By God’s grace (III) - Cleansed of our sins for holy living - Sermon at FFMC 18/10/20

¹For 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. (Heb 10:1-4)

The book of Hebrews was written to encourage Jewish Christians who were tempted to give up their faith. Time and time again the author (we don’t know who he was but we know from the Greek grammar in 11:32 that it was a ‘he’) gives reasons why Christ is superior. He is superior to angels, to Moses, and to the Old Testament priesthood and sacrificial system. In this way, he encourages his readers to endure. Together with them, we are called to hold on by faith to Christ in the midst of all life’s trials.

The passage today tells us 3 things:

1.       The law is a shadow, Christ is the reality (v.1a)

2.       The law had no power to perfect us, but Christ takes away our sins (v.1b, 4)

3.       The law reminded worshipers of their sin, but Christ frees us from consciousness of sin (v.2-3)

1.       The law is a shadow, Christ is the reality

When was the last time you saw a ‘shadow’? A shadow looks like the object that cast it, and gives some idea of its size and shape. It is an indication of something real, but it does not have the function or power or reality in itself.

In Chapter 9. the author speaks of how it was in OT times that there was a Tabernacle where there were sections, the innermost one of which was the Most Holy Place (the “Holy of Holies”), where God was present in a special way. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur, celebrated 2 weeks ago by Jews everywhere!), one man – the High Priest, would enter there and sacrifice animals for himself and for the people of Israel.

The author of Hebrews contrasts the shadow of that ritual with the reality of Christ like this:

The first covenant (9:1)	The new covenant (9:15)
The high priest goes (9:7)	Christ appeared and entered (9:11-12)
Into the tent ‘made with hands’, ‘the copies of the heavenly things’ (9:11, 23)	Into the ‘greater and more perfect tent…not of this creation ‘, ‘the heavenly things themselves’ ‘heaven’ (9:11, 23-24)
Once a year, repeatedly (9:7, 25)	Once for all (9:12, 26)
With animal blood (9:7, 12-13)	With His own blood (9:12)
To purify the flesh, but unable to perfect the conscience (9:9, 13)	Purifies our conscience, makes perfect those who draw near (9:14)

The author of Hebrews shows that there is an exact parallel between the sacrifices of the old covenant and the work of Christ in the new covenant. And whole of the old covenant pointed to the reality of Christ’s work. God prepared the way. Jesus is both the “great high priest” (Heb 4:14) as well as the sacrifice – “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). Animal blood used in the past could never accomplish the removal of sins – it only symbolized the greater sacrifice of Christ to come

2.       The law had no power to perfect us, but Christ takes away our sins

This is the first aspect of the reality that the shadow does not have. It is the declaration of a ‘not-guilty’ verdict before God.

People don’t like to talk about sin nowadays. But if there is a holy God, then there is absolute right and wrong, and there is sin – not just ‘bad choices’ or ‘mistakes’. All have sinned. We all say, “Nobody’s perfect”. But at the same time, many people – even Christians, think that “People are basically good”. We prefer to think of God only as loving and gracious and kind and good, always ready to forgive our mistakes. But remember that when Bible characters actually see Him, there response is not initially to run to hug God. Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Is 6:5).  Peter falls at Jesus’ feet and says. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Lk 5:8) and even the beloved apostle John falls at Jesus’ feet “as though dead” (Rev 1:17). To be in a relationship with this most holy God, we need to be cleansed from sin. But Christianity says that we have personally offended our Creator. And there is no way to undo that offence “without the shedding of blood” (Heb 9:22). This does not mean a few drops of blood or even the volume needed for life-saving blood donation. It means death. God does not forgive sins without death.  “The wages of sin is death” (Ro 6:23). The deaths of animals in the OT pointed the way to the dreadfulness and horror of sin before God. Every animal that died took the place of one offering the sacrifice. The deaths of animals show how sinful we are before a holy and just God. He is so holy that the least speck of sin cannot be tolerated. This aspect of God’s character is often downplayed.

But our holy God provided for Himself the sacrifice that would satisfy Him. All the sin of the faithful under the old covenant, all the sin of those alive at the time when Jesus walked the earth, and all the sin of every single person who trusts in Christ for salvation was borne by Jesus at the Cross. Those who lived and sinned and died before Calvary might have no idea that the sinless Son of God would come to save them, but God received their sacrifices of animals made in faith and settled their accounts at the Cross. Their salvation was accomplished by what would come in the future. We who live after the Cross look back at the past and trust that God punished Christ for our sins there. All the weight of the sin of all who would be saved rested on Him. He took our sin, we received the righteousness of His perfect life. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)

What a God we have – who made a universe and redeemed it from sin by sacrificing Himself. “⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.(Ro 5:7-8). Jesus dies and we receive the benefits of His death. We get the forgiveness that He earned. So the justice of God is satisfied by the mercy of God at the Cross. Christ takes away our sins.

3.       The law reminded worshipers of their sin, but Christ frees us from consciousness of sin (v.2-3)

This is the second way the reality is greater than the shadow.The Israelites of old only experienced temporary and partial cleansing. Every time a sacrifice was made, year after year, there was an implicit reminder that the sacrifice had to be repeated – there was no final, permanent cleansing.

But in Christ we are ‘free from consciousness of sin”. This does not mean that we don’t stop feeling that we are sinners. It means that, because we are once for all justified before God, we no longer have a guilty conscience. Christ ‘purifies’ our consciences. We can step into the Most Holy Place into His presence without shame. We can do this anytime, whereas the High Priest could only do this once a year.  So we are cleansed from the objective penalty of sin, and we are cleansed from the subjective feelings of guilt and shame of sin.

Here is a true story of someone who experienced this kind of cleansing:

In the evening of Sunday 19 October 1856, 10,000 people gathered inside at the Royal Surrey Gardens to hear the famous English preacher Charles Spurgeon. Many outside were unable to enter. Someone shouted out, “Fire!” throwing the crowd into a panic. In the ensuing crush 7 people died and others were seriously injured. Spurgeon felt intensely guilty over this. He fell into so deep a depression that even the sight of the Bible brought much anxiety. His text that evening was Proverbs 3:33, “The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked.” He never preached from that text again.

He said,

“I feared lest the very skies should fall upon me, and crush my guilty soul.”

“I wished I had never been born.”

“If God does not send me to hell, He ought to do it.”      

But the grace of God reached out to Spurgeon. He would continue to preach until his death 36 years later. How? The truth of God pierced his depression and guilt. He could say, “When a man believes in Christ, he is in that moment, in God’s sight, as though he had never sinned in all his life.”

If anyone is feeling bowed down with guilt today despite repenting – remember the experience of Spurgeon. It is the experience of all who are “weary and heavy laden” by sin  (Mt 11:28) who come to Jesus. Listen to the truth of God: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1)  Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn?” (Rom 8:33). Jesus Christ deals with every sense of failure and every regret in our lives.

 

Conclusion

We Gentiles never experienced the shadow of salvation like the Israelites - we have moved straight into experience of the reality of salvation. That is a privilege, but it also means we can miss out on grasping the wonder of what God has done for us! The author of Hebrews says, “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” (Heb 2:3).

Knowing all this then, what then should we do? How do we not ‘neglect such a great salvation”?
Firstly, we must worship. We sing with creation and angels, “saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev 5:12).

Certainly we must also witness: we must share the good news of this great salvation that God has provided!

But I want to spend some time on how our cleansing relates to holy living – to our walk.

I think of this famous story by the French novelist Victor Hugo. Jean Valjean is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s children. After serving a harsh prison sentence he his released – but not unconditionally – he is on parole and has a ‘yellow passport’ that identifies him to all as a former convict and makes him an outcast wherever he travels. In frustration Valjean breaks parole, and for the next 19 years Valjean must look over his shoulder, fearful that the law will catch up with him.

So I ask, “Are you on parole? Must you live in holiness so that you are finally saved? Or are you declared innocent by a wise and merciful Judge so that you can live in gladness and freedom?

Which approach would we prefer? God has decisively forgiven us. Our sins are cleansed by the blood of Christ. Because all our sins no longer separate us from God, Divine power is available to help us to deal with them. That means we can move forward to live in true righteousness and holiness. Our justification must come before our sanctification, not the other way round.

Non-Christians deal with bad habits without Christ, and therefore without forgiveness. There are lots of self-help books that teach us how to be better, fitter, (thinner) people. If we succeed by willpower and self-discipline, we receive praise, and ultimately have a reason to be self-righteous and judgmental of others. Christians instead trust in the power of God to overcome their forgiven sins and are assured of ultimate success because of Christ’s righteousness.

When we were cleansed once for all in God’s sight, that enables us to live a life that can fight sin. “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning” (1 Jn 3:6)

But some of us struggle with sins that cause daily guilt even though we are truly children of God. In this case the same principle applies. If that sin is unsurrendered, unconfessed and therefore unforgiven, we do not have Divine resources to overcome it. Sometimes we do not confess sins because we do not feel that they are serious enough, and therefore we do not really bother to overcome them. Sometimes the guilt is so great that we fear we cannot take our sin before God since it will cost too much to return to Him. But the truth remains:

 “The only sin that you can defeat in daily life and replace with righteousness is a sin forgiven for Christ's sake.” (Piper).

If you are like me, there will be parts of our lives we are ashamed of. Things we would never want our families and people in church to know. The truths of today’s text are for you and me. Jesus who takes away our sin takes away all shame and guilt as well, so we can live holy lives. His mercy rescues us. His power is available to strengthen us. His grace is sufficient for us. “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8:36). Confess your sin, repent, give it up, and, come and know His grace.

Video here