Hebrews Chapter Ten, Reinforcing The Point

 

Hebrews 10:11 And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

 

This verse hearkens back to earlier passages, where we are assaulted by a litany of identical language, meant to reinforce this truth. “For the law…can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer year by year, make those who approach perfect,” Hebrews 10:1. “Not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of another,” Hebrews 9:25. “Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services,” Hebrews 9:6.

This perpetuation of sacrifice is summarized in the Torah: “And you shall say to them, ‘This is the offering made by fire which you shall offer to the Lord: two male lambs in their first year without blemish, day by day, as a regular burnt offering,” Numbers 28:3. Note the phrase, “day by day,” which characterizes the unending necessity of the sacrifice commanded by the Law. The nature of this futile endeavor was carried into the church, metamorphosing into the Roman Catholic Church (and later, the Eastern Orthodox), retaining the futile offerings of Judaism, making them “bloodless,” and adding infinitely more.

The standing priest, still busied with sacrifice, by virtue of those very offerings, can NEVER take away sins. The writer is being systematic, refusing to leave his Jewish audience a place to hide defending or clinging to Judaism, whose shadow has since passed since Christ came. Orthodox religion, masquerading as genuine Christianity, retrieved the shadow Christ cast out, and now perpetuates it on a million altars of works given to the devotees, in a misguided and hopeless effort to bring them closer to God. Why is it hopeless? Because it is an effort, a work, the enemy and opposite of the faith Jesus our Lord commanded as the singular requisite for our salvation, Ephesians 2:8, 9, Romans 4:3-6, 24. The genesis of this fallacious, dangerous, infectious mindset can be found in Acts.

 

“And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved,” Acts 15:1. The Pharisees involved with this heresy reiterated their message in the Jerusalem council, stating, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses,” Acts 15:5. The works salvation that would be advocated by legions of false teachers, religions, and cults, beginning with Gnosticism, especially under Justin Martyr’s former disciple Marcion, began here. First it was: be circumcised according to the custom of Moses. Then, with that, it was keep the Law. In its entirety, all 613 commands. But Peter succinctly refutes this belief, telling the counsel, “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they [the Gentiles],” Acts 15:11. Paul refers to these men as “false brethren,” Galatians 2:4, whose purpose was to deliver believers back into the bondage of works. In short, they desired to draw our gaze from Jesus our Lord to them as our authority. “Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves,” Acts 20:30.

 

The pope and the system of works erected around his religion is such an example. Joseph Smith of Mormonism is such a man. Charles Taze Russell is another, the founder of the Watchtower and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ellen White, prophetess of the Seventh Day Adventists is still another. Ancient or modern, the list is sadly endless. Their goal is to turn believers away from the Word to themselves, and build a rival kingdom, whose path is the broad road that leads to destruction. Jesus Himself said it: He [alone] is the way, the truth, and the life. All other believers, famous or obscure, are brothers and equals.