JESUS MAKES GOD'S PROMISE A REALITY
Hebrews
10:1-18 / Keywords 10:14
because by one
sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
10:1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are
coming--not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same
sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near
to worship. 2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered?
For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer
have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4 because it is
impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, when
Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not
desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not
pleased. 7 Then I said, 'Here I am--it is written about me in the
scroll-- I have come to do your will, O God.' " 8 First he said,
"Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not
desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to
be made). 9 Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your
will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that
will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ
once for all. 11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his
religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can
never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one
sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since that time
he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14 because
by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. 15 The Holy Spirit
also testifies to us about this. First he says: 16 "This is
the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put
my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." 17 Then he adds:
"Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." 18 And where these
have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.
1. Today's passage further contrasts the sacrifice of
Jesus to the traditional sacrifice
based on the law. The traditional sacrifice was ineffective because the blood
of goats and bulls could not take away sins (4). Rather than setting the
worshipers free from their guilt, the annual sacrifice served a purpose to
remind the worshipers of their sins before God. The law was God's promise of
salvation, not the reality of salvation itself (1).
2. God did
not find pleasure in receiving burnt offering (6). Still, the Israelites needed
to offer sacrifices to understand the extent of their sins and long for the
time when the Messiah would come to fulfill the promise of God. In contrast to
the priests who sacrificed the sin offering every year, Jesus as a priest
offered the ultimate sacrifice prepared by God that took away sins once for all
and entered the presence of God (12).
3. As it has
been prophesied in Jeremiah 31:33-34, Jesus' sacrifice was the fulfillment of
the promise that we will be made holy from within us with the law of God
planted in our hearts and minds. God would forgive all of our sins.
Prayer Father, thank you for forgiving my sins. Thank you for Jesus, who makes me
holy through his sacrifice. I worship and praise you for the freedom from sin I
receive in you.
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