Hebrews chapter 1 in verse 2,
it says, God has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
the worlds. Who being the brightness of his
glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all
things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High."
The express image of His person, what does it mean? Well, it means
that the Lord Jesus Christ precisely represents the One who is God
the Father. Jesus Christ precisely is God
in every way that His Father is God. It means He is exactly
God. In every way that God is God,
Jesus, the man, is God. And that's amazing. All that is true of God is true
of Christ. He is God in every way. He is
one with the Father and one with the Holy Spirit. They are equal
in the Godhead. It says in Colossians 1, verse
14, in whom, in Christ, we have redemption through his blood,
even the forgiveness of sins. Here in Colossians, it puts our
forgiveness before describing Christ's greatness. In Hebrews,
it describes his greatness and then describes his work and our
forgiveness. So in Colossians 1.14, it says,
in whom Christ, we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins, listen now, who is the image of the invisible God. That's who the Lord Jesus is. He is the image of the invisible
God. He is the firstborn. In other
words, he has the place of the highest favor and all blessing,
the preeminence as the heir of all, the Lord of all, honored
above all. So He is the firstborn of every creature, for by Him,
by Christ, were all things created that are in heaven and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him
and for Him. And He is before all things.
In other words, He has the preeminence and in time He is before all
things. And by Him all things consist. Everything in this universe
is held together according to His eternal purpose and God's
will in integrity. In a way that it tracks God's
will precisely. And He is the head of the body,
the church. who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence,
for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.
You see how great God says our Lord Jesus is? He's the express
image of his person. So it is with God the Father
and God the Son. Everything that makes the Father
God is true of the Son of God. That is what it means when it
says in scripture, he is the only begotten of the Father.
It means that as the son, he is the same in nature as his
father, just as a son is the same in nature as his father
on earth. And it means he possesses all
of his father's characteristics. Is the father eternally God?
Did he at any time from everlasting to everlasting stand in relation
to his son other than father? Did God the Father ever have
a relation to His Son in any way other than Father? Because
He's from everlasting to everlasting? If so, then Christ has from eternity
and shall for everlasting ages be the Son of His Father and
stand in that relation. Has Christ from eternity stood
in relation to His Father as Son? Then as long as the Father
has been the Father, the Son has been the Son. Is God the
Father Almighty? Then so is His Son. He says so
in Revelation 1, verse 8, 11, and 18. Is God the Father the
first and the last? Then so is the Son of God. Is
God the Father light? And in Him is no darkness at
all? Then the Son of God is light. Is the Father the Lord God of
truth? As it says in Psalm 31.5, then the Son is the truth. Are angels and men all commanded
to worship God, as Jesus told Satan in Matthew 4, verse 10?
Then they are to worship and honor the Son. As he says in
Psalm 212, kiss the Son, lest he be angry when his wrath is
kindled but a little. Just as they honor the Father,
Jesus said, they must honor the Son. If it is an act of idolatry
to worship any but God, then the Son must be God, for angels
and men are commanded to worship Him. But we can and we must turn
this also around. Did grace and truth come by Jesus
Christ? Did they? Then the Father is
full of grace and truth, because He is the exact express image
of His person. Is our Lord Jesus full of compassion
toward sinners? You better know he is. Then the
Father, our God and Father, is full of compassion towards sinners.
Did Jesus choose his disciples? Yes. Then God the Father has
elected us to salvation in Christ. Then Christ is love, and the
Father is love, and the Spirit is love, for the Father gave
His only begotten Son, and Christ gave Himself, and the Holy Spirit
of God sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God in all of this.
Do you see that the Lord Jesus is the express image of His person?
Did the Lord Jesus Christ love the Church, and did He give Himself
for it? Then the Father loved the Church,
and gave His Son for it. Shall the Lord Jesus give all
that is his to his people who are alone his? Then God the Father
shall unfailingly, most assuredly give all to those for whom he
gave and delivered up his son to death, as it says in Romans
8, verse 32. Was Jesus patient with his disciples
in their dullness of heart and their unbelief? Then the Father
is patient with his children in the dullness of our hearts
and our unbelief. Does Christ intercede to save
his own to the uttermost? Then God the Father hears his
request for them in all things. Jesus said, he that has seen
me has seen the Father. Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, he said, and the Father in me? The words that
I speak to you I speak not of myself. but the Father that dwelleth
in me, he doeth the works. Do you see this, the glory of
God? He's the brightness of God's
glory, the most intense glory of God. If you could say that
there was anything that's more intense about God's glory than
any other part, Christ is. And the entirety of his glory
is what the Lord Jesus Christ is to us. And so this phrase,
the express image of His person, identifies the Son of God as
equal and one with God the Father. He is as holy as His Father is
holy. He is co-eternal with His Father,
equal in wisdom, equal in power, equal in glory. And so Jesus
prayed, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with
the glory which I had with Thee, before the world was. And to
his enemies the Lord Jesus said, does this offend you? What and
if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before,
how much more then shall you be offended? He is the express
image of his person. All that God is, Christ is. The
fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in him. And therefore
he could say, if you've seen me, you have seen the Father.
I and my Father are one. Now, this is the one who purged
our sins. And that's what we want to consider
today. Did the Lord Jesus Christ humble himself to do his Father's
will, to save his people from their sins by his representative
life and by his substitutionary death? Then know this, from eternity
the Father stooped in condescension, unspeakably immeasurable. to
reconcile us to Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ by the death
of His Son. As it says in Romans 5, verse
9 and 10, What a stoop! What a condescending, compassionate,
merciful God! For thus saith the High and Lofty
One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in
the high and holy place with Him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and
to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Isaiah 57 verse 15. Remember what Jesus said in John
chapter five, I do always those things that he sees the father
do. So it was God the father who
designed and chose his people and predestinated them to be
conformed to the image of his son in holiness and in love before
him. bringing them out of sin by the
gift of his own son for them and delivering him up. And so
it was in the heart of his son to do the same thing, to fulfill
that word. He is the expressed image of
his father. All that we see of Christ, know
that we're looking at our God and our father, his God and his
father. And then it says here that he
also upholds things by the he upholds all things by the
word of his power, or by the power of his word. Now, think
about this. Here in verse one, or verse two,
it says that he not only is the appointed heir of all things,
but he also made the worlds. And here it says he upholds all
things by the word of his power. When the worlds were created,
the Lord Jesus spoke them into existence. But now, in time and
throughout history, it is His active, continuous will and by
His Word that all things in creation. and the events of nature, and
the affairs of men, are all held together in integrity according
to the predetermined counsel of God to fulfill His will throughout
time, and to bring glory to God in the salvation of His people.
He upholds all things by the word of His power. He who spoke
the worlds into existence upholds them by His word, so that all
of the laws that we can observe in nature, whether it be the
laws of gravity or the laws of the transmission of light and
radio signals or biological things. We can study them. They don't
change. For the most part, they're constant.
They're continuous. Even the cycles of the days and
months and years are very predictable. Jesus, the Lord told Noah after
the flood that until as long as the earth remains, summer
and winter, cold and heat shall continue as long as the earth
remains. So we see that there's these
cycles of the seasons. Things are held together and
we can study them and scientists spend their days trying to produce
equations that model what is, in fact, the word of Christ upholding
creation. the wisdom and the faithfulness
and the power of Christ's word to not only create but uphold
all things in creation, but more than just creation, in providence,
all the events of history. The determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God predestinated Christ to be taken and by wicked hands
crucified and slain in order to bring about God's purpose
to save his people, from Acts 2, verse 23. Now, we did not
give counsel to God to make this world, did we? First of all,
we weren't there. There was nothing when he, out
of his own mind and will, determined to create this world for the
purpose that he had, which was to glorify his son in the salvation
of his people and to have a people for himself. But we did not give
counsel to God on this. We did not assist him in any
way. And yet he did it by speaking
his word in sovereign power, didn't he? Nor do we give counsel
now, nor do we assist Christ now to uphold this world, to
bring it on its course. The Lord said we can't make one
hair of our head white or black. We can't add one cubit, one small
amount to the height of our stature. We can't do any of these things.
How much less can we counsel or help Christ in upholding this
world? Now, if this is true in creation,
if this is true in providence, and in the ongoing integrity
of creation, to bring about His will in all things, how much
infinitely less can we assist Him in our salvation that required
His own Humiliation, taking our nature and our sin and fulfilling
God's will in enduring the penalty for our sins. How much less a
part do we have in our own salvation? We are objects of His creating
power and will, and we are much more objects of His saving grace
and His creation of us in Christ to good works. This is our Lord
Jesus Christ. When He cried, it is finished,
He didn't leave anything out. It's amazing, isn't it? We weren't
there to advise, we weren't there to help. Could He, or could His
Father, could the Spirit of God, who dwell in unapproachable pure
light, exalt His Son for an unfinished work? No. When he saw creation,
he said, it's very good. How much more then, when he hangs
on the cross and cries, it is finished. When he prays in intercessory
prayer to his father as our high priest, he says, I have finished
the work you've given me to do. How much more then, could there
not be left out anything? Everything had to be completed
perfectly with the perfection that God himself would find attractive. The pure light of God is uncompromised
in the finished work of Christ. There's not one taint of sin
unanswered to his holiness because the Lord Jesus Christ has taken
it all on himself and taken it all away. It's amazing, isn't
it? The Lord Jesus Christ has done
all of this, and we could go on and on about that. I could
talk a long time about that, how men study creation in science
especially, and they claim to be able to discover truth that
way. But that's not truth. The laws of nature are themselves
not truth. They're just the laws of nature.
They're not laws of nature at all. They're Christ's word, his
active word. And that word has determined
that all of creation will pass away. He's going to fold it up
like a man takes his clothes off and folds them up. He's going
to put it away. And he's going to create it new. So it's not
eternal. Creation is not eternal. But
his word is, and he is. And so when we study these things,
all we're doing is studying the work of Christ in creation. But
it's meant to point us to his work in salvation, because that's
what's significant. That is the great work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We harness the laws of nature
in order to make our lives easier, in order to do our work. We create
things to make that happen. but at all times we must be constantly
aware that every thought, every ability that we have, all of
the tools God gives us in this time span of our life and in
this world are meant to bring us to our knees in reverence
of our great creator when he says, Let all the earth stand
in awe of him in Psalm 33 when he told how he created the worlds
by his power. I want you to look at that just
briefly in Psalm 33. Consider this. He says in verse six, by the
word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them
by the breath of his mouth. In verse eight, he says, let
all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the
world stand in awe of him. Why? Because he spoke and it
was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Now, think about the immeasurable
greatness of the work that he did in our salvation compared
to creation. In creation he spoke, he commanded
and it stood fast. It was done. Stand in awe of
him, but in our salvation he stooped. In our salvation, he
took our sins, he took the shame of our sins, and he bore the
false accusations of men. When he was reviled, he didn't
revile again. He didn't threaten. He committed
himself to him who judged righteously, and he endured all that he might
save us from our sins. He laid his life down. He gave
himself for us. He gave his all. How much more
ought we to stand in awe of him? And so let's consider now these
words here that follows. This is the one who purged our
sins. To purge our sins, we don't usually
speak of purging that way. Usually when you purge something,
we don't use that word very often in our everyday communication. But it means to take it out,
to remove it, to fully take out that thing you're purging. Like
if you were going to remove a cancer from your body, you would have
to surgically remove it, perhaps. So you take it out, or you freeze
it, or you do something to purge it. If there's a fungus in a
tree or something like that, sometimes you can purge that
branch off. You cut it off and remove it. It's dead now. You
don't want that there. The Lord Jesus Christ, it says,
by himself has purged our sins. And when he did, he sat down.
I want to take each of these words in turn here. The first
word is when. Do you see that? When he had
by himself. When, the word when. What does
that mean? That means there was a time It
doesn't mean just that there was a time as if it's a time
yet to come, but it refers to a time in the past, doesn't it?
When he had something that took place in the past. There was
a specific place and a specific time in history that the Lord
Jesus Christ purged our sins. As soon as we say that, we immediately
realize that it's something that's completed in the past, don't
we? And so that's what he's trying to drive here, is that what God
is saying to us in the gospel is something that's been done,
already finished, when he had purged our sins. All that he did to make satisfaction
for our sins and cleanse us from our sins was completed outside
of our own personal experience. And that's hard for us to understand
because in religion, religion makes salvation a transaction
in time. where you bring something to
God and he gives you something, which is what the law said to
do. If you obey, if you keep the
words of this law, then you shall live. But if you don't, you're
cursed. And so, throughout time, it's
been embedded in the heart of man that he would come to God
on the basis of his own personal experience. his own personal
obedience, his own personal acquisition of knowledge, his own personal
faith. All these things are brought
to bear in religion as the cause of our receiving salvation from
God. But that's not it at all. The
point here is that the gospel declares to us a historical work
of the Lord Jesus Christ when he had by himself purged our
sins. He had to take our nature. He
had to take our sins. He had to answer God for them
in justice and in righteousness. And so he did it. We cannot do
these things. Who of us is able to, it says
in Psalm, I think it's, I can't remember the exact chapter,
I thought it was Psalm 45, but I'm doubtful now, where he says,
it's not possible for any man to redeem his brother or to give
to God a ransom for him. We can't bring to God anything
that will take away our sins. Think about how in our own personal
relationships with one another, Maybe you can think about a time
as a child when you did something against your parents, or you
thought your parents had done something to offend you. Let's
say you're a teenager and you live your life in rebellion against
your father. And you go on day by day. He's
continually providing you food. He's providing you a home. He's
giving you money to help you do things you need to do. Taking
you places, bringing you home. He's doing all these things for
you. And at the same time, all that he's asked you to do, behind
his back, you're going out and doing the very opposite. And
then finally it rises to that fever pitch where you stand in
front of your father and you say, I hate you. I don't want
to be part of your life anymore. I'm leaving. Now give me what's
mine. Now, the father in this case
that I've described here hasn't done anything wrong. In fact,
his son owes him honor. He's been providing for his son
all this time. But think about the fact that there's now a barrier
between this son and his father, a barrier that his son raised.
He brought all this rebellion and this disobedience and this
hatred out of his own heart towards his father in spite of all the
goodness his father has done to him. Now, how is the father
and the son ever going to be reconciled? How is the offense
that the son made to his father ever going to be removed? The
son isn't interested in reconciliation. He's professively said, I hate
you, my father. And so his father recognizes
the heart of his son is not inclined towards him. He realizes that
he's offended his father and there's nothing his son can do
to really remove that offense. And so what does he do? Well,
in this case, in the example here, God the father took the
initiative Not only did he take the initiative, but he himself
came to his son and he removed the offense his son had raised.
And knowing how his son had offended him and how severe that offense
was, he removed it completely so that he says to his son, son,
I've taken care of all of your offenses. I've removed them. I remember them no more. so that
he breaks down the barrier and removes it and he himself goes
to his son and he lays this out before him in order to reconcile
his son to him in his son's mind because he removed the offense
that his son had created in him. This is what our God and Father
has done. From eternity it was in his heart
to bring his people to himself. And so he set Christ up to do
this. He designated and appointed him
to do this. And in time, he brought him into
the world. He prepared a body for him so that he could bear
our offenses with which we had offended God. And he laid our
offenses on his own son who had done no wrong. And he made propitiation
for them. He appeased his own justice and
his own wrath and poured out that judgment that should have
come upon us on his own son who had done no wrong. And so he
removed our offenses. And he washed those sins from
us. He cleansed us from our sins. And this all happened completely
outside of our own personal experience. It happened at a point in time.
And so we're to look back on this. We're to look back on the
Lord Jesus Christ in the greatness of his person as the heir of
all. He who is the heir of all made
himself nothing at all. And he took all that we did against
God and he bore it all himself. He who is the heir of all laid
aside his reputation as God and he emptied himself of all and
he gave himself, he gave his all in order to make us his,
in order to bring us to God. This is his accomplishment. And
by doing so, he obtained for us an eternal salvation. And
all of this was done before we had a being. In God's mind, we
had an existence. Nothing has an existence unless
God thinks it. If God simply stopped thinking
about you, you would cease to have ever existed. But you're
in his mind. And it's by His will that you're
there in His mind and in His thoughts. But when the Lord Jesus
Christ took all of the sins of all of His people, God says,
I remember, I will remember their sins no more. How could God,
how could God who knows all things, nothing in the universe is hidden
from His eyes, how could He say, I don't see them anymore. If
God does not see our sins, our sins don't exist. Christ has
taken them from us. He who is light and whom is no
darkness at all doesn't see sin in us because our Lord Jesus
Christ took it on himself when he had by himself purged our
sins. It was done and now the proclamation
of this good news is sent to us. It's the blessed news that
Christ died for us. Christ died for us when we were
without strength, when we were the enemies, when we were ungodly,
when we were sinners. Christ died for us. He justified
us. He removed God's wrath. He reconciled
us to God in his own death. This is what this word when is
referring to, that time. And then it says in this next
part, when he had by himself, he. Now we've talked about the
he. We talked about him as the one
who purged our sins. This is saying that there was
only one who did this. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, no
one else in all of time, in all of heaven, in all of earth, no
angel, no man, no spirit, no other being could take away our
sins. God had to lay, he had to lay
that responsibility and that work upon his son. Only He could
do it. He's the One, the Son of God.
But He couldn't do it as God only. He had to take our nature. And this blows our mind, doesn't
it, to use a crass phrase of speaking. It sweeps us up into
opened mouth awe, that the Son of God, the eternal Son of God,
who does not change, who cannot sin, took the nature of man whom
he created, and didn't just take it, but joined that nature to
himself in his own person, so that for all eternity, after
he took our nature, He would be both God and man. Think about
that. Jesus Christ sits on heaven's
throne as man. Now he did that. He took our
nature in order to make himself one with us. And so that in that
nature, he could bear our sins and suffer for them as we ought
to have suffered. He is the appointed heir of all
things. All that is his father's is his,
especially those people that he most treasures. We know that
his people are the apple of his eye because he gave himself for
them. He gave his all for them. The
heir of all gave his all to have a people for himself. Therefore,
we know that they are his special, his particular inheritance. the
thing he treasures above all else, and he is the maker of
all things, as we've already seen, both physical and spiritual
things, all things that are made were made by him, and he therefore
rules over it, and he's the brightness of God's glory, the full extent
of it, and the most resplendent part of it, and all of that glory
is seen in Christ, in giving himself as a servant of all,
in humility and in humiliation, in suffering and in death. As
Jeffrey Thomas said, a very memorable thing that he said, very astute,
very aptly put this way, he says, Calvary and the broken body of
Jesus is the most God-like thing that God ever did. And I will
add to that, it's the greatest thing that God ever did. It's
the greatest thing ever done in time. It's the greatest thing
that will ever have been done in all of eternity. How do we
know that? Because Christ gave himself. He emptied himself. He made himself
of no reputation. He laid his life down and didn't
leave anything on the table. The brightness of God's glory
is seen in that humility, in that condescending stoop, in
that accomplished work that none but He could do. He who is God,
His bright glory is seen in His humility, in His condescending
love for sinners. Because it's unimaginable that
anyone so great and so holy and so eternal and so self-sufficient
would give himself for those who are utterly sinful, and utterly
dependent, and utterly worthless in themselves, and he would take
them, and cleanse them, and make them his son, and give them glory
with his son, and conform them to his image. That's the brightness
of God's glory. And then it says here that he
had by himself, by himself, how holy God must be to require nothing
less than His Son in our nature to stand as our substitute, to
stand as our representative, to answer God for everything
He requires of us, to satisfy God to give God delight in spite
of our sins, to delight God in all of His holiness in spite
of our sins, it had to be His Son. How holy God must be, how
great He must be, and how gracious, and yet how exceedingly sinful
our sins must be that the Son of the Highest, only He, the
Holy One of God, could remove them and wash them from us, and
how eternally certain it is that nothing can be added to what
he did. If he alone could purge our sins
and he is God, then how certain it is that what he did was complete
and perfect and holy and nothing could be added to it. As I said
before, if he could create the world by his command and yet
it took his life and death in our nature to save us from our
sins, How much more than, infinitely more than, is there nothing that
can be added to what he did by himself? It took the almighty
power of God the Son to purge our sins from us in his nature
as God and man. Therefore, it could not have
been done, no part of it could have been done by puny man who
had sinned against God. And how are we to react to this? What is our response to be to
this? Are we to then say, now I want to do something, I want
to add my part, like someone once said, would you think to
take your brush and touch up the masterpiece of, say, Leonardo
da Vinci or one of the great masters? Of course not. As soon
as you even think about that, everyone watching would stand
in horror. What are you about to do? And yet, infinitely more,
God has completed our salvation in His Son. So what are we to
do then? There's only one thing to do. Stand still and look and see
the salvation of the Lord. Now, I want you to look at this
in Leviticus 16, and because it refers back, this verse of
scripture in Hebrews 1.3, when he had by himself purged our
sins, sat down, this is actually amplified in detail in Leviticus
chapter 16. And I've referred to this before,
but I want you to see a couple of things here. Look at verse
17. He says, And there shall be no
man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in
to make an atonement in the holy place, until He come out and have made an
atonement for himself and for his household and for all the
congregation of Israel. So here we have it, when he had
by himself, you see it? No man was to go with the high
priest. He was to act alone. Everyone
was supposed to be outside. Everyone was dependent upon what
the high priest did and what God thought of what he did. Isn't that the case? God himself
initiated and appointed and chose the high priest to do this. God
himself was the one in whose heart reconciliation lay, the
desire for it and the plan for it and the accomplishment of
it lay from eternity. who humbled himself to reconcile
sinners to himself with an infinite condescension, and here he is
appointed our high priest, and here the high priest stands alone,
and here he enters into the holiest of all, and here he finishes
the work and he comes out, and with him during the whole process,
no man is with him. And then look at verse 30. I've
read this to you many times before, but let's look at verse 29 also. in Leviticus 16, 29, and this
shall be a statute forever to you, that in the seventh month
on the tenth day of the month you shall afflict your souls.
Why would he say that? Because when he had by himself
purged our sins, what did we contribute? We were outside. We certainly didn't contribute
to the atonement. What did we contribute to the whole ordeal
of our salvation? This one thing. Sins afflict
your souls because it's your sins. It is because of your sins
that God gave his son. to remove them before his face.
It was because of your sins that Christ suffered and was in great
agony of soul and spirit and body. It was because of your
sins that he endured the countless mockings, the humiliation at
the hands of wicked men and did not defend himself, but accepted
the charges as true. It was because of our sins that
he himself said, mine iniquities. He called our sins his own. They're
too heavy for me. They're more than the hairs of
my head. That's what we contributed. Therefore,
afflict your souls because it was your sins. And then he goes
on. He says, in that day you shall afflict your souls and
do no work at all. He doubles it, doesn't he? Do
no work at all. Just in case you were thinking
about, no, nothing. What is our response to what
God has said when he had by himself entered into the holy place,
he says, afflict your souls, know that it was for your sins.
And know this, do no work at all. Now it would be one thing
for a zealous preacher to say these things to you or shout
them and reverberate the windows in the room with the amplification
of his voice through the sound system so that it startles you. No work at all. But when God
says it in his word, then you know, do no work at all. Stand still. Don't contemplate
what you're going to do in order to make this happen. The high
priest, provided by God, offered himself to God for our sins. And he did it by himself, and
God says, therefore, you do no work at all. He says, but, he
goes, do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country
or a stranger that sojourneth among you, no matter who it is,
for on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to
cleanse you that you may be clean from all your sins before the
Lord." There's two things here. Christ brought the high priest
in Leviticus 16, brought the blood of the first goat into
the holiest of all and sprinkled it on the mercy seat. That propitiated
God. That appeased God, satisfied
His justice. But the second goat he laid his
hands on and confessed over that goat's head all the sins of all
the children of Israel and put those sins on that goat, sent
him out into the wilderness, that removed our sins from us. The two things, God is propitiated
and God and our sins are removed or expiated as theologians like
to say. He washed us, I like the way
he says it here, that you may be clean from all your sins. clean like the driven snow, as
the poet would say. But God says it this way in Isaiah
118, though your sins be as scarlet, dyed deep as blood, they shall
be white as snow. White as snow. In God's sight,
white as snow. Why? Because Think about this. The offense was great. It was
infinitely great because the infinite Son of God had to be
the one alone who could remove it. And yet God, in the sacrifice
of his Son, was so delighted that all of our sins were forgotten. that everything that he did suddenly
became the only thing that mattered to God. All other sins are done
away with a full savor of Christ, love for him and for his people
when he sacrificed himself to God for our sins. In Ephesians
chapter five, verse two, it says, and I'll read it to you, he says,
walk in love as Christ also hath loved us. and given himself for
us. He says in Ephesians 5.2, he
says Christ, I'm sorry, I'm looking at Galatians 5.2. He says, walk
in love as Christ also hath loved us and given himself for us an
offering and a sacrifice to God for us. Sweet smelling savor. God was satisfied. so delighted
with his son that it eclipsed all the darkness our sins brought,
and it removed them from us. It removed them from before God.
And it says in Leviticus 16.30 to continue, he says, to cleanse
you that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord,
it shall be a Sabbath of rest unto you, and you shall afflict
your souls by a statute forever. Afflict your souls, know that
it was your sins that put Christ there, that God delivered up
his son to his wrath under the guilt and shame of your sins
bearing down upon him in his soul and body. And then do no
work at all and rest. Sit down and look. Do nothing. See what God has done. That's
what he's trying to get here, what he's trying to drive home
here in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3. When he had by himself
purged our sins. And so we have to ask this after
we've begun to just touch on what must have happened here.
We can't really understand it, can we? In some sense we can. But in another sense, it's so
far beyond us that we can't really take it in. But it says here
in Hebrews chapter one, verse three, when he had by himself
purged our sins, immediately identifies the sins as ours,
doesn't it? But whose sins did he purge?
Did the Lord Jesus Christ take away all of the sins of all of
the people throughout the whole world, throughout all of history?
If the Lord Jesus Christ has taken away our sins, what are
we then? We are clean before the Lord.
We are made holy, it says in Hebrews 10, verse 10. Let me
read that to you. He says, by the witch will we
are sanctified or made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. We're made holy. Hebrews 13.12
says it this way, he says, Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify
the people with his own blood suffered without the gate. By
the action of Christ on the cross we are made holy before God by
his blood. He washed us, He made us clean.
If the Lord Jesus Christ did that for everybody throughout
time, across this whole world and history, then every person,
man, boy, man, woman, boy and girl, no matter the age, no matter
the place and in time, with their own poverty, their own importance,
their own gifts, their own lack of gifts, all of them then would
stand before God holy. unreprovable, without blame,
before him in love." If that's what he did, because the work
of Christ cannot fail, all for whom he died are not condemned. Look at Romans chapter 8, in
verse 34. He says in Romans 8, 34, who
is he? that condemneth." Is there someone
who can condemn us, our, we, who it says in Hebrews 1.3 that
he purged our sins? Is there someone that can condemn
those whose sins are purged by Christ? No, he says, who is he
that condemneth? It is Christ that died. If Christ
died for us, we cannot be condemned. That's what he's saying here.
If Christ purged our sins, there is no sin left. There's no wrath
of God left. That's the reason our sins are
clean, because God's wrath has been removed. He's taken delight
in the offering of his Son, in the place of our own death. and
he's cleansed us of our sins. So who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. And let this be the only hope
that we have. Let this be all of the confidence
of our soul before God, in coming to God, in our hope for eternity,
that it is Christ that died. That's enough. If that's not
enough, there's nothing that can be made up to make it enough. The son of God in our nature
offered himself to God in total, nothing else. He in whom the
fullness of the Godhead dwells gave himself for our sins that
he might save us from our sins. If that wasn't enough, nothing
else can be added to make it enough. But it was enough. That's the whole point. He died
for our sins and he washed us from them. Therefore it says
here, It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again. God himself, in whom is no darkness
at all, raised his Son, and if there was any spot left on his
people, it would be the greatest scandal before the onlooking
universe, that God accepted someone who had a teeny lot of sin left. No, he did not die for everyone. Had he died for everyone, none
could be condemned. All would be made holy by his
blood. All would be perfected by his sacrifice. All would now
possess an eternal redemption that he obtained for them. But
he did it for our sins. He did it for his people. God
gave his people to him to save. He says in John 17, Thou hast
given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life
to as many as Thou hast given him." You see, those are the
ones whose sins he purged. He said of Judas that he didn't
wash Judas. He wasn't clean in John 13. Therefore,
you're not all clean. I know whom I've chosen, he says
in John 15. So they weren't all washed because
Christ didn't wash Judas, but he washed his people from their
sins. And we might think, but this makes it less likely that
I can be saved because I can't do anything. There's two things
wrong with that. First of all, he said, do no
work at all. Secondly, it means that we think
in the low bottom of our heart that there is something still
yet that we could do if we had an opportunity. If we could just
do our part, it would make it more secure. But that's confessing
that we still think there's something in us that can contribute to
our salvation. But the reason, the reason that
Christ only died for his people, that God only chose his people
and God's Spirit only raises those for whom Christ died, is
because that's the only way that our salvation, that we can be
saved, that our salvation can be sure. Because it can't depend
on us at all. And not only that, it has to
be all of His glory. Is it even possible that Christ
could die for someone and that someone could end up in hell?
Not possible. He says in Exodus 10, verse 26,
there shall not a hoof be left behind. All of his sheep shall
be gathered. Them also, he says, I must bring. John 10, verse 16. I lay down
my life for the sheep, those the Father gave to me. And they
shall all hear my voice. They shall all come, because
they were given. To think that this makes our
salvation less secure is wrong thinking. It reveals our sinful
heart that we think we could do something, choose, or make
ourselves less sinful, or make ourselves more holy, or somehow
make the experience of His grace in us more secure, and therefore
have confidence and assurance before God. But that is the furthest
thing from the truth. It's the very opposite of the
truth. The doctrine, the truth of the
gospel is that if you contribute one thing, if anything is left
for you to do, you will be condemned because Christ only saves those
who must be saved by his death alone. You see, it has to be
him and all of him. It could only be Him, but it
must be only Him. And so our faith, this God-given
faith is a persuasion that it is in Him alone. And with this
faith, with this persuasion, when we come to God, when we
think about coming to Him, when we think about our acceptance
and our standing now and at judgment, when we think about those sins
that we committed in the past and we're so ashamed and we wonder,
if I could just take it back, if I could just undo what I did
before, that we have to look away. We have to look away from
ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ knowing that the Lord took away
all of our sins and therefore there's no cause, there's no
barrier between us, there's nothing about our sins that modifies
our relationship to God today. or at any time, when we stand
before the Lord Jesus in judgment, he will have purged our sins
at the cross, nothing left, made holy, perfected the spirits of
just men, made perfect by the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once, once, for all eternity, for all time and for all eternity,
for all of his people, it was done. When he had by himself
purged our sins, what did he do? He sat down, he sat down
on the right hand of the majesty on high. When Peter preached
that sermon in Acts chapter two, the people who were there that
day were amazed that these men who were Jews were preaching
the gospel and they heard them in their own tongue and they
thought, some of them didn't understand it. because they weren't
given spiritual ears, but the others who heard them, they said,
we're amazed. We hear them in our own tongue
in which we were born. How could this be? And Peter
goes on and he preaches Christ and him crucified. God's determinate
counsel and his foreknowledge, by that counsel and foreknowledge
you've taken him and crucified him. but God raised him from
the dead. And as God promised to sit him
on the throne of David forever, as David's son and David Lord,
to rule over all of his people, both in heaven and earth. And
then Peter says, now, this what you see here, The preaching of
Christ and your ability to hear it in your own tongue, that's
the evidence that he now sits on heaven's throne having purged
our sins. The sending forth of the gospel
and the power of his spirit, giving faith and grace to sinners
to see and be persuaded of it and bow to him and stand in awe
of him and rely on him for everything, that's evidence that Christ sits
on the throne of glory. It's amazing. My people, he says
in Psalm 110, verse 3, shall be willing in the day of his
power. In the day of his power. In Romans,
chapter 6, verse 17, he says, you were, but God be thanked
that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you because
you believe the gospel. You've been so radically changed
that the very core of the way you think has changed about God
and about sin and about how it can be atoned for and how you
can be made right before God. And you see that it all is owing
to Christ and now you honor Him and stand in awe of Him and you
worship Him and you adore Him and you find peace in your conscience
because you know even though you're a sinner, you can be accepted
and you are accepted by God because of Him alone. And so you have
absolute confidence. God has accepted His Son, raised
Him from the dead, sat Him on His own right hand, given Him
all honor and power and authority to bring His people to himself,
the surety, made his people sure, he brought them home again. He
released them because he made himself a bondman to God's justice
in his own sufferings in equivalent to their eternity, more equivalent,
more satisfying to God than their eternity under the wrath of God,
than their perfect obedience for all of their life. He did it by himself, I'm so
thankful. How do we know that we are one
of these ours who sins he purged? Well, it really comes down to
what do you think about, how do you think in your mind, how
do you think in your heart about coming to God? Do you? Do you
come to him? When you come to him in your
thoughts, and in your words, in your heart, and with your
words, with your mouth, do you speak to him of these things?
Do you say, Lord, receive me by the answer Christ gave, by
himself, without my help, a full answer, a complete answer, one
that glorifies and honors your law and delights your holiness? Do you come to him that way?
And do you find that he receives you only for what he thinks of
his son? There's only two factors in the equation. There was only
the high priest there in the day of atonement offering himself
to God, confessing the sins of the children of Israel over the
head of the goat, signifying Christ confessing our sins as
his own before God and owning them too. Is that the way we
come to God in our heart? Do we really come to God trusting
Christ only and having joy because that God finds him so acceptable
and receives us for his sake. Like Paul in the book of Philemon,
in my Bible, it's just up the page from this, comes before
Hebrews. When Paul wrote to Philemon concerning the slave Onesimus,
he says in verse 12 of Philemon chapter 1, he says, Whom I have
sent again, thou therefore receive him that is mine own bowels. And verse 17 of the same chapter,
he says, if thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. Paul understood this thing of
being a surety. He understood that if Philemon's
runaway slave, Onesimus, was ever to be reconciled to his
master, his master would have to consider something greater
than Onesimus' own repentance and sorrow. And so he considered
Paul. What a small, teensy-weensy example
of the profound, infinite truth that God, the Lord Jesus, sends
us as the runaway slave to our Father and our God, and He says,
take this letter, take it to Him, and lay it before Him, and
there in the letter it says, receive Him, that is, mine own
bowels, receive Him as myself. Is that the way we come to God?
Do we search the scriptures? Do we listen to them intently,
waiting for a word from God to drip from scripture that we might
say, there, there is hope for me. Warrant from God to trust
Christ alone in finding in Christ our all. That's the evidence
of God's grace of faith. put in our hearts by the operation
of the Spirit of God, pointing us away from all that we are,
relinquishing all defenses that we have, abandoning all hope
in our personal obedience, forsaking all pleas that we have, and coming
to God on the one basis that He looks upon and receives Christ
according to His eternal will for us. And so we say with the
publican, Lord, have mercy on me. Consider the propitiation
Christ is for me. And that's it. That's it. We don't go further. And seeing
that it's all Christ for us, we stand still. We don't do any
work at all in order to make this true. We just take God's
word. and we take it to our bosom with
joy and we rest. We find peace. That's the operation
of God. Those who have that gift of God
to so look upon Christ are assured in that look that yes, God has
answered everything for me. And so you say, well, I don't
have, I don't have, I don't find that in me. What am I to do?
Nothing. Look to Christ. Don't expect
to find some sense of sorrow in your own heart that measures
up to some standard of sorrow you need to meet, or tears, or
an experience so that you feel spiritual like the religious
people that you observe. Don't expect any of that. Don't
look for anything from yourself. Look away. Forsake all about
yourself. repudiate it all, afflict your
souls because it's nothing, it's rubbish before God, and then
lay hold on Christ, do no work, and rest in Him, and see that
on that day, by Himself, He completely satisfied God and gave Him pleasure
in that sacrifice, so that He now has washed us from our sins.
He's forgiven all. I don't remember them. They're
not there. It never happened. It's gone. There's no barrier, no impediment. It's amazing, isn't it? Let's
pray.