Jesus is the Perfect Sacrifice
A Lesson on Hebrews 10:10-18 From Sunday, October 20, 2024
Key Learning—In the Form of Questions: Which one of these three is the best understanding of sanctification?
If we are Christians . . .
. . . are we already sanctified because we have professed Jesus as our Lord and Saviour?
. . . are we continually on a lifelong journey of sanctification?
. . . will we become sanctified when we are glorified in our heavenly existence?
“When as Christians we look for assurance that we have truly been forgiven, we don’t look—or we shouldn’t look—at anything we do, at anything the church does, at anything Christian ministers, clergy, priests or whoever do. We look back to the event outside Jerusalem on that dark Friday afternoon, and thank God for what was accomplished fully and finally on our behalf.” [N. T. Wright. Hebrews for Everyone. 2023. p. 76.]
What does it mean to be a multi-million-dollar Christian?
One meaning for secular life is that we start early in life, in our twenties, putting aside ten percent of our income into a retirement account. In doing so we have the funds at retirement needed to handle the non-working years, and life’s health crises.
Keep reading to discover the meaning for spiritual life.
Scripture
Hebrews 10:10-18
Three Key Learnings
1. The Old Covenant vs. the New Covenant
The repetitive sacrifices of the Old Covenant kept alive a remembrance of sins and the need to continue making sacrifices, because the priests could not remove sin.
The once for all times sacrifice of Jesus and the remembrance of this remind us as people of the New Covenant that God has forgotten our sins and that we have been, are being, and will be sanctified.
“The arrival of the new covenant truly means that sins in one’s past and in one’s future are already taken care of by Christ. If one sins, forgiveness is freely available because it has already been secured.” [Amy Peeler. Hebrews. 2024, p. 277]
The one-time sacrifice of Jesus the Christ means eternal freedom from the bonds of sin. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.
2. In Remembrance of Me
Jesus spoke most meaningfully about the New Covenant in the upper room experience—we refer to as the Last Supper—where he instructed his disciples to take the food and drink “in remembrance of me”.
“What then does Paul mean when he says that, as often as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we ’show forth the Lord’s death’ until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26)? He means that the meal itself proclaims, or announces the single, past, unrepeatable event, not that it somehow re-enacts it. The only time anything is said in the New Testament about re-crucifying the son of God, it is mentioned as a dire warning of something nobody in their right mind would wish to do (6:6)” [ N. T. Wright. Hebrews for Everyone. 2023. 77.]
“Part of being a Christian is to know where you belong within that story, and to celebrate what it means that God’s dealing with our sins, and establishing his new covenant with us, have been achieved once and for all.” [N. T. Wright. Hebrews for Everyone. 2023. p.77.]
3. Sanctification
2000 Baptist Faith and Message: “Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.” (The wording is very similar to that in the 1963 snd 1925 statements which preceded this one.)
Sanctification is a process. It is continual.
Our mentor in the spiritual journey of sanctification is God’s Holy Spirit.
God’s complete forgiveness of sin is not permission to continually engage in sin. The ideal is that you lose you desire to sin. You discipline your life for holy living.
Jewish “tradition” declared that God had consecrated—that is, sanctified— Israel, separating them from the rest of the world, by giving them his law.
Jesus was our sacrifice—once and for all. Regular sacrifices are no longer needed.
What is your lifelong sanctification plan? The one that makes you a multi-million-dollar Christian who is all-in? The one that matches the way God has gifted you, called you, and mentors you by means of the Holy Spirit?
Start early in your Christian life. Stay focused. Grow deeper in how you live out God’s calling in your life.
Life Applications
Accept release from the Old Covenant
Invest in a lifelong sanctification process.
Mike Glenn’s story of the Middle of the Oreo Cookie. (See it HERE.)
Closing Words
Jesus is praying in John 17. In verse 17 of this chapter he says—“Sanctify them in truth; Your word is truth.” [NASB]
Redeemed Christians are continually in the process of sanctification to carry on the truth of Jesus’ mission in the world.