Hebrews 10:11-18

11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

16 “This is the covenant I will make with them

    after that time, says the Lord.

I will put my laws in their hearts,

    and I will write them on their minds.”[b]

17 Then he adds:

“Their sins and lawless acts

    I will remember no more.”[c]

18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Dig Deeper

I never cared too much for the idea of wrestling while growing up.  Oh, I loved to wrestle with my dad when I was younger and that kind of roughhousing, but once I got into the older grades of school where they had wrestling teams and such, I never had the slightest inclination to actually be on a wrestling team.  So, I don’t know a whole lot about wrestling and I’ve never been to a live wrestling match in my life, but I do enjoy watching Olympic wrestling when it rolls around every four years.  In fact there are many sports that I don’t seem to care much for most of the time but for whatever reason I enjoy watching them during the Olympics.  A few years back I was watching a gold medal match between an American wrestler and a combatant from another country.  I had watched this American wrestler go through the many rounds of competition where he had wrestled against opponent after opponent and defeated them all.  This match was to be his toughest test, though, and it was for the gold medal of course.  I honestly cannot recall now whether he won or lost that match but what I do remember was what seemed like a very odd gesture to me at the time.  Following the match, the American wrestler sat down on the middle of the mat and he took off his shoes.  He then left his wrestling shoes standing upright in the middle of the ring.  It was a bit confusing and I wondered if he was protesting something or what was going on.  It was then that the television announcers explained that this was a common symbolic gesture in the world of wrestling.  It meant to signify that he was retiring as a wrestler.  He had gone through the many battles but he was now done as a combatant and leaving his shoes in the ring signified that it was over for him.  It was actually kind of a neat gesture and one that has obviously burned its way into my memory.

The author of Hebrews has gone to great lengths to bring to mind the practice, meaning, and efficacy of the Old Covenant sacrificial system.  He has brought to mind all of the pomp and circumstance of the ritual sacrifices that took place in the Temple day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.  Over the hundreds of years of the existence of the Temple and Tabernacle a seemingly endless parade of sacrificial animals had come forward to have their time on the altar as a sacrifice for the sins of God’s people.  The priest would do his work day after day after day.  It never stopped because as soon as one sacrifice was made, the next one was already needed.  So they would continue this work in the Temple without ever stopping.

The Temple was an interesting place.  It was full of symbolic pieces of furniture.  It had tables, and levers, and altars.  It had rooms, curtains, and precious relics.  But with all of the impressive items and pieces of furniture that appeared in the Temple, there was one piece of furniture that was never prescribed to be in the Temple; one piece of furniture that could never be found in the Temple.  Can you imagine what it was?  It was simply a chair.  There was no official priestly chair to be found anywhere in the Temple.  But the important thing is to understand why.  Do you have a guess?  Have you ever wondered about that?

In our world people sit down while working all the time, but it was not so much that way in the ancient world.  Most people were on their feet all day and so sitting became a symbol for completing your work.  The author’s point here in Hebrews is a stunning one that we should not soon forget.  The priests of the Temple came day after day and offered sacrifice after sacrifice in a never-ending cycle of sin and temporary atonement but Jesus, the ultimate high priest did something that no priest had ever done in the Temple before.  Something that when understood fully should put to rest any thoughts of returning to Judaism or turning to any other way in life other than Jesus.  Our high priest went into the true Temple in the presence of God after offering his own body and blood as a sacrifice and did something that no priest had ever done. . . he sat down. 

The implications of that are earth shattering.  He didn’t just sit down.  He sat down at the right hand of God.  The work of sacrificing and atoning for sin was over.  The final sacrifice had been made.  There will never be another sacrifice made for sin because there is no need.  We will never have to do anything to earn our forgiveness because that work has been completed and Jesus symbolically sits on his throne.  All we have to do is to trust his work and enter into his life where we can accept his sacrifice.

But for me at least, and presumably in the mind of our author that brings up a question.  If the work of forgiveness is done and Jesus is ruling and sitting at the right hand of God then why is life so tough for his people?  I’m sure the first century Christians might have wondered from time to time why they were subject to random persecution and hardship if Jesus had really done all all of this and his work was complete.  The simple answer, says Hebrews, is that the work was done, Jesus was sitting down, but now he patiently waits while the ramifications of that victory take hold.  Jesus’ work really is done.  He really is the rightful king of the world.  He really is making those in him holy.  But right now all of that is true in the heavenly realm.  Our job is to have faith and live in that reality despite living in a world that hasn’t seen the ramifications of all of that yet.  We are called, to borrow Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians 5:7, to live by faith in all of that and know it’s true rather than by sight.

In the meantime we can celebrate and bask in the incredible reality that God has done everything that he promised in his word.  He has delivered the New Covenant with his people.  He has sat down at the right hand of God, he is waiting for God to put his victory in effect in the earthly realm, making his enemies his footstool, an obvious allusion to Psalm 110 (which is the fourth time that the author makes mention of this, the most quoted Old Testament passage in the entire New Testament).  This has, of course, all been part of his ongoing exposition of Jeremiah 31, to which he explicitly returns in verses 16 and 17. 

The author began considering on Jeremiah 31 back in chapter 8 and brings it to a close here by highlighting two great benefits that have come as a result of the final sacrifice made by Jesus, the high priest.  His first section, in verse 16, zeroes in on the idea that God had promised to write his laws on the heart and mind of his people.  God’s ultimate plan for his people was not to have a geographic nation of people that were defined by physical boundaries.  God did not want his final covenant to consist of a people who were controlled and conformed by an external law and who were born into the status of the covenant people.  But with Christ that has all changed.  The New Covenant has come and the work has been completed.  God has created a kingdom of people that have chosen to be part of this kingdom by laying down their own lives and entering into his people.  No one is born into this Covenant and conformed to it by external means.  They are transformed from within.  That is so superior to the old way that it should be obvious to all.

The second benefit is, quite frankly, even more incredible than the first.  Under the New Covenant, the sins of God’s people have been wiped clean.  God will not “remember” them, meaning he will not take action against them and will act as though they never happened.  That could never be said of the Old Covenant sacrifices.  Think of it like this: after a sacrifice under the Old Covenant, the priest had to remain standing in the earthly Temple, so to speak, and begin to make preparations for the next sacrifice because the previous one had already fallen short.  But under the New Covenant the sacrifice had been made.  The work was done forever.  Under the old system there was a never ending cycle of sin, sacrifice, sin sacrifice, and so on.  But now that cycle was done.  One sacrifice was made and forgiveness was available forever that would never wear out and would never be rescinded.  Christ has done it.  No wonder while hanging on the Cross he mustered enough strength to triumphantly utter “it is finished.”  Glory be to God!

Yes Christ has made the ultimate sacrifice for sin that renders all other options unnecessary.  That is truly something to celebrate but it is also something to ponder deeply.  We need to go beyond just celebration and grasp the deeper meanings of working out that forgiveness in our own lives.  Part of being a disciple of Christ means to work through what it means to be truly forgiven and dwelling in God’s grace but it also means to be spurned on towards holiness as a result.  If we don’t match God’s forgiveness with his call to respond to it in gratitude and a desire to embrace the holiness of Christ then we become like petulant children who declare by our lives and disobedience that we still want our way but without the fear of being punished.  The significance of Jesus’ sacrifice should move us far beyond that immature response.  It should drive us to embrace the deeply stunning truth that Christ has made a way for us forever, and now it us up to us to walk in that way.  He has sat down in completion of his work and now we must enjoy the fruit of his labor.

Devotional Thought

What does pursuing holiness in your own life mean for you?  Have you responded to Christ’s incredible sacrifice with a pursuit of holiness in your own life?  How is the Holy Spirit convicting you today to pursue holiness fright now?