BEARING in mind our remarks in January and February upon the tenth chapter of Hebrews, 5:1-22, we will now call attention to what we find stated regarding God, the Lord, and the Holy Ghost, in connection with the perfect sacrifice, as set out in the tenth to the eighteenth verses of the chapter. Each Person of the Holy Trinity is here seen for man, in relation to the one offering of the body of Jesus.
God has sanctified His own by the means of the offering of Jesus (5:10).
The Lord has perfected forever them that are sanctified by His offering of Himself (5:14).
The Holy Ghost, because of what Christ’s offering has effected, is a witness to us that God will remember our sins and iniquities no more (5:15, 17).
Having in February touched upon the first, we will now look into the second and third of these blessed realities.
Because the Son has perfected God’s people, He sits down. Their sins are eternally gone; therefore there is an end of His working to put away their sins. Because He has put away their sins He rests from His finished work.
In the ancient Jewish tabernacle worship, God did not provide a scat for the priests. It was morally impossible for them to occupy the position before God, which sitting down signifies, in connection with their sacrifices and their worship. Indeed, a seat would have been a denial of the spirit of their service, and contrary to the intention of God in that service. The Jewish service made nothing perfect. It did not supply a perfect sacrifice, nor did it give a perfect conscience to the worshipper. Its sacrifices were continually repeated, and its worshippers were continually bringing sacrifices to cleanse their consciences. It did not suppose rest for those who offered, or for those who brought sacrifices to God.
The Jewish priest stood, and daily he ministered, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices. His work was never completed, never finished. The sacrifices were offered again and again. They never produced a perfect result. True they were God-ordained, but they never were intended by God to bring men, perfect, into His presence.
They could “never take away sins.” They could never purge a man’s conscience, nor give him holy liberty from the condemning sense of sins.
Mark the contrast between these sacrifices which could never take away sins, and Christ’s sacrifice, which has forever taken away sins.
God did provide a seat for the blessed Lord after He had offered up Himself. He said to Him “sit Thou on My right hand.” His offering was once offered, never to be repeated. His work is finished; to it no addition is possible. The one sacrifice of Christ is in contrast with the often-repeated sacrifices of old, and His once completed and eternally finished work is in contrast with the constantly repeated work of priests, who never finished their work.
Having Himself finished the work which His Father gave Him to do, the Lord sat down. It is thus that we see Him by faith. We see Him at rest from sin-bearing, not working in connection with putting sins away. And for what period of time did He sit down? Forever, or more exactly, in continuance, is the divine record. It does not mean that the Lord sits down eternally, indeed, the Spirit of God uses a different word when speaking of eternity from that which in our versions is here translated forever. For the Lord will rise from the throne to judgment, but He sits down so far as His finished work of putting away sins is concerned, in continuance.
He will never add one single touch to that work. The Lord is not like a priest of old, nor is His sacrifice like that of Jewish offerings; and the reason given for the Lord’s thus sitting down is this: “For by one offering He hath perfected forever (in continuance) them that are sanctified” (v. 14). Note that v. 13 is a parenthesis. He has perfected those, who are sanctified, according to the measure of the value of the work whereby He sits in continuance at the right hand of God. Christ’s sitting at the right hand of God, and the perfect state of His people before God, are each consequent upon the efficacy of what He did in putting away sins upon the cross.
Now let us look around, or rather within, and consider how current Christianity and our own faith agree with the facts of Christ being seated on the right hand of God, and His people being perfected because of His finished work on the cross. Do we not see a very great similarity in spirit to the old Jewish system of priests standing and ministering daily the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins? In other words, is there not a very large amount of religious activity in order to pacify the conscience and to appease God? Are not numbers within the circle of Christendom looking to themselves or to their priests to do something which shall take away sins? Are there not many hearts in whom the restlessness of seeking for forgiveness of sins denies the value of Christ’s work, whereby God’s people are forgiven? Are there not many in whose religious ideas there is, as it were, no seat in the presence of God?
Christian reader, we have to do not with a suffering, but with a seated Jesus. Not with One, who is occupied before God in putting away our sins, but with One, who has accomplished that work, and whom God has accordingly seated on His right hand in glory. The Lord is not occupied with perfecting your standing before God, for He has perfected you according to the priceless value of His work, which, looking upon Him as the worker (John 17:44I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (John 17:4)) entitles Him to sit down on the right hand of God on high. Unless His work were finished He could not sit down in relation to that work; unless He had rendered your standing absolutely perfect before His God, the blessed Lord would not have gone back to glory to the throne on high! Do you think that Christ would have come from glory to atone for sins and have gone back to glory and left them only half atoned for? No, because you are perfected He is seated, and you know that you are perfected forever because He is seated forever at the right hand of God. These two for evers go together.
The Lord will rise from His seat, we know. The parenthesis of verse 13 is all important to consider. The Lord is seated as regards the work of sin-bearing, but He is waiting to begin another kind of work. What is He expecting? “Till His foes be made His footstool.” Now, the expectation of many, who are doubtless His is, that their sins may be forgiven. Our expectation should be His coming again. The Lord is coming, not to suffer a second time, or to go a second time into the question of sin bearing—no, but to bring His own into the fullness of salvation, to take them home to glory; and having done this, to rule His foes with a rod of iron, and to dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel (Psa. 2:99Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. (Psalm 2:9)).
Man crucified Him, and the world is guilty of His blood. God has not yet punished the world for its murder of His Son. He waits. In a little while He that shall come will come, and will not tarry (ch. 10:37). The day is at hand when the expectation of the Lord shall be fulfilled, and His foes be made His foot-stool.
The Christian should be looking back to the cross where Christ was, for the ground of his assurance that his sins are put away; up to the throne on high where Christ is, for the proof that he is perfected by the sacrifice; and forward, to the Lord’s coming again, for the fulfillment of his perfect salvation, when he himself—body, soul, and sprit—be made like his Lord.
When this shall come to pass there will be the setting up of the rejected Christ’s kingdom, wherein His foes shall be made His footstool.
From the witness to the perfection of the sacrifice of the Son seated upon the right hand of God, we turn to that of the Holy Ghost upon earth within the hearts of those who believe. Of this we read in verses 15-18.
The Holy Ghost was sent to the earth to dwell within God’s people, upon the Lord ascending as a man to the right hand of God (John 7:3939(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:39)), and He dwells within those, who are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. The blessed Spirit of God is a witness to us. He has entered in our hearts to abide with us “forever.” Let us place side by side God’s never about our sins, and His forever about His Spirit. We may read verse 17 thus: “Their sins and their iniquities will I never remember any more.” The Comforter whom the Father gives abides “with you forever.” (John 14:1616And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; (John 14:16).)
Sins never remembered, because forever put away, and the Holy Ghost a witness to us of this blessed fact, and a Comforter to God’s people forever. No more offering for sin required because the sins and iniquities for which the offering was made are remitted.
Moreover, whereas in the days of the law (for ye are not under law, but under grace), God demanded of man love and obedience; now God has put within the hearts of His people His very laws which man had no heart to keep. He gives by His Spirit willingness and grace to love His wishes, instead of requiring of unwilling hearts that His word should be obeyed. He has made the heart capable of delighting in His will Instead of a law engravers upon stone demanding of “stony hearts” (Ezek. 36:2626A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)) obedience which was never rendered, God has written upon the minds of His people His laws, and has given His people hearts to rejoice in them.
We are not as was Israel under the covenant, which demanded of men love and obedience to God, but we have in Christ the spiritual privileges of the new covenant, which, instead of commanding men to love God, molds their renewed affections to love Him. There is all the difference possible between God at Sinai, in righteousness, demanding of sinners what sinners should do in order to be holy, and God in grace, sending His Spirit into those whom He has sanctified by His Son’s work, in order that His Spirit should form their desires and affections to do His will. Man utterly failed to keep the covenant of Sinai, and God in grace has written His laws now not upon tables of stone, for us to hear them and fear Him, but upon cur prepared hearts, so that we may delight in His desires, and love Him. This is His perfect grace. And He tells us that His whole principles of dealing with men were of necessity changed, because of what Christ is. “There is made of necessity a change also of the law” (7:12). The perfection of the work of the Lord Jesus demanded for His glory and praise that our good and gracious God should change His mode of dealing with man! The glory of Jesus required corresponding grace for man. Such are God’s thoughts respecting His Son, and shall we not desire to think and to delight in God’s thoughts?
The Spirit of God in the hearts of His people thus witnesses to them of God and of Christ’s sacrifice. “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more;” every sin forgiven and forgotten, because of what Jesus did on the cross.
H. F. W.