11-10-2024
“SALVATION COMPLETE”
Text: Hebrews 9:2428
Sunday November 10TH, 2024 – Pentecost 25
Trinity – Creston/Mount Ayr
Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Our text for this 25th Sunday after Pentecost is from our Epistle lesson, Hebrews 9, that was just proclaimed.
Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us that the payment for our salvation was complete and was finished at the cross one time for all! Amen.
Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:
The saying “hanging by a thread” might have been a way of describing some of the early Christians living in Rome who were weary, worn down, discouraged, and disheartened from public persecution and shame for confessing the name of Jesus.
Life in a fallen world, life under the suffering of the cross, has a way of wearing us down, making us weary, discouraged, and disheartened so that we at times feel as though we are “hanging by a thread.”
To such a people then and now, the letter to the Hebrew Christians is a “word of encouragement” (see 13:22). The author of Hebrews has plenty of encouragement for us today as he bids us to think and reflect on the all-sufficient sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, who stands before the heavenly Father even now as our great High Priest. He tells us that because,
Christ’s “Once for All” Sacrifice Is the Complete
and Definitive Work for Our Salvation,
we may have certainty, comfort, encouragement, boldness, and confident hope. By that final work of atonement, we live today and tomorrow in Christ and wait eagerly for his return.
I. Christ’s atoning work gives us certainty that our sins are forgiven before God (vv 24–26).
A. There are many forces inside and outside of us that would cause us to question and doubt our standing before God and his forgiveness in Christ.
1. How often do you wonder if the work of Christ is for others, but not for you? ( examples of sins and circumstances that may make us wonder.)
2. How often does the old Adam, a hardened unbeliever, cause us to doubt God’s love in Christ?
3. How often does the evil one deceive us into believing that God cannot and should not even consider forgiving someone like us?
B. The author makes it crystal clear that Christ’s death is the all-sufficient sacrifice for “the sins of many” (v 28), including yours!
1. All sacrifices of the old covenant were temporary and designed to foreshadow something greater.
2. These sacrifices and offerings find their fulfillment, end, and goal in Christ’s decisive “once for all” sacrifice (v 26; cf v 28).
a. Christ’s death is the single payment for all sin, transgression, and iniquity (cf Ps 32:1–2)—total and complete forgiveness of every sin!
b. Unlike the high priest who offered sacrifices yearly, habitually, repeatedly, and frequently, Christ offered himself “once,” and his death secures an “eternal redemption” (9:12).
c. Upon his ascension to “the right hand of the Majesty on high” (1:3), he sat down because his work was and is complete (10:12)!
d. All is complete! Nothing else needs to be done, ever! As our Lord proclaimed, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30)!
3. Sin was not overlooked, ignored, or swept under a rug; rather, it was dealt with decisively and sufficiently, and it was removed completely.
a. The verb “put away” (v 26) is very strong and can be translated “the annulment.” That is, the debt of your sin has been paid in full and no longer exists (see Textual Notes).
b. Christ bore your sin—took it upon himself in order to take it off of you and take it away forever (v 28; 10:4, 11–12).
Transition: Not only do we have certainty that our sins are forgiven in Christ, but we have the comfort that Christ’s blood cleanses the whole of us from every impurity.
II. Christ’s blood cleanses the conscience and sanctifies body and soul (vv 25–26).
A. Our heavenly Father wants us, his beloved children in Christ, to have a good and clean conscience.
1. Sin, however, gives us a guilty conscience, a bad conscience.
2. The evil one wants to keep it that way. He wants us to have a guilty conscience, a bad conscience, so that we question our standing before God.
3. This is why Christ entered God’s presence, not with the blood of any animal but with his very own.
B. The author tells us that Christ appeared to deliver “the good things” of God (9:11). This includes the cleansing power of his blood to “purify” our conscience and deliver to us a good and clean conscience (9:14; 10:22).
1. “Blood functions on the boundary between the clean and unclean, the holy and profane. When lost through violent death or menstruation, blood defiles, yet when offered through sacrifice, blood cleanses: ‘It is the blood that makes atonement’ (Lev 17:11).
2. To all appearance blood stains whatever it touches, yet Hebrews understands that [Christ’s] blood can be used to bring cleansing, sanctification, and forgiveness (9:13–14, 22), to inaugurate covenants (9:20; 10:29), and to provide access to God (9:7, 12, 25)” (Koester, 414–15).
3. Jesus’ blood can cleanse our consciences as no other can because he is superior to all others.
a. His blood has the power to cleanse even the foulest of sins and the conscience that is unrelenting.
b. He sprinkles his blood over your sin, over your conscience (9:14), and on your heart (10:22) to make and keep you holy. (Give examples.)
c. His blood not only cleanses you but also releases you from the sins committed against you. (Give examples.)
3. This is what Jesus desires to do for you again today at his table as he gives his blood for you in his Holy Supper (9:13–14).
Transition: Forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus,
III. We have courage and boldness before God because Jesus stands now as our great High Priest, interceding for us before his Father (v 24).
A. At his exaltation, Christ entered not an earthly temple made with hands but the heavenly holy presence of God, to present his blood not only to cleanse and sanctify sinners but also to provide them with complete unrestricted access to God’s presence (see Kleinig, 427).
1. As he did frequently in his ministry and taught his disciples to do likewise, Jesus gives us the gift of prayer—not because of any merit or worthiness in us, but because of his.
2. Since Jesus is our great High Priest, we have confidence and boldness to approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace in our time of need (4:14–16; cf 10:19–22).
3. The invitation is both wide and broad: cast “all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7).
4. The promise is sure and certain: “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (Jn 14:13).
B. Not only does Jesus give us complete access to the heavenly Father, but he also lives now and forever as our great High Priest to make intercession for his brothers and sisters (7:23–25).
1. We are not left to ourselves in our prayers. Jesus is with us every step, carrying us along (see John Kleinig, Grace upon Grace: Spirituality for Today [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2008], 156–61).
2. When you are too tired to pray, when you fail to pray, Jesus is praying for you! He is always and forever praying for you.
a. Right now, Jesus is praying for you and your needs (cf John 17). (Give examples.)
b. When you are weary and hanging by a thread, Jesus is praying for you.
Transition: Since Christ Jesus has entered the presence of God on our behalf and serves as our great High Priest, and since he has already dealt decisively with sin,
IV. We may have confident hope in Christ’s coming again to bring the fullness of his salvation (v 28).
A. Christ’s appearance signaled “the end of the ages”; his sacrifice marks the fulfillment of time (v 26).
B. Since Christ dealt with sin decisively in his first appearance, the author directs his audience to their great hope in Christ’s second appearance, which will bring final salvation to “those who are eagerly waiting for him” (v 28).
C. Even though Christ will someday return to judge the living and the dead, those who are in Christ Jesus need not fear judgment or condemnation but can wait confidently for their blood-bought inheritance to be received in full.
The well-known phrase “all for one and one for all” is the motto of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis from Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers. The three musketeers joined forces to fight as one against power and corruption—“all for one.” And even though they were very different and diverse characters in many ways, their strong spirit of brotherhood led each one of them to defend and fight for the other—“one for all.”
In a much greater way, Jesus is the one who is truly “all for one and one for all”! All the sacrifices in the Old Testament find their fulfillment, their goal, their end, in his perfect and definitive “once for all” sacrifice for sin (Heb 9:26). As Isaiah long foretold, Christ would indeed bear the iniquities and “the sins of many” (9:28), making “intercession for the transgressors” (Is 53:12). Yes, Christ’s “once for all” sacrifice avails for the many, for all who look to him, who believe upon him, and who are “eagerly waiting” for his return (9:28).
Conclusion: Friends in Christ, our eternal redemption has been won, purchased, paid for in full by the perfect blood of Jesus. The work is complete! Our salvation and final rest in Jesus is as sure and certain as the sun setting today and rising tomorrow!
Come what may today or tomorrow, you belong to Christ, and your great High Priest will see you through this life till he comes again in glory to bring you and all his saints into the fullness of his eternal inheritance. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.