Purification for Sins — Matthew Maxwell-Carr

Hebrews 1:3 and the Son’s Purification for Sins

Or cleansing with respect to our sins. And it's taken from Hebrews, book of Hebrews chapter 1, and that would be verse 3. Book of Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3, where we read in the New International Version, after He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven.

I'm just going to read those opening four verses for us so we can get the context. In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom He made the universe.

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven.

So, He became as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is superior to theirs. As I said, we'll be looking at verse 3 today. We start when we look at the Book of Hebrews. The first four verses are very focused on the greatness of the Son of God, the superiority of the Son of God.

He is superior. He is great. And so we read that God in the past had spoken to the forefathers, the Israelites. He'd spoken to them through the prophets in different ways and at many times. That's documented in the Old Testament Scriptures.

But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. And then He goes on to describe the Son. And He says that the Son is the heir of all things. All things have been given to Him by the Father. And that the Son is the agent through whom God made the universe.

All things that we see, the Son is the agent through whom God the Father made all these things. We see in verse 3 perhaps one of the most stunning descriptions of the Son in the whole Bible that He is the radiance of God's glory.

The radiance of God's glory. The Israelites thought that the tabernacle and the temple reflected God's glory when it came down and the glory of God was there. And the smoke filled the temple and they couldn't go in because the glory of God was so great.

Oh no, it doesn't even compare with the radiance of the Son's glory. Why? Because He is the exact representation of the being of God. He perfectly represents God the Father. He is God. And that's why He can represent God perfectly.

Man was made in the image of God but none of us can represent God like the Son can because none of us are God. We all represent different attributes at different levels. Some of us are more kind. Some of us have a better understanding of holiness.

But the Son is perfect in all these attributes. He perfectly understands God because He is God. What does Jesus say in Matthew 27? No man knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

The Son has exhaustive knowledge of the Father because He is one with the Father. And then we read just before our text that He sustains all things by His powerful Word. So He hasn't just been the agent through whom God has made all things.

But He sustains all things now by the Word of His power. So we find that from the beginning God spoke everything into existence. The Word of God. And we find also now that the Son sustains everything by the Word of God.

We find out after our text that He sustains everything sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high. That's from where He sustains everything. That's from where everything is at His command. We find in verse 4 that He is superior to the angels.

You will come across reading about an angel. An angel is described in the Bible as these huge creatures one of whom had the power, we read, to destroy 185 ,000 people in one night. That's the description of an angel.

Not some little tiny thing with wings and can't beat anyone up, as it were. Angels are powerful beings. And we read that the Son isn't just more powerful than an angel. He's superior to all the angels.

He is superior to the angels. And in the midst of the greatness of the Son of God, because that's the context of these opening verses, we find this statement. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Sin as Lawlessness and Covenant Unfaithfulness

Now I want to talk to you today about that verse. I've just done my introduction with regards to the context. Let's have a look at three points about this verse. And the first point I want us to look at is that sins need purification.

That's my first point. Sins need purification. When the Bible talks about sin or sins, John describes it as lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness, he writes. In other words, sin is about breaking the commandments of God.

Sin is about despising the will of God and breaking the commandments of God. To sin is to be unfaithful to God. And we'll see some of that later. But the essence of sin is to be unfaithful to God. And unfaithful to His will.

To despise His will, to despise His commandments. So when a creature, a human being, sins against God, he is performing an act of unfaithfulness against God. He is being unfaithful to his Creator. Now if we start at the Garden of Eden, we see Adam.

Adam made in the image of God, reflecting the attributes of God. And then we see that God gave him a commandment. You shall not eat of the tree. But Adam, as Paul writes, was not deceived. And he chose to disobey and to despise God's word and God's commandment and God's will.

It wasn't like Adam made an accidental choice or Adam was a bit deceived and thought, well, I don't really know what I'm doing. He knew what he was doing. That's what's so terrible about what Adam did.

He knew what he was doing. He knew he was despising and trying to thwart the will of God. As a result, Adam, as we say, fell. Adam fell. He came under the dominion of sin. And we read in the Scriptures that man is dead in trespasses and sins.

And to be dead doesn't just mean that you die physically. God said to Adam, in the day that you eat of the tree, you will surely die. But Adam didn't die that day. But death has more than one meaning.

It doesn't just mean physical death. In the Scriptures, you'll find that often death means to be cut off from the presence of God. And that's exactly what happened to Adam in the day he ate of the tree.

He was exiled, driven out of the Garden of Eden, driven out of the presence of God. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is unfaithfulness, the penalty of which is death. The penalty of which is to lose the life of God.

Man came under the dominion of sin. As I said last week, the whole of the rest of the Bible is God seeking and succeeding to bring man back into relationship with God, to bring man back, to restore man to God's presence.

Israel’s Covenant Failure and the Need for Cleansing

But let's go a bit further now from Genesis and we go to the Book of Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and Israel's history. And what do we find? We find that Israel was brought out of Egypt and given ten commandments as her covenant.

The ten commandments were her covenant. And her covenant depended upon her faithfulness, depended upon whether she would keep the commandments of God or not. But there was a problem. Man had been cut off from the presence of God.

Man was under the dominion of sin. And Israel's been given a covenant which depends upon her faithfulness to God. And what do you think happened? Well, whilst Moses was on top of Mount Sinai receiving the ten commandments, Israel was saying, where is Moses?

We don't know what's become of him. And they built a golden calf and they start to worship this other God. And they say to all Israel, behold Israel, your God who has brought you out of the land of Egypt to this golden calf.

And they made it with melted down gold and what have you. And they served this idol of their own making. They called it the one who had brought them out of Egypt. They committed idolatry. And as my teacher at college says, it wasn't just that they slipped up.

It was that they on the night of the covenant being given committed idolatry against the Lord. It would be like a man marrying a woman and on the very night of their marriage he goes out and she goes out and despises him and commits adultery with another.

Now that's an illustration of how awful God must have felt and how terrible a thing it was what Israel had done. Of course the rest of their history testifies to the fact that as God says they were a stiff necked people and circumcised in heart.

Why? Because sin had dominion over them. Because man had been cut off from the presence of God. It wasn't possible any longer for man to keep the commandments of God. So when Israel was presented with the Ten Commandments what do you think happened?

Being under the dominion of sin she sinned against the Lord. We read again and again that the worst thing she did was to serve other gods and to worship idols. The work of men's hands. And she did this continually.

You read Israel's history you will find she did it continually. She committed marital unfaithfulness as the prophets pick up on such as Ezekiel and Hosea. They talk about God's relationship with Israel using marital language.

And God is saying you've been so unfaithful to me. They rejected the Lord, they despised his covenant and all of this is sin. That's the point I'm trying to show. That sin is covenant unfaithfulness to God.

In the context of Israel it was the breaking of the Ten Commandments. In the context of the rest of the Gentiles at the time it was unfaithfulness to their creator. They had the law of God written upon their hearts to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and to love their neighbours themselves and they didn't do it.

And people still don't do it today. And they commit unfaithfulness to their creator. What Israel needed and what mankind needs is cleansing from sins. What Israel needed and what mankind needs is cleansing from sins.

Cleansing from this unfaithfulness that they may be made faithful. Cleansing from their idols that they may serve just the Lord. Now God sent prophets to warn Israel continually and he said to them if you continue I will judge you and I will judge you severely.

And Israel did continue in their sin. And God sent the nation of Babylon and Babylon ransacked and destroyed Israel and get this, Babylon took Israel into captivity. Exiled Israel from the land that she had which was the presence of God and again Israel was a slave like she had been in Egypt.

That was the disgrace she brought upon herself because of her sin. She went back to Egypt if you like. She went back, she went into captivity she became a slave again. Now what was needed? When she was a slave in Egypt she needed an exodus, she needed to be brought out and restored to the presence of God.

Now she's in Babylon, she needs another exodus. She needs to be brought out again and restored to the presence of God. But wait a minute. What's the point of God bringing her out of Babylon if he's not going to deal with her sin?

What's the point of God bringing her out of Babylon and restoring her to himself just for her to again commit covenant and faithfulness? So God made a promise and the promise is found in Ezekiel chapter 36.

It's a little hot in here. Can we do something about it? Can we open a window? Or open the door? Do you like, just be comfortable. I don't mind if you stand up or whatever. But I want you to listen, I want you to be comfortable.

Ezekiel’s Promise of Cleansing and a New Heart

God made a promise and his intention was to cleanse Israel from her sins and we read this incredible promise in Ezekiel 36 in the context I've just told you. God said, well actually at this time they were in Babylon when Ezekiel said this.

They needed an exodus and they needed the cleansing of sins so what does God do? He makes them a promise. He says in Ezekiel chapter 36 and we're going to read this passage. It's quite a long passage.

Chapter 36 and verse 24 and this is a crucial segment of God's word. This is what God said to Israel who were in Babylon in captivity as a slave. I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.

I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. Now you might be clean. You will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.

I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and to be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave to your forefathers.

You will be my people and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. And if you go down to verse 31, then you will remember your evil ways when He restores her. Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices.

I want you to know that I'm not doing this for your sake declares the Sovereign Lord. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct O house of Israel. So we read in that text, we notice a few things. First of all, that God was going to bring Israel out of the nations to which He gathered her, Babylon being the prime nation.

He's going to bring her back, bring her back to the land of Israel, restore her to God's presence. But involved in that, in verse 25, He was going to sprinkle clean water on her and He says, You will be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. And then God speaks about giving her a new will and a new heart and moving her to be faithful. See, that's one of the blessings of this promise.

God was going to make her faithful. He was going to make her willing to obey Him. All through her history, she was unwilling to obey Him. Now, He was going to circumcise her heart and make her want to obey Him.

What a privilege. What a blessing. We're going to look at it later tonight. But notice something here. Why do I keep saying that sin is unfaithfulness to God? Because that's how this text looks at it.

When you read this text and you see the context and what God is going to cleanse her from, it's clear that what He's going to cleanse her from are her wicked deeds, her covenant unfaithfulness. There's a focus on the deeds, a focus on the unfaithful acts that she's committed.

She needs cleansing from them. She needs to be made faithful to God. So that's my first point. Sins need purification and God has promised to purify Israel. My second point is this. Jesus has made purification for sins.

Jesus as the Holy and Faithful Son

Jesus has made purification for sins. Focus on Jesus. That's the focus. Not on His work. We'll focus on that in the next point, the final point. Jesus, the person. Well, if you go back to Hebrews, who is this who made purification for sins?

Well, we read, don't we, in Hebrews chapter 1 that He is the final revelation of God. He's the one who speaks the authoritative word of God. He's the heir of all things. He's the creator of all the universe.

Why is He the final revelation of God? Why is it that if you reject His word, you're rejecting God? Because He is God. He proclaims the word of God as God, being the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being.

He's the sustainer of all things. He's the one enthroned in heaven as we've seen. He's the one superior to angels. He's superior to everything. He's great. But He's not just superior. He's not just great.

He is also pure and faithful. If you go to Hebrews chapter 7 and verse 26, the text says, Such a high priest meets our need, one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

There's great majestic language about Jesus exalted above the heavens. Similar to what we read in chapter 1. But notice He's holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners. He has no need to be cleansed from unfaithfulness toward God.

He is faithful all the time to God. He always has been faithful to God. He's pure and blameless. He never broke a commandment of God in His life. He had utter respect for God's will, utter respect for God's word and God's commandments.

It could never be said of Him, He sinned for He has committed lawlessness. He was faithful. And if ever anybody was faithful to God's old covenant, it was Jesus. He was the only one. The Scriptures say He was born under the law.

But He kept it. He kept the law. So He has no need to be cleansed. He's great. He's pure. No need to be cleansed. Totally faithful to God. But what happened? What did He do? We have an amazing commentary from the Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 2.

Christ’s Humiliation and Obedience unto Death

I can read it to you or you can turn it. It doesn't really matter. You've all heard this amazing passage and it fits so well with what I want to say because the text says, Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who being in very nature God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing.

This great God, the Son, made Himself nothing. He didn't, as some of the commentators would put it, He didn't use the fact that He was equal with God for His own advantage, for His own ends. Instead, He obeyed His Father and made Himself nothing.

Taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. I was reading once a book by J .I. Packer. You might have heard of it. Knowing God. And I was a new Christian at the time. And I was in my bed reading and he was saying some things about God and he said, Let's just focus now on a couple of things to put things into perspective.

And he had point one. The baby born at Bethlehem was God. Isn't that amazing? That shook me, that did. When I read that. Can you imagine if you were there and you saw this little baby? You know, next time you hold a little baby I suppose you could think, What must it have been like for Mary and Joseph or for the shepherds or for whoever knew He was God to look at Him and think, I'm holding God.

That's how humble He became. That's the point. We've looked at His greatness. We've looked at His purity and His faithfulness. Now I want to show you His humiliation. That He became a baby. He was the one who was held.

He's the one who sustains all things, holds up all things by His powerful hand. And yet, He's the one who became a little baby and was held in arms and had to be nurtured as He grew up. He took upon Him the form of a servant.

And then verse 8 says,. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death. Now, obedient to death? Paul, what do you mean He became obedient to death? Well, Jesus, coming to this earth, had been given a command.

We read in John's Gospel that that command was to lay down His life for the sheep to die. And not just to die, but death on a cross. You see, the cross was, as we know, it was actually invented by the Persians.

And then the Romans used it to execute people. And they were the scum of society who were executed on a cross. But it wasn't just that aspect. It was the fact that the Old Testament law regarded anyone who was hung upon a tree to be a curse in the sight of God.

Now, I can barely comprehend that, that the great Son of God, pure, faithful, undefiled, separate from sinners, One who meets our need, came down, was enough for Him to become a little baby. But the fact that He was obedient to death, death on a cursed cross, under the judgment of God, as though He'd broken every commandment, as though He'd constantly been unfaithful.

Cursed is the man that hangs upon a tree. That's the one who has made purification for our sins. I just want to pray a moment. I just want to pray. Lord, we thank You so much, Lord, for undergoing the judgment of God for us, for becoming a curse in God's sight for us, Lord.

Though You were perfect and had been faithful all Your life, You did it to save us. The great God, the humility, Lord, thank You. Help me preach this last point now, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Final point.

Purification Accomplished by Christ’s Death

This purification was at Jesus' death. Now, I love this. This is one of my hobby horses. Some people have this idea that, well, Jesus sort of half purified us, and then our faith does the rest. Our faith purifies us for the rest.

It takes us that extra way. So, the idea would be that Jesus provided sort of a potential purification, a conditional. But it would only become actual if you do your part. Well, that's not what this text says, and it's not what the book of Hebrews says either.

The book of Hebrews says that the purification for sins was achieved when Jesus died. When He died, His people were purified. Now, I want to prove that to you. From this text, for example, this is where it comes from.

The text says, in verse 3, Hebrews 1, verse 3, note the accuracy of God's words. It's amazing. This would almost seem like a throwaway statement, and yet there's so much theology in it. He says, after He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven.

In other words, before Jesus sat down, before Jesus ascended, He had already provided purification for sins. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven.

Now, that's not the most explicit text there is in Hebrews. I want to show you some others. I was going to preach a different sermon on the book of Hebrews, so before I came here, I read through Hebrews a couple of times, and I did this lovely, rich study on the death of Christ and what He's done.

And so I'm going to include a few of those texts here now that I looked into. Hebrews 2 first, and verse 14. Let us see what happened at the death of Christ. That's what we're trying to find out. Since the children have flesh and blood, that's God's children, He too, that's Jesus, shed in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

By His death, He intended to destroy, well, actually, according to a very good Greek scholar, he doesn't agree with that, the word destroy. He would say the proper translation is rendered inactive, rendered inoperative.

So we read, that by His death, Jesus might render inoperative, render inactive the one who holds the power of death. In other words, Jesus intended that by His death He would nullify the power of Satan over His people, thus setting them free.

By His death, not through their faith, which comes later, but by His death, that was His intention, by His death. According to Jesus, if you would have asked Him once He descended to heaven, Jesus, what have you done by dying?

He would have said, I have rendered inoperative for all time, the power of Satan over those for whom I have died. They cannot be but freed, and they will in due time be freed. The next text I want us to look into is Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 12.

Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 12. And speaking of Jesus, He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the most holy place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.

When did He obtain eternal redemption? When He died. When He died, He had already obtained it. Now, I don't know whether you know something about the doctrine of limited atonement or particular redemption, or definite atonement, call it what you will.

It's the third point of Calvinism. But I think that is one of the best texts to prove that point in the whole Bible. Because if Jesus obtained eternal redemption at His death, and we know that not all people are going to be eternally redeemed, then He only obtained eternal redemption for those who will actually be eternally redeemed.

There is nothing potential about this. It says that when He died, He obtained eternal redemption. Again, if you would have asked Jesus, what did you do by your death, Jesus? He would have said, I obtained eternal redemption for my people.

They cannot but be in due time eternally redeemed. Amazing. Verse 14 of the same chapter. Well, we go from verse 13. This is a famous text. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, that's a young calf, sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean.

How much more then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself on blemish to God, how much more will He cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God?

Now, I know that's quite a mouthful, but basically what it's saying is, how much more will the blood of Christ, how much more will the effects of the death of Christ cleanse our consciences so that we may serve the living God?

In other words, the death of Jesus cleanses us from a guilty conscience, cleanses us from committing acts of unfaithfulness towards God and actually brings about faithful service to God on our part. That's the result of the death of Jesus.

And again, there's nothing potential here. The author is strong on this. How much more? It is the blood of Jesus, that is His death, that cleanses us from unfaithfulness towards God so that we might faithfully serve God.

So in other words, if you're here today and you are a faithful follower of God, shall I tell you why? It's not because of your faith, not primarily. The reason you're faithful to God is because Jesus died for you.

He died for you. That's the reason you're faithful to God. He cleansed you from unfaithfulness to God. He purified your sins. He cleansed you from unfaithfulness toward God. Direct result of Jesus dying for us is that we now serve God faithfully.

A couple more texts. Verse 26 of the same chapter. Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world, that is, if He entered regularly like the high priests before. But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

So again, if you ask Jesus, Jesus, what did you intend to do by dying, by sacrificing yourself? He said, I intended to do away with sin. He didn't intend to potentially do away with it. Nothing potential.

Nothing conditional. Oh, I'll do away with it. But if you do this, if you do that, no, as far as I'm concerned, I've done away with it by my death. It's guaranteed. And the Spirit will apply it in due time.

And then we read those famous words in verse 27. Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people. When He died, He took away the sins of many people.

Why? Because He took them to the grave. He took them to the grave. Those sins have already been condemned in Christ. They're taken away, as the psalmist says, as far as the east is from the west. So far as He removed our transgressions from us.

Why? Because of our faith? No, not primarily. Because of the death of Jesus. One more text. Chapter 10 and verse 14. So I'll just remind you of this point that I'm trying to prove that purification was won at His death.

Hugh pointed this text out to me the other day. I'd seen it before, but he was so encouraged by it himself. Verse 13. Since that time, He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool, because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

By one sacrifice, Jesus forever perfected those whom God had set apart. Those who are being made holy. So again, if you'd ask Jesus, what did you do by your death? He would say, I have perfected forever my chosen people.

Amazing texts. So what I'm trying to show is that there's nothing potential about what Jesus intended to do here. He actually intended to purify sin. Actually intended to purge our sins. To cleanse our sins by His death.

And all for whom He intended to purify have been purified and will be purified. Everyone you see in heaven will be able to say, Jesus died for me. He cleansed my sins when He died. That's why I'm here.

The Hope of Christ’s Blood and the Call to Faithfulness

And you know, I just want to finish with an illustration. One of my favorite preachers, I went to see him once and it was remarkable. The presence of God is amazing. And he blessed so many people. And he came and one of the first things he said was this.

He was expressing something to do with how he was down sometimes and sometimes trials and troubles. And he's been through a lot. He's seen people killed for example. I saw one guy shot. A Muslim young boy for professing faith in Jesus died in a pool of blood.

So he's been through a lot. He's seen a lot. And he says this. This is the one thing I hold on to. He shed His blood for my soul. He shed His blood for my soul. And let me tell you something. If Christ shed His blood for your soul, you cannot but be saved in due time.

And that's the hope of the Church of God. That's the hope of us because we are those who can say He shed His blood for our souls. That should be our foundation. He shed His blood for our souls. If you don't know Christ today, He offers purification of sins.

He offers cleansing. He offers to cleanse you from your unfaithfulness. Isn't that amazing? You have undoubtedly, if you're not saved, lived a life of unfaithfulness to God no matter how good you are.

And you may be a good person, granted. Nothing wrong with that. But the Scriptures do declare that there are non-righteous in the eyes of God and that all have fallen in Adam and all are under the dominion of sin outside of Jesus.

It is only through Him and coming to Him and receiving the benefits of His death that you will be cleansed from unfaithfulness towards God and live a life of faithfulness towards God. Maybe you hear Christians talking all the time about joy and peace.

They're talking real things. They're being genuine. They have joy and peace. Why? Because they're faithful to God. They finally have faithfulness to God. They never had it before. They lived in sin. Now they have the pleasure of God looking upon them for Christ's sake.

They live a life of faithfulness to God. As John says, we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome to us because Christ has shed His blood for our souls. Why not all of us? We can come again, can't we?

All of us can come anew to Jesus and reaffirm our faith in Him and praise Him for what He's done. Purging us, cleansing us from our sins and our unfaithfulness and making us faithful to God. As Paul says, rejoice.

Again I say, rejoice. Amen. Let us sing our final hymn. It's one of my favourites. 5 -4 -3 Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Shall we say the grace together? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the holiness of the Holy Spirit be with you all.