God’s Will In Salvation

Transcript

GR 1701
God's Will in Salvation
Heb. 10:1-10
09/22/13

We're going to return to our study of the book of Hebrews. We've taken a little break in our study but we're going to return now and we'll be working our way through the rest of the book. We are in Hebrews 10 and with this chapter we will come to the conclusion of what has been the major section of the book. It began in Hebrews 5:1 and will continue through Hebrews 10:18, a section focusing on the superiority of the ministry of Jesus Christ as God's high priest, the sufficiency of His sacrifice as the payment in full for the penalty of our sin. In Hebrews 9, just to put the context for us, the writer emphasized the inability of the repeated sacrifices offered under the Mosaic law, the Levitical priesthood to provide complete and total cleansing from sin. In Hebrews 9:9, accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience. Now this is a repeated emphasis. We're going to come to it again in Hebrews 10. Those sacrifices offered again and again daily and then the focus and the ultimate sacrifice, the Day of Atonement when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice for the people. None of them could provide the complete, full and final cleansing of the conscience, cleansing us from within and giving us a consciousness of a complete and full forgiveness. The Jews did not have that. It was the coming of Christ and His sacrifice which provided for the redemption of sin. And important as we noted, the sacrifice of Christ not only provided for the forgiveness of sins for those who come to believe in Christ, following His death on the cross, but it was the death of Christ that provided the foundation for God to forgive those Old Testament saints who believed in Him.

Look at Hebrews 9:14, how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without blemish to God cleanse your conscience. That's what, according to Hebrews 9:9, the Old Testament sacrifices couldn't do—couldn't perfect us in conscience, couldn't bring us total cleansing. Cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Now note this, for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant those who have been called and they receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Very important for us to understand. If those who believed in the promises of God in the Old Testament under the Mosaic covenant could not be forgiven their sins by the sacrifices that were offered, how were they forgiven? Very simply, they were forgiven when they believed God and His promises on the basis of the fact that the Son of God would come and die to pay the penalty for sin. So He was paying the penalty that enabled God to declare those Old Testament saints forgiven. No one was ever saved by keeping the Mosaic Law. No one was ever saved by the sacrifices of the Mosaic Law. There has always been only one way of salvation—by grace alone through faith alone. The Old Testament saints did not have the clarity of understanding of how God would provide a sacrifice that fully and completely paid the penalty for sin. But they believed God when He promised He would forgive them. How could God declare Abraham righteous, a man who lived 500 years before the Mosaic Law was even given? Because Abraham believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness.

So Hebrews 9:15 is a very important verse for you to have in mind and not forget, that Christ has always been the only means of salvation. That's why God could declare people in the Old Testament forgiven and cleansed.

You come down to the end of Hebrews 9, the middle of verse 26, but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await Him. The emphasis is in contrast. The Old Testament sacrifices were offered repeatedly and yet no matter how many times they were offered, they couldn't bring forgiveness of sins. Christ was offered once, His death on the cross. And that one-time sacrifice has provided complete, full and final salvation for all who believe.

Now He will be coming to earth a second time, and that's what verse 28 says, He will be appearing a second time. But when He comes the next time it won't be to provide a sacrifice for sins. It's not as though His first coming and His death on the cross didn't accomplish everything necessary for our salvation, it did. When He comes the next time it won't be to provide sacrifice for sin. It will be to bring to fruition all that has been promised to those who love Him and to bring final judgment on those who do not believe in Him.

Now we come into Hebrews 10. As noted, the first 18 verses are going to pull together what he has been talking about since Hebrews 5:1—the sufficiency, finality of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross. This has been God's only plan for salvation and he will demonstrate that in several ways as we come through particularly the first 18 verses.

The first 4 verses which we will deal with first, and then we're going to look at verses 5-10, but in verses 1-4 he's going to focus on the inability of the Mosaic Law and the sacrifices under the Mosaic Law to provide inner cleansing. So we begin in Hebrews 10:1, for the Law, the Law referring to the Mosaic covenant, the provisions under the Mosaic Law, the Levitical priesthood, the animal sacrifices. The Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never. Ought to have that underlined—can never—by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year make perfect those who draw near. It starts out by saying the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come, not the very form of things.

Come back to Hebrews 8:5. Many of the things that he is going to pull together in Hebrews 10:1-18 are things that he has dealt with in the preceding chapters. Now he wants to draw our focus as he brings it to a conclusion Hebrews 8:5 says concerning the Old Testament priestly system with its sacrifices and offerings and so on, they serve a copy, those priests, and shadow of the heavenly things. So he picks up that idea of a shadow back in Hebrews 10:1. The Law only has a shadow of the good things to come, not the very form, not the substance. It just anticipated the coming of the reality. The shadow is not the reality. When we cast a shadow the shadow is not the reality of us, it just can anticipate us. You see someone's shadow, they are coming around a corner you may see their shadow if the light is behind them. It anticipates their arrival. The Law was a shadow, it anticipated the coming of Christ. In some ways it will prefigure the coming of Christ. It is not the substance. So since it is the shadow of the good things to come, the good things that would be provided and accomplished by Jesus Christ when He comes, it's not the very form. Since it is only a shadow it can never by the same sacrifices repeatedly offered continually year by year make perfect. Those sacrifices were offered, they were offered regularly, they were offered daily, and particularly as the focus has been in this section on the high priestly ministry of Christ, contrasting it with the high priestly ministry under the old covenant. The Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16 if you haven't read it recently you can refresh your mind, talks about the Day of Atonement when the high priest, the only time throughout the whole year he was allowed to come into the very presence of God in the inner sanctuary in the temple. And he would bring the blood of a sacrifice and sprinkle it on the mercy seat over the ark of the covenant, first for his owns sins and the sins of his family, and then he would come with the blood for the sins of the people. But you know what? No matter how many times they did that, no matter how many times that was repeated, we are told they could never make perfect those who draw near. Those who were coming to God in the person of their high priest who was acting on their behalf, offering the sacrifice that was offered for their sins, it could never make them perfect, never them perfect. To be perfect in this context means to be everything God says you must be—to be cleansed from every sin, from all guilt. Those animal sacrifices couldn't do that.

Back in Hebrews 7:19, the first line, for the Law made nothing perfect. The Law made nothing perfect. Isn't it sad, some people think they are still trying to keep the Law or parts of the Law, like the Ten Commandments. Do you think you'll go to heaven? Yes, I try my best; I try to keep the Ten Commandments. The Law and all of its provision never made anything perfect, what God said it must be to be acceptable before Him.

Look in Hebrews 9:9, accordingly both the gifts and sacrifices that are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience. So all they did, the sacrifices, could not make them what God said they must be. We say, there was a place for them. Yes there was, but it never did bring cleansing from sin. The argument he is developing. Remember Hebrews is written to Jewish believers, Jews who have professed faith in Christ. But they are thinking perhaps with the persecutions and difficulty that come to them not only as Jews but as Jewish believers, perhaps they could return to Judaism. And that would alleviate some of the persecution. As we talked about, Judaism was a recognized religion by the Roman Empire, Christianity was not. To not be recognized had serious consequences. That meant you were a threat to the Empire. So these Jews not only had to face the anti-Semitism which was prevalent, but now they are rejected by their own people and the persecution has just multiplied on them. Maybe we can go back. God gave the Law, maybe we can find some safety in . . . No, that's the whole point. That never was a way of salvation. That was only in anticipation of the salvation that would come.

So you need to understand, as we come back to Hebrews 10, those sacrifices which are at the heart of the Mosaic system with its priesthood could never make the people perfect. Otherwise, verse 2, would they not have ceased to be offered. Why would they continue to offer sacrifices if they knew their sins had been forgiven and now they are clean? Because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had a consciousness of sins. We'll come back to this later. Crucial. The Old Testament saint never had a conscious awareness, ‘my sins are forgiven, I'm cleansed for time and eternity.’ They were constantly aware, ‘I'm a sinner, I'm defiled, I'm guilty, I need another sacrifice, another sacrifice. And that time when the high priest representing us all as a nation goes into the presence of God. I need that on top of all the other sacrifices I'm offering.’ They never had that sense they have been cleansed.

In contrast, verse 3, in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. So those sacrifices and the Mosaic Law and its priesthood were a shadow, an anticipation of the coming of the ultimate sacrifice. They were a continual reminder of the people's sin and guilt. In those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. Again he is focusing on the Day of Atonement which is the ultimate sacrifice, the only time when anyone could go into the Holy of Holies and on this occasion only the high priest and only on this occasion, the Day of Atonement to offer sacrifice in the very presence of God, where He manifested His presence among the nation. It's a reminder of sin. They had to come back again and next year they'll be back, and next year they'll be back, and next year they'll be back. And it was constantly driving home, you are a sinner, you are guilty. True believers coming with a heart of faith, offering their sacrifice, never had an awareness that their cleansing was complete. Those sacrifices remind of sin. They didn't provide forgiveness, they just indicated you are a sinner, you are guilty, you deserve to die. That sacrifice is brought in your place, the blood is brought in, a life has been given but it is a life of an animal.

And verse 4 tells us, there is a problem—it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Could never, ever happen. An animal can never pay the penalty which is death for the sin of a man. Why did God require it? He wanted to remind them of their sin and guilt and need of a Savior, need of a substitute. It foreshadowed the coming of Christ, it reminded them of their sin, but it never brought forgiveness to anyone. We all want to be clear on this. We are mostly Gentiles living 2,000 years after Christ but we want to understand the Old Testament sacrifices never provided forgiveness of sins for anyone. There was never a different way of salvation. Old Testament saints offered animals, now we have Christ. No, we already read that. The death of Christ is what enabled God to forgive Old Testament saints. They did not understand that, they were just trusting God, bringing the sacrifice in belief that God will forgive me, will cleanse me. But their conscience was never cleansed, they were never perfected. That could only be accomplished in Christ. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goat to take away sins.

Back in Hebrews 9:15, the verse I said you want to have marked and not forget. He is the mediator of a new covenant since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant. So those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. You see what he has said there. David could never have been saved if it weren't for the fact Christ would die on the cross. Abraham could never have been declared righteous if it were not for the death of Christ on the cross. It is the death of Christ that was the provision for the sins committed in the years before Christ died. God in grace was providing forgiveness on the basis of the sacrifice He would provide, to a people who believed Him that He would forgive them when they believed Him. And they manifest their faith by offering sacrifices. But when they got confused and began to think it was the sacrifice that saved them, they were in a world of hurt because they were no longer operating in faith. And they began to think there was something just in offering the sacrifice. The sacrifice when it was not a manifestation of a heart of faith was a repulsive thing to God. People today think they go through certain religious ritual that will make them more pleasing to God and bring forgiveness. That never has been the case.

Come back to Hebrews 10. So in those first four verses he has demonstrated that the Mosaic Law, its priesthood, its sacrifices could never provide forgiveness of sins. So in verses 5-10 what he is going to show now, he's going to quote from the Old Testament Scriptures, Psalm 40:6-8, and show that it was always God's plan that His Son would take upon Himself a human body and then be the sacrifice with His death on the cross that would pay the penalty for sin.

So verse 5 picks up, therefore on the basis of the insufficiency and inability of the Levitical priesthood and its sacrifices, therefore when he comes into the world. And here the words of Psalm 40:6-8 are going to be put into the mouth of Christ and He is the speaker. And having come into the world He declares in the words of that psalm what the purpose of God is, why He is here. When He comes into the world He says, sacrifice and offering you have not desired. You can see from the capitalization that this is a quote from Psalm 40:6-8. Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of Me to do your will, oh God. After saying above sacrifice and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them which are offered according to the Law. Then He said, behold I have come to do your will, he takes away the first in order to establish the second. Now these Jews are talking about going back to the old covenant. And what the Spirit of God directs the writer of Hebrews to do is go back to the old covenant and show them that that was never God's plan of salvation. Even under the old covenant He told them about the coming of His Son. Now the clarity we have on that they did not have, but this is not new material. What he is going to show is the will of God has always been to provide His Son. It's not, well, the sacrifices didn't work out so Plan B is My Son. No. He gave the Mosaic Law and its sacrifices to be a shadow, to be a reminder of sin, but the will of God has always been focused in the sacrifice of His Son.

So when Christ came into the world He said, sacrifice and offering you have not desired. That's God the Son having come into the world. What is He here for? Because God the Father never did desire as payment for sin an animal sacrifice. So don't get confused. It is true when Old Testament believers offered sacrifices according to the instructions of God, that fragrance could rise as a pleasing fragrance to God. But not because that sacrifice paid the penalty for their sin, because they were manifesting their faith in God by doing what He had told them. But He had never desired sacrifices and offerings as payment for sin, in that sense, because the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. In contrast, but a body You have prepared for me. Awesome. A thousand years before in a psalm of David God reveals the conversation of the Son. God's plan was not animal sacrifice. A body You have prepared for me.

Come back to Hebrews 2. He is talking here what he had said earlier and repeating it in a little different language. Verse 14, therefore since the children share in flesh and blood, since those who would experience salvation are human beings, have bodies, flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same so that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels because He didn't become an angel. We talked about this reality of how gracious God has been in bringing salvation to us sinful human beings. He was not required to do that. People say, it wouldn't be fair for God to send people to hell. That's not the issue in Scripture, the issue is could He ever be fair in not sending sinners to hell. When angels sinned, the angels who followed Satan in their rebellion against God, that one act of rebellion settled their destiny for eternity. There was never an opportunity for forgiveness, there was never mercy that would be shown, there was never forgiveness that would be offered. They were forever doomed to an eternal hell. Remember when the demons confronted Christ as we saw in our study of Mark? They didn't say, have you come to save us; they said, have you come to condemn us before the time? There is no provision, there will be no provision. That's the argument—He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendants of Abraham, in light of the promise of God to Abraham of salvation.

Therefore He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation, turn away the wrath of God, satisfying the demands of righteousness for the sins of the people. Crucial. We live in a world of religious people who are in ignorance of God's one and only plan of salvation. Protestants think by their good works and good deeds and trying to live a good life they will be pleasing to God, they'll go to heaven. They go to church, at least some, and give money and do good works. Never was possible. The Roman Catholics are still trying to carry out a Levitical-based system of priests and confessions and forgiveness and re-sacrifice. All a denial of what the one and only will of God is.

Come back to Hebrews 10. Sacrifice, verse 5, and offering you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me. You see this is God's sovereign will and His work and desire carried out. God prepared the body so that His Son could leave heaven and be born into the human race. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin you have taken on pleasure. That could never please God as a way of paying the penalty for sin. That's the issue here. He prepared a body for His Son because animal sacrifices could never please Him as a payment for sin.

Then I said, again Christ the spokesman here in the words of Psalm 40. Behold I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of Me to do your will, oh God. You see the seriousness here, and this will be brought out when we get to the end of Hebrews 10. There is a finality. This is God's will. There is no other way of salvation. The best of your works are good for an eternity in hell. The most righteous of our deeds, God said, are like polluted rags to Him. And yet as you share the Gospel you continually hear, I do good deeds, I have my church. What does that have to do with salvation? And the Roman Catholics are looking to the pope for what he is going to say next, and going to the priest and going to celebrate special masses. What does that have to do with salvation? It’s all and all the other religions of the world are a denial of what God has revealed His will is. Christ said, I have come to do your will, oh God. That's it. This is the only thing that matters when we're talking about salvation, God's will and what will be acceptable to Him.

After saying the above, sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings for sin you have not desired nor take pleasure in them. Then he reminds them, these are offered according to the Law. But they are not what could please God, what He desired as a payment for their sin. Then he said, in contrast to Christ saying to the Father, you haven't desired as a payment for sin burnt offerings, you haven't taken pleasure in them, Christ says to the Father, behold I have come to do your will. You see even as Bible-believing Christians, we get soft on this and say, I don't want to come across too narrow. I don't want people to think that we are the only ones right. I don't want them to think we are the only ones right, either. I want them to know God is the only one right. This is true, not because I'm telling it to you, but because God has said it. There is no room for variance here. There is no room for change. What about those who are really earnest and sincere and mean well? What about them? We begin to think, what about Roman Catholics? I've known some good Roman Catholics who are really earnest and sincere. Paul knew some Jews who were earnest and sincere, he was one of them. He said, “I did everything I could to the best of my ability, to the best of what could be required of a human being to keep the Law.” Do you know what happened when he came to understand salvation in Christ? He says, “I realized it was all a dung heap, it was absolutely worse than worthless.” And a person doesn't come to understand that, they've never really come to understand God's salvation, they've never been saved. We begin to think there are probably saved Roman Catholics. There is not one saved Roman Catholic on the face of the earth. There is not one saved Protestant who is trying just to do his good works and keep the Ten Commandments saved on the face of the earth. Now there may be a person who is attending a Roman Catholic church because he is confused, I don't know. You can't believe Roman Catholic doctrine and be saved, you can't believe Protestant doctrine about being saved by your good works and be saved. We have to be clear on this because the rest of the world is in darkness. If we as Christians begin to blur the idea and say, it's not that clear, everything doesn't have to be black and white.

There was a professor at a Bible school several years ago, a person from our church was talking to him and he said, the problem with Gil Rugh is he is too black and white. I don't want to be any blacker than the Scripture is or any whiter. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me. And that ‘but by Me’ is not some kind of general thing, well, they talk about Jesus, they talk about loving Jesus, they talk about His death and resurrection, they talk about a lot of these things. Who are you to say they are not saved? I'm nobody, but God is everyone. I mean, it's only His opinion that matters, isn't it? Here is the will of God. Christ came to do His will.

I have come to do your will, verse 9. He takes away the first in order to establish the second. He doesn't merge them. He takes away the first, the Levitical system, its sacrifices. It is done. It was only a shadow. The reality has come. Now you talk about, well, we go back to the shadow. You can't, it has served its purpose. It anticipated the coming of Christ. It reminded people of their sinfulness. It's done. He has come. When you share the Gospel with someone, talk to them, do they know whether they are going to heaven or not and they say, well, I try to keep the Ten Commandments. You can tell them, do you know that God says that means you are on your way to hell. Well, I try to do my best. I try to be a good person. You know, God says, that's on your way to hell. I go to confession regularly, I partake . . . You know, God says that that means you are on your way to hell. I know people are going to say, that church, they think they are the only ones right. Well, I think God is the only one right and as long as we are representing what He says, that's the only thing that's right.

He goes on. He takes away the first to establish the second, the Mosaic system, its sacrifices. They're done. And we're not carrying over part of the Law. The Old Testament Law is done. There are certain things that God says in the New Testament that He said in the Old Testament, and we're doing that not because it was required under the Law but because said. Now, that's why we don't observe the Sabbath. Here we are on Sunday, it's not the Sabbath, it's Sunday. It's the first day, not the seventh. You didn't get stoned in the Old Testament for gathering sticks on Sunday but you did on Saturday. We are not under the Law.

Verse 10, wrap it up to this point. By this will, the will of God. That's the only thing that can bring salvation, God's will. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Statement that brings it together and draws the finality of it. By this will, the will of God in having a body prepared for His Son so that His Son could enter the human race and be Himself the sacrifice, the only sacrifice that will satisfy the demands of a holy God. That will enable us to be sanctified. In our next study we are going to talk about some of the words He has used of our salvation in this section of Hebrews—being perfected, being sanctified, being forgiven. All focusing on the same event, the death of Christ does it all. The song that was ministered, Jesus Paid it All, Jesus paid it all. Roman Catholicism acts like Jesus paid a good bit of it and now we have to complete it, which is their theology. No, Jesus paid it all.

By this will, the will of God, we have been sanctified. How? Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. It's done. Don't tell me I need to do anything else to have forgiveness of sins. That's a lie from hell. I heard the new pope say Catholics ought to go to confession at least once a year. Why? There is nothing you can forgive me of that God hasn't already forgiven me of. Well, I should go and partake of the sacraments because they are a means of grace. I have all the grace that I will ever need in Christ. All these things are denials. And the Protestants are no better. They are just in a world of fog not knowing what doctrine is. The Catholics have doctrine, but it is wrong. Protestants are in a world of good feelings and everybody else is . . . I mean, I pick on these two because they are the ones we are familiar with. Some of you have come out of it. Does it matter? I was a Methodist, my parents were Methodists. My dad had award things he could wear. As a little boy he went to Sunday School. He was as lost as a goose. I mean, being a Presbyterian didn't save him so he converted to Methodism when he married my mother. She was lost. Being a Protestant makes one no more saved. I got baptized in a Methodist church as a baby, I remember it well. No, I don't, but my mother told me they did. Why? Well, I guess we should, you take your baby to church. They don't know what is going on.

We by the will of God have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Once for all. That old Gospel song—once for all oh sinner believe it. Once for all, it's once for all, it's done, it's finished, it's final. They had the repeated sacrifices under the old covenant. No matter how often they repeated it, they couldn't do the job because that was never God's will for paying the penalty of sin. It has always centered in His Son. When Jesus was on the earth, Mark 10:45, He said, I did not come to be served but to serve and give My life a ransom for many. He took upon Himself a body, the body prepared by the Father so that He could provide forgiveness of sins by His death on the cross. We talk to people about their eternal destiny. We want to talk to them about the cross, about the death of Christ. The resurrection of Christ demonstrates the finished work of the cross. He is alive. He ever lives to make intercession for us, as we saw in Hebrews 7. It's all because He came. He took to Himself a human body. So as Peter would write, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. Or he wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

I want you to note something, a contrast here. Verse 10 says, by this will we have been sanctified once for all through the sacrifice of Christ. There is a contrast of great importance for us to appreciate as we study the Bible. According to Hebrews 10:3 the sacrifices of the Old Testament were a constant reminder to the Old Testament saints of their sin and guilt. They are constantly reminded they needed forgiveness, they were guilty, they were sinners, they needed another sacrifice and another sacrifice. There is a change with the coming of Christ in the clarity and cleansing of a conscience. Now we aren't reminded constantly of our guilt and need for forgiveness, rather we are reminded by the sacrifice of Christ that we have been forgiven and cleansed from all sin. Now I'm not saying Old Testament saints weren't truly saved, but they never had the cleansing of the conscience so that they had that awareness of the finality of their forgiveness. God did not intend for them to know that at that stage.

But you and I are not focused on sin and our need for forgiveness as believers. We have been sanctified. Sometimes believers lose sight of that and they get all caught up in their sin. I'm not saying I as a believer don't sin, we all stumble in many ways, James says. But what I am reminded of, Jesus paid it all. I have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. I don't have to come and confess my sin to be forgiven. 1 John 1:9 says if we are confessing our sins, He is faithful and just to have forgiven us our sins and to keep on cleansing us from all unrighteousness. Believers are those who have come to agree with God about sin and that salvation is found only by faith in Christ. And my first agreement with God about sin was the time that recognizing my sin I placed my faith in Jesus Christ as the only payment for my sin. That did it forever. Every sin I ever committed or ever will commit will be forgiven because the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing me. So John can write in 1 John 2, if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins. Don't have to have that repeated sacrifice offered at the place of propitiation, at the mercy seat, under the old covenant with blood that could never take away sin.

So a different focus. The Old Testament saint was constantly reminded of his sin, his need of a sacrifice. We are constantly reminded a sacrifice has been made, our conscience has been cleansed. Not saying I never sin, but I know I am forgiven. What a glorious position we have. We have a fuller understanding and a clearer conscience than the Old Testament saints could ever have. Even David, Abraham, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. They don't have the cleansing of the conscience that we have. I'm not saying they weren't saved. They were saved for eternity, but God hadn't revealed to them all that He would provide in Christ.

So the believer, we can rejoice. We have a Savior. That doesn't mean I want to sin, that doesn't mean that sin is not grieving the Holy Spirit. But my forgiveness does not depend on whether I will go . . . The early years of my Christian life I was mistaught on this and I'd be saying, oh, God, I did it again. Forgive me just one more time, Lord, I'll never do it again. And that was a lie. I'll never do it again? Of course I would. It was like if only I could convince God to forgive me one more time. How wonderful it is to know the one sacrifice for all my sins is done. I don't have to do penance by begging for forgiveness. Go the priest—do this, say so many “hail Marys”. There is more truth in a hail Mary football pass than there is in a religious hail Mary. I mean, does the Bible mean nothing? I rejoice that I am forgiven, that you are forgiven, everyone who has placed his faith in Christ has been sanctified once for all.

We'll get to verse 14 next time. He'll tell us we have been perfected for all time. It doesn't get any better than that. So Paul will write to the Romans and say, who can bring a charge against God's elect? Come back to Romans 8:33, who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the One who justifies, declares us righteous. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes rather was raised who is at the right hand of God and ever intercedes for us. We saw that in Hebrews 7. He ever lives to make intercession for us. I'm sure the devil is there to accuse, Gil did it again. Christ is there saying yes, but I paid the penalty for that sin. It's done. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? No one or nothing. All the troubles and trials of this life cannot separate me from God's love.

Verse 38, I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels, principalities, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Doesn't get any better than that. It's done, we're forgiven. I am not sin focused. I grieve when I sin but I don't wallow in that. I just thank God that He paid in Christ in full my penalty and I go on knowing I belong to Him.

Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of the grace we have in Christ. Lord, how blessed we are to live in the days of the new covenant, the provision of Jesus Christ as the high priest, the One who was the foundation for all the forgiveness that you bestowed upon those who lived in Old Testament times. But they did not know the fullness and glorious forgiveness in a full and final way in their experience that we have in Christ. Lord, thank you that we don't have to be focused on our sin and our guilt and the need for forgiveness, but as those who have believed in Christ and who have been sanctified once for all we focus on the glory of that forgiveness. We rejoice that our conscience has been cleansed, we have been perfected in Him. And we give you praise. In His name, amen.