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HOLY HELP FOR THE HOPELESSMAKES US FIT FOR HEAVENHebrews 10:1-10INTRODUCTION Marcia Nelson in her 2005 book, “The Gospel According to Oprah,” asserts that Oprah Winfrey, the billionaire TV talk show hostess is now “ America’s pastor.” With her 49 million weekly viewers and 2.5 million monthly magazine readers she has a larger congregation than any religious leader has ever had. 33% of the 6,600 respondents to a survey on BeliefNet.com said that Oprah had more of an impact on their spiritual lives than did their own clergypersons. When Oprah speaks, millions listen. Now Oprah has clearly stated on more than one occasion that there cannot be just one way to heaven. In light of the diversity of human beings and human cultures and human religious expressions there simply is no way that there is only one way to be accepted by God and to gain heaven. She claims that whoever has a loving heart and performs loving deeds is fit for heaven and will certainly go there. One of the reasons that millions of people listen to Oprah is because they agree with her. It is no accident that her spirituality is so admired by so many when you realize that close to 80% of Americans, including 68% of those who identify themselves as “evangelicals” believe there are many ways to know God and to go to heaven. Oprah’s success is in large part due to her winsome way of saying what people want to hear. It is the argument of this letter to the Hebrews that there is only one way to be made fit for heaven and for heaven to be made fit for us to live with God. Jesus Christ alone is able to make people fit for heaven and to fit heaven for us. If Oprah Winfrey and the majority of U.S. citizens are correct than this letter is entirely wrong. But if this letter is correct, then Oprah and all who think like her are sadly mistaken. You have to decide which authority you are going to trust, Oprah or the Bible. In chapter 10:1-18 the author is bringing the main argument of his letter to a close. He is summarizing much of what he has said previously. In the first 10 verses of this chapter he is concerned with what it takes for people to draw near to God. You can see his concern in the first two verses. He points out that the OT law given to Moses at Mt. Sinai and all the sacrifices associated with it were unable to make perfect those who draw near to God to worship him. The idea of perfection here is not moral purity but fitness. It refers to the completion of a process or arrival at a goal. Something needs to happen to people who want to draw near to God in order to make them suitable for God’s presence. “Drawing near to God” is not simply referring to being able to enter the Most Holy Place in the earthly tabernacle or to merely be able to spiritually draw near to God now but rather, as 9:8 and 24 indicate—it ultimately refers to drawing near to God forever in heaven. These ten verses are out to explain why it is that only Jesus can make us fit for heaven. MAIN POINT Only Jesus Christ is able to make you fit for heaven because…I. Only Jesus can eliminate sin’s condemning power (vv. 1-4) These first four verses do not explicitly tell us how Jesus makes us fit for heaven but rather they describe why it is that the law God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai and all the sacrifices and other rituals commanded by that law cannot make people fit for heaven. You can see that in v. 1. The law with its commanded repetitious sacrifices did not make perfect those who drew near to God in the tabernacle through them. I want to answer two questions in order to see what it is that Christ does for us. First, why couldn’t these sacrifices make people perfect or fit for heaven? Second, what is the “perfection” that is needed which the law could not provide but which Christ does provide? First, the law was unable to make anyone fit for heaven because it is only a shadow, not the real thing. If I hold up this hammer you can see its shadow on the wall. There is a vast difference between the shadow and the hammer itself. The shadow cannot pound a nail. It has no true substance and thus cannot accomplish anything. However, the shadow only exists because the hammer exists. The existence of the shadow proves the existence of the hammer and reveals true things about the hammer. This is a metaphor that was used earlier by the author in 8:5. However, there is a difference here. In 8:5 we were told that the tabernacle on earth was a shadow of the tabernacle in heaven but here we are told the entire law is a shadow of the heavenly realities. “The good things that are coming” refers to Christ and his eternal kingdom. The second reason why the sacrifices commanded by the law could not make anyone fit for heaven is because of their repetitious nature. As v. 2 says, if the sacrifices had actually made anyone perfect or fit to draw near to God, then they would have stopped being offered. P.E. Hughes says in his commentary: “Repetition conflicts with finality: an action that is final does not tolerate repetition, and, conversely, an action that is constantly repeated thereby shows itself to be inconclusive. What is inconclusive is imperfect both in itself and in its effect.” Every fall millions of Americans are vaccinated for the flu. The fact that each year I have to get another flu shot proves that none of the vaccines make me entirely immune to the flu. Each flu shot is only a temporary and imperfect solution to the problem of the flu and not a permanent solution. I am not perfectly immune to all flu for all time by one shot but must repeatedly, year after year, get a flu shot. In the same way the repetition of the sacrifices proved that they were not the final answer to the problem of sin. Third, the function of the sacrifices is to remind the people of their sins. Each year as the people of Israel gathered at the tabernacle on the tenth day of the seventh month and observed the high priest kill the bull and take its blood into the Holy Place, knowing that he was sprinkling the blood in front of the Ark of the Covenant for his sins and then watched as the goat was killed and knew its blood was being sprinkled on the Ark for their sins, they were reminded of their sins. They knew that next year the same thing would have to happen again because they were going to keep on sinning. They knew that none of them could live in God’s presence in the Most Holy Place, not even the high priest, because of their sins. It wasn’t only that they were reminded of their sins but they remembered that God remembered their sins. They remembered that God was angry with sinners and that their sin stood as a barrier between them and God. This was true of all the sacrifices and rituals. The fundamental purpose of the entire law is to show people their sinfulness. The tabernacle and its sacrifices were a visual reminder of their sins and as Paul says in Romans 3:19-20, the moral demands of the law, as in the Ten Commandments, were a reminder of their failure to obey the law. This entire law and the system of worship it demanded did not remove sins but only reminded people that their sins separated them from God and his heaven. Finally, the author just bluntly says that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Why is that? Why is it that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away the guilt and condemnation of human sins? The short answer is because bulls and goats are not human beings. God told Adam that sin would be met with his death, not the death of an animal. Only a human death can satisfy divine justice. The blood of these animals not only remind of sin but also were the shadow of the cross upon which, the perfect man, Jesus Christ died. The reality is the cross and the blood of Christ sprinkled on believing sinners and cleansing heaven itself; the animals are only the shadow and cannot accomplish anything in themselves. The second question we need to look at in these verses is this: what is the perfection that we need in order to draw near to God forever, which the animal sacrifices could not provide but which the death of Christ does provide? The end of v. 2 gives us the first part of the answer. Notice that if the animal sacrifices had been effective then the worshippers, having been cleansed “would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.” That clause in the NIV is an interpretation of two Greek nouns connected by the word “of”. It’s not completely wrong but I think it limits the meaning of the phrase to merely a subjective feeling. The literal phrase, which you can see in the ESV is “a consciousness of sins.” The argument is that if an effective sacrifice is made then those who draw near to God will be made perfect or fit for heaven because they will no longer be conscience of sin. As the author is going to say, Christ has made such an effective sacrifice and thus all who trust him are fit for heaven because we are no longer conscience of sin. What does this mean? What this does not mean is that you never think about your sins again or you forget that you are a sinner or that you don’t sin anymore. There are many teachers in the broader Christian community that teach such things. There are those who teach that Christians should never think of themselves as sinners but only think of themselves as saints. There are many who teach that Christians can go for days, weeks, months and years without sinning. Dear friends, this is a great error and will lead to great problems in your Christian life if you think like this. How do I know that "not being conscience of sin" does not mean not thinking of yourself as a sinner or paying attention to your sins? First of all because the rest of the NT says that Christians still sin and that they are aware of and sorry for their sins. In the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus expects us to pray on a daily basis, we are told to ask God to forgive our sins just as we forgive those who sin against us. Thus, Jesus expects that we will sin every day and every day we will be so “conscience” of our sins that we will ask the Father to forgive us for them. In fact, we will be as conscious of our sins against God as we are of other people’s sins against us. I don't know about you but I am very aware of when people sin against me which means I must be conscience of or aware of my sins against God as well. In the same way, the apostle John in his first letter says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The verbs are all in the present tense, which means that John expects that we will regularlay sin as Christians and that we will “consciously” acknowledge our sins to God and seek his forgiveness. I could go on but the point is that we are not made fit for heaven by Christ’s death giving us amnesia or selective memory in regard to our sins. Rather, the point is that Christ’s death has done away with the guilt and condemnation of sin and this is what we are conscience of; we are no longer confronted by the condemnation of our sins. In v. 3, when the author says that the sacrifices are a reminder of sins; he is not simply saying that those who made the offerings remembered their sins. What they remembered is that God remembers their sins. They remembered that their sins stood between them and God. The fact that these animals are killed year after year combined with the lack of access to the Most Holy Place and all the other rituals confronted those who came to the tabernacle with the fact that God was angry with them because of their sins. Every believing Jewish person knew that there was no way that these animal deaths satisfied God’s wrath against them for their sins. They knew that without a perfect, divine, human sacrifice they were going to perish. Because Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself (9:26),” we know that even though we approach God as sinners that our sin cannot prevent us being accepted by him because Christ has taken away our sins. Thus what we are no longer conscience of is the condemnation of sin. We run to our Father without any fear, knowing and confessing and mourning our sin while fully confident that we will never be condemned for our sins because of Christ. While we are fully aware of our many sins we know that they cannot keep us from heaven because Christ has taken the condemnation of sin upon himself. Only Jesus Christ is able to make you fit for heaven because…
II. Only Jesus has come to do the Father’s will (vv. 5-9) Verses 5-9 are a remarkable passage of Scripture for a number of reasons. It is quote of Psalm 40:6-8 (vv. 5-7) with a brief commentary attached to it (vv. 8-9). The first remarkable thing about this text is that it records a conversation that the Son of God had with God the Father prior to his incarnation, prior to his being conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Look at v. 5. The "therefore" means that because the law is only a shadow and because it cannot make perfect those who draw near to God but can only remind of sins and can never take away sins, the eternal Son of God who became the human Christ said to his Father vv. 5-7. This is another one of those places in the Bible where the deity of Christ is simply assumed. He is portrayed as speaking as he comes into the world as a human baby; meaning that he existed before he became a baby in the womb of Mary. The first clause of v. 5 makes no sense if Jesus Christ is not also the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. The second remarkable thing about this quote is that Psalm 40 was written by David. It is his prayer of praise to God and a declaration of his intention to obey God and yet the author has no trouble putting the words of the Psalm in the mouth of Jesus. It is a remarkable confirmation that the entire OT is about Jesus and, in particular, the Psalms are always first and foremost the prayers of Jesus himself. We can only pray the psalms correctly when we pray them in and with and through Jesus. You should always read and pray the Psalms with an eye on Jesus and with consideration of what it means for him to pray these prayers. The third remarkable thing in this quote is the insight it gives us into the nature of the inspiration of the Bible. We believe that every word in the Bible is both there by the will of God and through the writing of men. God carried men along by his Holy Spirit so that every word of Scripture is exactly the word he wanted used and yet every word is also a human word, based on the knowledge and personality and experience and linguistic ability of each human author. This is an amazing example of that reality as the author used the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which at one point interprets the meaning of a poetic and somewhat mysterious Hebrew phrase. In the original Hebrew the beginning of the quote says, “Sacrifices and offering you did not desire but my ears you have opened (literally, “dug out”).” The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible interprets that idea of God “digging out the ears” of the Psalmist to mean that God has prepared for him a body in which he will obey God. It understands the part of the body, “the ears” to stand for the whole body and the “digging out of the ear” to represent God’s work of preparing the entire body for acts of obedience. The author, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, uses an interpretation of the original Hebrew text to enable us to understand the full meaning of that original text in relation to Jesus. Finally, the most remarkable thing about this text is what it says. The Son tells the Father, prior to his coming into the world that he knows that the Father does not desire and is not pleased by the sacrifices and offerings that the Father commanded the people of Israel to perform in the Mosaic Law. The temporary nature of the Mosaic Law and its sacrificial system was the subject of conversation in the fellowship of the Trinity prior to Christ's becoming a man. The Law with its system of worship was never intended by God to be the means by which men and women were enabled to draw near to him. This was common knowledge among the members of the Trinity. Together they planned for the law to be a shadow of the heavenly realities. Together they determined that the law would be the tutor that led people to Christ as Paul says in Galatians 3. Then the Son acknowledges that his incarnation, his taking on a human body was God’s plan and work. The Father prepared a body for Jesus in which he could obey the Father as a man. The Father intended for the Son to have a human body and he put his plan into effect by sending the angel Gabriel to Mary to tell her what was going to happen and then the Holy Spirit to “overshadow” her in order to conceive the Son of God in the womb of Mary as a physical human being. Then the Son, as he takes on human flesh, declares to his Father that his purpose in coming to the earth as a human being is to do the will of his Father. This coming of the God-man who is the Messiah is written about in the scroll, that is, throughout the entire OT. In other words the Son as he comes into the world confirms that the OT Scriptures are written about him. The law does not only remind of sin but it also reveals Christ. Verse 8 points out this amazing fact. Even though God commanded that the Israelites make all these animal sacrifices, God did not desire them, nor was he pleased with them. So then why did he command them to be made? Was it all a grand illusion? The Levitical system was given by God from the beginning as a visual aid to understand the reality of redemption. Every believing Israelite knew that the animal sacrifices were not the way in which they could actually know God. They knew that the sacrifices were there to remind them of the just condemnation of God against their sin and to be a copy and shadow of the reality which is Christ and his salvation. So verse 9 explains that when Christ came into the world he fulfilled the purpose of the law. He brought it to an end because he was what the law pointed towards and he was the solution for the sin problem that the Law continually highlighted. That last clause in v. 9 is very strong. He destroyed the law in order that he might establish himself and his work as the means of approach to God. He did this by his obedient life and death. This was the purpose of his coming into the world, to obey God in his life and to obey him by dying and to thus open the way to heaven through his own obedient life and death. It is the obedient life and death of Jesus that brought the law to an end and established the only way for a human being to be made fit for heaven. Only Jesus Christ is able to make you fit for heaven because…
III. Only Jesus can make you holy, like God (v. 10) This verse is considered by several of the commentators on the book of Hebrews to be the pinnacle, the high point of the letter. It is a verse that is packed with good news for sinners like us. Here is a verse to memorize and meditate upon. It will give you light when darkness descends upon your soul. Here is a verse that will shine like the light of Earendil's star in Shelob's cave driving back the poisonous spider of sin and guilt and death and hell. First, notice that all the benefits contained in this verse come to us by the will of the Father and the will of the Son. God's will is for the Son to come into the world to give up his body on the cross for us. And it is the Son's will to come and do the Father's will. The conversation between the Father and the Son, prior to the Son's coming into the world that is captured in Psalm 40 is an expression of the unity of purpose of the Father and the Son to save his people. Before the world was created the great Triune God saw the captivity of the people of God, enslaved to sin, under the curse of God, and subject to the oppression of the devil. In the eternal counsels of this great God; the Father chose to send his only Son to set them free knowing that it would cost his Son his life. The Son, out of his concern for the glory of his Father and out of his love for the Father's people willingly and gladly came to do the Father's will. God does not reluctantly save his people but rather salvation is according to his pleasure and will. As Paul writes in Ephesians, this salvation is according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ. The omnipotent, Triune God whose purposes cannot be thwarted, who always accomplishes what he chooses to do, has chosen to save you. This should be a great source of encouragement and comfort and hope. Second, as we have repeatedly seen the means by which he has chosen to save us is through "the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." The Father prepared a body for the Son so that the Son could die in his body as a sacrifice. The Son was conceived in the womb of Mary so he could be a bloody sacrifice for us. The eternal purpose of God to save his people is fully expressed in that historical, physical, unrepeatable death on that Roman cross outside the gates of Jerusalem. The whole history of humanity, indeed of the entire universe hinges upon that cross. The use of the term sacrifice here again accentuates the substitutionary, curse bearing nature of that death. He died the death we each deserve. He bore all of God's wrath against our sin. Again, marvel at the fact that this is what both the Father and the Son willed. The Father determined to pour out his full anger against my sin upon his only Son and the Son willingly took upon himself the full wrath of God against my sin upon himself. There is no anger left for me because it was all poured upon the Son. Finally, notice the astonishing benefit that comes to us by this sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Up to this point the primary benefit of Christ's sacrifice has been that the power of sin to condemn us has been taken away. We have been pardoned for our sins and have thus escaped God's just punishment. However, simply being pardoned of sin does not make you fit for heaven. It is not enough to be pardoned but we also must possess the holiness of God himself if we are to live with him in his Most Holy Place. It is not enough that God is not angry with you. He must also be pleased with you. You cannot please God if you are not holy. This is the language of the OT: "For you are a people holy to the Lord your God for the Lord your God has chosen you out of the all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession." God's delight in his people is always connected to their holiness. The verb "to make holy" and the associated adjective "holy" appear in the OT over 800 times. God we are repeatedly told is holy and he can only live in a holy place and with holy beings. Everything that is not holy, which is not the same as innocent or being clean, without guilt, is unfit for God's presence. Thus it is by the death of Jesus that we have been placed in the condition of holiness. The verbal form is what is called a passive perfect. In other words we were made holy at a point in the past and this holiness will continue forever. Again, marvel at this. We do not make ourselves holy. We are those who have been made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. This is why the shorthand word used throughout the OT and the NT for those who have a true faith in Christ is "holy ones" or, as in most of our English translations, "saints." I officiated at Lorenzo and Michelle's wedding three weeks ago. It was an afternoon wedding. I worked in the yard that morning. I knew I couldn't go to the wedding all sweaty and dirty and dressed in my work clothes. I had to get cleaned up and I had to put on my suit and tie. If all I did was get cleaned up and then put back on my work clothes, I would not have been fit to officiate at the wedding. I not only needed to be clean, I needed to be dressed in my suit in order to be fit to officiate. In the same way it is not enough for you and I to be cleansed from our sins. We must also be dressed in holiness if we are going to live with the holy God in his holy place. So Christ, by his one sacrifice not only takes away our sins but he also has made us holy. You are completely made fit or perfect for heaven by the once for all sacrifice of the body of Christ. You are cleansed, no longer conscience of the condemning power of sin and you are perfectly holy; not because of anything you have done but entirely because of what Christ has done. Only Jesus Christ is able to make you fit for heaven because…
© Copyright 2007 John Swanson.
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