Heb 7:26-27

26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

Heb. 8:1 - Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.

Heb. 9:11-12 - … when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things …he entered once for all into the holy places, …. by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

Introduction:

Salvation belongs to the LORD, cried the prophet Jonah, from the belly of the great fish. This was the ending of his prayer in which he expresses the truth that he knew only God could rescue him. And he did, by giving the fish a bellyache that made him vomit Jonah on land.

Jonah’s cry is also a short-hand motto, fitting for the 16th century Reformation movements: Salvation is by the Lord!

Each of the principal Reformers lived in the time in history when the Roman Catholic Church was embedded into the fabric of European kingdoms. But each in time personally, through the study and teaching of the Scriptures, awoke to the saving power of God in the Gospel.

All of them were involved in the ministry of the Church is some form: a monk, a priest, or a professor (teacher). Through their exposure and engagement with the scriptures they came to saving faith in Christ. This caused them to see the sacramental system of religion - of Rome – and the confusion of Christ with the Church.

God alone could save, and he did so out of love. He acted in grace to bring people by faith in Jesus Christ alone into eternal fellowship with himself.

Salvation is by the Lord himself through his appointed Mediator. He, that is God, came to us in the person of the Messiah Jesus, and he has done all that is necessary to redeem his own. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all 1 Tim. 2 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all. 1 Tim. 2:5-6

The offering on a cross of the flesh and blood, the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the son born of Mary, who is the Word (Son) made flesh, is the only way sins can be forgiven and a right relationship with God established.

I. The Necessity of the Blood Offering

The necessity of Christ alone by his blood offering as the Deliverer was laid down at the dawn of human history.

Gen. 3:14:

14 The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

cursed are you above all livestock

and above all beasts of the field;

on your belly you shall go,

and dust you shall eat

all the days of your life

Gen. 3:21:

21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

… 24 He drove out the man [from the garden]

The Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

The necessity of a God-sent Deliverer was underlined with the progressive covenants God enacted, all of which involved the shedding of blood.

Abraham – Gen. 15,22

Gen. 15:9-10

9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other.

Gen. 22:13 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Gen. 22:13-14 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Moses -Exodus 24:6-8

5 And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. 6 And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Hebrews explains how Christ fulfilled the whole Levitical system, its priesthood and offerings.

Institution of the Law Covenant

Heb. 9:19-22

18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

II. The Only Qualified Savior-Deliverer is Jesus /Perfect Priest

Gal. 4:4-5

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Heb. 10:1-10

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body have you prepared for me;

6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”

8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

To quote the French Confession (by John Calvin):

“We believe that Jesus Christ, the wisdom of God and God’s eternal Son, clothed himself in our flesh, so that he is both God and human in one person. He is like us in every way, suffering in body and in soul, except that he remained pure from all stain of sin. As to his humanity, he was truly the seed of Abraham and David, although he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Christ is our Mediator, that is, our go-between, who lays a hand on God and on humanity as the incarnate Son. This is the meaning of Hebrews 10, citing Psalm 40, “a body you have prepared” to make sacrifice and reconciliation between God and his people.

Hebrews 9:26b -… he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

As the Mediator, he is our great High Pries – thus he acts in our behalf, for us. His priestly role is to present the sacrifice – he himself is the sacrifice.

Because of the nature of his person – as the God-man – in his resurrected humanity he ascends to the Father and presents his own blood as the offering for the sins of his people.

Heb. 1:3b: After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…

Hebrews 9:24

For Christ has entered… into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

His sacrifice is perfect because of the nature of his being. He is two natures in one persons: God and man.

And his character is described for us in Hebrews 7:26-27:

26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

The Reformers called the Church back to the Biblical truth that Jesus Christ is the sole Mediator between God and people. This is contra the elaborate system of ceremonies of the Roman Church that obscured the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In the words of Ulrich Zwingli, in Art. #3 of his 67 articles, we read, “Therefore Christ is the only way to salvation of all who were, who are now, and who shall be.“

Specifically, the Reformers taught, as the Bible teaches, salvation was and is by Christ’s work alone.

As John Calvin wrote in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, “Christ stepped in, took the punishment upon himself and bore the judgment due to sinners. With his own blood he expiated the sins which made them enemies of God and thereby satisfied him…we look to Christ alone for divine

Favor and Fatherly love. “

III. The Nature of Christ’s Sacrifice

First, we considered Jesus as the perfect priest, now we want to consider his complete, all-sufficient sacrifice.

There was no argument between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants over the nature of Christ, his deity and humanity. But there is great difference in the understanding of the work of Christ.

Heb.8:1-2 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not ma Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

Lev. 17:11 - 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

Rom. 3:24-26 - 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Substitution – he’s standing in the place of sinners, the ungodly.

His atoning sacrifice has two parts: one is man-ward and one is God-ward.

Man-ward:

1. His expiation - the removal of guilt by payment.

2. Jesus’ death cleanses us from pollution and removed our guilta nd paid the penalty.

The Godward part:

…is propitiation, which means satisfying God’s wrath by Christ’s sacrifice of himself. That is, the satisfaction of God’s justice and righteousness, which opens the door of God’s gracious gift of salvation given to us.

French Confession, Art. 17:

We believe that we are reconciled to God through the unique sacrifice offered by the Lord Jesus on the cross. By that sacrifice we are justified before God, for we cannot be acceptable to God or receive adoption unless god pardons [all] our sins and blots them out. Thus, we declare that through Jesus Christ we are cleansed and made perfect. In his death we are fully justified, acquitted of the offenses and iniquities of which we are guilty. Only through Christ alone can we be delivered.

Christ’s work as the God-man, the Mediator, by means of his perfect blood sacrifice, has paid for the sins of his people, once for all. He brought an end to the cycle of priests and offerings of the Old Covenant. By his own blood he has obtained eternal redemption.

10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

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