Once and For All

As we approach Good Friday–and preparation for more specific posts on Jesus’ death and resurrection–I thought it would be useful to review the overall fulfillment of the promise of Christ’s atonement.

Tetelestai!

We need to understand first of all, that Jesus is our High Priest, our eternal High Priest. In the Old Testament, the high priest would offer animal sacrifices to God for his sin as well as the people’s. Christ was without sin, and He sacrificed Himself on our behalf.

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who has been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. –Hebrews 9:15-18.

A word about covenants here as they relate to the Old Testament. In those days, what you would do is take an animal (or animals) and split them in half. You would lay each half next to each other and the two making the convenant would walk between the halves. In effect you were saying, let this happen to me if I break the covenant; “cut me in half should I not keep up my end of the bargain.” Pretty graphic.

An awesome illustration of this is found in Genesis when God arranged the covenant with Abraham.

Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other…. It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. –Genesis 15:10,17.

In that covenant, only God passes through the pieces. That was a unilateral covenant that only God would fulfill.

Referring back to Hebrews, it’s important to also realize that these covenants required blood. Why? Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, death entered the world being the wages of sin. If you read the text carefully in Genesis you will pick up on a subtle but vital clue.

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. –Genesis 3:21.

Remember Adam and Eve were physically (and spiritually) naked but were not ashamed. But now that they had sinned, blood sacrifice was required. Mercifully, God did not sacrifice Adam nor Eve, but you can inferr from the passage in Genesis that an animal or animals were killed in order to cover Adam and Eve. This is an important word picture at this point. Prior to Christ, all the sacrifices that were performed by the high priest merely covered the people’s sin. It never removed it! That only took place when Christ came and died for all. Let’s pick this back up in Hebrews.

For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.” And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with the blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. –Hebrews 9:19-22. (Emphasis mine.)

It’s interesting to note that the elements of the blood, water, scarlet wool and hyssop all have their fulfillment at the cross! After Jesus had died, when the centurion thrust the spear into Jesus’ side, blood and water flowed. The scarlet wool is the robe the Roman soldiers put on Jesus when they were beating and mocking Him. The hyssop is found while Jesus is on the cross and says He is thirsty. One of the Romans soaked a sponge in some sour wine, stuck it on a reed of hyssop, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. But the most important statement is that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Without Christ’s death, we are without hope!

For 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 would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by 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. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and afer this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salavation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. –Hebrews 9:24-28. (Emphasis mine.)

A couple important observations on these last verses:

1. Christ died once, not often. The futility of the animal sacrifices prior to Christ’s is evidenced here. As we mentioned before, sacrifices were necessary because they “covered.” Jesus’ sacrifice removed sin, once and for all.
2. As an aside, verse 27 refutes the believe in reincarnation: “men…die once and after this comes judgment.”
3. You cannot re-sacrifice Jesus either in a bloody or bloodless fashion. A bloodless sacrifice to remove sin is useless as we have seen. Furthermore, the text is clear: Christ died once and for all.

May He Increase!