse 11, every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

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But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

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For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. In verse 14 there is our focus.

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For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Now, that's the verse that we stopped in the middle of, and it is necessary for me to give a little bit of a reminder of what we were covering last week, because it's difficult to just parachute into the middle of this and remember that everything that the author has been saying up to this point, particularly in this verse.

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Because what we're looking at today, namely the extent of the sacrifice of Christ, has direct bearing here in this passage.

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This passage bears upon that subject, but we have to understand what the author has been saying, even in the very verse itself.

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So we're just gonna back up to the beginning of verse 14. I'm just gonna give you a very brief, very quick recap of what we looked at last week.

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I suggested to you last week that the effects of his sacrifice and the extent of his sacrifice are described here in verse 14.

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The effect of his sacrifice, namely that he, by that offering, has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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That perfection is the effect of his sacrifice. And then today we're looking at the extent of his sacrifice, which is contained in the last part of that verse, those who are sanctified.

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There is a limit circumscribed around the effects of his sacrifice. This sacrifice was effective and did what it did for a particular group of people, namely, verse 14, those who are sanctified.

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So to remind you of what we covered last week, really the key question is this. What did Jesus Christ accomplish in his death on the cross?

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Did he make salvation possible? Did he make a potential atonement that the sinner actuates through his faith, his belief, and his response to the gospel?

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Or did the Savior actually provide a payment price and take away sin, effectively guaranteeing the salvation of all those for whom he died?

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That is at the heart of the debate concerning the extent of the atonement. Did he accomplish what he came to do, or was he trying to do something that only succeeded for a very few, and the rest are punished in hell?

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That is the question at hand. So that word perfected, verse 14, it says by one offering he has perfected.

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You remember that verse is in the perfect tense. Kind of interesting, the word perfect is in the perfect tense in the

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Greek. The perfect tense describes something that happened in the past that brings into being a present state of being, or has produced a present state of being.

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So the author is looking at something that happened in the past that has created a present state of being on behalf of those for whom that past act was performed.

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The past act is the offering of Christ, that's what happened in the past, and the perfect tense emphasizes not so much the past event as it does describe the present reality or the present state of being that has resulted from that past event.

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The past event is the offering, for by one offering he has perfected or achieved perfection for all those for whom he has died.

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Now what does the word perfect mean? The word perfect describes a completed salvation. It's not describing a moral, it's not used in a moral sense, it's not describing a moral state, a perfect state of sanctification or glorification or moral perfection or moral betterment.

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The word has to do with bringing something to a completed state and describing us in salvation in the book of Hebrews, that word perfect is used repeatedly to describe a state of us being brought near to God, reconciled to him, brought into a right relationship with him, being drawn near into a state of completed accomplishment that was not achieved by the

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Old Testament. Now what was the thing that was not achieved by the Old Testament? The actual reconciliation of the sinner to God.

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The Old Testament priests could not do that, the sacrifices could not do that, the offerings could not do that, the law could not do that, none of those things could perfect the worshiper.

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None of those things could actually achieve atonement, salvation and reconciliation with God.

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Those things were pictures of those realities but they didn't actually accomplish those realities. Those things never actually brought reconciliation between God, the offended party, and the sinner, the rebel who had offended

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God's law. There was no reconciliation made there, they were never actually brought near in any real sense.

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So the Old Testament law, the sacrifice of the priesthood could never perfect us, could never bring us near, could never bring us to that state.

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What was the ultimate state of God's redemptive plan for sinners? It was to bring them into relationship with himself and to reconcile them to him.

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Christ has done that, he has completed that work, that act through his one offering on the cross.

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And remember that this state of perfection is an objective thing, it's not a subjective thing, it doesn't depend on how much we feel it, doesn't depend upon our feelings at all.

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We may not feel perfected, we may not act perfected, we may not even realize that we are perfected. But this is something objectively that happened before we were born, it happened in the cross of Christ and it is something that is accomplished by him.

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It's not something that is accomplished by us, it is not something that is improved upon by us, it is not something that is made effective by us.

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It is something that was made effective and secured and accomplished through the one offering on the cross.

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That is why the text in verse 14 says, by one offering he has perfected those who are in him, those who are sanctified.

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It doesn't say that our faith perfects us because of what Christ has done, nor does it say that our faith, our belief, our repentance or our good deeds are instrumental in perfecting us, nor does it say that we are being perfected present tense, it means that there is a state of perfection, reconciliation with God and all of the current blessings that we enjoy which are part of that, which are secured for us by the death of Christ in his death on the cross.

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That offering, that one offering has done the work of perfecting those for whom he died.

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So that past event created a present state which we, you and I enjoy and Christ has done that, so it is not something that we do, it is not something we contribute to, it is something that he has done.

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He is the one who has achieved this and how long has he achieved it for? Verse 14, by one offering he has perfected for all time.

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That's forever. Forever, bro, forever and ever and ever.

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This is not something that wears out, it's not something that peters out, it's not something that kind of loses its effectiveness after a period of time.

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This thing which he has accomplished, it lasts forever, it secures forever all those for whom that state of perfection has been secured.

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It is an eternal thing, an everlasting thing because it does not depend upon us and because it is not ours to contribute to and because it is not ours to work out or to work for.

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It's already been achieved and so since he has done it and it was done at the cross, what he accomplished at the cross has everlasting and eternal and forever benefits and realities.

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He has perfected, reconciled forever those for whom he has died. So now we come, that's the effect of his sacrifice or his work on the cross and now we come to the extent of it in verse 14.

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Who is it that he has perfected? Who is it that has been made perfect in this sense, that's been reconciled to God?

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Who has been made perfect by that sacrifice? Verse 14 says he has perfected for all time a particular group, a particular group of people.

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Who is it? It is described as those who are sanctified. He has perfected forever those who are sanctified.

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Now that word sanctified, this is not the first time that we have read about this concept of being sanctified.

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A few weeks ago when we were in verse 10 and I just want you to look up in chapter 10, verse 10. A few weeks ago when we were in this verse, we saw what it means to be sanctified.

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Verse 10, by this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Now notice there the reference to the offering again.

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He is talking about the offering in verse 10. He describes the offering in verse 14. This offering in verse 10 has sanctified us.

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The offering in verse 14 has perfected us. It is the same offering and it is the same group of people who are sanctified in verse 10 and are perfected in verse 14.

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For in verse 10 he says that we by God's will have been sanctified or set apart and that's what the word sanctified means.

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I'll just remind you what we covered back in verse 10. Back in verse 10 I said there are three tenses to the word sanctified or three stages of sanctification.

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There is a past event of sanctification where we are set apart for God by God in eternity past.

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Paul describes this in Galatians 1 .15 that God set him apart, God sanctified him even before he was in his mother's womb.

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God knows us, he has sanctified us and set us apart for himself when he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that's

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Ephesians 1, when we were granted grace in Christ Jesus before the world began, that's 2 Timothy chapter two.

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That act of God choosing us has set us apart for himself. Then there is a present reality of sanctification.

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That is the process of sanctification where we are made holy in our conduct, where we grow in the likeness of Jesus Christ and God conforms us to the image of Christ.

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So as we grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ and we grow in our understanding of truth and we mortify sin and we become more and more like Christ and more and more obedient, we become slaves of obedience, that's progressive or present day current sanctification.

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But then there is coming a time when we will be sanctified, set apart entirely even from the presence of sin.

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That is in the future when we are glorified. So in the past we are set apart in God's choosing in eternity past.

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We are set apart by the death of Christ and his sacrifice on the cross even before we are born. Then we are continually being sanctified and changed, conformed into the image of his son presently, ultimately striving for that final glorification and that final sanctification which is yet future.

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And it is by this will, verse 10 says, the will of God that sent Christ to give his life on a cross, that same will has sanctified us or set us apart in him.

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Now back in verse 10, the tense of sanctified was in the perfect tense, meaning that verse 10's sanctification describes, or the reference to sanctification in verse 10 describes a past event, namely the offering of the body of Jesus, look at verse 10, by this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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That offering, verse 10, sanctified us. That is a past event that took place that has brought about a present state of reality, a present condition.

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Currently we enjoy that position, if you will, of being set apart or sanctified by God for God because of what

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Christ has done. On the cross before you were born, God sanctified you, set you apart for himself through the death of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But then in verse 14, the word sanctified is in the present tense.

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Now if you're reading the NASB, it doesn't look like that because verse 10 says sanctified, verse 14 says sanctified, but if you're reading the

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NIV or an ESV, then you'll notice that it refers, it puts it in a present tense. The ESV says those who are being sanctified, and the

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NIV says those who are being made holy. That's the same idea. So those two versions kind of capture the present tense sense of the word sanctified in verse 14.

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You say, is that significant? I think it is. And here's why. It reflects the fact that those who are sanctified in the past by the death of Christ are also being sanctified, made holy in the present through the work of the

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Holy Spirit. So there's two senses of sanctified being described between verses 10 and verse 14.

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Two tenses and two senses of sanctification. And what are they? They're the past act which

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God has done, which you had nothing to do with. Then there is the present act which God is doing with which you cooperate and pursue holiness without which no one sees the

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Lord. Those are two different elements of sanctification. So in the past, this one happened. It has brought about a current state, namely, your present being sanctified or being made holy.

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Why does the author use the present tense here in verse 14 and not again the past tense? Because he could have used the past tense.

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He could have said that by one offering, Christ has perfected all those whom he, in that same offering, sanctified, past tense.

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He could have referred back to the same kind of sanctification that he mentions in verse 10. He could have done that in verse 14.

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He could have said for by one offering, he has perfected all those whom in the same offering back then he sanctified.

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But instead, he switches it and uses the present tense reference to sanctification. Why is that? I think that there are a couple of reasons and I'll give them to you.

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First, by using the present tense, the author connects what happened in the past with what continues to happen in the present.

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Do you see that? He is reminding us again that those who are set apart by the death of Christ are those who are being set apart by the work of the

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Holy Spirit in sanctifying them and making them holy today. So that there is a connection between what happened in the past positionally and what happens in the present with us practically or experientially.

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That those who are sanctified in the death of Christ are also sanctified in their daily walk. And nobody who can say that they are sanctified by the death of Christ, I'm sorry, nobody who can say that they are not being sanctified today can say that they were sanctified in the death of Christ.

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There's no reason, there's no way you can know that. The only evidence that you were sanctified back then is if you are being sanctified today.

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So the author, by using the present tense, is describing here this connection between that past event and a present reality.

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So that our salvation, which was secured in the past, is experienced by us in the present and it would be fulfilled in the future.

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And at no point between the past and the future will God ever drop what he is doing along the way.

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If he sanctified you in the death of Christ, I promise you this, he will sanctify you in this life and he will ultimately sanctify you in the future.

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And nobody in the future in hell will be able to say, yes, I was sanctified in the death of Christ and then

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I was sanctified in the life that I lived, but at some point I fell off and now God failed to sanctify me in the future and remove me from the very presence of sin.

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That will never happen. Because this tense of sanctification, this work of sanctification, takes place positionally in the past, it was worked out experientially by us in the present, and it will ultimately be fulfilled fully in the future when

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God delivers us from the presence of sin. And again, this work of being transformed practically into what

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Christ has made us, it is only because he has already guaranteed what the outcome is. But you understand this, because God has secured the ultimate outcome of your salvation, because he has done that, and when did he do it?

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On the cross, in Christ, through that offering, because he has done that, he is making you today what you will eventually be.

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Moving you in that direction. It must be so. If he's not sanctifying you, if you're not being made holy, if you're not progressing in holiness, you have no reason in your life to believe that you were sanctified back then, or that you will be sanctified in the future.

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The evidence that you have, that you were set apart for God back then, is the fact that you are pursuing holiness, and you love holiness, and you're being sanctified today.

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That's the evidence you look at. We don't go back to a prayer that we prayed. We don't go back to an evangelistic meeting we were at where we walked down the sawdust trail and fell on our faces before some holy man who was up there spitting and yelling and screaming and preaching, and thinking, well, that was when

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God saved me. That's not what we go back to. What do we go back to? We look at our present life and say, am I pursuing holiness?

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Am I growing in holiness? Is God conforming me into the image of Christ? Do I love the things I once hated and hate the things that I once loved?

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And if that's true, that's my evidence that I was sanctified back then. So there is a connection here between what happened in the past and what is taking place in the present for those who are sanctified.

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For by one offering, he has forever perfected, back then at the cross, those who are currently being made holy, those who are being sanctified.

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There is a connection. The Bible never divorces our sanctification in the past from our sanctification in the present, nor does it divorce our sanctification in the present from our sanctification in the future.

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We are the sanctified ones. That's the root word of the word saint. And because we are saints, that means that all three tenses of this sanctification are ours because of what

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Christ has done. The second thing that using the present tense does is it answers an objection, and the objection usually goes something like this.

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Jim, if you believe and think that you were saved or that your salvation was secured on the cross of Christ, then that must mean that you think that it doesn't matter how you live from that point forward at any point in your life and that you're gonna go to heaven because your salvation is guaranteed.

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I had a young man say this to me in my office. He sat down in my office one time, and he said, God chose me in eternity past.

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It doesn't matter if I committed adultery on my wife, which he was currently in the process of planning on doing when

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I talked with him. So his view was that because he was, he looked back at his election and said, my election has secured my salvation.

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It doesn't matter how I live. And I looked at him. I said, the very fact that you think that is evidence to me that you're not saved because saved people don't think that way.

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And so this answers that objection. Is it possible for me to just live an unsanctified, unholy, impenitent, and unrepentant life, loving my sin, diving in it, swimming in it, enjoying it, planning it, and glorying in that sin and expect to be ultimately saved from it in the future?

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That's not possible. Those who were sanctified in the past are being sanctified in the present.

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Third, this word used in the present tense helps us identify those for whom he died.

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The limits of this sacrifice, the limits of the extent of his sacrifice is prescribed right here in the text.

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Who is it that has been perfected for all time, permanently, by the death of Christ? Here's the question.

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Was it all men who have ever lived, even those who were in hell at the time that Jesus died, or was it a group of people known as God's elect, his people, his sheep, his bride, the believers?

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For whom did Christ do this work of perfecting us and sanctifying us? Who was included in that sacrifice?

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This gets down to the heart of the difference between Reformed theology and Arminian theology, which is the extent of the atonement.

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For whom did Christ die? Now listen, unless you believe, and we said this some weeks ago, because this is not the first time we've had to address this, so just if you're new here, understand that we've worked through this issue in the past as we've gone through this middle section of the book of Hebrews.

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This is not the first time we've talked about this. As I mentioned several weeks ago when we talked about this subject again in another passage that deals with it here in the book of Hebrews, everybody limits the atonement.

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So if you're upset by the notion of limited atonement or the phrase limited atonement, just understand, unless you believe that everybody goes to heaven, you limit the atonement.

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If you believe that Jesus died for all the people who have ever lived and he paid the price for every sin that's ever been committed, then you believe that the atonement is unlimited in its scope, but you believe that it is limited in its power, because though he paid the price for all those people, that price doesn't actually save and secure any of them since millions perish, and therefore you believe in an atonement that is unlimited in its scope but limited in its power.

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If you believe that Jesus Christ died to pay the price for his people and his people only, and that atonement has not been made and the price has not been paid for those who go to hell, then you believe that the atonement is limited in its scope but unlimited in its power, because the atonement that is made ends up saving all those for whom it was made.

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So everybody limits the atonement. You limit the scope of it or you limit the power of it. If you limit the scope of the atonement, then you are saying that it is man, sorry, let me get this right.

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Okay, you either limit the atonement by, you either believe that God limits the atonement in his intention or you believe that man limits the atonement by his response to it.

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So if you believe in an unlimited atonement that is paid for all people who have ever lived, that Christ bore all of their sins, then you believe that the power of the atonement is limited by the response of men, that we by our faith make effective the sacrifice of Christ, that man limits the atonement by his unbelief, the effectiveness of the atonement.

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If you believe that Christ died to pay the sins for his people, then you believe that God has limited the atonement by his intention in sending

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Christ to die for the sins of his people. But everybody limits the atonement. So don't get upset by the idea of limited atonement.

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The only person who believes in a truly unlimited atonement is somebody who believes that everybody gets saved in the end and that hell will be empty, save only the demons.

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And even then you'd have to say that Jesus didn't die for the demons, so even then you'd have to say that his atonement was limited. So here's the question.

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This perfection in verse 14, this state of sanctification in verse 10 that was accomplished in the offering of Jesus Christ, was that done for all men or for some?

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Was it done for all men or for some? Can you say or would you say that all men are sanctified in the death of Christ?

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If all men are sanctified in the death of Christ, then would not all men be being sanctified today?

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And would not all men eventually be sanctified in the future? You'd have to say that.

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Would you say that all men, everyone who has ever lived, even those in hell at the time that Jesus died, that all of them have been perfected through the offering of Jesus Christ?

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Can the person in hell right now say, for by his one offering,

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I was perfected for all time? Can the person in hell say that? No, the person in hell cannot say that because they were not perfected by the death of Christ.

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And again, this state of sanctification and perfection is something that is achieved in the death of Christ, not our response to it.

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It is not our faith that perfects us. It's the offering that perfects us. It's not the offering that makes our perfection possible so long as we respond appropriately and work it out and achieve it or make it active and effective by our faith.

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Our faith does not achieve this. His offering achieves this. That's the point of verse 14. By that one offering, he has achieved this.

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He has done this. He has perfected for all time those for whom he died. So follow the argument of the author through the book of Hebrews, if you will.

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The author has been arguing that the death of Jesus is infinitely superior to the death of all the animal sacrifices that were made in the

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Old Testament. Why? Because the death of Christ actually achieves the purpose for which he made that offering, he sacrificed.

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The death of Christ is infinitely superior to the Old Testament sacrifices because those sacrifices had no inherent power to justify us, to sanctify us, to glorify us, to make us holy, to liberate us from sin, to reconcile the worshiper to God.

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Those Old Testament sacrifices had no inherent power in themselves to atone for sin, to cleanse the conscience, to forgive transgression, to satisfy the wrath of God, or to secure eternal salvation.

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Those Old Testament sacrifices had no ability to do that. But the sacrifice of Christ, on the other hand, is infinitely powerful and infinitely able to achieve all of that.

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If in his death he perfected for all time those for whom he died, then those for whom he died have received an actual atonement, not a potential atonement.

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They have received a satisfaction of divine wrath. They have been reconciled to God. An actual payment has been made.

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They have been forgiven, they have been justified, they are sanctified, he has set us apart as his own, and he has perfected us forever.

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So those for whom he has died, did he achieve this perfection for all men?

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Ask the question another way, are all men perfected? If the answer to that is no, then the answer to the first question is no.

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He did not achieve that for all men. He did achieve that for some. So here's the horns of the dilemma.

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If the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in and of itself, secured and accomplished these things so that they are guaranteed to those for whom he died, then it obviously was not made for all men.

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If the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in and of itself, did not secure these things, so as to infallibly guarantee and secure the salvation of all those for whom he died, then the sacrifice of Jesus is not superior to the

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Old Testament sacrifices. We're coming back around to the question I asked you at the beginning. You see, those

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Old Testament sacrifices didn't guarantee the salvation of anybody either, did they? Those Old Testament sacrifices were made for thousands, nine millions of people, and they were effective for none of them.

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They didn't perfect the worshiper. They didn't achieve their salvation, didn't achieve their sanctification, didn't deliver them, didn't atone for sin.

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Those Old Testament sacrifices were useless for all of those things. They perfectly did what they were supposed to do, but in terms of our salvation and atonement, those

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Old Testament sacrifices did not achieve that. So if you say that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has secured infallibly the salvation of all those for whom he has died, then it must not be made for all people.

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But if you argue that it was made for all people, then I say to you it was no more effective than the

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Old Testament sacrifices because the sacrifice of Jesus and the Old Testament sacrifices at least have this thing in common, that neither of them secured infallibly the salvation of anybody for whom it was made.

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Both of those groups of sacrifices, the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the animals, both of those sacrifices required something else to make them effective.

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And so therefore, the sacrifice of Jesus is not superior at all to the sacrifice of the animals, at least in this regard, that neither one of them guarantees the salvation of anybody.

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But if indeed he has perfected forever all those for whom he has died, then he has in that death and in that offering secured gloriously and infallibly and fully and forever the eternal salvation, redemption, glory, and blessedness of all those who are included in the sacrifice.

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And if he has done that, it is a limited sacrifice and not an unlimited sacrifice in terms of its scope.

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For I believe that it is unlimited in terms of its power and effect because it fully accomplishes everything he came to do.

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So remember the question I asked you. Is there any way in which any of the features of the new covenant are inferior to the old covenant?

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Are there any features or forms of the new covenant that are inferior to the old covenant? Now, the

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Old Testament sacrifices, this is gonna require you to think for a little bit. If you haven't been thinking now, up till now, now's the time to put it into gear, to thinking gear, okay?

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The Old Testament sacrifices accomplished what they were intended to accomplish. They accomplished it perfectly.

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They fulfilled their role. The Old Testament sacrifices were intended as a reminder of sin year after year. Did they do that?

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Yeah, every year they brought the sacrifice, a reminder of my sins year after year. The author of Hebrews says that earlier in chapter 10. Those Old Testament sacrifices were a reminder of sin year after year.

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That's what they were intended to do. They fulfilled or accomplished their purpose. Those Old Testament sacrifices were intended to cover sin, not remove sin, not take it out of the way, but to cover over until another sacrifice could be made, namely the sacrifice of Christ.

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So those Old Testament sacrifices fulfilled that role. Those Old Testament sacrifices were to be a prophetic picture of the sacrifice of Christ.

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Did the Old Testament sacrifices fulfill that? Yeah, they perfectly pictured the sacrifice of Christ, just as God intended. And those

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Old Testament sacrifices were intended to demonstrate the seriousness of sin and that a sacrifice would be necessary to atone for sin.

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That's what the Old Testament sacrifices were intended to do. To be a reminder of sin year after year, to cover over sin, to prophetically picture

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Christ, and then to demonstrate the seriousness of sin. Now I ask you, Did the Old Testament animal sacrifices fulfill the purpose for which they were given?

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Yeah, they did. Every last one of those things, the Old Testament sacrifices did that. The Old Testament sacrifices fulfilled the purpose for which

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God made them or gave them. Now in the death of Christ, if you believe, number one, that you can lose your salvation, or number two, that Jesus Christ made atonement and paid the price for millions of people who perish in hell, then

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I ask you this, does the death of Christ fulfill the purpose that He came to die for? If He came to make atonement and to save all people, and He doesn't do that, then did

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He fulfill His purpose? That's not difficult. If Jesus Christ came to make an atonement and He tried to save all people, and He doesn't do that, millions of people perish, then did

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Jesus' sacrifice fulfill its purpose? It did not, did it? No, because you'd have to argue that He came to perfect and to provide perfection and sanctification for millions of people who are even right now in hell.

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Therefore He did not achieve the purpose for which He came. His sacrifice does not have its intended effect.

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If the intended effect or the intended result is the salvation of all men, and He doesn't achieve the salvation of all men, then

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His sacrifice did not do what it was intended to accomplish. And in that way then, the sacrifice of Jesus is inferior to the

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Old Testament sacrifices because the Old Testament sacrifices did what they were intended to do. You would have to argue if you believe in unlimited atonement or if you believe you can lose your salvation, then you have to believe that the sacrifice of Jesus is inferior because it did not do what it was intended to do.

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Does that make sense? Did He achieve what He came to achieve, or did

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He fail in the task? If He achieved what He came to achieve, then

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He has perfected forever all those for whom He died. And none will be lost, and none will be forgotten, and none will be left out.

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He will gather them all together, all His sheep, His whole body will be there, His whole bride will be there, all

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His sheep will be there, all whom the Father gave Him will be there. Why? Because He came to seek and to save that which was lost, and He came to give

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His life as a ransom for His people and to save them from their sin. He didn't come to make salvation possible.

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He didn't come to make salvation probable. He didn't come to simply open the door to God's grace that people can come in and maybe some will, maybe some won't, and God is in heaven wringing

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His hands, hoping to see, waiting to see how many people come in. God is not waiting for our faith or our response to the gospel to make the sacrifice of Christ effective.

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He came to do what He came to do, and He fulfilled His purpose fully and completely. And that makes

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His sacrifice at least as glorious as the Old Testament sacrifices, and I would argue more so, because those

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Old Testament sacrifices could never perfect and never guarantee the salvation of anyone for whom they are offered.

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If the offering of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice of Christ is greater than the

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Old Testament sacrifices, then that means that He has guaranteed the salvation of all those for whom He died. And if He has guaranteed the salvation of all those for whom

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He died, then He did not die for the millions who will perish. He perfects forever all those for whom

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He died. He didn't attempt to perfect us. He did. He didn't attempt to sanctify us.

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He did. He didn't attempt to satisfy God's wrath on our behalf. He actually did, and He doesn't attempt to save anyone.

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He saves. Our God does not try to do anything. He does what

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He intends to do, always, fully, and perfectly. By one offering,

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He has perfected forever those who have been sanctified by that offering and those who are sanctified,

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His people. That is the effect of His offering, and that is the extent of His offering, and it is a perfect sacrifice.

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Let's bow our heads. Father, we thank You for such a great mercy and such a great sacrifice as what

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Christ has done on our behalf. It is only by Your grace, and not by our doing or our works or our faith, that we are included in that, but by Your grace.

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And the blessings which we now enjoy, repentance, faith, regeneration, a relationship with You, these things flow out of what has been secured for us on the cross.

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And so we thank You for those things, those blessings, and we thank You for that work of Christ which has made it possible and secured it for us.

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We stand in You, with You, before You, in Jesus Christ, righteous, perfected, sanctified, only because of the work of another.

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And so we give all glory and honor and thanks to Him, our great God, our Savior, our

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King, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Please stand.

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Holy God, how we came, perfect men to bear my blessing.

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Took my sin, by His death

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I live again. Holy God, how we came, perfect men to bear my blame.

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On the cross He took my sin, by His death

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I live again. Have a great week.