Well, let us turn again to God's
Word. In the portion that we read,
Hebrews chapter 10, and directing your attention this evening to
the verses 10 through to 14. Hebrews 10, verse 10 through
to verse 14. Previously, the apostle He's
quoting the words of Psalm 40 in relation to the Lord Jesus
Christ and his coming, as we have it there in verse 9, Lo,
I come to do thy will, O God. Reading then at verse 10, By
which will? We are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. and every
priest and of daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifice, which can never take away sins. But this man, after
he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on
the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool, for by one offering he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. want us to consider then Christ's
perfect work of sanctification. We see it here at the beginning
and at the end of what I've just announced as our text in verse
10. By the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all,
And then again, the text, verse 14, for by one offering he hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. And notice here in
this last verse the pronouns, he and them. By one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Well, as we come to consider
these verses for a while tonight, I want to divide what I'm going
to say into three parts, dealing with three headings. First of
all, to say something with regards to the One Offering, and then
secondly, the Affecting, and finally, we come to the Sanctified. That's the division there that
we will follow as the Lord helps us tonight. First of all, the
one offering. Here in verse 14 we have it poured
by one offering, He. And who is this person that is
being spoken of? He. It is of course none other
than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He's referred to in verse 12.
This man, after he had offered one sacrifice, for sins forever,
for the man Christ Jesus. Because the language of Paul
again there in 1 Corinthians 15, he tells us the first man,
Adam, was made a living soul. The last, Adam, was made a quickening
spirit. Again, he says the first man
is of the earth, the second man is the Lord from heaven. And it was the great Puritan
Thomas Goodwin who remarked that in God's sight there are but
two men, that first man, Adam, and that second man, the Lord
from heaven, the last Adam. And we must be either in one
Adam or the other. By nature, of course, we're all
in the first Adam. But ought to know that by the
grace of God we are those tonight who are found in the last Adam. Here then, we are directed to
the Lord Jesus Christ as that one who has made that great offering
for sin. Now he is spoken of quite specifically
in the 10th verse. We read of the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all. or he was a real man. And though a real man, of course,
he was never anything less than true almighty God. That's the great wonder. We know
there is a wonder in the incarnation. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh, the miracle of his birth. He was conceived by the Holy
Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary. There's a miracle and a
mystery in his coming into the world. And so also there is that
great mystery when he comes to die, when he comes to suffer
there upon the cross. And in that death, of course,
he felt so derelict in his soul, deserted of God. He cries out
in all the agonies of soul, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? There is a mystery. How was it
possible that the Eternal Son could be forsaken by the Eternal
Father? There can be no division in the
Godhead, because God is one. In Revelation, the Lord our God
is one Lord, God is one, God is undivided, God is indivisible.
And yet, Christ truly suffers, and not just a physical death,
but great agonies of soul, as he made that one sacrifice for
sins forever. And so the person being spoken
of here, the he that we have in verse 14, by one offering
her, it is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And here we are reminded of his
offices and the work that Christ came to do. Remember, there is
one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man, Christ
Jesus. That's part of his office, the
Mediator. But also, we see his office as
that one who is the Great High Priest. And certainly, here in
this epistle to the Hebrews, we might say that that theme
of the high priestly office of the Lord Jesus Christ runs right
through the book. This book, I suppose, answers
in many respects what we find in the book of Leviticus in the
Old Testament Scriptures. There in Leviticus, of course,
we read of all the various offerings and sacrifices that were to be
made by the priest of Aaron. And here we have what is really
the fulfillment of all those sacrifices. There in Leviticus
we have the shadow, here in Hebrews we have the substance. The Lord
Jesus Christ is that one who is the great high priest, and
his priestly office was foreshadowed in those priests of the line
of Herod. Now, what is Christ as a priest?
Well, he was certainly an interceding priest. That was part of the
task of the priest in the Old Testament, to pry for the people. They were to attend to the golden
altar, where the incense was offered up to God. That incense
stippifying, the prayers and the praises of God's children
ascending on high. And the Lord Jesus is clearly
seen to be an interceding priest. In John chapter 17 we have the
record of that remarkable prayer that he prayed just previous
to his sufferings. As a priest he was going to make
the great sacrifice for sin The previous to that, in that 17th
chapter, we have the record of that remarkable high priest in
prayer of the Lord. And here in Hebrews, we read
of him as a priest interceding. Chapter seven, verse 25, he is
able to say, then to the Ottomans that come
unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for
them. All that is, is his mediatorial
life in heaven. He has now died, risen, ascended,
entered heaven and his very presence. There, his session at God's right
hand is a constant prayer and plea on behalf of all his people. We know that he has entered Hebronitza. The priest of Aaron would on
the great day of atonement enter into the holy of holies, the
holy place made with hands. But what do we read here in chapter
9 verse 24? Christ is not entered into the
holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the
true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence
of God for us. Why? He has gone into God's very
presence. He has entered heaven. and sinners,
they enter into that same place only by and through Him. And so we have it here, in this
10th chapter, verse 19, having therefore brethren boldness to
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the new and
living wine, which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that
is to say His flesh, and having an high priest over the house
of God, Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance
of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our
bodies washed with pure water. Oh, it is by Christ as that great
interceding priest that believers also can come and make their
requests known unto God. But as In his office, as the
high priest Christ intercedes, as I've already intimated, he
is also that one who is a sacrificing priest. And so we see that he
has somewhat to offer. Chapter 8, verse 3, this man
had somewhat to offer. He is not only the priest, he
is the sacrifice. He is the Lamb of God, slain
from the foundation of the world. And so we read here in verse
4, by one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. All this was the very purpose
of His coming into the world. As I said at the outset, in the
context here, in the previous verses, the apostle quotes the
words of Psalm 14, a scripture that has reference to the Lord
Jesus Christ, a scripture that is being fulfilled in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Verse 9, Lo, I come to do thy
will, O God, ye taketh away the first, that ye may establish
the second. He takes away all the offerings
of the Old Testament or the Levitical laws. He has taken them all away
that he may establish the second, neither which way. We are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for
all. And as he comes into this world,
he is well aware of that great purpose that he must accomplish.
He comes In the outworking of God's eternal covenant of grace,
he comes as that one in which the Lord's servant did that covenant. And he says, my need is to do
the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Or that
was the work that the Father gave him to do. I came down from
heaven, he says, not to do my will, but the will of him that
sent me. And what was that will? It was
that he must go the way of the cross. As we read there in Philippians
chapter 2, he is obedient. And obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. And so we see him as coming to
make the great sacrifice. And that offering that he makes
is once for all. That's the language that we have
there at the end of the 10th verse, by which we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Again, in verse 12 we read of
one sacrifice for sins forever. Verse 18, where remission of
these is, there is no more offering for sin. all he has made, that
one sacrifice. And as we know, as he dies upon
the cross, so the veil of the temple is rent in twain, rent
in two, and the way it's opened up now into the holy of holies. And then, just nearly 40 years
after the crucifixion of Christ, The very temple there in Jerusalem
was destroyed. The armies of the Roman general Titus came
and laid siege to Jerusalem. Jerusalem fell and the temple
was destroyed. It was all finished. No more
any sacrifice was seen. This is why we concur with the
language of these The articles of the Church of England, the
39 articles and article 31, which speaks of the Roman Catholic
doctrine of the Mass. Of course, those articles were
drawn up at the time of the Protestant Reformation. And they are very
Protestant in their nature. The articles of the established
Church. What does it say concerning the Mass? It's a dangerous deceit. And it's a blasphemous faith. because in the Mass what the
Church of Rome says is that Christ is still being sacrificed. It's
a bloodless sacrifice that they offer, imaginary, on the altar
of the Romish Church, but it's a real sacrifice. They refer
to it as the sacrifice of the Mass. But it is a deceit, a dangerous
deceit, It's blasphemous, because Christ has made one offering
for sins forever. There was no other offering that
could ever take away sins. Those are people's sacrifices.
The blood of bulls and of goats. They could never take away sins.
Look at the contrast that we have in this very chapter. In verse 11, every priest standeth
daily, ministering and offering, oftentimes, same sacrifices which
can never take away sins. But this man, after he'd offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God. Back in verse four, it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins. It was only that precious blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ when he poured out his soul unto death. And so here we have mentioned
in our text this evening of his sacrifice. By one offering it
says, we have perfected forever them that are sanctified. But then turning in the second
place to what he said here about the perfecting the perfecting. Go back to the opening verse
of the chapter. We are told 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. Stating quite clearly then that
those sacrifices which were always continually being offered, year
in, year out, they could not make the comers thereunto perfect. There we have the inadequacy
of the law. But in contrast, when we come
to the gospel in Christ, verse 14, by one offering, He hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. Or think of All that
is implied when we read of this work and this sacrifice is that
it is perfect. And it is perfect in a two-fold
sense. It's an accomplished salvation,
and it's a complete salvation that we have in the offering
of the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, it's an accomplished
salvation. What do we mean by that? Well,
let's go back to the language that we have earlier in chapter
2. Here in chapter 2 at verse 9
and the following verses. Paul says, we see Jesus, who
was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace
of God should taste death for every man. There are those who
seize on that verse and say, look, it is plainly stated here
that the Lord Jesus Christ, in his sufferings, in his death,
in making that sacrifice, tasted death for every man. A universal
atonement was made, they argue, on the basis of this statement
here in verse 9 of chapter 2. However, however, how important
it is that we see every verse of Scripture in its proper context. That is, in the immediate context
where it is set in any part of any book or any chapter, as well
as in the context of the wholeness of the Word of God. And here
I'm concerned about the immediate context It says that he, by the grace
of God, should taste death for every man. For it became him,
for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing
many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation
perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctified and
they who are sanctified are all one, for which cause he is not
ashamed to call them brethren. saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will
I sing praise unto them. And again, I will put my trust
in him. And again, behold I and the children
which God hath given me. Here then, we are told in the
following verses, those verses following verse nine, just who
every man is. It doesn't mean every individual
who has ever lived upon the face of the earth. really refers to
all sorts, types, varieties, and offices of men. He has tasted
death for every man, but who is every man? Well, look at what
follows. In verse 10, they are many sons. They are many sons. Verse 11,
they are the sanctified, he that sanctified, and they who are
sanctified. They are brethren, they're Christ's
brethren. Again in verse 12 they're referred
to as my brethren. They're spoken of also there
in that 12th verse as the church. And then in verse 13 they are
the children. Behold I am the children which
God hath given me. These are those for whom the
Lord Jesus Christ tasted death. We'll come back presently to
that 11th verse, but clearly we see how that they are a certain
people, they are a specific, a particular people. He has accomplished
salvation for as many as God had given to him in that eternal
covenant. In other words, it's a particular
redemption. It's a limited atonement. It
belongs only to those whom God has decreed to be saved. Because all that is taking place
is in accordance with God's will. Verse 10, by the which will we
are sanctified. He's writing to believe us here
in this epistle to the Hebrews. And as it is and accomplish salvation,
so it is also a complete salvation. It's a complete salvation. We're
looking at words this morning in Colossians chapter 1, and
there later on in that chapter, verse 28, the Apostle goes on
to refer to his preaching and the design of that preaching
to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Or there's a
wonderful perfection in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
didn't just die to make salvation a possibility for all men. He
dies to make salvation a certainty for those that the Father has
given to him. And that salvation is a perfect
salvation. There's no perfection in the
flesh. There is only perfection in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Again, look at the language of
the Apostle in the previous epistle, writing there to the Ephesians. In Ephesians chapter 5, and there at verse 25. Husbands, he said, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself
for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a
glorious church, not having spots or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blemish. For it is the
fruit of Christ's work that the church is without spots or wrinkle,
without any blemish at all. It is altogether holy in the
sight of God. And so, what does the Lord say
to his church there in the language of the Song of Solomon? Thou
art more fair, my love. There is no spot in thee. All that beauty is what the Lord
himself has accomplished for his people. And having referred
to the Song of Solomon, I think also of the language that we
find in Psalm 45, that lovely Psalm of David, which has that
title, A Song of Loves. And look at what we are told
there concerning the king's daughter. In Psalm 45, verse 13, the king's
daughter is all glorious with him. Her clothing is of good
gold. She shall be brought unto the
king in raiment of needlework. All she is clothed And what is
he clothed with? A robe of righteousness and garments
of salvation. This is the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is a complete salvation. He
came to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make
reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness. All he has made, that sacrifice,
the perfect satisfaction for sin, for he has answered all
the demands of that holy and righteous Lord of God. He has
died, the just for the unjust. And he, in his life, wrought
a perfect righteousness. It is altogether then that that
is in Christ, that perfection. By one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. It is that sacrifice that he
makes upon the cross that completes his work. When he cries out in
triumph, it is finished and yields up the girls. A perfect salvation, an accomplished
salvation, of him, i.e., in Christ Jesus, who of God is made of
wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption,
that as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the
Lord. Well, we've spoken of the one
offering, we've spoken of that perfecting. Let us finally turn
to the sanctified. In a sense, we might say we've
considered the herding. by one offering her he hath perfected. And I want us now, as it were,
to turn to the then. Perfected forever them that are
sanctified. And observe. Observe the grammar
here. They are sanctified. It's a present
tense, not a future tense. They are sanctified. And sanctification
is a part of salvation. we were considering the great
doctrine of adoption a week ago on the Lord's Day. And here we
come to another great aspect of the gospel of the grace of
God, that salvation that is in the Lord Jesus Christ, sanctification. And as with all these great doctrines,
it is Trinitarian in its very nature. It involves all the persons,
in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. How true are
the lines of Joseph Hart, all true Christians his main boast,
a truth from nature never learned, that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
to save our souls, are all concerned. Lord let us rejoice then, that
our salvation is a Trinitarian salvation, it is rooted and grounded
in the very doctrine of God himself. First of all, there is the Father.
And what do we find in the Father? There we have what we might term
eternal sanctification. Jude, a little epistle of Jude,
and there at the end of the first verse, sanctified by God the
Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. Now, clearly there
the word sanctified has that very basic meaning. The basic
meaning of the word is to set apart. To sanctify a thing, to
consecrate a thing, is to set it apart to some special use. All the vessels in the tabernacle
in the Old Testament were sanctified and consecrated. they were set
apart to the service of God. The various ointments, they could
not make those ointments and use them for any common purpose.
They were exclusively for the service of God. This is the basic
meaning of the word. And so there in the opening words
of Jude, sanctified by God the Father, what is he speaking of? He's speaking of a people whom
God the Father has set aside, set apart. They are preserved
even when they are unregenerate. They are preserved in Jesus Christ.
What a wondrous truth is that concerning those who believe
us when we come to that experience of saving faith and we reflect
on our lives and our lives forward to the regenerating grace of
God and we think sometimes how remarkable that God kept us when
we were still Dead in trespasses and sins, he preserved us. And
then in the appointed time, that call, that gracious work that
comes by God the Holy Spirit, that effectual call, that when
the sinner being born again is made willing and comes to trust
in Christ. But we're thinking particularly
of that sanctification, And we had it in that passage that we
looked at earlier in the second chapter. Seeking to identify
the ones that Christ tasted death for. He tasted death for every
man. Both he that sanctifieth and
they who are sanctified are one of one. How were they set apart? They were chosen. How were they
chosen? They were chosen in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians
1-4, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. And so we have it here. Again,
going back to verse 9, Christ speaking as he were in
the language of the Son, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
He taketh away the furs that he may establish the second,
by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all, all set apart by God's eternal
will, and committed dead into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is an eternal sanctification
in the great truth of eternal election. and then coming to
God the Son. And here we see what we might
term historic sanctification. That that is taking place in
time. Again, verse 14, by one offering. He hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified. Verse 10, by which we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, the offering
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ,
an historic sacrifice, an event that occurred in time, is clearly
linked to sanctification. When Christ endures all that
contradiction of sin, when the Lord Jesus Christ bore in his
own person the wrath of God, when he shed that precious blood,
he was sanctifying his church. Chapter 13, verse 12, Jesus also,
that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered
without the gain. And again, if we go back here
into chapter 9, verse 13, if the blood of bulls and of goats
and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifyeth for
the purifying of the flesh, 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. Oh, and we need to know that
precious purgatory, that's a right purgatory. We deny, of course,
the Romish notion a place called purgatory. But we do believe
in that purgatory of Christ's precious blood, cleansing our
consciences from every dead work, sanctified. Sanctified by the
offering of Jesus Christ, sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ,
an eternal sanctification. The great work of the Father,
how he sets people apart to be saved and commits them to his
Son, And the Son comes in the fullness of the time, and by
that sacrifice he sanctifies them. And then, in the third
place, that experimental sanctification, which is the work of God's, the
Holy Spirit. Romans 15, 16, being sanctified
by the Holy Ghost. Here's a plain statement. We're
sanctified by the Holy Ghost now. by that great work of regeneration,
the new birth. He saved us by the washing of
renewal. Let me get the verse right, it's
in Titus. Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the
washing of regeneration. and renewing of the Holy Ghost. The washing of regeneration.
The renewing of the Holy Ghost. That's how God brings that sanctification
into the soul of the believer. The believer, of course, in the
new birth, becomes a partaker of the divine nature. The Lord
himself makes that quite clear in the third chapter of John
where he speaks with Nicodemus concerning that great doctrine
of degeneration. He says that which is born of
the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. The believer is born again, born
from above, born of the spirit. And the flesh, Paul says, lost
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these
two are contrary, one to the other, and you cannot do the
thing that you want. All that conflict that the believer
feels, this is the evidence that he is sanctified. All wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Christ called me. I thank God through Jesus Christ. Now the
believer is engaged in this conflict with sin, with satan, with himself. that mortifying, that crucifying,
putting to death the deeds of the body. This is the life of
the child of God. He feels it. And of course we
saw it in particular in that second hymn that we sang earlier
tonight, 1089, where John Kent brings out the truth of the reality
of indwelling sin and the believer has to wrestle with these things.
Distressed at heart, he'll tell his God he feels it every day,
and to the fount of Jesus' blood. For pardon, haste away, sinless
perfection we deny, the chief of Satan's woes, do thou my soul
to calvify, as oft as sin defiles. Here's the cleansing in that. One offering a perfect sacrifice
for sins, all by the which we are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Then 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 forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting Till His enemies be made His
footstool, ultimately every knee is to bow and every tongue confess
that He is Lord. For by one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. May the Lord be pleased to impress
these truths upon our hearts and consciences. The Lord bless
to us His Word. Let us now conclude our worship
today as we sing the hymn 774. There are 13 verses in all. We're going to sing verses one,
two, and three, and then verses 12 and 13. The first three and
the last two verses of 774, the tune is 925, for those who have
a tune book. The Holy Ghost in Scripture said, expressly in one part, speaking
by Peter's mouth, by faith, God purifies the heart. 7-7-4, the first three and the
last two verses.