James White | The Central Issue: The Gospel

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For a number of weeks now, we have been working through a series we call the

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Roman Catholic Controversy. I didn't name it that. Jeff did, but he used my book title without asking me, but that's okay.

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He does that all the time. We spent a fair amount of time on Sola Scriptura.

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We've looked at a few other issues, but I want to start getting into the key and central issue.

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If you actually have read my book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, you know that my thesis in that book, written, wow, coming up on, let's see, 28 years ago,

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I believe. My thesis in that book is that the central issue is the gospel.

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We can talk about the papacy. We can talk about Sola Scriptura, Mary, priesthoods, purgatory, all sorts of things like that, but they all are simply to be viewed as stepping stones to get us to the real issue.

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The real issue is not doctrinal disagreements on what are obviously some grievously false teachings.

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Our real issue is how does a person have peace with God? In fact, that is the title of one of the two debates

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I'll be doing in a few weeks in Livingston, Louisiana, with Jimmy Akin, and we specifically titled it that way so that both sides would have to make a positive presentation, instead of just one side being on the defense, the other side attacking that.

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Both sides have to make a positive presentation on how it is we have peace with God, and the reality is that the answer that we give and the answer that a faithful Orthodox Roman Catholic gives are not the same.

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Now, when I say faithful Orthodox, I do realize that Roman Catholicism is in a period of transition and crisis.

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I have mentioned before the pontificate of Francis is a crisis point in the history of the

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Roman Catholic Church, and so how Francis would answer that question and how the various councils and popes for hundreds of years would answer that question are not necessarily the same thing, and so we need to keep that in mind.

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But our goal is to equip you to be ready and able to engage with a believing

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Roman Catholic, maybe just a cultural Catholic, a nominal Catholic, yes, but to engage with a

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Roman Catholic and to direct them to the finished work of Christ and the basis upon which they can have peace with God.

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Today we begin looking at the subject of the Mass. Now, I don't want to spend a great deal of our time specifically on that.

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I have to read some things for you. I have some quotations for you, because many of the

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Roman Catholics with whom you might have dialogue and discussion themselves in general don't know what the

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Roman Catholic Church has taught in the past, what it teaches in its dogmatic documents from the

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Council of Trent, Vatican II, whatever it might be, and so they may have a very muddled understanding.

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They may have an understanding where they've heard things from their priest, and then they've heard things from their

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Lutheran neighbor or their Presbyterian neighbor, and they've sort of put all that together into a mishmash that is not overly coherent or consistent.

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And of course, there are all sorts of different kinds of priests. You will find all sorts of different – you'll find conservative

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Roman Catholic priests here in the Valley, and you'll find wildly liberal leftist priests here in the

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Valley, and everything in between. And so we have to deal with all those things, and so you have to talk with someone, find out where they're coming from.

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But you need to understand some of the basic truths, basic definitions,

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I should say, from the Roman Catholic perspective to be able to engage in this. And then my goal is to go much more in -depth into the biblical text and to benefit the people of God for that.

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The Council of Trent, which was the Counter -Reformation Council, it was the council that was called in response to the

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Reformation. It met for many, many years. It was, for example, the first time that the

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Roman Catholic Church had dogmatically – and by the way, I keep using the term dogmatically, you need to understand.

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In Roman Catholic thinking, you can teach something as a doctrine, but something that is a dogma must be believed de fide, by faith.

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So a dogma is definitional of the faith. If you reject the dogma, you are automatically outside the faith, even if you are not formally removed by some type of disciplinary action.

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You are a heretic if you reject something that is dogmatically de fide defined.

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Now again, I really – that would mean that the Pope is currently probably a heretic in many different ways.

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So I realize that the liberals don't act in that way, but Rome did for hundreds of years.

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And that's why I said in a sermon a few weeks ago, I am absolutely convinced that Pope Francis, if he lived and taught the things that he teaches today in the year 1600, would have been burned at the stake by the

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Roman Catholic Church. That is the situation that we're facing. But it takes time to change the course of a ship, especially one as large as the

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Roman Catholic ship, and so it's going to take time for fundamental changes to be made.

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But as we know, for example, in the United States of America, you can make fundamental change as long as you keep at it for a long period of time.

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So the Council of Trent responded to the Reformation. The Council of Trent anathematized the doctrine of justification and defined the canon of scripture for the first time in April of 1546.

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And so it was a major council, and in fact, they produced a catechism that was in use for hundreds of years, it's still available in English, in 1592.

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And interestingly enough, for example, that catechism teaches that capital punishment is something given by God to the government to punish particularly evil men and to protect the society, which

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Francis has now changed that and made it that capital punishment is always evil, is now the position of the

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Roman Catholic Church. But that Council of Trent said the following words, listen carefully, and in as much as in this divine sacrifice, referring to the mass, in this divine sacrifice, which is celebrated in the mass, is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, the same

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Christ who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, the

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Holy Council teaches that this is truly propitiatory and has this effect, that if we contrite and penitent with sincere heart and upright faith, with fear and reverence draw nigh to God, we obtain mercy and find grace in seasonable aid.

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That's a long sentence. And it's so far removed from our understanding that I want to make sure you hear that.

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When the mass is celebrated, contained in the mass is an immolation, an offering of sacrifice in an unbloody manner.

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Not in a bloody manner. In an unbloody manner, the same Christ who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross.

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You need to understand that the best Roman Catholic apologists, when they are seeking to get you to join their communion, will try to take

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Rome's teaching and our teaching and bend the two of them as close as you can possibly get so you can jump from one to the other with some level of comfort.

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And so many of the Roman Catholic apologists that I have dealt with in my lifetime are former

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Protestants. Jerry Matitix, the first man I debated, was all but dissertation at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

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He was the first ordained PCA minister to ever convert to Roman Catholicism.

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And so it gives you an idea that Jimmy Akin was a

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Presbyterian, the man I'll be debating in a few weeks. Dr.

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Scott Hahn, a widely published Roman Catholic scholar and apologist as well who we've challenged the debate for many, many years but he never will, he likewise was a friend of Jerry Matitix and was a graduate of Gordon Conwell and was a

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Presbyterian. And so these individuals, when they present Roman Catholic teaching, you will hear familiar language.

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They're trying to make things sound as close together as possible. But here you see the

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Council of Trent, which wasn't trying to do that, speaking of Christ being immolated and sacrificed in an unbloody manner.

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And yet it's the same Christ who offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross. And therefore this propitiatory sacrifice, the

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Mass is considered a propitiatory sacrifice even though it's unbloody. The Holy Council teaches that this is truly propitiatory and has this effect that if we, so notice the effect of the sacrifice of the

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Mass is dependent upon you. It's dependent upon how you approach the sacrifice of the

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Mass. So today, probably within just a few miles of this location, the

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Mass was performed. And maybe there might have been some old

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Latin Masses around, Francis hates the Latin Mass and so it's not nearly as popular as it once was. But in the olden days, at the end of that Mass, or really as part of the heart of it, the priest would elevate the host, the bread, and would say in Latin, Hocus corpus meum, this is my body, which by the way is where the phrase hocus pocus came from.

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Hocus corpus meum, hocus pocus, that's where the whole idea, a lot of people didn't know

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Latin. But anyways, this is my body, and by the spiritual, powerful effect of transubstantiation, where that wine and that bread is changed into the body, soul, blood, and divinity of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the miracle of transubstantiation takes place, Christ is rendered present upon the altar.

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The result of that is that if we contrite and penitent, how often have you been less than perfectly contrite and penitent in your prayers for forgiveness from God?

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With sincere heart and upright faith, well, how sincere?

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How often do we discover insincerity in ourselves? With fear and reverence, draw nigh to God, we obtain mercy and find grace and seasonable aid.

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And so the effect of this propitiatory sacrifice is dependent upon the attitude that the believer brings to the mass.

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I continue with Trent. For appeased by this sacrifice, this sacrifice, the unbloody one, not the bloody one of the cross, this sacrifice, the

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Lord grants the grace and gift of penitence and pardons even the gravest crimes and sins.

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For the victim is one, the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different.

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The fruits of that bloody sacrifice, it is well understood, are received most abundantly through this unbloody one.

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So far is the latter from derogating in any way from the former. Now, if you even have to make that statement, you are clearly making a distinction between what's going on in the mass and what took place on Calvary.

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And that distinction is very much based upon the attitude we bring to it.

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Continue with Trent. Wherefore, according to the tradition of the apostles, it is rightly offered not only for sins, punishments and satisfactions.

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By the way, I just might mention to you, Rome's apologists now are trying to get away from this language.

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They don't like talking about punishments. I had to drag that term out of one of the

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Roman Catholic apologists I debated on this last trip because he wanted to use much less harsh sounding language.

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But that is the dogmatic teaching. It is rightly offered not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions and other necessities of the faithful who are living, but also for those departed in Christ, but not yet fully purified.

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So in other words, the mass can be offered for those in purgatory to lessen their time of punishment, even though trying to get

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Rome to admit that there is even time in purgatory today is very difficult.

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But please notice what it says there at the end. It talks about the faithful who are living, but also for those departed in Christ, but not yet fully purified.

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Not yet fully purified. Now you might sit here and say, well,

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I've sinned this week and I understand that part. I hope you recognize what the massive difference is.

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You see, in Roman Catholic theology, you can come to the cross of Christ because that's what they're saying is the only difference is the means of offering.

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It's the same sacrifice. It's a representation of the one sacrifice, but it does not perfect anyone who comes before.

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And some of you probably know, some of you may have family members dear friends, they go to mass every time it's offered.

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They go to mass all the time. That means they live a full life and they can go to mass 20, 30, 40 ,000 times.

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And why do they go so often? Because they know they can die, not fully purified.

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It's a non -perfecting sacrifice. And why? Well, because it's depend upon the purity of your intentions and motivations and all the rest of these things, but not yet fully purified.

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There is the key. It is a sacrifice being offered that does not fully purify those for whom it is made.

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That is the key. There is a, let me just read very quickly a few of the canons from these are uh, appended to the statements from the council.

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For example, canon one, if anyone says that in the mass, a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God or that to be offered is nothing else in Christ has given us to eat, let him be anathema.

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If anyone says that by those words, do this for remembrance of me, Christ did not institute the priests or did not ordain that they and other priests should offer his own body and blood.

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Let him be anathema. Don't have time to expand upon this, but Rome literally teaches that when Jesus said to the apostles of the

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Lord's supper, the establishment of the Lord's supper, do this as an anamnesis, a remembrance of me.

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He was ordaining them as priests. There is nothing that could be farther from the meaning of those words than that has nothing to do with priesthood at all.

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Jesus is the one high priest. He's not ordaining anybody else to a priesthood in those words at all.

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And I am anathema by Rome for recognizing what the Bible actually teaches. If anyone canon three, if anyone says the sacrifice, the mass is one only of praise and thanksgiving, or that is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice consummate on the cross, but not a propitiatory one, or that it profits him only who receives and not, not, not to be offered the living and the dead for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities.

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Let him be anathema. If anyone says that by the sacrifice of the mass, a blasphemy is cast upon the most holy sacrifice of Christ consummated on the cross, or the former derogates from the latter, let him be anathema.

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I am anathema right there. I am anathema right there. If anyone says that it is a deception to celebrate masses in honor of the saints in order to obtain their intercession with God as the church intends, let him be anathema.

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It is a deception. And if anyone says, I love this last one, if anyone says the canon of the mass contains errors and is therefore to be abrogated, let him be anathema.

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This sort of wraps it all up. Nope, can't be any errors in this, that's the way it is. So there is the counsel of Trent.

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I have for years quoted the next quote, and then I'm done with this, we're going to go to the word. I have for years quoted this quote, it's from a book by John O 'Brien called

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The Faith of Millions, and he put it this way, quote, when the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings

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Christ down from his throne, and places him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man.

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It is a power greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim.

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Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which

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Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man, not once, but a thousand times.

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The priest speaks, and lo, Christ, the eternal and omnipotent

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God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.

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Did you hear that? The priest speaks, and lo,

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Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command.

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I want you to understand, when we partake of the supper in just a matter of moments, that is not what is going on here.

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We bow our head in humble obedience to Christ, who is enthroned because he has said to his people, do this in remembrance of me, in remembrance of the once -for -all sacrifice.

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There is no sacrifice taking place here. The one was more than sufficient.

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This is Rome's teaching. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10. I was raised in a fundamentalist background, and of course it was just a given, well,

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Roman Catholicism, that's the religion of the beast, the whore of Babylon, but unfortunately, our actual knowledge of what

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Roman Catholicism taught was extremely minimal. And even when

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I began to understand, well, they believe that Christ is literally present, that's why they're genuflecting in the back of the room, and that's why they're crossing themselves, and they're bowing, and the priest holds up, and everybody is worshipping, and you have the monstrance, and all these places you can keep the consecrated host, and things like that, even when that started to break into my consciousness as a late teen, early adult, the focus of the vast majority of apologetic argumentation from our side was focused upon transubstantiation, saying that can't be true because of this.

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That can't be true because transubstantiation doesn't happen, saying this is my body doesn't make it literally his body,

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Jesus said I'm the door, I'm the way, all the rest of these sayings that wasn't to be read in some absurdly literal fashion, that was the primary argument that was made, and I'm afraid that for most evangelicals, well, most evangelicals today don't even want to get into the conversation, but when they do, most evangelicals focus upon the issue of transubstantiation.

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I believe that is important. I believe it was a development that took place over time.

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I believe that Rome grossly misreads early fathers and others to read into them a concept that they never could have understood.

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It really, transubstantiation becomes a part of the tradition and the development of Roman Catholicism really a thousand years after Christ.

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Up until then, many people believed in the real presence of Christ in the supper, yes, but it was a spiritual presence.

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For example, in the early church, when they would bring the hosts and the wine to the people who were sick, who couldn't come to the fellowship, but they brought it to the people who were sick, they didn't carry it around, they didn't worship it, they didn't do anything like that, and if you had extra, you just threw it out.

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That's not what you do in Roman Catholicism. They did not treat the elements in the way that modern

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Roman Catholicism does, and so the stories about bleeding hosts and things like that, that all began to develop after 1 ,000

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AD, so it is a modern development. But most of the argumentation is focused on that, and I think that misses the point.

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I'm not saying we shouldn't address that issue, yes, but the real issue for the person who understands the biblical teaching concerning who

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Christ is and what Christ accomplished and how we have peace with God, you should recognize something much more basic.

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What Rome teaches about the sacrifice of Christ itself is fatally flawed.

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It is fatally flawed, and this is what then gives rise to everything else.

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How is this related to purgatory? How is this related to auricular confession to priests?

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How is this related to indulgences? How is this related to the fact that in Roman Catholicism you do not have the non -imputation of sin?

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If you commit a sin, it's imputed to you. Why is that so different than what we believe?

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It all comes back to what you believe about what happened on the cross, and let's just be honest once again.

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Most evangelicals' theology of the cross is primarily based upon hymns that they've learned in the church while growing up, not from an in -depth study of the text of Scripture.

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Most people have a view of the cross that is fundamentally emotional rather than biblical.

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We need to have a biblical doctrine of the atonement. But here's the next problem.

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That's why we're in Hebrews. Because there is no book in the New Testament that goes into more depth, that devotes longer sections of direct teaching, exhortation, warning than the book of Hebrews does, all about Christ as our

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High Priest, His priesthood, and the offering that He makes, that is the cross.

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His self -sacrifice is key to the entire message of the book of Hebrews.

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And if there is any book in the New Testament that is more ignored, that is more misunderstood, that is considered to be just too difficult or too hard, it's

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Hebrews. And the reason is because the book assumes that the reader has an intimate and deep familiarity with the text of the

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Old Testament, and especially the book of Leviticus. You know, the book that keeps everybody from getting to read through the

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Bible in a year? I made it to Leviticus 16 and then I was out. That was it. I headed for John or something like that.

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And yeah, that's what happens. And that's why so many

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Christians have a shallow understanding. Once you listen to what

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Hebrews is actually saying, then you will be able to see with clarity why what

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Trent said was an anathema… was… Trent was anathematizing the gospel of the

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Bible. That's what was happening there. And that says everything that needs to be said.

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So turn with me to chapter 10, then look back just a verse or two.

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I want us to get the… I want us to get the context here. Verse 27 of chapter 9,

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And inasmuch as it is appointed for men… Well, actually, there's so many things.

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But verse 26, Otherwise he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world.

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But now once, once at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin.

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How? By the sacrifice of himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await for him.

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And so we've… it obviously would be wonderful. And if you want to go back,

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I had the privilege about a decade or so ago of preaching through the book of Hebrews at the

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. I think there were 85 sermons. And so you can go back and listen to your heart's content on sermon audio if you want to.

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But the argument that flows through Hebrews, the supremacy of Christ, there's nothing to go back to, has been established by the author up to this point.

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And he's arguing that Christ's one sacrifice has put away sin.

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And why would that be relevant? Because the Jewish Christians are being called to come back to the old way.

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I just don't see how you can read Hebrews as being written after AD 70.

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The sacrificial system was still in place in the temple. And they're being called to come back.

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And the writer is saying there's nothing to go back to because one sacrifice has been offered once to bear the sins of many.

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So there's nothing to go back to. What sacrifices can you now offer? And that takes us into chapter 10.

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I want to read the first section. We are not going to get through all of it today. I get to have the privilege of being with you next week as well.

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And so chapter 10 will be our goal. Not the entirety of chapter 10, but as much as we can get in in two weeks.

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For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year.

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See, it's happening over and over. That's what's going on in the temple in Jerusalem. They can never make perfect those who draw near.

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Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have consciousness of sins.

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But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder. A reminder.

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It's the very same term that Jesus used. Do this and remember it to me. There is a reminder of sins year by year.

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For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

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Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

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In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold,

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I have come in the scroll of the book. It is written of me to do your will. Oh, God. After saying above sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sacrifices and you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law.

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Then he said, behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first, and I'll explain what the first is in a moment.

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He takes away the first in order to establish the second. He's talking about wills.

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So notice it says, behold, I have come to do your will. That's the second will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

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By this will, the second will. We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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Let me just emphasize that is a temporal phrase.

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It's saying once for all in time, not once for all as in once for every person.

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That might work in English, doesn't work in Greek. You cannot interpret it in that way.

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It's once for all, one time. And every priest, verse 11, 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, notice the emphasis again upon the temporal aspect, sat down at the right hand of God.

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Boy, if anyone should be able to recognize where that comes from, it should be us. We know

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God's favorite Bible verse. Waiting from that time until his enemies be put as a footstool for his feet.

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So how many times we talked about Psalm 110? How many times we talked about the kingdom and everything?

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Here, Psalm 110 is intimately connected with the finishedness of the work of Christ.

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And then the application, verse 14. For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

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He has perfected a certain people. He's not left them impure.

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He's not left them to try to find a way to find some way of purification.

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Or maybe even post -mortem purification someplace called purgatory. He has, by one offering, perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

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And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us. For after saying, this is a covenant that I'll make with them after those days, says the

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Lord, I'll put my laws upon their heart, on their mind, I'll write them. Jeremiah 31.

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That's Hebrews 8. We know that one real well. He then says, and their sins and their lawless deeds

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I will remember no more. Now, we didn't do it here, but you may recall, didn't do it here as in this service, but you may recall that when we did our baptism series, we went through Hebrews chapter 8, and we emphasized the nature of the new covenant.

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And the fact that those that are in the new covenant, their sins and their lawless deeds,

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I will remember no more. Why? Because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

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That new covenant is in his blood. Now, if you're thinking with me, and you're thinking these things through, you can see, wow, this is all interrelated.

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If Christ's sacrifice is just provisional, if it just provides a way of salvation that we some have to make it work through sacraments or anything else, this doesn't make any sense.

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This has to be for a specific people. And this has to be something that's accomplished by divine power.

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It can't just be something that's put out there, and then we have to come and try to work the knobs and levers and figure out this complicated system to make it work for us.

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No, this must be a specific people. And it is. Now, where there is forgiveness of these things, verse 18, there is no longer any offering for sin.

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Go with me. Go with me back to, let's say,

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AD 64, maybe 63. The temple is still standing in Jerusalem.

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The offerings are still being made. You are a Jewish convert, and your family is telling you, you've joined a cult.

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It'll never amount to anything. Come back. Go offer the sacrifices in the temple.

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Be reinstated, brought back into the community. And now listen to these words.

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Now, where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

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If forgiveness has been found, if forgiveness has been accomplished, then there is no longer any offering for sin.

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What's going on in the temple is not pleasing to God any longer. He tore the veil from top to bottom when

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Christ died. He opened the way. Man put it back together again.

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This is relevant to certain disputes that have broken out in our day as to what the

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New Testament teaches about Judaism. One thing that you cannot avoid from the text of the

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New Testament, once the sacrifice of Christ was made, the rest passed away.

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Trying to reinstate that, you've got people running around. Oh my goodness. By the way, it's a shame it's going to be somewhat cloudy tomorrow.

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I'd still try to try to take a shot. I picked up my solar telescope from the office on the way over here.

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And so these little munchkins down here, well, they're not all little munchkins. Cadence isn't a munchkin anymore.

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But my grandkids over here, if we can find some openings between the clouds tomorrow, we're going to be using my solar telescope to take a look at the solar eclipse.

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Please do not look at it the way that President Trump did years ago. Sunglasses are not enough.

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No, don't, don't, no, don't do any of that kind of stuff. This is an actual, some of you,

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I've set it up for some of the homeschool families. And it's a, it's meant for being aimed at the sun.

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Okay, that's all its purpose is. And so we're going to be, we're going to be doing that tomorrow.

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There are people saying that somebody's trying to find a way to offer a red heifer in Jerusalem.

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And then you've got the eclipse taking place. I just saw, oh my goodness, I saw a clip on YouTube of some guy on Daystar TV or something talking about how the eclipse is related.

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Oh, oh, it's, it's April 8th. And so they went to, I think it was

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Exodus 4, 8. And they're reading Exodus 4, 8. By the way, when

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Moses wrote it, there weren't any verse numbers or chapters. So it doesn't matter. But anyway, and not only that, but you all do realize something, right?

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Americans are weird. No one else in the world writes dates like we do.

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Did you know that? If you, if you travel overseas, you've experienced this. I used to travel overseas all the time and you'd have to fill out forms.

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And once you leave the good old U .S. of A, they do it logically. They start with the day, then the month, then the year.

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So it's, it's just, it's opposite of the way we do it. So it'd be 8 -4 everywhere else.

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This guy was so focused on America that he even put a graphic up of where the eclipse is going to go and if you're in Eagles Pass, Texas, you know, where all the people are flooding into the nation and we're being invaded.

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If you're at Eagles Pass, you're going to get to see the full eclipse. And so he tied that together with Matthew chapter 24 and the eagles being gathered.

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Oh, yes. Because America, eagles, I don't know.

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I was just, I'll be honest with you. I want to track that guy down on Tuesday.

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I really, really do. I want to go, hey dude, was this you? Okay, are you going to retract this stuff?

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Are you going to, are you going to apologize for this kind of foolishness? But there are people out there and they're going to be talking about offering red heifers and all sorts of wild, crazy, fun stuff.

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And we can get together next Lord's Day and talk about how weird it really, really was. But there you go.

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There is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore, brothers, verse 19, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, which you couldn't do under the old covenant, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh.

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The veil was torn. His flesh was torn. There is a connection is all this stuff down here was just simply a symbol of what happens in the heavenly places.

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Remember, he has entered as our forerunner into the very presence of God. All that stuff that stood in the way, it's removed.

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Don't let anybody put it back up. Christians have been trying to do that for a long time, priesthoods and everything else.

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And since we have a great priest over the house of God, one, not many, two, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

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Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful.

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Now, I'm actually not preaching on any of this yet. We're going to get to it later. But notice the massive contrast.

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What I read from Trent, you need to come to the mass and you need to be this and this and this and right intention and all these things you do.

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What's the Christian message? For he who promised is faithful.

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Now, are we to consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, all the rest of that stuff? Yes, but our stimulating one another to love and good deeds is not what brings about the perfection of the work of our

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Savior. He is able to save. So here's

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Hebrews 10. Here's what we need to dig into. This is where we need to take our

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Roman Catholic friends and neighbors to proclaim to them the finished, beautiful work of Jesus Christ.

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Back to verse 1. For the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things and not the very substance or the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year.

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You need to think with me for a moment about what that looked like. What did that look like?

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Let's say you were blessed to live in Bethany, someplace relatively close to Jerusalem, obviously before the destruction of the

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Temple. The Temple was one of the most amazing buildings of the ancient world.

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It was famous around the world. It was beautiful. Can you imagine what it looked like in the bright sunshine or in the beauty of a sunrise or a sunset?

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And you would often go to the Temple and you could pray and you could see the people going and you offered sacrifice.

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But of course, the great day of the year was Yom Kippur. It's actually Yom Kippurim, the Day of Atonements, because the priest had to make atonement for himself before he could then offer for the sins of the people.

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The Bible describes the people who draw near in worship. They come to the

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Temple and you see all these thousands of people crowding into the courts.

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And maybe if you're fortunate, you're able to see through the crowd. You're able to see the offering of the sacrifices.

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You might hear the sound of the animals as they die. You may see the blood flowing from their throats, their necks, poured into bowls.

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You would realize at that point that when the high priest picked up that bowl with the blood of the sacrifice, it would be warm.

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It would be warm. That blood had just been flowing through the veins of the sacrificial animal.

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And then would come the time. And I'm sure it was very quiet.

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Very quiet indeed, as the high priest turns and goes where you cannot go.

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Into the holy place. The one time during the year where a human being would enter into the very presence of God and he was representing the people of Israel.

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Those who had drawn near in worship. And so there was fear.

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Would his offering be accepted? What if God struck him down?

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You would think of your own heart as you came into that place. The sins you had committed over that past year.

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And here he's going to take that blood and he's going to sprinkle it on the mercy seat.

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But here's the thing. You were there last year. Oh, you weren't the one doing the offering.

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I'm sure the high priest had that thought. The high priest was a high priest for many years. He would remember,

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I've done this so many times. Did he see dry, crusted blood from when he had done it before?

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But even if you weren't the high priest, if you're just one who came and you drew near, you had to think,

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I was here last year. I was here the year before that. And the year before that, and the year before that.

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Continually, year by year, the same sacrifices. Being offered.

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And if you're staying there, you'll go, well, I'll be back next year. And the year after that, the writer says, the law can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

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That's specific people, those who draw near. Same people mentioned back in Hebrews chapter 7. That Jesus is able to save completely.

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Specific people. But then we have a question that we need to struggle with for a moment.

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Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have consciousness of sins?

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And you and I go, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. What do you? We have consciousness of sin in our experience.

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We know that we have not been, we have not arrived. And in fact, the older you get in walking with the

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Lord, so often you go, wow, you know, I've come to understand that attitudes that I had when

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I was a young Christian were not pleasing to God. I didn't even know it. I was very zealous.

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I know that I was in Christ. But wow, I now realize that there are many ways in which

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I was displeasing God by the attitudes that I had. And I didn't understand this.

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I didn't understand that. So how can this be? Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have consciousness of sins?

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So how do we understand this? How is the sacrifice of Christ?

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How does it not fall into verse two?

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Well, here's why. When we talk about the phrase here, would no longer have consciousness of sins, we're not talking about a recognition of our own fallen nature, our imperfection, our fallibility, the fact we make mistakes so that we engage in conscious rebellion or any of these types of things like that.

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The consciousness of sin came from the nature of the offering.

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That's not a human being giving himself for me. That's a mere animal.

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It's an animal that can be slaughtered and eaten. It's an animal that can be turned into tomorrow night's leftover meal.

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The nature of the sacrifice made it very clear it was pointing away from itself.

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And hence, in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year.

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And because of the repetitive nature, because there was no promise given that this bull, this goat, this sheep, this ram, whatever, there was no promise that this is a correspondence to your own sin.

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It's pointing away from itself. It's pointing you to faith in the God who makes this way available.

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It's pointing to something much greater than itself. The very nature of the sacrifice cried out and said,

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I point to something beyond myself because you're going to have to come back, and then you're going to have to come back, and you're going to have to come back.

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Your sins are not being born. Even the picture when you sent the ram off, the scapegoat off into the wilderness of burying the sins, it's just an animal.

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It wasn't complete and finished in and of itself. All of these things pointed us to the fact that there needed to be a sacrifice that was going to finish all sacrifices, complete all sacrifices.

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There was going to have to be some way in which

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God was going to take upon himself a mechanism that would allow him to perfect his people.

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And so the sacrifices themselves could not allow us to believe that our sins, our great debt of sin that had finally been completely removed from the sight of God, only a finished sacrifice, only a sacrifice that God provides could accomplish that.

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And so when we talk about not having consciousness of sin, it is because you and I, when we come to supper tonight, when we take the bread and we drink the wine, we are remembering the

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God -man, Emmanuel, God with us, the eternal

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Logos who's taken on flesh. And he is our sin -bearer, and he is able to bear our sins.

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He has risen from the dead, he has entered into the holy place, he is our forerunner, and he has borne our sins in his body.

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So we do not have the consciousness of that sin. Why? Because we know it has been borne by another and his righteousness has been imputed to us.

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Those old sacrifices could not do that. They couldn't understand the great exchange.

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He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

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That's how you deal with the consciousness of sin, is you understand to whom it has been imputed, who has borne it in your place, and what you have been given positively in the righteousness of Christ.

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But notice in those sacrifices, verse 3, there is an anamnesis, a reminder of sins year by year.

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And I know I've touched on this text with you before, but we have to be reminded of it now.

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And I hope and pray, I literally hope and pray, I am sure there are many members of this church in this room right now who have

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Roman Catholic relatives, Roman Catholic friends, co -workers.

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And my desire is that you would have such confidence in the

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Word of God that you would be looking for, praying for the opportunity of speaking to a

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Roman Catholic about what Hebrews 10, 3 says. Memorize it, make it your own, understand its context.

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In those sacrifices, those repetitive sacrifices year by year, there is an anamnesis, anamnesis.

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Anamnesis, that's not a common Greek word in the New Testament. It's used here.

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Repetitive sacrifices remind you of sin. Why? Because they can't bear it away.

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If you have to keep coming to it, it didn't actually take your sin away, did it? It's pointing outside of itself to something greater.

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And I'm sure in those repetitive yearly sacrifices, there is an anamnesis, a reminder of sin.

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And I think of the millions of people who each

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Sunday and other times during the week go to Roman Catholic churches and they're seeking cleansing of sin.

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And they go over and over and over and over again.

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And because Rome has denied to them a finished, perfecting sacrifice, they have to keep going.

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And in fact, many of them, common practice is to ask loved ones and relatives after they have died to have masses said for them, because they know they're going to be in purgatory.

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Reminder of sins, because verse 4 says, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

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They're pointing away. If you have to keep repeating it, it's not perfecting, but most of you already know.

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That term, anamnesis, it does appear elsewhere in the Testament. It's the very word that Jesus used.

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Do this as an anamnesis of what? Me. Not your sins.

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Not your sins. Do we reflect upon our lives and Lord's Supper? Yes, but you've always heard me say.

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Our central focus in the supper should be on Christ and what he has done in providing us with the forgiveness and bearing those sins in his body upon the tree.

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We do not have a reminder of sins year by year, week by week, mass by mass.

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We have a reminder of the sin bearer. And when we partake of these elements, and I hope especially this week, as you come forward, as you take the bread, as you drink the cup, that you will think much more closely.

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Broken body, a true body, true incarnation. Not a phantom, the

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Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Paul says they crucified the

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Lord of glory. Lord of glory is a divine term, but they crucified him.

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He gave himself, true body, true blood, the life in the flesh, purposefully given for you.

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And when we partake, we are not remembering our sins. We are remembering the sin bearer.

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And so we partake, repetitively, because he commanded us to do so.

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But that's why you will never find us calling this any kind of sacrifice.

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So some people might call it a sacrifice of praise or something like that. The fact of the matter is, Scripture says we do this to proclaim the

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Lord's death until he comes. We are proclaiming one sacrifice.

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There is no representation. There is no repetition. The only reason we can do it each week is because that one sacrifice has sustained us from week to week to week.

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It is what has perfected us and given us peace. With our God. That is the message.

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Everything else we talk about comes down to this. That is the message that we have for Roman Catholics.

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We will continue from that point with God's grace and continuation of our existence next

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Lord's Day as we continue in our study. Let's pray together. Father, we do pray that you would focus our hearts and minds, fill our hearts with joy and rejoicing when we think of what our

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Savior has done for us. We cannot add to his work what wisdom of Father, Son, and Spirit has been displayed, but what grace that draws us to the one who loved us and gave himself for us.

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Thank you for your scriptures. Help us to remember. Give us opportunity to speak to others.