Key Passage: Hebrews 10: 1-18

Key Word: Hebrews 10:14 –  For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

 

God made the egg and man created the scrambled egg. This simple analogy seems quite apt for how mankind seem to have the uncanny ability of making extremely complex God’s simple truths. Why do we complicate God’s simplicity. God is infinite in wisdom and He fully recognises the limitations of man, so He painfully simplifies things so we can grasp them and enjoy our simple lives, but mankind will not accept this simplicity, they would rather complicate, obfuscate and encode what God has already simply decoded. Theologians are so guilty of this.

Don’t misunderstand me. I enjoy theology, but I prefer apologists, because they tend to simplify what theologians try to make complex. In defence of theologians, my Pastor used to say that we all should be theologians, and that he is yet to see any truly serious lover of God who is not somewhat a theologian. So enough on theology; I really just wanted to talk simply on what we have been observing in the last 24 hours in Jerusalem. Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement.

All over the world nearly all Jews the world over for the past 24 hours have been celebrating the holiest day of the year. This is the Day of all Days and here in Jerusalem there is no movement of vehicles on the road, all Jews are at home and later on in a synagogue repenting of their sins and asking for forgiveness. Being in Israel during this season is such a blessing. You really get to know something of the deep connection between the people of this land and the God of the bible.

But my issue today is that with all the deep observations of all the Jews, they simply miss the most obvious point about the atonement and the High Holy Day of Yom Kippur.

As the scripture we are focussing on today reveals, God recognised man was flawed since the fall and man would need a way to have his sin and sins expiated, so he instituted an elaborate sacrificial system where the Jewish High Priest will once a year enter the Holy of holies and offer the blood of a special bull once a year for all the sins of all the people of the land and his own sins too and so the sins were ‘atoned for’ for the last year and the system is repeated every year. But the whole point was that God was pointing every Jewish family towards His own perfect Sacrifice, that not only removes the sin of mankind, but also washes away all man’s sins.

This is the message of the cross and why Jesus (Yeshua) came and died a sacrificial death on the cross. It is not complex at all. It is dead simple. Maybe it’s the simplicity of it that has flummoxed most observant Jews?

God recognising that man had a big issue with sin and sinfulness decided to deal with this once and for all by providing a perfect sacrifice that will in one full swoop deal with the Sinful man, his Sinfulness, God’s wrath towards sin and the sinner and in the same way release His mercy to His beloved humanity, and bring them back to Himself.

So all one really needs to do is believe in this sinless Man’s death as a substitute for our sin, sinfulness, punishment, cleansing and at the same time a way to receive the mercy of God and be reconciled back to God. It is perfectly perfect. Simply perfect.

No man could have thought this out. It is not like man to simplify things like this. It takes the incredible mind and expansive heart of a loving heavenly Father to conceptualise this and execute it with such precision, that it took everyone by surprise.

The first eighteen verses of Hebrews chapter 10 really clarifies this matter. If one reads it with a simple and open mind, it is dead simple and easy to grasp.

Hebrews 10:1-18 (NKJV)

Chapter 10

Animal Sacrifices Insufficient

1 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.

Christ’s Death Fulfills God’s Will

5 Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:

“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,

But a body You have prepared for Me.

6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin

You had no pleasure.

7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—

In the volume of the book it is written of Me—

To do Your will, O God.’ ”

8 Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the law), 9 then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. 10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Christ’s Death Perfects the Sanctified

11 And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. 14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before,

16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” 17 then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

The incredible genius of God is revealed in this simple statement:

14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

God wrapped a lot into this one super offering or super sacrifice. I call it the Offering of all Offerings and the Sacrifice of all Sacrifices!!!

It was God’s act. God’s doing. God’s redemptive nature wrapped up in His unsurpassable love. It was the hand of Omnipotence; the heart of Onmipresence; and the mind of Omniscience working together to create this One complex, yet profoundly simple sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

First he wrapped of Himself and all that heaven represents into this one Offering. He then wrapped all of humanity into this one Offering. Then He wrapped all Human History into this one Offering. He then wrapped all Human Sinfulness into this one Offering. He wrapped all the sins of all human beings into this one Offering. He wrapped all his wrath and anger against sin into this one Offering. He wrapped all His punishment and judgement for sins into this one Offering. He wrapped all His mercy into this one Offering. He wrapped all His love and compassion into this one Offering. He wrapped the fulfilment of the experience of Abraham and Isaac and the miracle of the ram caught in a thicket on Mount Moriah into this one Offering. He wrapped the Passover, the sacrificial Pesach lamb and deliverance from Egypt into this one Offering. He wrapped the brazen serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness into this one Offering. He wrapped the entire tabernacle and the sacrificial system into this one Offering. He wrapped the temples and the Levitical order into this one Offering. He wrapped Moses and Joshua into this one Offering. He wrapped Joseph sold into slavery who became the ruler of the gentiles and eventually reconciling with his brothers and saving His people from famine into this one Offering. He wrapped David destroying Goliath in this one Offering. He wrapped the tabernacle of David into this one Offering. He wrapped Haman the enemy of the Jews being humiliated and finally executed on a gallows he erected to destroy Mordecai the Jew in this one Offering. He wrapped so much more. So much more…! One can never truly plumb the depths of the intricacies of this One Offering without breaking out in praise somewhere or a doxology like Paul said in Romans 11³³ 

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! 

Finally hear the words of the High Priest just before this One Offering was offered. John 11:45-52 (NKJV) 45 Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him. 46 But some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them the things Jesus did. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. 48 If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”

49 And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, 50 nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.” 51 Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52 and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad.

NEED I SAY MORE!

Consider this One Offering. It is perfectly perfect and completely complete!!!! – Derek Prince.

Ecclesiastes 3:14 (NKJV)

I know that whatever God does,

It shall be forever.

Nothing can be added to it,

And nothing taken from it.

God does it, that men should fear before Him.

 

Let’s Pray: Abba Father, today is a very special day for your people the world over. They have gathered to seek your face for mercy and forgiveness for sins committed through out the last year. They will gather again next year to do the same. But Father, you have already made a perfectly perfect and completely complete sacrifice for all your people, everywhere to not only know the joy of sins forgiven, but also the miracle of sins cleansed. Also, you have decided that through this one offering all humanity will be saved and reconciled to you. I pray with all my heart today that you would open the eyes of my Jewish family worldwide to see Yeshua and recognise Him as the Lord and Saviour. The anointed Son of David. I also pray for all my Arab family that you would open their eyes too and grant them this same joy of salvation and let them know the reconciliation to the Father’s heart that can only come through Jesus Christ. Let the miracle of the new birth happen in many lives as they read today. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen