Our view of Christ's sacrifice is affected by our attitude toward sin. Did you know that? Dr. F.E. Marsh said, low thoughts about sin will lead to lower thoughts about Christ's sacrifice. If you and I grasp the true nature of sin, we will deeply revere the work of the cross. But on the other hand, if we are casual and impassive about sin, we will be indifferent and nonchalant about the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our attitude toward sin greatly affects our attitude toward the cross.
So today I want to talk about Christ's sacrifice and sin. I invite you to open your Bible with me to the book of Hebrews, the ninth chapter. As we think about sin, it's helpful to remind ourselves what sin is. Biblically, sin means missing the mark. Sin is a distortion of the right way. Sin is going beyond the boundary that God has set. Sin is rebellion. It is in the inheritance of Adam's race. Sin is a nature within each of us that is hostile toward God.
Sin is a behavior that inevitably exalts self against God and chooses self over others. Sin is the violence, the bigotry, and the greed in society, but it's also that which is prideful and self-sufficient. So you see, sin can be ugly and the disgrace of all, and yet sin can also be dressed up, dressed up in culturally acceptable clothes, be applauded by man. On the one hand, sin can stand naked in its perversity.
On the other hand, it can stand embraced by the world as the way to be and all of its sin. You see, what makes sin sin is not what man thinks about it. It's what God says about it. For you see, sin ultimately is anything that lacks conformity to God and comes short of his glorious perfections. All sin ultimately is directed against God. Even when it is perpetrated against man or animals or the environment.
For all of these are made by God, and even sin that is directed against God's creation ultimately is against the Creator. He as the Creator of all measures all against his righteousness, and he brings into judgment everyone who is guilty of the least sin. Everyone. That's why the cross was so necessary. That's why the cross was such an act of grace on the part of God. You see, it was necessary if any of us would escape judgment, for we have all sinned.
And if any of us would escape the judgment of God, the cross was essential. The cross was an act of grace because God didn't have to do anything, but he chose to intervene. God's holy laws of justice required death to sinners. Eternal punishment for crimes against an eternal God. God alone could provide escape. And he could provide escape only by providing an appropriate substitute. Who being man could die for man. Who being perfect could take the place of sinners.
And who being eternal God could satisfy eternal justice. And you see, that's the reason for the incarnation. God himself had to become man, live a sinless life in this world, and then die a unique death. A death as a sacrifice on behalf of his rebellious creatures. Jesus Christ perfectly dealt with sin by his work on the cross. That's what we want to talk about this morning. And I begin reading in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 24.
Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor was it that he should offer himself often as the high priest enters the holy place year after year with blood not his own. Otherwise he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now once, at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
In the text there is a contrast between the temporary inferior priesthood of the Old Testament and of Israel with the priestly work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the context of that statement we learn several things about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sake. First of all, what did he do? The answer is he put away sin. He put away sin. The meaning of this word is that he canceled sin. He set it aside. He annulled it.
This word is used prior to this in the book of Hebrews, back in chapter 7 and in verse 18. He says, for on the one hand there is a setting aside, there's the word, of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness. Now that commandment was the Old Testament law that established Aaron and his descendants in the priesthood. Now they carried out what God told them to do, but that whole system was only temporary. And it could not remove sin. It could only atone for or cover over sin.
So it says in verse 18, on the one hand there is an annulment, a cancellation of the former commandment. And then it says in verse 20, inasmuch as it was not without an oath, verse 22, so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. So the idea is the same. Jesus has established a better system, a better covenant. He has offered a better sacrifice. He is a better priest. Why? Because He is God, man.
And when He came into the world, He came into the world to deal with our sin. He canceled it, just as much as He set aside the priesthood of Aaron and was a priest in the New Order called the Order of Melchizedek after that mysterious and famous Old Testament priestly king. Just as He had canceled that old order and established a new one, so says the writer of Hebrews, He has canceled our sin. Christ has abolished sin by His sacrifice.
By His sacrifice He accomplished the elimination of it, the abrogation of it. He repealed it. He invalidated sin by His work on the cross. That's what He did. Now what is the result of that? Well, there may be some skeptics who say, well, if Jesus did that, why is there still sin working in the world today? And work it does. It is obvious that sin is still present. So in what sense did Jesus cancel sin? The answer is, He canceled sin as an issue between us and God.
He has annulled sin as an issue between the believer and God. That's what He's done. It is no longer an issue. In verse 28, right after our text this morning, it says Christ, having been offered once to, notice the next phrase, to bear the sins of many. A similar idea to verse 26, but different words. Here it says that He is going to take up and carry away the sins of many by His offering. You see, He removes it as an issue between us and God is the point.
F.F. Bruce says, His bearing of sin implies the removing of sin from others. And the consequent liberation of those who enter into the benefits of His self-oblation, His self-sacrifice. John puts it this way in 1 John 3, 5. Christ appeared in order to take away sins. Now a different word is used there than in these two verses, but the meaning is similar. Christ appeared in order to lift up and to remove completely sins.
So when we think about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and sin, we need to begin by asking ourselves the question, well, in His sacrifice, what did He do? The writer of Hebrews says, He put away sin as an issue between us and God. He lifted it up from our shoulders and carried it away by His offering once on the cross. That leads me to the second question, which I've already answered. It is this, how did He do this? How did He put away sin?
The answer is, according to verse 26, by the sacrifice of Himself. Now it doesn't come across real strongly in the translation I've got, but as the author of Hebrews was writing this, he emphasized that last phrase, by the offering, by the sacrifice of Himself. That's how He did it. He put away sin by His self-sacrifice. That's the emphasis.
We see the same kind of an emphasis in the same chapter back in verse 12, when it says, And not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. You see the contrast is to Aaron and all of the Old Testament priests, who would carry into the temple the blood of calves and of goats and of animals. And they would sprinkle that blood appropriately.
But in contrast to all of that priesthood and all of the animal blood shed under the Old Covenant, Jesus Christ once and for all, through His own blood, entered into the holy place. He removed our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Notice the emphasis here on His own initiative, by the sacrifice of Himself. But we see the other emphasis in verse 28, Christ having been offered. Now in the English, if we don't have an active voice, we might have a what? What's the other passive?
In an active voice, the subject does the action, right? In a passive voice, the subject is acted upon. This is passive. In other words, Christ was acted upon. He was offered by someone other than Himself. That's also true. And who is that? Well we know the answer to that. It is God. It is God our Father, who offered up His Son, who gave His only begotten Son. So says the writer of Hebrews on the one hand, it was by the sacrifice of Himself He chose to do this.
On the other hand, it is also true that the Father offered Him up on our behalf. And He did this once. O-N-C-E. You need to know something. That one word totally undermines the theology of the Catholic Mass. The theology of the Catholic Mass is that Jesus Christ is offered up again and again and again each time that the priest consecrates the elements. They become, according to Catholic theology, the blood and the body of Christ literally and are offered again for the sins of the people.
This one word totally destroys that whole system. Because what that system says is that the offering of Jesus Christ is not sufficient. It has to be done again and again and again and again. But what the Bible says is that Jesus Christ's self-sacrifice once was all that was necessary. It is absolutely impossible for Him to be offered again. Verse 27 says, it is appointed unto man once to die. That is true of all of us. But the reason that it is put here is to show that man cannot die again.
Jesus Christ died once as a sacrifice. It is unrepeatable. It is unnecessary for it to be repeated. Now let me just show you how He emphasizes this truth. Go back to, well look again at verse 28 where it says, once to bear the sins of many. Verse 27, once at the consummation of the ages He offered Himself. Go back to chapter 7, verse 27. You may want to circle these phrases or words that emphasize the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He only had to die once for our sins.
It was fitting, verse 26 says, that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. This is Jesus, who does not need daily like those high priests, talking about Israel's high priests, to offer up sacrifices first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. Now this is a strengthened form of the same word as once back in chapter 9.
So they changed the English rendering just a bit to hearsay, once for all. Once for all. Chapter 9 and verse 12, we looked at this a moment ago. He entered into the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. Chapter 10, verse 10. By this will of God, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Now look in verse 12 where a different word is used but the similar thought. But He having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time.
For all time. Verse 14, for by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. You see, it is finished forever. What did He do? He sacrificed Himself. How did He do it? By His own initiative, by the Father's initiative. Once and for all. It's done. It is totally unnecessary for Jesus Christ to die for sins again, to be offered up before God again for sins. In fact, it's impossible that He could be offered again for our sins.
It's finished and He Himself declared so on the cross. Now a third question comes to mind and that is, when did He do this? I want you to notice the phrase back in chapter 9 verse 26. He says, now once at the consummation of the ages, He's been manifested to put away sins. Notice that phrase, at the consummation of the ages.
There's another phrase that is similar back in chapter 1 verse 2 of this book that says that in the past God spoke in many times, in many ways, but in the last of these days He has spoken by His Son. Not the same phrase exactly, but a similar phrase. It was a phrase that was used by the rabbis in the first century to refer to the times of the Messiah. And so the writer of this book of Hebrews picks up this rabbinic phrase as the Spirit of God directs Him and inserts it into the book.
And he says that He has been manifested to speak on God's behalf in the last of these days. Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, the ends of the ages. The same period is in view. Peter says it this way, 1 Peter 1.20, the last of the times, here's the point, the coming and the sacrifice of Messiah was the longing of all of the ages of the past. And when He came, when He appeared and when He sacrificed Himself, He inaugurated a new age, the present order of things that exists.
In one sense it is the climax of history. For everything that had been longed for through the thousands of years preceding His coming, He fulfilled. Dr. Leon Morris says, it was a common thought of the New Testament writers that God's decisive action in Christ has altered things radically. The Messianic age has come, the age that all the preceding ages have led up to.
He doesn't give us the length of this age and we know because we're alive in 1994 that this lasted about 2,000 years up until now. We are living in the last times. So did Martin Luther, so did Charlemagne, so did Augustine, so did Ignatius, so did the apostles. They lived right at the beginning of the last times. And frankly I think we're living right at the end of this age. E. Schuyler English said, there have been many years since Calvary, but not many ages.
Many ages, however, preceded the cross and its divine sacrifice. There was the age when Satan fell. There was the age when Adam sinned. There was the age when God saw the wickedness of man's heart and his evil devices and sent the flood. There was the age when Jehovah spoke at Sinai. There were the ages of the prophets and of the kings. But the consummation of the ages was the cross of Christ.
There we might say the history of the world, of the ages, came to its end when man in his most wicked deed of all time rejected and crucified the Lord of glory, saying in effect, we will not have this man to reign over us. Then however, the Lord Jesus Christ, by his superlative, unrivaled, and infinite sacrifice of himself, put away sin. When did he do it? At God's appointed time, at the consummation of the ages? One final question I want to ask it is this, for whom did he sacrifice himself?
And going back to Hebrews 9, the first verse we read, we notice that he has entered heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for whom? What does it say? For us. For us. For whom did Christ die? The answer is he died for us. Christ died for us. That's the demonstration of God's love, Romans 5, 8. He died for us.
While the value and the merit of the death of Jesus Christ has no limit because he is infinite God, the application of his death is only for those who are chosen of God, those who come to faith in him. Those of whom it is said in chapter 10, verse 10, we have been sanctified. The word sanctified is used here in verse 10 in the sense of salvation. The writer of Hebrews uses it in that application. We have been cleansed and set apart by God's saving act.
He says by God's will we have been sanctified. Then again in verse 14 it says, for by one offering he has sanctified for all time those who are sanctified. Who are they? We, he says, we who believe. You see the death of Jesus Christ is sufficient for all people, but it's only efficient to a peculiar people, a particular group, those that have been known in Christ before the foundation of the world.
On the one hand he died for the world, but when he died he paid a price for a particular people who will be in heaven. You say am I one of those people? If you believe on Jesus Christ you are, without any question. And now the same Savior who gave himself on our behalf on Calvary stands on our behalf before the throne of God in heaven. You see our standing before God is absolutely perfect. It cannot be improved upon.
We can never be more saved, more righteous in God's sight, more accepted by God than we are today. Our standing before God is absolutely perfect and unchangeable. But our state of being, where we are living today in our lives, is too often in sin, isn't it? We stray from the Lord. We walk away from him. We deny him. We choose to disobey him. And because of our continuing struggle with sin in our present state of being, we have a high priest who stands before God on our behalf.
And whenever the enemy levels an accusation against us, saying God look at this one who says he is your child. Look what he has done. I demand your justice be poured out upon him. We have a high priest who stands before the Father who says Father, justice has been done. I have paid the price for that sin. And Satan slinks away back into the darkness. The barrier between God and man since the Garden of Eden has been sin. That sin brought death and judgment.
It was appointed to us because of our sin. Once to die and after that to stand before God in judgment. That sin had to be justly dealt with if we could ever be related to God again. God's justice had to be satisfied. Only when our sin was dealt with could God receive us. Only then could we enjoy the benefit of knowing God and have a perfect relationship with God. And Christ Jesus' sacrifice accomplished that. He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
No longer is there a barrier between the believer and God. Through the new covenant established in his own blood, we possess a perfect release from guilt, a perfect freedom with God so that we may come boldly to the throne of grace, a perfect hope for the future. In Jesus Christ we possess all things. So if you are a child of God here this morning and you are struggling with sin in your life, I want you to know that there is one who stands before God on your behalf.
He intercedes to strengthen you in your battle and when you fail he intercedes perfectly that your sin might not be offense and offense to God. He has dealt with that sin. If you are outside of the family of God, if you are still lost in sin, then you need to understand today there is only one answer for you. God has provided one sacrifice forever for sin and that is Jesus Christ. And I tell you the world hates that exclusivity.
It seems so bad in our day of multiculturalism to say that Jesus Christ is the only way, but my friend that is what God says. That's what the Bible says. To reject him is to slap God in the face. So we invite you today to come to him and to be saved and to receive him as your Lord and Savior. Let's pray.
Father, if there be some friend here today without Jesus, without the hope of eternal life whose heart is overburdened with past sin and guilt, if there be one here who is dwelling in a living death and his life has no direction because of being alienated from you by his sin, I pray that he will see today the sufficiency of what Jesus did for him and that he today will trust the Savior and come to the Savior and answer the Savior's calling.
With our heads bowed and our eyes closed and as we pray to God, we're going to have an invitation hymn sung to us. I'm going to kneel in prayer here at the front and I invite you to come if today you need the Savior. And in coming say, I'm coming today also to kneel at the cross and to trust him.
And if you're a Christian who's away from God, I want to invite you to come as well and to kneel at the cross and to forsake the way that you have been on and return to obedience and following the shepherd. I will be kneeling here and I invite you to slip out from your chair and come as others around you pray. Listen to the voice of God. I'm going to come today also to kneel at the cross and to trust him.
I'm going to come today also to kneel at the cross and to forsake the way that you have been on and return to obedience and following the shepherd. I'm going to come today also to kneel at the cross and to trust him. I'm going to come today also to kneel at the cross and to trust him. I'm going to come today also to kneel at the cross and to trust him. I'm going to come today also to kneel at the cross and to trust him. Would you stand with me please?
Father, we thank you for the voice of the Holy Spirit pleading for sinners to come to Jesus. May we break our hearts for those lost in sin and break our hearts over our own sin. May we see the cross this season in new light as we understand what necessitated it and what it accomplished on our behalf by grace. Thank you for the cross and for the Savior who sacrificed himself there to take away our sin.
Let us be happy all the day because of the Christ who sacrificed himself for us once and for all. God bless you.