Hebrews Chapter 10
This morning, I want to invite you to turn in your Bible to Hebrews chapter 10.
In God's amazing providence over this past fall and into the spring, our adults have been studying the book of Hebrews on Wednesday nights. And those, as they've been working through Hebrews, sort of verse by verse, section by section, and just taking it consecutively, in God's amazing providence, they're in chapter nine in their most recent week.
Pastor Dan and I had decided several weeks ago to use Hebrews chapter 10 to focus our thoughts on the sacrifice of Christ and of his priestly role in our lives, having no idea where the adult Bible study was and their progress through Hebrews. So I'm not saying this to tell the adult Bible study you don't need to study chapter 10. I'm actually saying you might want to study it more than what Pastor Dan and I will have been able to present in our sermons.
But what an incredible thing God does when we just simply follow along in His word and He directs us to exactly the right places that we need to consider. So as we look at Hebrews chapter 10 this morning, I want us to see in verses 19 through 39 that Jesus, our great high priest, knows exactly what we've done and yet he forgives.
The Fear of Knowing
He knows everything that we've done, and he gives us the pardon of assurance. The simple words, "I know what you did," can strike fear into our hearts and send our minds racing with anxiety. Feelings of guilt and shame can overwhelm our thoughts as we recall particular past sins when someone says, "I know what you did."
We immediately wonder: What does this person know? How much do they know? Who else have they told about this? What are they wanting from us? What can we do now? And how is this all going to end?
This happens from the moment we are brought into this earth and we start to develop from babies to toddlers to children. Even toddlers, when told not to eat cookies and go grab them anyway, leaving evidence of their theft behind, will deny it. And when a parent comes and says, "I know what you did, you ate the cookies anyway," the little kid will put his hands behind his back and go, "mm-mm-mm-mm." Even though there might be Oreo around his lips, there could be crumbs on his fingers, and he still will deny.
Others, however, as we move into adulthood, we may not be so defiant as we might be stricken by what we've done. And for someone to come and say, "I know what you've done," our mind might race to something that has happened in our past that we wish we had never been a part of. Something that we could undo if we were given the opportunity to. Whatever it was, it can rack us with guilt.
And the worst thing could be someone coming to say, "I know what you did," because immediately our mind goes from a sense of guilt and shame to a sense of punishment, that what I did deserves punishing.
The Context of Hebrews
And we see it played out over and over again in our lives and even in the news headlines of our culture. Well, the author of Hebrews is writing a letter to a group of Christians who knew their sin. They knew what they had done, but they had accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
These Christians had suffered loss. They'd even experienced persecution for their newfound faith in Jesus. And despite their hardships, they had clean consciences before God and one another because Jesus knew what they had done, but he had washed them clean of their sin.
The Old Testament, which these believers were very familiar with because they came from a Jewish background, they understood the law of Moses and the animal sacrifices that were a part of that. But they also realized that those sacrifices were inadequate. They only temporarily covered their sin, but they never cleansed them and removed their sin.
Every time they sinned against God, they had to offer a new sacrifice. They shed the blood of innocent animals as an awful and disgusting reminder that God knew exactly everything that they had done. Their sins were against God, and they had guilty consciences to show for it, but they could be forgiven through the shedding of innocent blood.
And that was accomplished through Jesus. It says back in verse 14 here of chapter 10, that for by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. That is, through the sacrifice of Jesus, he is forgiven and dealt with all of our sins.
Bold Access to God
That means we can now come boldly into God's presence. Our guilty consciences, that once could never quite be dealt with, have now been cleansed and made right. Jesus came to cleanse sinners of our sins once and for all and to remove the guilt and shame of our sinfulness.
Now, I don't have time this morning to get into more detail, but I will say sin does have consequences. So when we transgress God's righteous law, we do have to pay the price through broken relationships, through suffering, and sometimes even through punishment such as prison or fines or other things. Sometimes it could just simply be that we deal with the consequences of hardship of people trusting us.
Whatever the case, though there may be consequences for sin, Christ cleanses our conscience before God so that we can stand before him in the judgment day. And God the Father will see Christ. He'll see his righteousness rather than our rags. He'll see his perfection rather than our transgressions. And he will call us his son or daughter instead of his enemies.
Jesus Christ took what the Hebrews had done and he takes what we have done and he frees them with the sacrifice of his own life. Therefore, the accusation, "I know what you did," no longer paralyzes Christians with guilt because God knows what we have done and he forgives us through our great high priest, Jesus.
And he gives us a free and clear conscience. He gives us faith to endure suffering. But he also warns us that there will be divine judgment if we depart from him. So let's look at Hebrews chapter 10, beginning in verse 19, to see three ways that the high priest, Jesus, our high priest, knows what we've done and yet forgives us.
Freedom of Clean Conscience
The first is this, that through Jesus, our great high priest, we have freedom, or the freedom of a clean conscience. The freedom of a clean conscience. Beginning in 19: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us through the curtain that is his body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day approaching.
In this section of Hebrews, it begins with the word "therefore." What follows in these three paragraphs are the implications of Jesus' perfect sacrifice for our sins. The whole letter of Hebrews has been building to this point where the author is now going to show the readers: what difference this makes in their lives? He wants them to understand that Jesus Christ gives believers direct access to God the Father by atoning for their sin. This is why he says we now have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus.
The holy place was a sacred place; it was restricted. Only the high priest of Israel was able to go into the holy place, and that only once a year. He would even go in with a rope tied to him so that if he were somehow to misstep in the presence of God and be struck dead, his body could be pulled out. Entering the Holy of Holies was something that was considered not only sacred, but scary, because to come into the presence of God as a sinner is to risk facing his judgment.
Yet this passage reminds us that Jesus came to give us access to the most holy of holy places by his own blood. Jesus provides us this access through his torn and tattered body. Like a curtain that was violently ripped, Jesus' body offers a new and living way, and this offers us a way to draw near to God. So it is through the sacrifice of Christ and his blood that our hearts have been sprinkled to cleanse us from guilty consciences and our bodies washed with pure water.
Jesus ultimately gives us freedom from our sins. The things that we have done should no longer paralyze us, but they should push us to Jesus. We should go to him over and over again. You heard me say on Friday night when we received communion that our sin is not a hindrance to Christ's work in us; it is the very reason for Christ's work in us. Your sin should draw you back to Jesus because Jesus is the only one that can deal with our sin and clean our consciences.
Years ago, to show my southernness today, I decided to wear a seersucker jacket. I didn't have the courage to wear the seersucker suit pants. Maybe next year, if we're outside, you can come back for that. But to also show my southernness, years ago, Crystal and I went to a NASCAR race. And when we went to the race, we got the VIP package. It was given to us by her boss at the time, who was super generous. And Crystal had actually helped her boss and some of her coworkers fall in love with NASCAR, which is hilarious. But to show appreciation for her when she was finishing her job, and we were preparing to move, he bought us pit passes to go to this race.
And with the pit passes, it was awesome. We were able to walk on pit row before the race. We were able to go around the garages. We didn't get to go inside, but we could go around. We were able to meet crew members. We were able to mingle with a few drivers. And these pit passes gave us access that we could not have gained otherwise. And in many ways, belief in Jesus Christ gives us a pit pass from God with a clear conscience that we can go into the Holy of Holies. That is, we can go into the very presence of God and no one's going to say, "Stop. This is for VIPs only," because we have been given access through Jesus. We have been welcomed into his presence.
This cleansing that we receive through the sacrifice of Jesus cleans our guilty consciences and it gives us a new freedom to approach God boldly. He says we can now draw near to God, verse 21, with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings. We once withdrew from God because of our sin and guilt, but now we can enter his presence with pure hearts and with faith in Christ because we now have clean consciences.
Jesus' ministry as our great high priest encourages us to draw near and put our faith in him. He opened the way for us to get to his Father through his death, and then his resurrection made the dead alive through him. The animals that were sacrificed in the past remain dead, and it only required more and more sacrifices. Yet the sacrifice of Jesus produces life through his death and gives dead sinners like you and me eternal life.
Therefore, the author gives several admonitions here with the phrase, "let us." This "let us" is hard sometimes to grasp in English the force of it, but it is actually an imperative command. It's not asking for permission, that would be, "would you consider, would you consider letting us?" It is instead saying, "you must do this."
And these commands start with verse 24, "that let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." Another way of saying this is, "cling to Jesus no matter what." Some of the initial Hebrew converts to Christianity were being tempted to forsake their confession of Jesus and go back to the Mosaic law and its many sacrifices. They were giving up their hope in Jesus and returning to what they had in the past, temporarily finding some relief in their tradition, but they only had limited access.
Thus, the author of Hebrews is exhorting Christians to consider how we may spur one another to love and good deeds. This is the second imperative. "That we would provoke one another" is another translation, "that we would stimulate one another" or "encourage one another" to continue in the faith. For a believer who aims to cling to the Christian hope they once professed, they must stay connected to the community of faith in the church. We are looking for ways to provoke one another to love and to good works. Our peers influence our actions and they help us persevere in Christ.
Have you ever noticed how groups of people tend to become like one another? They find catchphrases or inside jokes. Perhaps it's the way they dress, the things that they participate in for entertainment. Sometimes it's even down to the cars they drive and the neighborhoods that they live in—that people influence one another. And what the author of Hebrews is saying here is, consider how you can influence one another toward love and good deeds. Consider how you can be the church and help the church be faithful to Christ.
Persecution no doubt led some of the initial converts that received this letter to quit meeting together. Verse 25, but the solution was not for people to withdraw from the church. The author is saying the solution is to stick with it. In fact, faithful participation visibly displays our hope in Jesus Christ, and it encourages other believers to persevere. It multiplies our faith, our hope, and our love, and it demonstrates our hope in Christ's future return.
It has been said that giant redwood trees in the western United States have a relatively shallow root system. I don't know; I'm not one who knows trees, so I take this on advisement. But these trees, as big as they are—and I have been to the redwood forest in California—it is astounding. Their enormous weight is supported, at least in part, by interlocking one tree's roots with the roots of the trees that surround it. As Christians, we need this kind of interlocking root system with other believers in the church. And we need this because it will help us withstand the enormous weight of life in a world that is opposed to God.
Just as some of the early converts to Christianity were being tempted to forsake their confession of Jesus Christ and go back to the old sacrifices of the Mosaic law, we can also be tempted to forsake Jesus. We can be drawn back to our sin and the pleasures that we once enjoyed there. But we can also be drawn back, and I think in context, we can be drawn back to failed religion. Failed religions, though we may think of denominations and we may immediately go to cults and think of other groups, a failed religion can simply be our own way of rationalizing and justifying our sin. It can be when we decide to punish ourselves and say, "No, I didn't do what was right, or I failed here, so therefore I'm not going to allow myself to do X." And we suddenly make ourselves the judge and the jury of our own transgression.
All of us are religious by nature. We're all looking for something to worship and we're looking for a solution to the evil that we sense within. But this passage teaches us that the only way to atone for our sin is through believing and receiving the death of Jesus. Not through penance or works or withdrawal, but only through Jesus. Jesus, our great high priest, has provided the perfect sacrifice for our sins and he has cleansed our consciences from unrighteousness. We now have Jesus' righteousness. When the Father looks at us, he sees Jesus because we have been forgiven when we believe him.
But what we constantly need is to be reminded of Christ's perfect sacrifice because we continue to struggle with sin. We have doubts and fears. We have anxieties and, in moments, we have guilt still. Yet, one of the reasons we continue to attend church is to help us to remember what Christ did for us on the cross. He rose again so that our sin could be conquered and death could be done away with, so that we could live in his eternal presence with the most holy.
It's true in nature that things cannot survive on their own; that we were designed to be together. One of Satan's oldest tactics is to cut people off from other believers. Beginning in the garden, Satan first approached Eve when Adam was not immediately with her. Then he came, Adam came, and they both sinned.
But the point that I'm making is God places us in fellowship with other believers to protect us from the guilt and shame of our sin, to help us to persevere in our faith. We desperately need one another. Though we as Americans live in a rugged, individualistic culture where we think we can do everything by ourselves, the Bible teaches that we must do everything together.
I don't mean by that collectivism or socialism. I simply mean by that that we be the local church, that we assemble together, we stir one another to love and good deeds, and we persevere together, waiting for the sudden return of our Lord Jesus.
The Fear of Judgment
Well, Jesus, who knows everything that we did, forgives us of our sin and gives us the freedom of a clean conscience. The second element I want you to see in this passage this morning, though, is that we should also fear divine judgment. We should fear divine judgment.
Look at verse 26. If we deliberately keep on sinning, after we've received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as unholy the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge, I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
In this section, the author is warning anyone and everyone who has the knowledge of Jesus Christ's sacrifice but willingly rejects him to turn back. This deliberate sinning that he's talking about in verse number 26 is specifically talking about turning against Christ. This is not simply talking about all sins, though all sins deserve wrath and punishment. This is specifically a sin of apostasy. One that has heard the gospel, one that has received and believed Jesus, and one that turns away from him. This deliberate sinning treats the sacrifice of Jesus as worthless, and it spurns the Holy Spirit.
He says, for anyone who sins like this, there is no sacrifice for sins left. In other words, we cannot reject God with impunity. If we abandon our faith in Jesus, then we have no other means for atonement and forgiveness. The Old Testament sacrifices have been done away with, and there are no other religious systems that can atone for our sins. Therefore, for this sinning person, the author invokes God's judgment, and he quotes the Old Testament: God will judge according to his righteousness and punish with his divine wrath.
This is a grievous sin. And the author was warning some of the Hebrew Christians to avoid this by not rejecting the gospel. Instead, cling to Christ. Some of the initial converts were either considering or had already left Christ and they were returning to Judaism. They wanted to avoid the suffering and the persecution that they had been experiencing as Christians. But this leaving Jesus behind and returning to Judaism was now putting them in greater danger because now they were rejecting the only perfect sacrifice available for sin, and it could cost them their eternal life. If they turned their backs on Jesus, they might avoid suffering and persecution in this life. They may get their best life now, but they would face divine judgment in eternity.
In fact, God reserves his fiery eternal judgment for rebellious sinners. No one can avoid divine judgment when they reject the living God. Rejecting the sacrifice of Jesus removes the possibility for being forgiven and entering into the most holy place. To show the severity of disregarding Christ, the author gives several ways that this offends God. He says, turning from Christ tramples the Son of God underfoot, verse 29. Stepping on something is a sign of disrespect. I remember as a kid, we used to wear hats. I still love hats. I have a closet full of hats. But one of the things that we would do on the playground to insult and anger one another is we would take somebody's hat and run around with it and make them chase us until we would either give it back or, in some cases, it would be thrown to the ground. And for the bullies out there, they would step on the hat and ruin it. You can imagine the tears, the frustration, the anger, the fights, the things that erupted over hats.
And yet, this author is saying that for anyone who turns against Christ, you're essentially making him like a worthless hat. You're stomping on his sacrifice and saying you don't care, that it's not needed, that you have another way of dealing with your sin. That would be an insult to the sacrifice Jesus made and an offense to God. So, rather than do that, we should embrace the sacrifice. We should celebrate what he has done.
But there's another way we can disregard Christ, and that the author says, verse 29 is to treat as unholy thing, or to treat as unholy the thing, the blood of the covenant that sanctified them. When someone knows the gospel and understands that Jesus Christ can forgive their sins, but they decide to reject him, they are treating the death of Jesus as worthless. The blood of Christ cleanses us, but to turn from Christ is to treat him as blood, as best as it's common as our blood, or at worst to treat him as if he were evil. This disregards the perfect sacrifice Jesus made. And ultimately, verse 29 says it insults the Spirit of grace.
The Spirit of grace here calls undeserving sinners like you and me, who are rebels against God, his enemies, the Bible says. And he calls us to repentance and faith. Apart from this supernatural, saving grace, no one seeks God and no one can earn their way to salvation. Therefore, to disregard Christ and turn away from him after he has appeased the Father's wrath for our sin is nothing short of blasphemous. It's an arrogant refusal of what we need the most.
Truly, for anyone who rejects Jesus, the author says in verse 31, it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. No one should want to receive God's judgment, but rather his mercy. Falling into God's hands would be fearful, frightful, and it should cause us to shudder, shudder. Adam and Eve hid from God when they sinned against him. Moses turned away from God at the burning bush when he revealed himself to him. And the rich man who died apart from Jesus pleaded with God from hell. In all of these ways, they shuddered in God's presence.
Think about how you react to authority. Remember when you were a child, if you got called to the principal's office? What was your initial reaction? Was that one of, "Yes, I can't wait to go see the principal"? Was it one of, "Uh-oh, I wonder if he or she knows what I did? I wonder if I'm about to get caught and have consequences for what I did"? The fear that was engendered by a principal pales in comparison to the fear that we ought to sense about the presence of God.
We cannot come into the presence of God without the blood of Jesus. And Jesus gives us his blood freely if we confess our sin and trust him for forgiveness. But if we reject that, then we will fall into his wrathful hands and face judgment and we will be damned forever.
Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus' 12 disciples. He learned at Jesus' feet. He heard all of Jesus' sermons. He even had VIP access behind the scenes for three and a half years to ask Jesus all of his questions. But Judas chose to reject Jesus. For 30 pieces of silver, he betrayed Jesus and turned his back on eternal salvation. He put his faith in a dead religion. He sought hope in money and he pursued the love of people more than the love of Jesus.
Because God created us all in his image, he gave us consciences about sin. We intuitively feel guilt when we sin. Even when we rationalize our behavior and say, "Well, it's not a big deal. Everybody does this. It's just part of being human," we instinctively know it's wrong and we instinctively sense that God will judge us. This is why we work so hard to ease our consciences with man-made religion. "I'll go to church this Sunday. It will make up for the bad things that I did last month." "I'll read the Bible today because that will help justify the entertainment choices that I made." "I'll pray a little bit extra because I was a little bit harsh with my spouse or my children."
We have all kinds of ways that we make up to justify ourselves. Some of us would even do it through wealth and say, "Well, I have enough wealth that I've been able to bless a lot of people. I give to charitable causes. I enable good things to happen." And yet all of it is worthless apart from Jesus. Or maybe we simply want the praise of people. We want people to like us. And we end up disliking Jesus because for people to like us, we can't be too crazy or too radical about being a Christian.
In so many ways, we're more like Judas than we would ever like to admit. Yet Jesus knows everything that we've done and he forgives us. He gives us a freedom of a clean conscience. He gives us the fear of divine judgment and a way of escape. And lastly, He gives us the faith to endure.
Faith to Endure Suffering
Suffering. Look in verse 32. Remember those early days after you had received the light when you endured a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution. At other times, you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a little while he who is coming will come and not delay. And, my righteous one will live by faith, and I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Fortunately, the author of Hebrews doesn't leave us with a warning of divine judgment. He now ends his exhortation with faith to endure suffering and persecution until our final salvation. He says, "Remember those earlier days after you've received the light." He reminds the believers of their initial conversion when they first heard the gospel and they believed. Some of you experienced this, that when you received Jesus, you were so excited you could not shut up. You told everybody about your conversion experience. And yet as people laughed at you or mocked you, people questioned you, people thought you had gone off the deep end, and it started costing you, your enthusiasm faded.
That's exactly what was happening to the Hebrew Christians. When they received Jesus, they also started enduring conflict full of suffering, he says in verse number 32. Some endured verbal insults, even physical persecution. Others knew people in the church who were receiving these kinds of abuses. And some were serving time in prison, and others were losing their property. But the author says all of them endured this with joy because they knew they had an eternal inheritance.
Think of the Apostle Paul. He gave up everything to follow Jesus. He was once on the religious fast track. He was a leader. He was known and he was looked up to. But yet he gave it all away to follow Jesus. He suffered at the hands of his opponents. He spent time in jail. Yet even from prison, he could be found singing with joy because of his salvation. Paul understood that his present circumstances were not an indicator of his eternal salvation. Catch that. His present circumstances were not an indicator of his eternal salvation. His faith in Christ enabled him to endure extreme difficulty.
Therefore, the author here says, do not throw away your confidence because it will be richly rewarded. In other words, don't give up your faith in Jesus and a clean conscience so easily. Though the draw of our former way of life can be overwhelming at times, like a rare earth magnet that just snaps things to it, whether it was a godless life of debauchery or a religious life of good works, none of that can save us. None of it can soothe us. Only our Savior, our great high priest, can forgive us. And he gives us the freedom of a clear conscience and the faith to endure suffering and persecution. We no longer have to fear divine judgment if we keep our faith in Jesus.
God wants us to persevere so we receive what he has promised, verse 36. And when we endure in Christ, which is God's will for us, we will receive eternal life. The author concludes by quoting Isaiah and Habakkuk to explain how we can persevere in Christ. He says we must focus on Christ's return because he is surely coming again. And when he does return, as he promised, we must be ready. Second, he says we must cling to Christ's righteousness and live by faith, not by works that we have done, not by works that we will do, but live by faith. And third, he says, remember our future with Jesus. We are those who have faith and will be saved in the end.
Forbes estimates an overwhelming majority of lottery ticket winners, around 70% of them, end up with none of their windfall a few years after they claim their winning ticket. They quickly spend their newfound wealth in foolish ways. They make poor investment choices. They radically inflate their lifestyles. They face constant scams. They face relational problems. In fact, cousins and uncles and aunts come out of the woodwork and they ultimately go back to what they once had.
The Ultimate Windfall
They know what they've done, and they feel guilt and shame for their loss. They even lament winning the lottery in the first place. They wish they could undo the mistakes that they made with all that money. They regret the broken relationships and the problems that were created by their sudden windfall, and they settle back into their former way of life. Some of them are far worse for the experience, wishing it had never happened at all.
Jesus Christ is our great high priest. He knows everything that we've done, and he gives us the ultimate windfall. He made the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice for our sins, and he gives it to us freely. A lottery ticket you have to buy; the sacrifice of Jesus is yours to take. When we admit our sinfulness and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, he cleanses our conscience, he removes his divine judgment, and he gives us the faith to endure suffering. We'd be foolish to know what Jesus has done and reject him.
Let's pray. God, as we conclude this morning, I pray that you would bless this sermon as we think about what you have done. We've thought about this morning things that we have done, and no doubt some of us have thought very clearly of past sins that you have brought back into focus.
And God, I pray that this morning we would find that your atonement is enough. That we don't have to atone for our own sin. We don't have to do penance or work in order to earn your favor. But God, we receive your favor because of Jesus. That you laid on Jesus the wrath that we deserve, the divine judgment and justice for our sins has now been dealt with in Christ so that when you see us, you see your righteous sons and daughters.
So Father, help us knowing what we have done to live in light of what you have done on our behalf. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.