Hebrews 10:14 “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.“
Imagine for a moment the frustration ancient people had with the old practice of the law.
Everyday Israeli’s were reminded of the difficulty of keeping the law. The Pharisees subjected the people to stringent, fabricated, and exaggerated oral traditions, while serving the people with a reminder of how failure waited at a moments notice.
Kids were taught the importance of upholding the law at the earliest of ages. The law was written on doorposts and repeated in synagogues for centuries, a continuous reminder of how no one measured up to God’s standard of Holiness.
The people would travel to Jerusalem for annual feast days and bring their own sacrifice to be offered for their sins. The smoke continually arose from the altar, and the sacrificial animals would be calling out as if they knew their death was imminent.
If mankind hadn’t been so careless in the garden, none of this would have been necessary. The world was subjected to futility at the hands of mankind and it still groans under the weight of sin today.
Hebrews 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.”
Good Things are coming..
The law was good but it could never satisfy mankind’s dilemma; namely restoring people from the destructive nature of sin.
The futility of trying to live perfectly before the law became a burden that ultimately brought shame. Imagine the hope of a coming Messiah, One who would redeem mankind from the scourge of sin and death, and for those who lived under the laws constant reminder, this hope became a lifeline by which to grasp and hold onto.
Hebrews 10:2 “If it could, would not the offerings have ceased? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt the guilt of their sins.”
If sin hadn’t been present, then the people wouldn’t have had to practice a pattern of sacrifice. The animals would have been spared and the earth would have been able to keep the glory it was formed in.
But sin did occur, mankind fell, and the sacrifices were insufficient to redeem sinners from death.
The Promised One
The blood of bulls and goats could not remove sin, therefore the people were left incomplete at the altar. It’s no wonder David longed for the coming Messiah:
Psalm 16:5-11 “O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot.
The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.
I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope.
For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
The inheritance of sin is death. In Christ the inheritance of hope was given.
- He now leads His people in the path of life.
- He keeps them in His hands.
- Their inheritance will last forever.
- He strengthens His people and their hope rests in Him.
- His people have been spared from death.
- He is Life to all who love Him.
People were reminded of the coming Messiah by the feasts they celebrated since the ceremony mirrored that which was to come.
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur required action from both the high priest and the people—the high priest was to make atonement through sacrifice, and the people for their part were to practice self-denial and refrain from work. Thus, all Israelites had to do their part during this collective Day of Atonement.
By God’s commandment, the high priest followed a specific protocol on Yom Kippur. He bathed and dressed in white linen raiments, an act of purification, before entering the Holy of Holies. There the high priest made two sin offerings: a bull for his house and a goat for the people. The priest would lay the sins of the people on the head of a second goat, which had been chosen by lot as the “scapegoat”. After the high priest confessed the sins and iniquities of the people He ceremonially placed them on the head of the scapegoat and it would then be sent into the wilderness.
Hebrews 10:5-7 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
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.’”
The Sacrifice and the Scapegoat
Jesus became not only the perfect sacrifice, He was the scapegoat who took away our sin and remembered them no more.
Isaiah 53:5 “Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted.”
The sacrifice and the scapegoat are symbolic representations of what Christ has done for us.
- The one goat providing a sacrifice for sin
- The scapegoat representing the casting away of sin.
When Jesus was presented before Pontius Pilate and paraded before the people, He was forced to face His accusers and yet He did not utter a word. Broken and beaten, He carried the full weight of our sin and ended once and for all the need for the daily sacrifice.
Hebrews 10:8-10 “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), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
The pleasure God once took in His Creation was brought back in Christ. The sacrifices were a necessity for mankind until the perfect sacrifice could be made.
When the sacrificial goat and scapegoat was presented before the people, a scarlet-red cloth was tied around the throat of the goat designated for the Lord, and a scarlet-red cloth was tied to one of the horns of the goat designated as scapegoat.
Meanwhile, the scapegoat is turned around to face the people. After the one goat had been slain, the high priest returns to the other goat, facing the people he solemnly lays both hands on the head of this scapegoat, as we read in Leviticus 16:21: “and confess(es) over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.” All the iniquities of the people are laid upon this scapegoat.
Jesus’ single offering fulfilled all of the requirements perfectly.
We have a choice today, whether to accept Christ’s freewill offering by giving Him your own lives, or continuing under the guilt of sin and shame.
The person who lays down their life for Him gains a newness of life that was never thought possible.
Remember all the Savior did to redeem His people, the least we can do is trust and obey.
U.T. 