Heb. x. 12.

“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”

When I drew your attention to this text on Sunday last, I pointed out the two great subjects contained in it, viz. the work of atonement completed by our blessed Lord on earth, and His present session at the right hand of God. The latter of these we studied on Sunday last, but the former is of such vast importance to every one of us that it would be wrong to leave the passage without devoting this morning to the careful examination of it.

The text stands very near the conclusion of a most important argument, in which the Apostle has been drawing the contrast between the Jewish sacrifices under the ceremonial law and the one perfect sacrifice wrought out for us by the Son of God on the cross. The contrast commences with the 25th verse of the 9th chapter, and extends to the 14th verse of the 10th; after which we are led to the practical application of the whole epistle. Let us, then, first, carefully study the point of contrast, and then the reason of it.

I. The contrast.

The one point brought out in these eighteen verses is, that in the case of the Jewish sacrifices there was unceasing repetition; and in the case of our blessed Lord, His one offering was once and for ever.

It is scarcely needful to point out the unceasing repetition of the Jewish sacrifices. Not only were they offered on the occasion of every special fault, but every period of time was marked by them. The day, the week, the month, the year—each had its appointed sacrifice. Not a day, nor even a night, passed without sin, and therefore there was a sacrifice each morning for the sins of the night, and another each evening for those of the day. (Exod. xxix. 38–40.) Not a week passed without adding its quota to the accumulating guilt of the sinner, and, therefore, notwithstanding the daily sacrifices, there was another burnt-offering in the morning of every sabbath. (Num. xxviii. 9, 10.) But, notwithstanding all this, sin, and the guilt of it, still gathered around the people, so that at the beginning of each month there was, in addition, a monthly burnt-offering unto the Lord: “the burnt-offering of every month through the months of the year.” (Ibid. 11, 14.) But sin gathered still. Lamb after lamb was brought to the altar, but it seemed as though nothing could satisfy: for every year, on the tenth day of the seventh month, there was the great day of atonement for sin; and of the solemn sacrifices of that great day it was said, “This shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a-year.” (Lev. xvi. 34.) Thus, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, there was an unceasing system of perpetual sacrifice. There was no end to the unceasing shedding of blood. Sometimes the victim was a bullock, sometimes a ram, sometimes a goat, sometimes a lamb, and sometimes a pair of turtle-doves. But there was always a sacrifice. There were two every day, and sometimes many more, besides those which were offered for special sins.With all this the Apostle contrasts the one perfect sacrifice of our blessed Lord, made on the cross once and for ever. There are no less than six places in which he brings out this one point, and brings it out with such clearness that it really seems as if the whole passage was written as a prophetic safeguard against the doctrine of the mass. In Heb. ix. 25, 26, he says: “Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” So in vv. 27, 28, he draws a comparison between the death of the Lord Jesus and the natural death of man, and says: “As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” So that it would be just as absurd to expect men to die twice, as to believe that there can be any second offering of the Lord Jesus Christ for sin. The one death throughout mankind is the type or pattern of the one Sacrifice once made for sin. So, again, in x. 10, we read,—“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” And again, in vv, 11, 12, St. Paul returns to the contrast between our Lord and the Jewish priest, and says, “Every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” And once more, in ver. 14, he sums up all by saying, “By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” It would be a matter of deep interest to study carefully the meaning of the word “perfected” in this most important text. It does not mean perfect in personal holiness, i.e. in the inward work of the Spirit on the soul; but perfect in justification: perfect, because the curse was perfectly blotted out, the law being perfectly satisfied, and the sinner, after propitiation, perfectly free. But we must not stop to dwell on that now, our one point at present is that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus was once, and for ever; and this is most remarkably brought out in the words,—“By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”The point of contrast, therefore, is this, that in the ceremonial law there was a multitude of sacrifices day by day, and year by year, repeated; whereas in the new covenant there was but one, and that one effectual for ever. In the one there was multiplicity, in the other oneness; in the one unceasing repetition, in the other one final act, which set the whole at rest for ever. The contrast stands out so plainly that he may run that readeth it. Nay, more, it is written with that perfect clearness, and often-repeated statement, that I confess myself perfectly unable to comprehend how any person, reading these two chapters, with a real desire to discover the mind of the Spirit, can arrive at the conclusion that there can be any repetition of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ under any form whatever, or any supplementary work of any kind whatever to complete or fill up His one perfect sacrifice for sin.

II. Such, then, is the contrast; and now let us turn, in the second place, to the reason of it. Why were those ancient sacrifices so often repeated? and why was ours once and for ever? The same passage that brings out the contrast explains the reason of it; and the reason is that, in themselves, they have no saving power, and that ours has. They were ineffectual for the blotting out of sin, but the one offering of our Blessed Lord was perfectly effectual in the very point where they failed. There was as great a contrast in respect of efficiency as there was in respect of frequency; and, in fact, the repetition was the result of weakness, as the oneness was the result of complete sufficiency. This insufficiency is placed in two points of view in the chapter, for we are there taught, first, that these sacrifices could not take away sin, and, secondly, that they could not satisfy the conscience.

In x. 3, 4, we are distinctly taught that the one reason why these sacrifices were repeated was, that it was impossible for them to be effectual in removing guilt. “In those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” The dark stain of sin is far too dreadful a thing to be blotted out by the blood of any animal. Those sacrifices did very well as remembrancers. They were daily reminders, and daily acknowledgments of guilt; but as for putting it away, they had no virtue in them, and they were powerless. They were most important likewise as types; as helping believers, with the eye of faith, to look on and trust to the one sufficient sacrifice of the Lord; and so believers, looking to Christ as represented in the slain lamb, could, through faith in Him, find pardon and peace to their souls. But in themselves they were utterly powerless, for nothing short of the perfect sacrifice of the Son of God could ever really take away sin.

They could never, therefore, satisfy the conscience; as you read, Heb; x. 1, 2:—“For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged shall have had no more conscience of sins.”

A man might bring any number of lambs, goats, and bullocks, and lay them all on the altar; but, unless by the eye of faith he looked to Christ, he would, after all, carry guilt with him in his conscience; and the still small voice within would bring him in guilty before God. The sense of guilt demanded repetition; but unless the heart looked forward, through that sacrifice, to the coming Christ, no offering, however often repeated, was sufficient: the conscience remained uneasy still, and the sense of guilt clung to the soul.

How gloriously different is the one sacrifice of the Son of God! It, and it alone, was sufficient for all the sins of the whole world. The substitution of the Son of God for the sinner satisfied the whole law, and cleared away the whole curse. It not only in God’s counsels removed the guilt, but it reaches the very depths of the human heart, and gives peace to the conscience wounded for sin. Observe the words in ix. 13, 14, as contrasted with those in x. 2. In x. 2 we are taught, that if those sacrifices could have purged the conscience, they would have ceased. But in ix. 14 we read, that through the sacrifice of our blessed Lord, this very thing is done; for the Apostle says:—“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” The one sacrifice was effective to purge the conscience; while all the whole multitude of often-repeated offerings left the conscience just where it was; without rest, without peace, without any real satisfaction, under the painful pressure of a deeply-felt sin. Let us never forget this great result; for it shows that we have that which the Jew, in his sacrifices taken alone, could never have—a conscience at rest, a conscience set free, because all sin is blotted out for ever; a conscience released from its burden, because the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was a divinely-appointed substitute for guilt.

Such, then, is the contrast, and such the reason for it. What, then, are we to think of the teaching of the Church of Rome when it says,—“In this divine sacrifice which is performed in the Mass, that same Christ is contained, and sacrificed without blood, who once, with blood, offered Himself upon the altar of the Cross?” [27] And again:—“If any man shall say that the sacrifice is not propitiatory, and profits the receiver only, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, for sins, punishments, satisfaction, and other necessities, let him be anathema?” Now, what do these passages teach?1. That the sacramental bread is changed into the Lord Jesus Christ, the Living Saviour, God and man.

2. That whenever the Mass is administered, He, the living Saviour, is again sacrificed and put to death.

3. That this sacrifice is a sacrifice of propitiation for sin. There is a sacrifice of self-dedication, which every loving heart is required to offer: as in the words after the Lord’s Supper,—“Here we offer and present unto Thee ourselves, out souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee.” But in that case the offering is ourselves, and the motive is not propitiation, but dedication. According to the teaching of Rome the offering is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the object is to make a propitiation for sin.

Now, this is the doctrine that persons are striving to reintroduce into our land and church. The real object of this modern movement is to re-establish the belief in transubstantiation and propitiatory sacrifice. Those vestments of which we have heard so much are not introduced simply from a love of ornament and decoration, but they are folds in which to wrap the doctrine of the Mass; and that doctrine, as I have just stated it, is, that the bread is first changed into a living Saviour, and then the living Saviour offered afresh as a propitiation for sin. [29]

Now, such a doctrine seems to me so utterly contrary to all that we are taught in the Scriptures respecting the perfection and consequent oneness of the one offering of our Blessed Lord upon the Cross, that I am utterly unable to comprehend how any person who takes the Scriptures as their authority can, by any process of mind, be brought to believe it. As I have already said, these chapters seem to have been written with a prophetic reference to it; and I do not hesitate to express my firm and fixed conviction, that if we mean to abide by God’s word as our guide, we must protest against the whole movement. Nor must we allow ourselves to be led away by the religious feelings of pious and earnest men; or permit the holy reverence with which, as believing communicants, we regard the holy communion of the body and blood of Christ, to induce us to think lightly of a deadly error, even though men make use of it in order, apparently, to exalt the peculiar sanctity of the sacrament. We must stand firm to the great principle of Scripture; the principle for which our martyred Reformers did not hesitate to shed their life-blood, that the bread is bread, and the wine wine, after consecration, just as they were before it; that neither the one nor the other is changed into the Lord Jesus Christ; that the Lord Jesus Christ is not sacrificed in the sacrament; and that there never can be, so long as the world lasts, any further sacrifice for sin. When the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, to use the language of our Church, He “made there (by His one oblation of Himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world:” and, unless we are prepared to deny the sufficiency of the one complete atonement, we must set our face with a holy determination against all ideas of repetition, or perpetuation, of any propitiatory sacrifice for sin.

But we must not leave the matter there, for it is not enough for us to be deeply convinced that the doctrine of the Mass is opposed to the whole truth of God, for such a conviction, though it may keep us clear of Rome, will not, if it be all, bring us to God. What we want is not merely a conviction of the truth, but a personal appropriation of it in our own hearts. It is a blessed thing to know that a perfect sacrifice has been offered, and that no further sacrifice is either necessary or possible; but that knowledge, blessed as it is, may leave the heart dissatisfied, and the conscience ill at ease. When that is the case, we cannot be surprised at persons restlessly feeling after anything that promises peace; and I believe there is no state of mind in which persons are so liable to be led away by Rome, as when the conscience is awakened, but the heart not at rest in Christ the Saviour. It is when we can look to that cross of Christ, assured that the atonement there made was sufficient even for us, and when we can rest in the conviction that, because the atonement was sufficient, we, even we, are free; and when we learn to rest, not on feelings, not on sacraments, not on our doings of any kind whatever, but simply on the great, grand, glorious fact, that a full propitiation has been made even for the chief of sinners, so that we, though the chief of sinners, are no longer under the guilt of sin; then it is that we discover the strength of the rock under our feet, and, resting on it, we need no other stay. It is enough, for Christ hath died, and through Him God is reconciled. Blessed! oh, blessed that Christian believer, who can thus rest in a perfect Saviour; and be kept in perfect peace through the Saviour’s perfect work!