Today’s text once again
comes from the first few verses of Hebrews chapter one: “God, after
He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions
and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to
us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all
things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the
radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature
and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made
purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on
high.
A few weeks ago, as I
began thinking about the messages I plan to bring from the book of Hebrews, I
didn’t realize that today’s text which speaks of Christ’s purification of sin
would dovetail with the Biblical holy day of Yom Kippur (also known as the Day
of Atonement). Yom Kippur, as some of you may know, is the highest of holy days
in Jewish faith. It falls on a different day each fall because – like Ash
Wednesday, Passover, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday (Easter) – it follows
the lunar calendar and not the solar calendar.
This year, Yom Kippur
fell on this past Wednesday, October 1. I’ve preached about Yom Kippur before,
and I do it again today because repetition is a good method to retain
information. As St Peter wrote to his readers (2 Peter 1:12-15): “I will
always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know
them.”
There is a scientific
reason for the use of repetition. Studies on what is called the ‘forgetting
curve’ demonstrate that people typically forget approximately 50% of new
information within one hour. Within 24 hours they’ve forgotten 70% of new
information. They’ve lost up to 90% within a week. This rapid decline in memory
retention underscores the need for effective reinforcement methods – and those
include repetition. That’s why teachers told us to ‘study’ for our tests. And Luther
was spot on when he said: “We need to hear the gospel every day because we
forget it every day.”
Thus,
the reason for today’s review of things we’ve heard and read before. This
information is important to our understanding and our confidence in our
purification of our sins in God’s eyes.
As I just said, the Day of Atonement is the
highest holy day in the Jewish faith. It’s the day when many Jews – even
non-observant Jews – call to mind their sins and make an appeal to God
for forgiveness. This last point is important because Jews – as well as
Christians – know that only God can forgive sins committed against Him; And
as we all should know, ALL sin, small and big and in between – all sins are
ultimately against God and His commandments. Anyone who questions that needs
only to take a few minutes to read the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 20 and
the Lord’s commandments in His sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters five
through seven.
According
to the Books of Moses, on the Day of Atonement the high priest received two
sacrificial animals from the people. One he slaughtered, catching its blood in
a basin and then sprinkled it on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.
That lid
was called the “Mercy Seat.” The Hebrew word for Mercy Seat translates to the
Greek word used by the New Testament writers – propitiation – which
means “to a make atonement for sins and remove the associated judgment for
those sins.” Propitiation is how God’s wrath against the sinner because of their
sins is appeased, satisfied, pacified.
The high
priest then took the second sacrificial animal, placed both his hands on
its head and thereby transferred ALL the sins of the people. The ‘scapegoat’
(as it was called) was then led out into the desert, never to be seen
again.
In other
words, on Yom Kippur, God not only covered the people’s sins with the blood
sprinkled on the Mercy Seat, but He also showed them by the Scapegoat that He
was removing their sins from their midst, just as the Psalmist tells us in Psalm
103, He removed the penitent’s sins “as far as the east is from the west.”
The events
of the Day of Atonement was a picture of what God would do 1400 years later on
Good Friday when He transferred the sins of the world – including yours and
mine – onto His Son, Jesus the Messiah. Jesus filled the role of the sacrificed
animal when He spilled His blood on the cross to cover our sins. AND Messiah
Jesus filled the role of the scapegoat who took our sins as far from us as east
is from the west.
So, in this,
and in many other portions and many other ways, God promised humanity a means
by which our sins could be purified, purged, completely erased. He promised us
an ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ clean over a Magic Slate clean.
Some of
you will remember that illustration I used several months ago. I repeat the
illustration for the sake of those here who have not heard it.
The Magic
Slate is a stiff piece of cardboard about 8 inches wide and maybe 12 inches
high. The center of the cardboard is covered with a black waxy film which is
then overlaid by a thin translucent sheet. When you write on the sheet with a
stylus, the black wax behind it causes marks to appear on the thin overlay. To
erase what you wrote, you just lift the translucent film, and all the writing
disappears. But you don’t have to look too closely at the black wax underneath
to see the indentations of the stylus on the black wax. They are always there.
By contrast, the Etch-A-Sketch is a box of approximately the same length and height
as the Magic Slate, but the box has a glass screen coated on the underside with
a metallic powder. The box had two knobs, one on the left and one on the right.
By turning the knobs, a stylus under the glass moved across the screen either
horizontally or vertically and causes marks to appear in the powder under the
glass. To erase the marks, the user simply turns the box upside down and shakes
it. Doing so causes the lines to completely disappear. But unlike the Magic
Slate, the stylus DOES NOT leave any depressions on the glass. Once erased, the
user has a completely clean surface on which to write.
When it comes to God's forgiveness of our confessed sins, Christians fall into
two general categories of thought. I call them the ‘Magic Slate’ and the
‘Etch-A-Sketch’ categories. Those in the Magic Slate category think that when
they confess their sins to God that He ‘lifts’ the translucent film and our
sins disappear. But – and to keep the metaphor – God can always see the traces
of those sins still embedded in the black wax.
However – and this is the KEY difference – the Magic Slate ‘removal of sins’ is
completely contrary to the way the totality of scriptures describes how God
treats our confessed sins. When God forgives sins – the Greek word used by the
New Testament writers means to ‘remit’ our sins – when God remits our confessed
sins, He treats them as if they’d been written on an Etch-A-Sketch. When we
confess our sins, God turns the Etch-A-Sketch upside down – again, to keep the
metaphor – and gives it a mighty shake.
When Jesus made ‘purification of our sins’ He turned the instrument right side
up again, and every trace of our sins – let me say that again for emphasis –
EVERY trace of our sins was gone. Completely erased even from God's memory
because He CHOOSES to erase those sins from His memory.
The prophet Micah tells us God casts our sins into the depths of the deepest
oceans (see Micah 7:19). And in Jeremiah’s prophecy (31:34), God promises the
penitent: “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no
more.”
Focus a moment on that last clause: “I will remember their sin no
more.” That means YOUR sin, my sin –
everyone whose sins are atoned for, they are ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ removed – they are
PURIFIED by the blood-washed sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God. God remembers
our sins ‘no more.’
That’s one reason the idea of Purgatory is so profoundly false.
The penitent Christian has nothing to fear of further purging of their sins after
death because in God’s eyes, those sins no longer exist.
But
there is even more good news: Because Jesus made purification of sins – even
sins for which the Christian is unaware – even THOSE sins are purified by the
Son of God. And THAT forgiveness is also pre-figured by Moses in this passage
related to the Day of Atonement. For
example, in referencing Leviticus 5:17-18, the writer to the Hebrews, assures
the Christian: “Now when these things have been so prepared [meaning the elements
of the Tabernacle], the priests are continually entering the outer tabernacle
performing the divine worship, but into the second, only the high
priest enters once a year [on Yom Kippur], not without taking blood,
which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people
committed in ignorance. (Hebrews 9:6-7)
God's incomprehensible
mercy displayed on Yom Kippur is a picture of the incalculable mercy He would
display some 1400 years later on Good Friday. Yom Kippur and Good Friday are
evidence that God knows our sin-nature makes it utterly impossible to free
ourselves from the penalty of our sins – that penalty being eternal separation
from God and eternal death.
Now, all of this raises
a logical question: Since, as we’ve already seen, all sins we commit are sins
against God, how could Jesus forgive those sins which only God can forgive?
Well, let’s turn for a
moment to Matthew chapter nine. When Jesus was about to heal the paralytic, He told
the religious leaders present: “So that you may know that the Son of
Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — He said to
the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.” (Matthew
9:6)
How could Jesus forgive
sins committed against God? The answer is simple: Because Jesus IS God. Jesus
is God incarnate. Jesus is God who took the form of a man. The Scriptures give
abundant and repeated evidence of that truth. That’s why in this text I quoted
from Matthew the religious leaders accused Jesus of blasphemy because they knew
Jesus was claiming to be God.
As for Christ’s deity,
look again at the very context of today’s text about Jesus making purification
of sins: “God . . has spoken to us in His Son, whom He
appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made
the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact
representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His
power.”
When the writer tells
us Jesus is the exact representation, the Greek word means He is the ‘precise
reproduction’ of God in every respect.” One commentary explains it this
way: “He is one who has the whole nature of God in him.”
In other words, God is
utterly holy, and therefore Jesus is utterly holy. God is omnipotent, therefore
Jesus is omnipotent. God is eternal from before time began, therefore Jesus is
eternal before time began.
You will remember some
of the profound statements He made to His followers and to His enemies. For example,
(John 10:30) “I and the Father are one.” And (John 14:9) “He who has
seen Me has seen the Father.”
The writer of Hebrews
is simply reiterating what we find elsewhere in Scripture about the deity of
Jesus. For example, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing
came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life
was the Light of men . . . And the Word became flesh,
and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1-4, 15)
Look also at Isaiah,
700 years before Jesus was born in that little town of Bethlehem: “For
a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And
the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be
called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince
of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
And yet again, “Therefore,
since the children share in flesh and blood, He [i.e. God] Himself
likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render
powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and
might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all
their lives . . . Therefore, He [i.e. God] had to be made like
His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make
propitiation [atonement] for the sins of the people. (Hebrews
2:14-15, 17)
For millennia, Satan has
tried and continues to try to conceal the plain truth of Jesus’ deity so as to
bring the deceived away from God’s Truth and imprison them in error and,
ultimately, the Lake of Fire. The history of the Church underscores Satan’s
strategy. The earliest heresies are called heresies because they denied the
full deity and the simultaneous full humanity of Jesus.
That’s also why modern so-called
‘churches’ are rightly called heretical cults, such as The Church of Latter-Day
Saints (Mormons) and Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are heretical because they deny
the deity of Jesus. They claim Jesus was a created being.
So, as I conclude this
message, let’s go back to our text. When Jesus made purification of sins, the
Greek word means to purge, to cleanse, to totally remove the sinners guilt
before God. That’s what Jesus meant when He said from that cross, “It is
finished.”
Jesus paid with His
life’s blood the penalty our sins deserved. He was our propitiatory
sacrifice. His sacrificial death appeased the righteous wrath of God against
our sins. And in appeasing God’s wrath, Jesus reconciled God’s enemies –
you and me – and brought the Christian into intimate and loving relationship
with our Creator.
THAT is why there is no
other name under all of heaven given to us whereby we MUST be saved, because
only the incarnate God – Jesus – could die for our sins against God.
When Scripture says
Jesus made purification of our sins, it means exactly that. Jesus wiped our
sins from existence itself. The penitent sinner who comes to Jesus for
cleansing will have every stain, every shame, every contamination of sin erased
forever.
No
wonder the apostle cried out: (Romans 5:1) “Therefore, having been
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” And later cried out: (2 Corinthians 9:15) “Thanks be to
God for His indescribable gift!”
