Hebrews Chapter Ten, Christ's Finished Sacrifice

 

Hebrews 10:10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

 

The will the author mentions is the Father’s, of course. Jesus, prior to His incarnation, alluded that His first advent was in accordance with the Father’s will. Rather, Jesus would come to do, or fulfill, the Father’s will. As He made His circuit around Israel, He said as much, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent,” Luke 4:43.

Christ told His disciples the stark reality of His first advent. “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day,” Matthew 16:21. To demonstrate this truth, when the disciples followed Jesus down from the mountain of transfiguration, He told them, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead,” Matthew 17:9. Granted, the disciples were still confused and did not grasp what their Lord was saying, but it is clear from the narrative that Jesus was forthright informing them that a violent death awaited Him in Jerusalem. Even at the young age of 12, our Lord told Mary and Joseph, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Luke 2:49. His Father sent Him; He was going about His Father’s business.

 

What was the end of it? The night of His betrayal, Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, concluding His petition with these words: “nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will,” Mark 14:36. God’s will led Jesus to the cross; His prayer was that the cup of God’s wrath, poured out because of sin, would be taken from Christ. But He prayed finally that God’s will be done, and in obedience glorified the Father with His choice to obey that will. Peter, in his first great sermon that won three thousand souls to Christ on Pentecost, said that Jesus was, “delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God,” Acts 2:23. The Father sent the Son in the fullness of the time to an Israel and a Jerusalem peopled with those who would play their parts in delivering Jesus to death.

 

Consider what God said of Pharaoh. “But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth,” Exodus 9:16. Elsewhere we read, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise You,” Psalm 76:10. The Dead Sea Scrolls more simply reads, “But even human anger will praise you.” God works all things for the good, including—or perhaps especially—the sacrificial death of God the Son on mankind’s behalf. Jesus died for me. He died for you. He died for all, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.

 

By that will, the Hebrew Christians were sanctified. More than that, the author includes the pronoun “we,” demonstrating that he is part of that glorious company sanctified by the death of the Son of God. What does it mean to be sanctified? The Greek word, used in Hebrews 10:10, 14, and 29, is “hagaizo.” It means to make holy and signifies being set apart for God; its opposite in the Greek language is the word “koinos,” which means “common. “ The implication, of course, is to be set apart by the agency of the Holy Spirit for use exclusively by God. The objects in the tabernacle were sanctified, from the pots to the incense to the priestly robes. To use them for mundane purposes was to court death for the offense. “And the incense that you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves. It shall be for you holy to the Lord. Whoever makes any like it to use it as perfume shall be cut off from his people,” Exodus 30:37, 38, ESV.

 

Sanctification is a solemn thing, then. Paul writes of Christian sanctification, that the Thessalonian Christians ought to abound more and more in blamelessness and holiness, as they had received instruction from Paul in how to walk pleasingly before God, 1 Thessalonians 3:13, 4:1. The nature of sanctification is daily conduct as a saint, and what our thoughts, words, and actions are dictated by. Make no mistake; as fallible, sinful people, we are heavily influenced by whatever we opt to pay the most attention to. If we are often in the word and keep company with saints of good repute, we will conform to the image this reflects; if we avoid Bible study, prayer, and fellowship, our conduct will certainly become entirely worldly, common, mundane, and as James might add, demonic.

 

1 Thessalonians 4:3 states, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality.” Part of Christian sanctification is to abstain, or avoid or cease from, sexually immoral things. Why? Because the more we indulge them, the more comfortable we become. The more comfortable we become, the more we are emboldened to step a little farther into such indulgences. Rather, Paul commends self-control, which accords with both sanctification and honor, verse 4. Those who refuse, he likens to the pagan Gentiles of his time, who do not know God. They may know gods, but not the holy God, not God come in the flesh, who died in our stead to save us from the very things we want to rush headlong back into, perverting our faith and sullying Christ’s name and our testimony, verse 5. In 1 Thessalonians 4:7 we are reminded that our calling was not to uncleanness, referencing sexual immorality, but in holiness, which reflects the sinless purity of the Savior, who clothed us in His imputed righteousness.

 

At last we are told that we are sanctified, set apart, made holy for God’s service, by Christ’s offering. It was once for all, which of course means one time for all mankind. We find harmonious agreement earlier in this epistle, where it is written, “so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many,” Hebrews 9:28. Thus we learn that the “many” of 9:26 is the “all” of our current verse. We find identical language in Romans 6:10, where we read, “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all,” ESV. In 1 Peter we find, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God,” 1 Peter 3:18, NASB. The NKJV renders the verse, “once for sins,” but the intimation is still very present. Jesus’ meritorious death was a one-time sacrifice to put away sin. Further sacrifice of ANY kind is unnecessary and insulting because the very action evidences our unbelief in the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement. If we trusted that God would provide a sacrifice of His own (Genesis 22:8) rather than us working to sacrifice, we would cease from our works and enter God’s rest. Refusal to do so reveals obstinacy that rejects the simplicity of Christ’s gospel (2 Corinthians 11:3), substituting or supplementing it with works salvation, which Scripture condemns in scathing language, Hebrews 10:26-31. God willing, we will consider why this passage is about works salvation in due time, and how willful sinning means the refusal of trusting Christ and relying on additional effort, as was the danger the Hebrew Christians were currently suffering from.