May God add his blessing to the reading, listening to, and preaching of his Holy Word today. Amen.

Prayer:

Lord God, our heavenly Father, as we read your Word today we realize afresh that we are dealing with holy things, with things that are beyond our human capability to totally understand or appreciate, yet you have kindly revealed them to us for our instruction, that we might know you, know your will, know your character, and in knowing you realize how much we need you, how much we are dependent on your grace and mercy to be able to come into relationship with you. We realize afresh, how indebted we are to you for cleansing us of our sin. O Lord, you have condescended to call sinners such as ourselves to you. So now once again, we ask you by the enablement of your blessed Spirit to open up your Word to us today, to reveal Jesus Christ to us, to show us afresh the greatness and completeness of his perfect sacrifice for our sins. We ask in our Savior’s name. Amen.

[Please keep the sermon texts in the worship guide from the book of Hebrews open before, or use your Bible, to be able to follow me through this sermon].

There is a great mystery in the universe, a mystery that came to light at the dawn of human history. God the Creator, by the word of his command, spoke the universe into existence and he created planet earth and all its vast beauty and diverse plant and animal life and he put humanity, in the persons of Adam and Eve, into the midst of this paradise and only gave them one prohibition: not to eat of that one tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

They had everything they needed or could ever want – a perfect environment, fellowship with God, and yet, for some strange reason, they disobeyed God and listened to at stealthy, alien, and wicked creature, Satan himself, and flagrantly disobeyed God and ate from that tree and brought death and judgment on themselves. Why did they do this? What within them led them to disobey their creator? What is this evil tendency and power, this cruel taskmaster, that indwells every human and leads them to rebel against and disobey God? You know its name, it is sin –  a small word but it is packed with cosmic treason against the holy God and the committing of it brings down the wrath of God upon every human soul, because every human soul sins against God – because we do what we want to do, not what God wants us to do.

Human sin brings divine retribution. One human sin that takes only a second to commit reaps eternal punishment in hell. To disobey God in only one small infraction of his holy will makes us guilty. We are all guilty. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. But that is not the end of the story. The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Human sin is great, but God’s grace and mercy is greater. That is our only hope and salvation. We who are Christians are debtors to grace. We are indebted to God for doing something we could never do for ourselves – to save us from our sin.

But how do you save a sinner from his or her sin? Do you tell God you’re sorry? Will that erase your sin? The Bible says that’s not enough. Do you tell God you’ll never do that again? The Bible says that’s not enough.  Do you go into downtown Dallas and feed the homeless? The Bible says that is not enough.

What does the Bible say? It says that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.’ (Heb. 9:22). “Shedding of blood” means death. Something or someone has to die to bring about forgiveness of sins. Why is that? It’s because sin is so serious, it is such an affront to God in all his holy character, that the one who sins is guilty of death and the only way he or she can get out of that payment of death is if another creature pays that debt to God by being offered up as a substitute for the guilty one. Someone has to die if a sin is committed. So, God allowed animals to die in place of people in the Old Testament.

If one sin is committed in the universe, there is an inevitable law set up by God: death must happen. If sin happens, death must happen. The sinner who sins must die. The only hope of escape is if someone else or some other creature is to die in place of the sinner.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden they tried to hide their sin, by covering themselves with fig leaves. But that was insufficient. God killed an animal and clothed them with the skin of the animal. Now humanity learned the great law of the horribleness of human sin. It requires death of the individual sinner, or if God so permits, the death of a substitute in place of the sinner. The law of God is this, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” The only payment for sin is the death of another, a substitutionary death for sin, for the sinner. Adam and Eve learned this in the garden. This was their only hope. The death of another for their sin.

In the death of that animal in the Garden, we’re not told what the animal was, whether it was a sheep or goat or bull, we learn the first point I want to bring out in our passages in the book of Hebrews today:

I. The Need of the OT Sacrifices

But there are two other points I want to bring out:

II. The Insufficiency of the OT Sacrifices      

III. The All-Sufficiency of Christ’s Sacrifice

[repeat the above three points]

I want to remind you that we are in the Reformation Season as we head up to the Reformation Sunday next lord’s Day. What we’re doing is emphasizing some of these great fundamental truths that sadly had become obscured by the Roman Catholic church during the Middle Ages, those centuries leading up to the Protestant Reformation in the 1500’s.

What we’ve seen last two weeks is, first of all, “Humanity’s Desperate Plight (or Problem)” because of our sin, taken mainly from Romans 3 which quotes some of the psalms. Then last week we learned about “The Perfect Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ,” and Wayne was our preacher from Hebrews 5 and 7, and now this week, “Jesus Christ, the All-Sufficient Sacrifice for Sin.” These truths and others related to them had become encrusted and covered over by man-devised teachings that pointed men and women to the institution of the RC church, to its priesthood and ceremonies, and actually diverted people away from Jesus Christ as our only hope of salvation from sin and the reception of eternal life. The RC church had largely hijacked the gospel and constructed their own gospel, a gospel of religious works as the path to salvation.  So, because of this, the Reformation was desperately needed. The Gospel of the grace of God had to be rescued from the chains of Roman Catholicism. This is why we celebrate the Reformation of the church every year at the end of October. It was the re-birth and revival of the dormant and almost dying true Christian Church.

If the Reformation had not happened, you and I would not be here today. If we were in a church at all, it would be in a RC church. We’d be bowing down to the “host,” the body of Christ supposedly kept in a box in the front of the sanctuary, we’d be praying to the saints and worshipping Mary, and we’d have to confess our sins to the priests who would tell us how many “Hail Mary’s” we’d have to say to get forgiveness of our sins. But salvation from our sins is not obtained by the religious works designated by a human institution of sinful men but salvation is by the free grace and mercy of God through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the nutshell of the gospel, and it had to be rescued to save humanity, and it was rescued by the grace of God and that is why we are here today. To God be the glory for rescuing his church and restoring the gospel. It is great cause to celebrate!

Now let’s return to our passages here in the Book of Hebrews.

We’ve already seen that the need for the death of this animal in the Garden of Eden was because of Adam and Eve’s sins. It was a covering, a substitutionary sacrifice for their sin. It certainly was a sacrifice for that animal! It was innocent, it had never sinned, yet it had to die for these two people. This was the first sacrifice for human sin in the history of the world. But many more sacrifices were to follow because the flood of human sin would continue unabated and flowing throughout human history in the life of every human.

It was a great revelation that God made to the Hebrew people of their sin and the need for sacrifices for sin. The pagan peoples, the idol worshippers, who lived in those nations around the Israelites were not made aware of their sins before the holy God Yahweh, nor were they told how sacrifices for sin could be made. So they lived in ignorance and in their sin, as Paul would say later, “without hope and without God in the world.”

Yahweh God showed the Hebrew people the need for the animal sacrifices. Let me make this point: The OT animal sacrifices were ordained by God for a teaching, prophetic and spiritual purpose. Although they could never truly remove or pay for sin, they were extremely valuable in confronting the people with the reality of the offensiveness of their sins and the need to deal with sin, to have it removed, covered, erased, and forgiven.

Our passage in Hebrews today gives two reasons for the need of the OT sacrifices. Let’s look at Heb 10:10, 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. 

So, the first reason for the need of the OT sacrifices is that they are “a shadow of the good things go come.” Now, what is a shadow? If I am out in our front yard and it is noon on a sunny day and I am standing under the red oak tree and look down on the ground in front of me I will see a shadow of the branches above me. But the shadow is not the branches. They indicate to me that there are some real branches overhead. But the shadows are not the reality – they point to the reality – they indicate that there are some real branches overhead.

So it was with the animal sacrifices in the OT – they were not the realities but the shadows of the realities that were to come, the real sacrifice for sin, which was accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of calvary.

So the OT animal sacrifices were serving a prophetic, teaching role – teaching the people that an innocent creature must die and shed its blood in order to cover, to pay for human sin. The death of the innocent for the guilty. Not fair for the animal, but advantageous for the sinning human.

So it was some 1,300 years or so later, when Jesus died on the cross outside of Jerusalem, that the true innocent one died for the guilty ones. The sinless Lord Jesus Christ died in the place of his sinful people. He bore their sin and guilt, he bore the wrath of the Father in their place. He suffered the hell in his own body that they deserved.  

The second reason we see here for the need of the OT sacrifices is in Heb. 10:3, “³ But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.” The Jewish people under the Old Covenant had to make many animal sacrifices every year. Animals were sacrificed every day in the temple in Jerusalem, and more were offered during special feast days. People also had to bring animals to the temple to be slaughtered when they were aware of their sins and needed forgiveness. So the reminders of their sin were not far from them as they would observe or offer animal sacrifices. Animals were being slaughtered continuously and their blood poured out right and left for the sins of the Israelites.

So the animal sacrifices continually reminded the Israelites of their sin and their need of cleansing. We could say that it reminded them to “keep short accounts with God.” When you sin, take the prescribed animal to the temple and, under the priest’s direction, the animal was slaughtered. It is better before the holy God of heaven and earth to be aware of your sin than to be ignorant of it and go on it with no awareness of the need of cleansing and forgiveness.

Blessed are the people who know they are sinners, and more blessed are they if they know the way of deliverance from their sin in the Lord Jesus Christ!   

But besides the Need of the OT sacrifices the people of God need to know…

II. The Insufficiency of the OT Sacrifices

But let me remind you that insufficiency of the OT sacrifices does not make them useless as an instructional tool for us. It’s because they point to the reality of our sin, the need of cleansing and forgiveness, and they point to the remedy for our sin, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. think of the Passover Lamb that was taken into each Hebrew household for four days before it was slaughtered and eaten by the family and its blood was smeared on the door frames of their houses. What a graphic reminder of the events of the exodus from Egypt. And of course we read in 1 Cor. 5 that our Lord Jesus Christ is the true Passover Lamb, slain for our sins.

How were the OT sacrifices “insufficient,” that is, insufficient to remove sin? look again at Heb. 10:1, 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. 

So there was a fundamental flaw in the OT animal sacrifices, they could “never…make perfect those who draw near.” No matter how many lambs and bulls were killed  as sacrifices for sin, and there were many thousands of them, they had no power to remove even one sin. They could not “make perfect” the worshippers. Nobody could reach perfection; the blood of the slain animals had no power to really remove sin, it just kept reminding them of their sins.

The reason they could not be made perfect is because of what Heb 10: 4 says, For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

As verse 3 says, “…in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.” Chapter 10 here in Hebrews quotes a substantial passage in Psalm 40. We read in Heb. 10:5-6,

⁵ Consequently, when Christ^[a] 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.

What the text is saying here, as I understand it, is that when Christ came into the world Yahweh no longe took pleasure in the burnt offerings and sin offerings that the Law of Moses had established, because the Messiah, the true offering for sin, had now come into the world. When the perfect has come, the imperfect, the prophetic, is no longer needed and it fades away; it becomes obsolete.

So we have seen:

I. The Need of the OT Sacrifices

II. The Insufficiency of the OT Sacrifices      

Now, let’s consider…

III. The All-Sufficiency of Christ’s Sacrifice

1. The true HP who serves not in an earthly temple but in heaven itself (9:12). He serves in the true temple.

2. 
   

¹¹ But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come,^[a] then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) ¹² he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

You may remember from last week, that brother Wayne showed us from the earlier chapters in the Book of Hebrews that Jesus is the Perfect Mediator, the “go-between” the holy God and his sinful people. He is qualified to be a priest because he is fully human and he is qualified to be a priest because he was appointed by God. And he has a never-ending priesthood since he rose from the dead and “ever lives to make intercession for us.” The Aaronic priests died and had to be continually replaced. But Christ is alive forever more and his mediatorial, interceding ministry goes on forever and will never stop. So he is the superior Mediator and High Priest whom God has established over the household of God. The scripture says here at the end of v. 12 that he has “secured for us an eternal redemption.” You and I who are in Christ are eternally saved. As long as Christ lives, we are safe and secure in him. And he will neer die, alive at the Father’s right hand.

But Christ is also the perfect sacrifice for sin. The high priests had to offer the blood of animals every year on the day of atonement, known in Hebrew as “Yom Kippur,” still celebrated by Jews in the fall of the year. The high priests had to take blood into the Most Holy Place in the center of the temple in Jerusalem and sprinkle the blood of a bull on the mercy seat, first for his own sins and the sins of his household.  And then he had to do the same with the blood of a goat for the sins of the people. (Lev. 16).

2. He offers the Perfect sacrifice of himself (v.26)

   
   

“…, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Notice that the text says he appeared “once for all.” The previous OT priests had to continually offer animal sacrifices because they couldn’t really remove sin, they were only a reminder of sin. And the high priests themselves were continually changing as each one died and had to be replaced.

The Mosaic Law did have great usefulness because it made the people aware of God’s holiness and their sin and their need for cleansing, but it was not a permanent solution to their sin. They needed full and complete and final cleansing from their sin and they needed a high priest who would not die but live forever.

All this was provided when God send his Son into the world: the perfect Mediator serving in the true temple in heaven as the never dying intercessor for God’s people who is at the same time the perfect offering for sin.

He was sinless, yet he bore the sins of his people and paid the price they owed to God.

3. Christ was also the all sufficient sacrifice because his body was the perfect offering for sin.

If you were standing before the holy God of the universe with all your own sin and the sins of all God’s people, what would you rather offer to God for all this human sin? The blood of bulls and goats, or the blood of the perfect Son of God?

Which blood do you think would be sufficient to move human sin? Of course, only Jesus’ blood is, if I could say so, the right type – it is human blood, not animal blood. And it is of the right spiritual power and efficacy – it is the blood of the eternal Son of God, with divine power to remove the sin of all God’s people in all ages, past, present and future.

Look at Heb. 10:10. These verse in Hebrews 10: 5-9, are practically a direct quote from Psalm 40, a Psalm of David. They are the words of Jesus when he came into the world. Look at v. 7,

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.’”

Then look at  vs. 8-10,

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.

It says here that the OT sacrifices, the offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings were done away with “in order to establish the second – that is, the second and better way to remove sins. What is that? It is in verse 10, ¹⁰ And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

How are the people of God really and finally and completely cleansed of their sins? It is through “the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Was the death of the Son of God on Calvary’s cross outside of Jerusalem in about 33 AD necessary for the removal of our sins? Yes, it was absolutely necessary. This was no ghost who died on the cross but the same person who was born of Mary 33 years earlier, who worked as a carpenter, who was anointed with the Holy  Spirit at his baptism by John in the river Jordon and who walked the dusty roads of Palestine with his disciples, preaching and teaching and healing and delivering.

And it is that crucified body which was raised from the dead which is the down payment and the forerunner of the resurrection of our own bodies at Christ’s return.

Christ’s body, the body of the perfect Son of God, was the perfect and sinless offering for sin, and because it was perfect, perfectly human and fully divine, and because it bore all the wrath of God for the sins of the people of God, it was sufficient, totally sufficient, to remove our sins and make us acceptable to God.

Animal sacrifices, though they had their place in redemptive history, fell to the wayside and are no longer needed. The perfect has come, the imperfect and temporary are not longer needed. The permanent and enduring has arrived.

Verse 10 says we have been “sanctified” through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. In other words, we have been set apart for God, set apart to God, set apart from the world, delivered from the kingdom of evil and brought into the kingdom of God. If you are in Christ Jesus, you are sanctified, you are holy in his sight, you are a saint, a holy one, a child of God. Hello, saint Wayne, and saint Dawit and saint Ruth.

Rejoice because you have a perfect Mediator and Intercessor in who serves in the true temple in heaven at the Father’s right hand. He ever lives to pray for you. His eye is continually on you.

And this perfect Mediator has made the all sufficient sacrifice for your sins. His perfect, sinless body was the all sufficient sacrifice and payment for your sins. You need nothing more. The price has been paid. The debt has been cancelled. You are fully justified before God and sanctified, set apart for him in this world, and you will be fully glorified in his presence when he returns to receive you unto himself.

The apostle Paul said in Romans 8:18, ¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 

Our great Mediator, High Priest, who offered the perfect, all sufficient sacrifice for our sin, has made sure of that.

God has done all things well for us his people through his Son. To him be glory in the church and in Crist Jesus, forever and ever. Amen.

Let us pray:

Gracious God our Father, you gave your ancient people the law of Moses to show them their sin and the need for the death of innocent victims for their sin. And all this pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ, the true lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world by the perfect sacrifice of himself on Calvary’s cross. Thank you that no more offering for sin is needed. Christ has paid it all, done it all. We are forgiven and sanctified unto you. Help us now to walk in this knowledge, rejoicing and at peace in this world, as we serve and worship and await the coming of your Son. Strengthen us Lord, in all our tribulations, and give us the grace we need for each day and hour. In Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen.