Hebrews Chapter Ten, Ending Sacrifice

 

Hebrews 10:2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.

 

The writer drives his point home with refreshing candor. To the Jews of his day, and by extension to the religionists of our own, the author of Hebrews asks the rhetorical question: if your offering for sin was genuinely meritorious, would it not need to be offered but once? If the offering possessed real merit for removing sin from the sinner, it should be entirely effective.

It is folly to think about the sin offering in human terms. When we have an infection, we take antibiotics, and dose-by-dose it relieves us of our affliction. Or, when one goes to a cancer treatment, they endure radiation and chemotherapy, and session by session, are rid of the malignance in their body. But when Christ healed in Scripture, it wasn’t by installments. Jesus did not come back, laying hands on sick people day by day, week after week, year upon year. He laid on hands, and the sufferer was healed.

 

When Christ our Lord healed the lame man through Peter and John, Peter testifies, saying of that healing, “Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him (the lame man) this perfect soundness in the presence of you all,” Acts 3:16. Our Lord healed completely. He likewise saves to the uttermost, Hebrews 7:25. This question is one that is difficult to honestly evade. To the religionist, whose works replace faith in Christ alone as Savior, you are asked: if your works truly did what you think they do, why do you continue? If they are efficacious, why must it continue? Why must it be repeated? By virtue of its repetition, it is revealed to be spiritually bankrupt in saving power.

 

Why do we know this? The writer continues, stating that the worshiper, once purified (by the sin offering) would no longer have consciousness of his sins. In the next verse we learn that the very sacrifice itself, the act itself, creates a reminder of man’s fallen state, and the evil we perpetuate. But if the offering could remove moral guilt and affect an end to spiritual death, we would know it. How? God, in Scripture, would have declared it. He withholds nothing necessary for life and godliness, 2 Peter 1:3. If salvation were a system that incorporated merit, God would not have been remiss, according to Peter; God gives us all things that pertain to life and godliness. The ESV, in a nuanced change, says that God, “granted to us all things.” If salvation were by human effort through even divinely mandated works, we would have been clearly informed what they were, and how to do them. But we find the Bible lacking this crucial information.

 

Works were vital for Israel to sustain their blessing in the land God gave them. Works are crucial for Christians because it is by our fruit (works) that we are known. But in neither case do works save, wholly or partially. Neither do works retain salvation. To continue in that error is to ignore what the author is telling us, what the Holy Spirit is telling us, and the entire tenor of holy writ. When one is freed by Christ, we are told, we are free indeed, John 8:36. Free from what? Sin, of course, which condemns the sinner to the Lake of Fire, separated from a holy God forever. How are we freed? “The Son makes you free.” Does that sound like works, sacrifice, or effort? No. It sounds like trusting in the only One with genuine power to save. Christ extends the gospel to all mankind, and by its power we are saved, Romans 1:16.

 

The punishment incurred from sin was taken from us in Christ, when He died on the cross in our place, suffering God’s judgment in our stead. The writer’s wording is cautious; he does not say, we cannot sin anymore, as some professing Christian sects erroneously claim. That fallacy flies in the face of clear Scriptural evidence, such as 1 John 1:8. No, he writes that we have no consciousness of it. The KJV renders that word, “conscience.” It is the Greek, “suneidesis,” and it’s meaning is involved and very informative. As far as the verse in question is concerned, it means, “a sense of guiltiness before God.” The idea is penal guilt, or fear of judgment because of who we are and what we do. Conscience also indicates self-awareness, comparing what we choose to do with what we know is true. If what we choose to do is incongruent with our knowledge (the word literally means, “a knowing”) then we violate the conscience. If it aligns with what we know is true we act in accordance with it.

 

Neither is the verse a license to commit sin. Paul condemns wanton sin in the most scathing denouncement in Romans. An absence of consciousness toward sin, in this context, can mean but one thing. The individual heard the gospel, understood the message of Christ’s sacrificial love for us, and believed that his (or her) sins were taken away in Christ and that we are new creatures, born again, saved from sin and for God. In this sense, we are without consciousness of (our) sins. If a Christian still possesses this consciousness consistently (for it haunts every saint on occasion), John writes, “There is no fear in love; but perfect [mature] love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love,” 1 John 4:18. The notion is that immature faith, or juvenile faith, always has one foot in the open field of God’s freedom, and the other in the carnal nature that prevents us from embracing the reality that God so loved us, that He died for us, on our behalf, to save us from sin when He did not have to do this. If we still fear such a God, it is because we lack proper knowledge of Him, and who He is. Truth will banish fear and bolster love. Love is a better motivator for good works than fear, because fear is self-serving and love, by its nature, is selfless. Love as Scripture teaches is selfless; it has no interest in self’s reward or punishment. Like a small child, our motivation comes from making our Father happy, or being nice because Father told us it is the right thing to do. We believe Him, so we do it; faith is made visible, and self is nowhere to be seen.

 

Consider the nature of our faith. What is it grounded upon? The Bible demands that it rest solely on Jesus Christ, with no room for effort on our part. The author was teaching the Jews this painful, humbling lesson. It is a generational lesson, and every generation has those who rise up in it and teach that further sacrifice—continual sacrifice—is needed to appease God. But it is contrary to reason and the Bible. Our ability to soundly reason must emanate from Scripture, and the word is clear that repetitive sacrifice by whatever name cannot make those who approach perfect. Neither can it remove the consciousness of sin. It is ineffective, and those who teach it advocate lies, to the ruin of all parties involved. As already stated, we will learn in the next verse what the offering really did for the Jewish penitent, if God is willing.