Atonement - Hebrews 10:11-14

Here I am again. Yay from one person, that's good. Back by unpopular demand. Back by necessity. So before I start the sermon, like Daniel said, I will be teaching on atonement today. But before I start that, I am honored and humbled to be up here to hear the sermons coming out of this pulpit every week, and then to have to deliver one is a humbling thing.

So I want to thank Pastor Brad, first of all, even though he's not here, that for his dedication to this flock and feeding us week in and week out. It is truly impressive that he has done that for so many years, even in a hostile environment with the past church.

I also want to thank Daniel for so quickly nominating me for the task of preaching as soon as we found out that Pastor Brad was going to be out. It was immediate. Pastor Brad said, we'll be out of town, and before he could get the dates out, Daniel said, Brendan, we'll do it.

Yeah, well he's already done four or five sermons, so I guess I'm catching up. It's a dangerous thing to have Daniel as your friend. He will not let anybody fly under the radar. I would just, I'd be more than happy to sit over here and play music, but not with that guy.

Assurance of Salvation Through Christ's Finished Atonement

So yeah, and so with the topic of atonement, I want to clarify before we start that I don't want the misunderstanding that this will be a full discourse on every part of the atonement, not that any of you expected that.

The focus that I'm going to have is for assurance of salvation in light of the atonement. So I'm sure all of us here have dealt with the struggle of, am I truly saved? Even after coming to the great truths of Reformed theology, a lot of us, I would say every one of us, still has the struggle almost daily of the question, am I truly saved?

This question obviously comes to us because a lot of times we get our view on ourself too much, but it is a real aspect in everybody's life that we have this uncertainty of our salvation. If you've never struggled with it, please come up here and we will switch places immediately because I definitely need to learn from you.

So obviously that's not the case. At some point we've all been bombarded with feelings of inadequacy and the overwhelming weight of sin. So today we will turn to the book of Hebrews to find relief from that burden.

We'll examine the work of Christ as our high priest, and this will not only guard us against the enemy's accusations, but it will also anchor our assurance where it truly belongs, not in our own walk, but in the finished work of Christ on the cross.

We'll also be careful in this dealing with the atonement to not portray the ideology of self-worth or an empty repentance and just thinking that we can just do whatever we want. There is definitely responsibility in the Christian life, but it's not where our assurance of our salvation is to be found.

So with that being said, we'll be reading from Hebrews chapter 10, and if you will please stand. We will begin at verse 1, and in typical fashion we'll be reading through verse 18. So once you have found your place, please stand in reverence for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete, certain, and inspired word.

Hebrews 10:1–18 and the Once-for-All Sacrifice

Beginning in verse 1, it says, In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.

When he said, Above you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law. Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will.

He does away with the first in order to establish the second, and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us, for after saying, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds.

Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the opportunity to feed your flock with your word.

I ask that you would open the hearts and minds of those gathered here today and allow me to present your word with clarity and precision. Please God, guard me from error and allow your word to shine through this imperfect earthen vessel.

And I pray that it would pierce the hearts of everyone here so that they may know the love you have for them and the assurance they will find in their perfect Savior. I ask all of this in his name. Amen.

You may be seated. So there will be folks in most of our attention in Hebrews. I'd like to take us back in history for a second to the tabernacle that was erected in the wilderness by Moses. And we'll see the inauguration of the sacrificial system that the Israelites had under the command of Moses.

So I feel it's important to start here because then will we have a clearer understanding of the Jewish mindset when it comes to sacrifices for sins. We will be looking at the Day of Atonement rituals recorded for us in Leviticus chapter 16.

Feel free to turn there if you want. It will not be a verse-by-verse reading of it. So as this is not our main focus, I'll just give a synopsis of the things found in that Day of Atonement ritual. So chapter 16 starts in Leviticus that after the death of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron who were killed by God for offering unauthorized or strange fire before God.

God commands Moses to tell Aaron to not come into the holy place lest he die as well. God then gives very specific requirements for Aaron to be able to enter and offer sacrifices for the nation. Aaron must come with animals for sin and burnt offerings, and he must be washed and dressed in the priestly garments, which we've heard Pastor Brad detail to us in Exodus chapter 28.

In the following verses we see the specificity and the task that God requires for the earthly high priest to perform in order to make atonement not only for the nation but also for himself. It's in this chapter that we also see the concept of a scapegoat.

We've all probably heard that term in work or in everyday life. As Aaron is instructed to take two goats from the people and one will be killed as a sin offering and the other will be sent out into the wilderness after the high priest has confessed the iniquities of the people of Israel.

We then see in the closing verses of chapter 16 that God sets this ritual as a statute to be repeated every year in the seventh month on the tenth day. During this time the people of Israel would fast.

The Bible says that they would afflict themselves and this means to fast, to not give the body food, and they would prepare themselves for the day of atonement, which in the Hebrew language would be Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

I can imagine that year after year offering these sacrifices, surely the high priest would have began to wonder, what does this all mean? I've been offering these every single year, the same rituals every year, and what is it doing?

What is it truly doing to the person for whom it's offered? He must have thought that this had to be a shadow of things to come and it can't be the final product because even with the specificity of the ritual and no matter how sincere the high priest was while offering the sacrifices, they weren't perfecting anyone.

We know this because the repetitive nature of these sacrifices. In the tabernacle all the way up to the time of the destruction of Herod's temple, these sacrifices were performed year after year and even daily.

These sacrifices offered in the Old Testament could only remind the person of their sin. That's all you can get from this type of system is the remembrance of sin. There is no true forgiveness of sin.

There's just a covering. However, in the New Testament, we're no longer reminded of our sin, but of our sin bearer. We see this during the Lord's Supper, even as we partake in it at this church, where Pastor Brad will read that Jesus tells the disciples to remember me in doing this.

Usually in the Old Testament when these sacrifices were given, the people would remember their sin that they were being atoned for, but now we are told to look to Christ and our sin bearer who actually can perfect us.

So we're admonished in that Lord's Supper to not focus on our sin, but to focus on Him. So now moving from the Old Testament shadow to the New Testament reality, the book of Hebrews is the most in-depth analysis of the atonement.

It is the best handling or the most in-depth, the most clear handling of what was accomplished and how Christ's atonement was accomplished. So to give a background on the book of Hebrews, it was written to Jewish believers who were under intense pressure from Jewish people to reject Christ, to return to the old ways that have been set up from Moses.

The author's central argument is that there is nothing to return to. Those sacrifices he explains very clearly throughout the book, they don't perfect anybody. There is nothing to go back to. Those former rituals were merely shadows of the fulfillment that was to be found in Christ.

Throughout the book, the author underscores Christ's superiority to all things, to all of creation, to Moses, to the high priest of old. Christ is superior to all of it. He identifies him as our great high priest, and this high priest that we have now, his sacrifice possesses the power and it is actually effective in ways that the previous offerings were not effective.

He had the power to truly cleanse the conscience of sin. Chapter 10 in Hebrews specifically contrasts the nature of Christ's sacrifice with the repetitive rituals of the past. The chapter opens, as we saw, by clarifying that the earthly sacrifices could never perfect those for whom they were offered, nor could they perfect the one who offered them.

Their annual repetition served only as a reminder of the sin, and if they could truly perfect the one for whom they were made, the sacrifices would have ceased. And we see that in chapter 10 in the first few verses, where he says that they would have ceased.

It would have made perfect sense for them to cease if they actually perfected anybody. Verse 5 and 10 builds on this concept, showing that Christ came to abolish the first covenant in order to establish the second covenant, a better covenant.

This culminates in verse 10, where it says, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Verse 11 through 14, which will be the focus for today, builds on the truth found in the previous verses.

Verse 11 reminds us that the sacrifices made were made repeatedly by the priest and emphasizes that they can never take away sins. So as an aside right here, for the nerds of the congregation, this verse is actually one of the verses to date the book of Hebrews, the writing of the book of Hebrews.

The logic behind it being, verse 11 says, and every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices. This verse implies that as the book was being written, these sacrifices were still being performed.

We know that the temple was destroyed in AD 70 by the Romans, so therefore the book had to be written before that. Another point to that is that there is no mention of the destruction of the temple anywhere in the book of Hebrews.

This, to me, is probably the clearest example of why it had to be written before that, because what other argument would you need to say that the Old Testament sacrifices have passed away, other than Christ prophesied that the temple would be destroyed, and then it was destroyed?

That would have been, the writer of Hebrews could have had like two chapters. Look, Christ prophesied this. He said he was the new covenant. The temple is now destroyed. That means it has passed away, and Christ's sacrifice is the only thing left.

But we don't see any of that in here, so that also can help us date the book of Hebrews. So back to the looking at verse 11, it reminds us of the insufficiency of Old Testament sacrifices. Verse 12 then contrasts those sacrifices, those repetitive multiple sacrifices, to a singular sacrifice made by Jesus.

Verse 12 is a powerful verse because it builds on the truth found in verse 10 that Christ's sacrifice was once for all. So verse 12 does this by reiterating that it was a single sacrifice, and also that it was made once.

And also, once it was made, it tells us that he sat down at the right hand of the Father. It's also important to note that in verse 11 the altar says that the priest is standing daily, whereas in verse 12 he contrasts by saying that Christ sat down.

So what does this mean? What does this contrast actually tell us? Standing would imply that the work is not finished. The one standing must continue his work to complete the task that is set before him.

On the other hand, the one that sits down shows that he has completed his work. There is nothing left for him to do. When Jesus offered his body in the heavenly temple, his work was complete and fully accomplished.

We even see Christ say it is finished on the cross. Even at that time it was finished. Therefore he sat down, because it was accomplished. He sat down at the right hand of his Father. Verse 13 tells us that he will continue sitting down until all of his enemies are made his footstool.

I love verse 13 because what I notice in it is that after Christ is seated by the Father, it then says all of his enemies will be put under his feet. This means that even the conquering of his enemies was completed with his offering of his own body.

This is a concept of already but not yet. This comes into view because we see that Christ is sitting, indicating that the work is done, but we see his enemies still active today. There's still death in the world.

There's still all kinds of enemies against the truth of Christ. But does that mean it hasn't been conquered? No, by no means. So we can say that Christ's work on the cross has defeated all of his enemies.

Therefore he can sit down and we are seeing the conquest being played out in real time. With the last enemy being defeated is death itself. The seating of Christ refers back to Psalm 110, which is often referred to as God's favorite Bible verse.

It's the most quoted Bible verse in the New Testament. Psalm 110 says, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. It's vital for us to remember that Christ is reigning now.

He is in heaven, seated by his Father, reigning over all of creation. And because of that, all of his enemies will be defeated. There are varying viewpoints, by the way, on how this is accomplished, how the defeating of his enemies in time is accomplished.

Without going too far into that, we can at least all agree that his enemies will be defeated, are defeated, and will be put under his feet. Then verse 14 tells us why Christ can sit down. He can sit down because his work is complete, but why is his work complete?

And we read in verse 14, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. We'll go into depth a little bit more on that in a minute. Before we do that, I want to give us a better understanding of atonement itself.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement and the Justice of God

So we have to ensure that our minds in dealing with the atonement are tethered to the bedrock of the gospel. To truly grasp why Christ's work is finished, and why his finished work is the only place we can anchor our assurance, we must be clear on what exactly we mean when we use the word atonement.

So this word atonement originates from the phrase at-one-ment, which is easy enough for us to understand in English. It's multiple things being one, at one. Two things or more things are made at one with, in this case, God.

Understanding what is brought about by the atonement is pretty easy. We've been taught that from a young age. We all know that the atonement of Christ brought about our salvation from sin and the turning away from God's wrath.

However, how the atonement of Christ is so difficult and has plagued the church for millennia. Just to demonstrate that it has been a big issue in the church for this long, the first full-length systematic treatise of the atonement wasn't even written until the year 1099 by Anselm of Canterbury.

While this may seem like what was the early church doing, the early church had many battles to fight, primarily the deity of Christ and his actual person and the nature of his human nature and his divine nature.

So to not put a mark on the old first-century church, they had their own problems to deal with. And so the first systematic treatise we see is in 1099. Throughout our church histories, there have been many theories regarding Christ's atonement, and I will not try by any means to discuss every single one of these because there are many nuances to each one and it would be unfair to each point to try to, you know, say them here in this short amount of time.

So what I will do is focus more on the dominant view today in evangelical Christianity, and it is known as penal substitutionary atonement. I imagine most of us here have heard that term, but for the sake of all of us, we will go more in depth into what it actually is.

So it is a mouthful, penal substitutionary atonement. You have to really practice that one to get it out right. It's simply a shorter way of saying what most of us grew up in church being taught. So all of us who grew up in church were more than likely taught this view.

This view says that Christ died on the cross in our place to pay the penalty due for our sins. This view was popularized by the Protestant reformers, and although it is a, it's also very easy to show biblically.

It's not just we're following the reformers. This is a biblical concept. The penal part of the phrase is, it shows that Christ, that there was a penalty for the punishment or a penalty or punishment to be paid for our sin to satisfy God's justice.

Substitutionary shows that Christ died in our place on the cross. His death was viewed by God as fully paying the price for our sins, and now his righteousness could be imputed to us while our sin was imputed to him and fully paid for.

As Daniel read earlier from Isaiah 53, it is the clearest example from the Old Testament of this concept, the penal substitutionary atonement concept. The clearest verse being verse 5. He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Christ was pierced with nails because of our sin, and it was our sin that led to the need for him to die, and not only die but also endure the full wrath of Almighty God on the cross.

As Isaiah also says, it pleased the Lord to crush the Messiah. This verse captures something that we usually don't see if we just skim over it. So notice in Isaiah that the punishment that Christ endured brought us that brought us peace, but the thing he was pierced for was not just our sins of omission or ignorance of the law or unintentional sins only, but Christ died for our transgressions and our iniquities.

It makes sense in our eyes, as the Bible says, that anybody would die for a good man, but God shows his love in dying for us while we are sinners. So it makes sense in our eyes that if God sent his Son, he would be saving those who just don't have the full knowledge of his law and just are doing the best with the light that they have, but actually the opposite is true.

That he would die for the transgressions and iniquities of his people. How great salvation and how deep a love and how abundant the grace of God that while we were active transgressors against his law and enemies of God, he sent his Son to die.

If Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, cleansing us from sin while we were haters of God, how could we doubt that he would keep us in his love until we attain eternal life? I know we all get in our head and we think that our sin somehow separates us from that, but if he died for you while you were a sinner, how can we think that he won't keep you while you are still a sinner?

Christ's Sacrifice Is Final and Effective for the Elect

Christ's sacrifice, as emphasized in Hebrews, was not like the sacrifices of the priests of old. It was not offered with the intent of ever repeating it. Even if we fail him, there is no need for the atonement to be made again.

It was a sacrifice offered once for all, as we see in Hebrews. This phrase once for all is often misinterpreted and people try to make it refer to the scope of the atonement. So most people would say, well it says once for all, therefore that means he died once and he offered once for all of mankind.

However, the text indicates something completely different. The all does not refer to a quantity of people saved, but to the finality of time. The sacrifice was made once for all time, never needing to be repeated.

As Reformed Baptists, we hold to the doctrine of limited atonement, which the phrase itself can sound contradictory when we speak about Christ's infinite sacrifice. How could this thing be limited if it is infinite?

So we must also distinguish between sufficiency and efficacy. We do not believe Christ's power was deficient in any way to save anyone. Rather, we believe his atonement was sufficient to save all, yet effective only for the elect, chosen before the foundation of the world.

So I'm sure most of us here know that there are two sides, primarily two sides to this argument, and both sides actually limit the atonement. I think Charles Spurgeon was one to point this out, that both sides, Arminian and Calvinist, are both limiting the atonement.

One limits the scope, us. We say it's for the elect that it was made. Others would limit its success or its effectiveness, that it was made for all people, but only those who believe actually attained the atonement.

So that means that Christ died for all people, but not all people are saved unless you're a universalist and believe that. So therefore, Christ's sacrifice did not accomplish fully the salvation from sin for those people who do not believe.

So it's important to note that both of us limit the atonement, so it's kind of unfair to say, well Calvinists are just mean and they want to limit God's love. It might seem like an unnecessary distinction to somebody who doesn't really care about these subjects, but it plays into our understanding of what was actually accomplished by Christ's sacrifice, and also it affects who we believe Christ is interceding for as he sits at God's right hand.

Intercession, Election, and the Golden Chain of Redemption

Back in Hebrews 7 25, we see that the reason Christ is able to save completely is because he ever lives to make intercession for them. Who is the them in that verse? He makes intercession for them. I would say the them in that sentence is the elect.

We can see the effect of the atonement is that it saves perfectly or completely the one for whom it is made. This reminds me of Romans 8 29 through 30, which is often called the golden chain of redemption, where God predestines a people, the elect, calls them by his grace, which would be the effectual calling.

He justifies them by Christ's death, and then he ultimately glorifies them in their resurrection from the dead. This is all not based on what they have done, because in verse 34 of chapter 8, we see who is to condemn Christ Jesus is the one who died.

So it does not look at our works, but it looks at Christ who has died for us. It shows that the sacrifice of Christ was what secures every part of the golden chain. From election all the way to glorification, it is all secured by the atonement of Christ.

Notice also that every verb in the verse, predestined, called, glorified, justified, all of these are past tense, meaning they have already been accomplished in Christ, and they are working its way out in time.

Just as we saw his enemies are defeated by his death on the cross, we see it working out in time. This is clearly shown in Hebrews 10 verse 12, where we see that after offering himself to the Father, Christ sat down.

We dealt with that a little bit already. This sitting down indicates the completion of the task at hand, and the sacrifice secured the salvation of all those for whom it was made. Because verse 14 then tells us, by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

The Greek verb there is tetelaiokein, which is translated to perfected in English. In Greek, this verb is in the perfect tense, so what that means is that it indicates an action that has been accomplished in the past with everlasting results.

These results will last in eternity forever. So that perfected part has already been accomplished, and it will last forever. This means that the work of Christ actually perfects all of God's elect. They are made righteous by the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

Let's be careful, though, how we handle that part of the verse, because I don't intend to make you believe that if you're not perfect, you're not one of God's elect. We also have to understand that this perfection is the fact that we are in right standing with God because of the work of our substitute.

He suffered the penalty so that we may be made holy. This is the concept of expiation and propitiation. Expiation is the removal of our sins, and propitiation is the sacrifice that appeases God's wrath and turns it away from his elect.

It's also important that we note that verse 14 tells us how long we are perfected for. It says that he is perfected for all time. There is no time limit on how long we are perfected for. Therefore, since it is for all time, there's no need for the repetitive rituals that we saw in the Old Testament.

And I'm so thankful that that verse does not just stop there with that we have been perfected. The second part tempers our expectations of what we should see in our everyday life. It shows us the idea of being sanctified, being set apart for God.

This verb of being sanctified, while the other one was in the perfect tense, this one is a present participle which conveys the idea of ongoing action. So while we have been perfected, we are also being sanctified, and this happens by crucifying our flesh daily.

Assurance Rests on Christ's Intercession, Not Human Performance

So I've said a lot, but how does this actually help with the struggle of assurance that we've mentioned before? The Atonement fully secures the salvation of all those for whom it is made. If you have been regenerated, there's no reason for us to question that the end result of that regeneration will be glorification.

How could it be otherwise? Jesus, who is the holy undefiled Son of God, has offered himself as a substitute for you personally. The Atonement is the most personal thing that can ever happen. Christ died specifically for you.

This is a concept you don't get in the other views of the Atonement, where it's just Christ died to make possible the way of salvation. That he died for a nameless, faceless group called the elect, but as we sang in the song earlier, my name was graven on his hands.

So even while he was on the cross, it was me, and it was you. This concept comes from where Paul says, I was crucified with Christ. It's deeply personal that when Christ died, we died. And now that Christ has offered his sacrifice, he now lives to make intercession for us, and not just the group of the elect, but for you individually.

The intercession of Christ cannot be separated from his Atonement. It's linked to his Atonement. The same ones for whom the Atonement was made are the same ones who he intercedes for, and the other concept of the Atonement does not have this either.

It would say that Christ died for everybody, but he only intercedes for those who believe. But you have to ask the question, when does he start interceding for them? Is it once they believe? In the view that I'm proposing, he has been interceding before the foundations of the world.

So how could we ever think, with having the very God incarnate interceding for us, that he would not complete the sanctification that he tells us that we should go through? For it is said in Philippians 1 6, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

So that is to temper our expectations of thinking that we can be perfect in this life. We will fail him constantly, daily, but yet we still know that he intercedes for us, and that that is why we have assurance of salvation.

So when we struggle with that assurance, and we think that there's no possible way that we are truly saved, when we have that feeling, let's not look to ourselves for the security of our souls, but let us look to Christ, who is the author and the perfecter of our faith.

I knew this was going to happen, and as we will sing in a moment with the song, He Will Hold Me Fast, my favorite verse, where he says, I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path, for my love is often cold, and because of this, because of our love being cold, he must hold me fast.

You know, I read this last night. So we see our coldness and lack of devotion of God, or to God. We realize that salvation, if salvation was up to us, it's already lost. But the song quells these feelings in us, and tells us to rest in Christ, and find comfort in the fact that Christ will hold me fast.

Just as it says in John 10 28, that those who have been given to the Son by the Father can never be snatched out of His hand. And then also in Romans 8, we see there where it says, nothing and no one is ever able to separate you from Christ's love.

And this is not Christ's general love for all of creation, but it is his salvific love for his elect, that nothing could separate us from that. And the good news is, you are included in that. If you are regenerate, there is no condemnation left for you, because of Christ who died.

Let us keep in view not our own works and our own value, but let's not keep this in view, because we know that our works are as filthy rags before God. There is no worth in and of ourselves. All of our worth is to be found in Him.

So let's not look to that, but let us look to the value and the worth of the one who has offered the sacrifice that perfects for all time and rest. And let's find assurance in the finality of His atonement.

Prayer for Confidence in the Finished Work of Christ

Let's see if we can pray. Father, I thank you for the work that your Son did on the cross. I thank you that He offered His body to you as a sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice that is able to perfect for all time all those who are being saved.

I pray that you would give us greater assurance of our salvation, that we would look to you and not look to ourselves for that assurance. And I pray that now as we sing this next song that we will keep that in view, that we could never keep our hold, but that you must hold us fast.

Amen. Now let's see if we can sing.