Keystone PC
Sunday, August 16
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  • Gloria Patri
  • Doxology
  • Let us pray. Gracious Father, by Your Spirit, open Your Word to us and open our hearts to Your Word. Lift our eyes from ourselves to Christ, our great High Priest and once-for-all sacrifice. Quiet anxious consciences, humble proud hearts, comfort weary saints, and teach us to rest in the finished work of Your Son. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
    Hebrews 10:1–18 CSB
    1 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. 2 Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said: You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. 6 You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings. 7 Then I said, “See— it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, God.” 8 After he says above, You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law), 9 he then says, See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. 11 Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. 12 But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. 13 He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. 14 For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. 15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says: 16 This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, the Lord says, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds, 17 and I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts. 18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
    Most of us know the anxiety of unfinished work. A bill remains unpaid. A project still needs attention. A promise has not yet been kept. Until the matter is settled, it follows us. Even when we are doing something else, part of the mind keeps returning to it: Is there more I need to do?
    [DISPLAY CENTRAL TRUTH SLIDE]
    That question can become especially painful when it enters our relationship with God. Have I repented sincerely enough? Have I prayed faithfully enough? Have I changed enough? Have I done enough for God to receive me?
    Hebrews 10 answers that anxious question by making an important distinction. If we ask, “Have I become everything God calls me to be?” the answer is no. God is still sanctifying us, and we still have much room to grow. But if we ask, “Has everything necessary been done to reconcile me to God?” the answer is yes. Christ has offered the one sacrifice the Father accepts, and He has sat down because the work of atonement is finished.
    And that gives us the central truth for this morning: We do not work toward acceptance; in Christ, we work from acceptance.
    The Christian life, therefore, is not a life spent trying to complete Christ’s work. It is a life of repentance, faith, and grateful obedience flowing from Christ’s completed work.
    Hebrews develops that assurance in three movements. The law gives us the picture, the Son fulfills the plan, and His seated position announces the perfection of His sacrifice. First, consider the picture: the law shows our need.

    I. The Picture of the Sacrifice: The Law Shows Our Need (vv. 1–4)

    The author begins by telling us that “the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities.” Reformed theology calls this typology. God appointed real people, events, offices, and institutions to foreshadow their fulfillment in Christ. The tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifices, and Day of Atonement were God-given types. They taught Israel that sin is serious, guilt requires atonement, and sinners cannot casually enter the presence of a holy God.
    But a shadow is not the substance. Imagine walking up to a friend, turning away from the friend, and trying to greet the friend by speaking to the shadow. The shadow is connected to the person and tells you that the person is there, but it is not the person. It cannot speak to you, embrace you, or take the person’s place. In the same way, the old-covenant sacrifices were real, God-given shadows. They pointed faithfully to Christ, but they could never take His place or accomplish what only Christ could do. Christ is the substance to whom all those shadows pointed.
    The law is also something like a smoke alarm. It performs an essential service by warning us that danger is present, but no one expects the alarm to extinguish the fire. In the same way, the law exposes sin and pronounces our guilt, but it cannot remove the sin it reveals. The shadow points us to Christ, and the alarm warns us of our need. Both direct us to the One who alone can take away our sin.
    Those sacrifices had to be repeated “continually” and “every year.” Hebrews does not ask us to revisit every detail of the altar or the tabernacle again; it asks us to listen to what repetition itself was saying. Every new sacrifice reminded the worshiper that the conscience had not yet been fully cleansed. Yet even there, God was being gracious. The law exposed the wound, guarded the promise, and trained God’s people to look beyond the shadow to the Redeemer who would come. Every repeated sacrifice was another notice that the account remained open—not an installment gradually paying down Israel’s debt, but a reminder that the final sacrifice had not yet been offered.
    Verse 4 is blunt: “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” That sentence gathers up Leviticus, the altar, the priesthood, and the annual Day of Atonement into one clear conclusion: those sacrifices instructed the people, but they could not finally cleanse the conscience. They were not meaningless, but they were not ultimate. They pointed beyond themselves to the Lamb of God who would actually remove sin.
    The shadows could reveal our need, but they could not provide the obedience or sacrifice we needed. So Hebrews turns our attention from the repeated offerings of animals to the obedient Son who came to do the Father’s will.

    II. The Plan of the Sacrifice: The Son Comes to Do the Father’s Will (vv. 5–10)

    Hebrews then draws from Psalm 40 and places these words on the lips of Christ: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.” The Father did not delight in sacrifices as if death and bloodshed were ends in themselves. He delighted in obedience, holiness, and covenant faithfulness. But because we had sinned, the obedience we owed had to be rendered by another, and the judgment we deserved had to be borne by another. Therefore the eternal Son took to Himself a true human body and soul, not as a temporary disguise, but as the mediator who would obey in our nature and suffer in our place.
    That is why Psalm 40matters here. Hebrews lets us hear the obedient voice of the Son: “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.” The Old Testament had already taught that God desired more than ritual performance. He desired covenant faithfulness from the heart. Where Adam, Israel, and we ourselves failed, Christ came as the obedient Son, offering to the Father the life of perfect obedience we did not render.
    Here we see what Reformed theology calls the covenant of redemption: the eternal counsel of the triune God in which the Father appointed the Son to redeem a people, the Son willingly undertook that work, and the Spirit applies what Christ accomplished. Salvation was not an emergency repair plan. The Son says, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.” Our salvation rests on God’s eternal purpose, not on the instability of our emotions or the strength of our resolve.
    Christ’s obedience is central. Reformed theology sometimes speaks of His active obedience and His passive obedience. His active obedience is the perfect life He lived in our place. He fulfilled all righteousness. He loved God and neighbor perfectly. He obeyed where Adam failed, where Israel failed, and where we fail.
    His passive obedience refers to His willing submission to suffering and death—not because He was reluctant or inactive, but because He submitted Himself to the judgment we deserved. Christ did not only die for us; He also lived for us. The whole obedience of Christ is counted for those who trust Him.
    Isaiah 53 stands quietly behind this passage. The servant bears the sins of His people and makes many to be accounted righteous. This is penal substitution: Christ willingly stands in our place and bears the judgment our sins deserve. It also involves imputation: our guilt is counted to Christ, and His righteousness is counted to us. The spotless One bears our sin so that sinners may be received as righteous—not because righteousness is found in us, but because we are united to Christ by faith.
    These terms are not meant to make salvation sound complicated. They help us see how completely Christ has answered our need: He obeyed in our place, bore our judgment, and gives us a righteousness not our own.
    Verse 10 gives real comfort: “By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Notice the tenderness of that certainty. Not “we might be sanctified if we can finally do enough,” but “we have been sanctified.” Those who belong to Christ have been set apart as God’s own because His offering has truly accomplished what God intended. The believer’s holiness begins not with frantic self-improvement, but with belonging to the crucified and risen Christ.
    Here “sanctified” includes what theologians call definitive sanctification. Through union with Christ, believers have been decisively set apart for God and delivered from sin’s dominion. Sin remains, but it no longer reigns. That decisive break with sin becomes the foundation for the Spirit’s lifelong work of progressive sanctification.
    That matters for weary Christians. Some of us come into worship carrying the weight of a hard week. Some are discouraged by sins we thought we would have outgrown by now. Some wonder whether God is tired of forgiving us. Hebrews meets us there with mercy. The ground of our acceptance is not the steadiness of our feelings, the quality of our prayers, or the strength of our obedience. It is Christ’s finished offering. Sanctification grows in us because grace has already claimed us.
    But how can that acceptance be so secure while our sanctification remains incomplete? Hebrews answers by directing us to the finished sacrifice and the seated Priest.

    III. The Perfection of the Sacrifice: Christ Has Finished the Work (vv. 11–18)

    The contrast in verses 11 and 12 is brief but decisive. “Every priest stands daily at his service,” but Christ, after offering one sacrifice for sins, “sat down at the right hand of God.” Earlier sermons have already lingered over the contrast between standing priests and the seated Christ. Here Hebrews uses that image to make a further pastoral point: if Christ is seated, then the sacrifice is not waiting to be completed. The Father has accepted it. The work of atonement is finished.
    Verse 14 says, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” This holds together two graces we must distinguish without separating. Justification is God’s once-for-all declaration that the believer is righteous in Christ. It is complete and cannot be increased. Sanctification is the Spirit’s continuing work of renewing us in holiness. It is real, progressive, and incomplete in this life. The Christ who justifies His people also sanctifies them. We are not trying to finish what Christ left undone; we are living out what Christ has already secured.
    Then the Holy Spirit bears witness through the promise of the new covenant: “I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds.” Grace does not merely pardon us and leave us unchanged. The Spirit writes God’s law upon the heart, giving new desires, new affections, and new power for obedience. Grace is not opposed to holiness; grace is the only soil in which true holiness grows.
    This is Jeremiah 31again, but Hebrews now places the promise beside the finished sacrifice. The law written on the heart and sins remembered no more are not separate blessings floating loose from the cross. They are covenant blessings secured by the Mediator’s blood and applied by the Spirit. The sacrifice that forgives us also consecrates us to God.
    And then comes the promise that can quiet even the most burdened conscience: “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” God does not suffer memory loss. Rather, He promises never again to hold our sins against us because they have been fully judged in Christ. The sins that shame you, the failures that haunt you, the guilt you keep replaying—if you are in Christ, those sins have not had the final word over you. They have been carried by your Savior and removed as far as the east is from the west.
    We often struggle to believe that God’s forgiveness is really that complete. Perhaps the old correction fluid known as white-out can help us see the difference. When we made a mistake on a page, we could brush white-out over it. The mark was hidden, but it was not truly removed. The old mistake remained beneath the white patch, and anyone looking closely could see that something had been covered. Sometimes we imagine God’s forgiveness that way: our sins are concealed for the moment, but still lie underneath, ready to be exposed and charged against us again. But God does not merely paint over our guilt or pretend it is not there. In Christ, our sin has been brought into the open, judged, and fully answered for. When God promises to remember our sins no more, He promises that the case has been settled and the forgiven charge will never be brought against us again.
    That is what the older theological terms expiation and propitiation help us express. In expiation, our guilt is removed. In propitiation, God’s righteous judgment against our sin is satisfied. God does not forgive by painting over evil or pretending it never mattered. He forgives because our sin has been brought into the open, judged in Christ, and fully answered for.
    This gives Christian worship its proper comfort. We do not gather to repeat Christ’s sacrifice or add our devotion to His merit. Confession is gospel honesty before the God who welcomes repentant sinners. The assurance of pardon announces that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient and accepted. Our singing is gratitude, our obedience is the fruit of grace, and the benediction sends us out—not to finish our salvation, but to live in the salvation Christ has finished.
    So Hebrews 10 leaves us with one great announcement: the sacrifice sinners need has been offered, and Christ’s finished work is enough.
    If you are not in Christ, do not imagine that morality, church attendance, sincerity, or promises to improve can remove your guilt. The law can expose your sin, but it cannot cleanse you. Your good works cannot undo the evil already committed, and no sacrifice of your own can reconcile you to a holy God.
    But Christ has done what you cannot do. The eternal Son took a true human body, obeyed in the place of sinners, bore the judgment sinners deserve, rose from the grave, and sat down because His saving work was accomplished. So repent and believe the gospel. Turn from sin and self-righteousness, come to Christ with empty hands, and trust His righteousness and His blood. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
    And Christian, do not live as though forgiven guilt still waits to be charged against you. Your sin has been judged in Christ. There is no condemnation for those who are in Him. Confess your sins honestly, pursue holiness earnestly, and serve God gratefully—but never turn your obedience into a payment for grace. You do not work toward acceptance; in Christ, you work from acceptance.
    The law has shown our need. The Son has done the Father’s will. The sacrifice has been offered. The Priest has sat down. The covenant has been established. And God says to all who are in Christ, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
    The sacrifice is finished. The Savior is enough. The way is open. Come to God through Christ—and rest.
    Let’s pray

      • Hebrews 10:1–18CSB

      • Hebrews 10:14CSB

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