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.

Hebrews Chapter Ten, Feasting On Shadows

 

Hebrews 10:1 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.

 

This verse contains a harsh indictment concerning the Law. It is written that the Law is only a shadow of the good things to come. In short, the Law conveyed a base image of the true good thing God would visit His people with; but the Law was not the thing itself.

Molehills: Speaking in Tongues

 

The gift of speaking in tongues is as divisive as any doctrine one will find in professing Christendom. Some in the church will say it departed centuries ago; others will maintain that it exists and thrives today. But what is the gift of tongues, what was it for, and why did God the Holy Spirit bequeath said gift to certain among the church?

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Culmination

 

Hebrews 9:28b To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

 

Do we eagerly wait for Jesus? Jesus asked, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8. This rhetorical question sadly addresses the end time, when our Lord will return for His bride, and then bodily and visibly for Israel, as her King, in glory. The unspoken answer can be inferred from the narrow gate Jesus refers to that leads to life. Few there are that enter it, He tells us. The broad road, like a highway, that leads to destruction, or perdition, is traveled by many.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Why Christ Died

 

Hebrews 9:28a so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.

 

This verse is laden with doctrinal soundness, and there is much to unearth. Notice first how the writer contrasts verse 27 with his introductory statement. As men die but once, and then face the judgment, so too was Christ offered once to bear the sins of many.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Death & Judgment

 

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,

 

The Greek term “appointed” is, “apokeimai.” It means, “to be reserved, or to await.” Men await death; we are reserved for it. Why? We are the inheritors of Adam’s sin nature, and also the curse that attends it. Job says of his own race, “Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble,” Job 14:1. Eliphaz, though he agreed with Job on little else, adds, “Yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward,” Job 5:7.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Putting Away Sin

 

Hebrews 9:25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—[26] He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

 

Before beginning to unfold this passage, here is what the Roman Catholic Church says about the once for all sacrifice of Christ in what they refer to as Mass:

 

The Mass is the Sacrifice of the New Law in which Christ, through the ministry of the priest, offers Himself to God in an unbloody manner under the appearances of bread and wine.

 

The Mass is both a sacrifice and a sacred meal because it is an unbloody representation of the sacrifice of the Cross; in application of its sacred power, the Lord is immolated in the Sacrifice of the Mass.

 

Thus the Mass does not re-crucify Christ. It perpetuates His one sacrifice that stands outside of time. God cannot be killed and when His humanity died in the Person of Jesus Christ on Good Friday such an event must break through the confines of time if God is truly eternal and infinite.

 

The Mass is classed as a sacrament (an outward sign of an internal truth or experience) because the Eucharist is received within each Mass. The Mass is also classed as a sacrifice, as the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is made present and true each time the Eucharist is celebrated.

 

(Quotes taken from AFC.org and EWTN.com)

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Appearing Before God

 

Hebrews 9:24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

 

The author contends that Jesus, as our High Priest, did not enter the earthly tabernacle during His ministry. The writer makes it clear that Jesus, regarding His human advent, came from Judah, and not Levi, and therefore would not officiate at the altar, Hebrews 7:13, 14.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, What Is Necessary

 

Hebrews 9:23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

 

The writer insists, “it was necessary” that the copies of the heavenly things be purified with blood: symbolic of the sacrifice Christ our Lord would make on our behalf, to reconcile us to God. Beginning with verse 16, we read about the testament, and the testator’s death, putting said testament into power, or effect, verse 17.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Remission Of Sin

 

Of special note is the conclusion to verse 22. Without shedding of blood there is no remission. Remission of sin is of course what the writer is alluding to. One may remit sin one of two ways, and only one of two. We may place our faith in Christ, whose substitutionary death on the cross paid for our sin by taking the punishment in our stead. Or we may die for our own sin and receive the punishment due: eternity separated from the Creator in the Lake of Fire. 

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Provisional Covenant

 

Hebrews 9:18 Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. [19] For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and the people, [20] saying,  “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” [21] Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. [22] And according to the law almost all things are purified wit blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

 

The first covenant was the Sinaitic covenant, made between Yahweh and the people of Israel, after He led them out of Egypt and judged their gods. The record states it as such: “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions,” Genesis 15: 12-14.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, Ratifying The Will

 

Hebrews 9:16 For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. [17] For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives.

 

The testament, of course, is a will. It is the legacy, or inheritance of what the testator leaves behind or bequeaths to his loved ones. To follow this line of logic, we return briefly to verse 11, and walk back to our current passage.

Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Called

 

By this moment I mean the moment when the new covenant supplanted the old, and those waiting in faith for the fulfillment of the promise to be led by the Christ into Heaven and the Father’s presence, when He led captivity captive, Ephesians 4:8. Zechariah says of Messiah, “And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen (Gentiles): and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth,” Zechariah 9:10, KJV.