His Complete Sacrifice
We’re continuing to look at the book of Hebrews. This was a letter sent to Jewish Christians who were facing suffering as Christians and were wanting to return to Judaism.
Last week we saw in chapter 8 and much of chapter 9 how Hebrew’s author said Christ was the greatest high priest ever, because He had been given better premises (8:1-6: 9:1-22) and better promises (8:7-13) than any Old Testament high priest.
The last part of chapter 9 and all of chapter 10 divide into two. The first part is about Christ (9:23-10:18) and the second is about us (10:19-39).
This first part about Christ’s sacrifice of Himself divides again into three: His single sacrifice (9:23-10:4); His perfect obedience (10:5-10) and the ultimate completeness of His sacrifice (10:11-18).
The second section corresponds to the first. The first was about Christ and the second about us. But more than that, the writer skilfully relates three responses from us because of the three achievements of Christ’s sacrifice.
Because of Christ’s single sacrifice of Himself we can boldly enter God’s presence knowing every sin has been washed clean by Christ’s atoning death (10:19-25)
Because of Christ’s example of perfect obedience for us, we need to faithfully and obediently follow Him (10:26-31)
Because of the ultimate completeness of Christ’s sacrifice, we need to stand our ground and persevere in faith (10:32-39)
To listen to this message, download in MP3 here