Hebrews 10 verses 1 to 10. We've been going through the book of Hebrews, and we come now to what is perhaps one of the densest, thickest, richest chapters in all of the Bible, Hebrews chapter 10. I haven't actually done this research, but I suspect that if you were to look at all of the different systematic theologies that have ever been written, and if you were to compile all the chapters of the Bible that they referenced to make their case for theology, that Hebrews chapter 10 would be one of the most frequently referenced chapters in all of the Bible. There is a lot here. And we're going to spend a little time in Hebrews chapter 10. In fact, this is the first of five sermons based in this one chapter. We could easily double that number and yet only barely scratch the surface. It is a rich, rich chapter. Why? Why is it such a full chapter? Well, it really comes at kind of the pinnacle. It's the zenith. It's the doctrinal theological conclusion of the argument that our author has been making. Now, the book won't be over after Hebrews 10. He'll have some things to say because of Hebrews 10. But it really does build to this moment. I'll remind you that his argument His goal is to keep people in the faith, in the Christian faith, to keep them from wandering back into the Judaism out of which they had been called. And that he's doing this by basically pointing out all the wonderful things about their Jewish faith and then saying, oh, by the way, God left a little room for it to be even better. Your Jewish faith, your pre-Christ view of things was really, really good, but there was room for improvement. If your religion, if your Judaism, if your practice of ceremonial washings and your sacrifices, if that was enough on its own, if that was the perfect religion, then there would have been no way to make it any better, and yet what we see is room to make it better. So way back in Hebrews chapter 1, he talked about angels. The Jews held angels in high regard, as they should. Angels are the divinely ordained, divinely sent messengers. They bring the word of God. They bring messages from God. And yet, wouldn't it be better to get the message directly from God Himself? As great as angels are, God would be a better deliverer of the message. And that's what we find in Jesus of Nazareth. He is, according to Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3, He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. He is the most God-essent surpassing even the angels. And lest you think that this Jesus of Nazareth was just a superior type of messenger, the verse goes on to say he upholds the universe by the word of his power. He does not just have the image of God and the picture of God. He does the things that God does because he is God, as great as angels are. Jesus is greater. In chapter three, he talks about Moses. Moses was an amazing man, an amazing servant of God, an amazing leader of God's people. But what do we find there in chapter three? Moses, for all of the amazing things he did, the miracles he worked, and the way he led people out of slavery, Moses was but a servant in the household of God, doing, as it were, the dirty work. that needed to be done. But Christ, he was the Son. He was a member of God's household in a most direct way. He had all the authority that the Father had as the master of the house, and yet he came and did the dirty work of setting a people free. for himself. He was superior even to Moses. On and on our author goes through the book of Hebrews making his case until what we saw in the last chapter in Hebrews 9 was how he said, he compared what the work of Christ to that of the tabernacle. Remember the tabernacle was that tent of meeting, that portable space in the wilderness where they could set up and God would come and he would meet with the people there. Now that's pretty amazing, a place to actually meet with God. But our author points out that it was a limited meeting. God was veiled. Only the one who went in was actually directly in his presence. And even then, God did not reveal himself fully. So while it was a wonderful thing to meet with God in the tabernacle, it still left room for improvement. And in the last chapter, we saw how Christ himself entered into the heavenly tabernacle, the throne room of God, the very presence of God, unveiled, unhidden, unsubdued, fully known. And that what Daniel foresaw was the one like a son of man going into the presence of God and receiving from God all authority and power and dominion. And our author has said, as great as the tabernacle was, it was but a mere shadow of the true presence of God in heaven, and that's where the risen Jesus ascended. He is truly superior. All of this has been in the goal of getting us, his readers, to hold fast our confession, that we would cling to Christ and to none other, and that we would understand all that he has done. So here we are now in chapter 10, and he brings all of this to a head in the doctrine, in the question of atonement, of what it means to be made right with God, of how it is that sinners are saved, of how it is that Christ has a right to enter into the throne of God on our behalf. And so we take up now the question of the ultimate sacrifice of the high priest Jesus the Christ. Here at Shore Harvest Presbyterian Church, we believe the Bible to be the only infallible rule for faith and for practice. And that means if you want to know how mankind is saved, how people are made right with their God, then you must know this book. So hear now the inerrant word of Almighty God. Hebrews 10, beginning in verse one. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In birth offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings, and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law. Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first covenant in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Let's pray. Lord, help us to grasp the richness that is in these words, the depth that is found here. And to the extent that you allow us to understand it and to cling to it. Help us to hold fast our confession. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So an annual physical, that routine medical exam, turns up a serious disease. Now the patient has no sense that he is sick. In fact, even after he's received the diagnosis, he feels normal. He's been going about his every day just as he always has, without noticing anything amiss. But things are amiss. And so he's referred to a specialist and not just any specialist, the world's leading expert on that particular disease. This doctor, this specialist, examines and reviews all of his records. And in his most serious and somber manner, looks the patient straight in the eye and says, you're dying. This disease will kill you. Do you understand? The patient solemnly nods. The doctor says, good. Now I'm giving you a pill, an incredibly important pill. Take it. And the doc explains all the details about how many pills and how often to take it with food or not, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And having explained all of that, the patient, obviously subdued, asks the doctor, so this pill will cure me? Oh, no, no, no, replies the doctor. No chance. Well, the patient kind of screws up his face at that point. He says to the doctor, then why would I take the pill? And the doctor, in all seriousness, says, because I want you to remember every day that you're dying. Sin is a deadly disease. And like our patient, its symptoms often go unnoticed. We are so accustomed to sin and its impact in our lives that we're like the fish that doesn't know it's wet. We cannot understand the impact that sin has had on us. We're dying from it, and we don't even notice. In fact, we have factored it in. It's just the way life is. It's just an ordinary part of living. And as a result, many of us, most of us, never realize we're sick, that we are in a desperate state facing an everlasting death. And that's where the pill comes in, the thing that looks sort of like a cure, but doesn't actually cure. You see, the sacrificial system was impressive, but it was not a cure. As we saw in our Old Testament reading from Leviticus 1, and don't miss that fact, Leviticus chapter 1. Now Leviticus was the summary of God's ceremonial law. It was the description of how his ancient people were to practice their religion. And it doesn't begin with you sing and you put on these nice clothes and you go to church. No, it begins with the ugliness. of the sacrificial system. It begins with a description of how bulls and goats and birds were killed, bled out, their entrails tossed on the ground, and their bodies burnt. That stands right at the very front of the book of Leviticus. And so what did we see there in Leviticus 1? Blood. Lots and lots of blood. Entrails pulled out, thrown here and there. Now the tabernacle, that was a movable meeting house. But when the temple was built, well, everything changed. It was permanent. And you read the books of Kings or Chronicles, whichever version you pick, when you read in the books of Kings or Chronicles about the design and the construction of the temple, one of the things that probably should have jumped out at you was the enormous amount of water kept on site. Do you remember the Bronze Sea? the entry at the beginning of the courtyard when you walked into the temple? Why is it called a sea? Because it held over 10,000 gallons of water in a dry and desert area. And then there were the 10 carts. You remember those? The 10 bronze basins that were on wheeled carts. They're portable sinks that could be filled from the bronze sea and water trucked all around the temple. Why? Why did the temple have so much water? Because it had so much nest. Without that water, it would have been an absolutely disgusting place. For we just read in Leviticus 1 of how those animals were sacrificed, how their blood was poured out, how their guts were thrown aside, how things were burned, and then the ashes went here, and the wings of the birds went there, and all this different disgusting stuff. In the tabernacle, you pick up and you go to a new spot. But in the temple, it would rot. It would attract flies. There would be maggots. It would stink. And so it had to be washed. That's why there was so much water in the temple. You know, I don't know what your experience was, but my experience in Sunday school growing up, getting to, I don't know, third grade, fourth grade, somewhere in there, Mrs. Armstrong's teaching my class, wonderful, godly woman, thank the Lord for her. Mrs. Armstrong's teaching my class, and you read, I don't know, is it Hannah, and I can't remember her husband's name, they go to the temple, and there's excitement, they're traveling to the temple, it's a festival, or you're reading Luke 2 about Joseph and Mary and Jesus going to the temple, and there's excitement, you're reading the Psalms about going to the temple, there's all this excitement. It's presented as this exciting, pleasant, wonderful experience in life. And it was, and it is. But I got to think that there were more than a few first-time visitors, not ready for what was there, not ready for all of the disgust, not ready for all the blood and the guts and the gnash, the screaming of animals whose throats are being slit. I got to think that more than a few added their lunch to all the other disgusting things on the ground. And that was its purpose. That's why it was that way. Why did God establish a religion so full of death? Because he said, in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. The wages of sin is death. And the religion that our God established was full of death, as a picture, as a reminder, as a pointer to this reality. So look back with me now at the first four verses that open up this passage, and let's see if we can follow his train of thought. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come, instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. So as in chapter 9, here again we see that the idea of the earthly things, in this case the law, that they're described as shadows, as mere images of the heavenly reality. So just as the early tabernacle was not the heavenly tabernacle, so neither is the ceremonial law the fullness of the true religion. and says it was but a shadow of the actual atonement, then it cannot possibly take away sin. That's our author's logic. If this ain't the real thing, if it's only a shadow of the real thing, then it can't truly, in and of itself, be effective. It must point to that which is effective. Now, someone might object. How do you know it's not effective? How do you know, whoever the author of Hebrews is, let's call it Luke, how do you know, Luke, that the sacrifice of that bull didn't actually affect atonement? He goes on in verse 2. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? He says the very fact that the sacrificial system had to be repeated is the proof that it wasn't effective. For even if we were to grant that the sacrifice of a lamb would atone for our past sins. And he's not saying it does, but let's grant that for the sake of argument. His point is this. The very fact that you have to repeat it means it didn't fix the underlying issue. You're still a sinner even if your past sins have been done for. It doesn't solve the human problem. It doesn't correct the human condition. So why bother? Verse three. But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. Before we actually delve into verse three, I wanna go back to verse one for just a quick moment, lest we risk misunderstanding. Back in verse one, it says the law, makes a reference to the law, We have to understand what's in view when it says the law. It's not saying that every aspect of the law, that the totality of the law, is somehow a shadow or is being set aside. Our author of Hebrews is not setting aside the law of God as though it no longer applies. In fact, he's going to come back around in chapters 12 and 13 and challenge us to keep God's law. So what's going on? Well, from the context, what is he pointing to? When he develops the idea, he only develops it in the realm of the ceremonial law, the prescription for religion. That's what he is saying is a mere shadow and has been abrogated by the Christ. For the Christ himself said, I did not come to abolish the law. So our author is not setting aside God's moral law. There are some Christians who think that every aspect of the law no longer applies to us today. That is not a biblical position, and it is not what our author is talking about here. So now back to verse three. Why is a reminder of sin needed? Well, it's so that we know we're dying, so that we know what sin is really all about. You see, the guy with the disease, the one who didn't even know he was sick, he didn't know he was dying. He didn't have any symptoms as far as he could tell. But the doctor said, you're dying. And that bit of information can change everything. That's the purpose of the sacrificial system. You see, our diagnosed and dying man is probably not going to take that pill, is he? Because it's not going to cure me anyway. But let's imagine for a moment he does. Every day, every morning, he looks in the bathroom mirror, fills that cup with water, swallows that pill, and thinks, I'm dying. What's he going to do? Well, perhaps, perhaps, some of us would do it this way. He starts by deciding that he has got to check off things on the bucket list. Right? If I'm dying, I got that far away before I kicked that bucket, so let's get those bucket list items checked off. So I don't know. What does he do? Maybe he books a flight to the Grand Canyon. Never seen that. Want to go see it. Maybe he buys some Broadway tickets to see Hamilton Live. You know, one morning he wakes up and goes, savings? I'm dying. What do I need savings for? And the next day there's a bright red Corvette Z06 in his driveway. I don't know. He starts checking things off from the bucket list. But he's still dying, isn't he? And another day comes and he stands in front of that same mirror with that same cup of water and puts another pill in his mouth and he realizes that as much as I try to distract myself from the fact that I'm dying, I'm still dying. And that's what the pill does for him. It forces him to confront that. You know, for as bad as paganism is and was, and it's bad, I still think it's better than our cult of atheistic science. At least the pagan knows there's something wrong that's got to be fixed. At least the pagan knows that he's got to appeal to God out there and hope that God will have mercy on him. He's got it all wrong about which God. But our modern culture just says, there's nothing wrong. Oh, sure, we're not perfect. But the little tweak here or there, we can take care of it ourselves. You see, we've done away with that pill. We've told ourselves we don't need to stand in front of that mirror and take that pill. We don't need to be reminded and we don't want to be reminded that we are spiritually dead and physically dying. And yet when you take the pill, when you look at the religions of man, even the false religions of man, What underlies them is that reality that something is wrong and it's got to be fixed. So then one day our man is cleaning things out. It's spring cleaning time and he's gotten everything and he starts to empty that medicine cabinet and there he finds that pill, bottle of pills in the back of it. You know, it's like Josiah stumbling on the book of the law buried in the temple. He finds that pill and he's reminded that he's dying. So what does he try next? He's tried the bucket list distraction. What does he try next? Well, he goes to the internet because that's what you do when you don't know what else to do. And he finds all the cures that are out there for what ails him. For home remedies and homeopathic medicine. He looks up things on, he does a Google search. He goes to YouTube and watches a video. He's too old to use TikTok. And voila, there are dozens and dozens of cures for what ails him. Turns out that acupuncture cures what ails him. Oh no, no, wait, it's chiropractic. That's what cures what ails him. Nope, it's meditation. If you meditate, oh yeah, and eat vegan. then that will cure what ails you. And the list goes on and on of all the ways that he's going to save himself and heal himself and fix himself. Until one day he throws up his hands and realizes it ain't working. And he's again confronted by the reality that I'm dying. Now what comes of that? At some point when you've tried everything else, what ultimately happens? Well, our author of Hebrews says, whatever the man does, he shouldn't imagine that going back and taking the pill is going to fix it. For the pill was only a reminder that he was dying. It wasn't the cure. What does our author say in verse 4? It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. It's absurd even to think for a moment that the involuntary death of an amoral animal could ever pay for humanity's volitional immorality. You see, what we've chosen to do as God's image bearers cannot be undone by killing an animal. So what happens? At some point, our man in his pent-up anxiety and all the frustration and fear, he loses it. He blows a gasket, and he goes off on the doctor. You're the specialist. You're the expert. You're the world's leading person in this field. I need you to heal me. And if you don't, I have no hope. And therein lies salvation. You see, when it's not an earthly doctor, when it's not a mere graduate of medical school, when it is the great physician himself, when the pill we've been taking is his sacrificial system, when eventually it dawns on us that this isn't getting it done and I need a cure, that's where Christ comes in. That's where we realize where salvation truly lies, and we pick up his thinking in verse 5. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, I want to pause right here. He's about to assign to Christ words that are in Psalm 40, and in Psalm 40 they're assigned to King David. What's going on with that? How can our author take words spoken by King David and say they belong to Christ? Well, there's a couple of reasons. One, there is this idea in the scriptures of something called typology. We could spend hours on typology. But basically, the nutshell is this, that God has ordained things like the tabernacle, events like the Passover, and people like King David. God has ordained things and events and people to be images of foreshadows of the Christ. This word type actually comes from Romans 5 where we're told that Adam was a type for the Christ. But there are many others. David is a type of the Christ, a model. Now what do we mean by type? It's a model, it's a picture of. You know when hospitals want to put on the new cancer wing, what do they do? They want to raise money. So what do they do? They go get a model made, a detailed three-dimensional image. And they set it there in the center of the banquet hall. And they uncover it. And everybody applauds. And this is what the new wing is going to look like. And now we want you all to give to make this possible. It's a type. It's not the thing itself. It's not the actual cancer wing. but it does describe it and point to it and give us a sense of what it will be like. King David is a type for the Christ. He is an image of the one who would follow. So in that sense, the things that King David says can be assigned properly to the Christ. But there are other sense in which it's true here. Look at the wording there. The end of verse 5. A body you have prepared for me. That would be a weird thing for King David to say. He had no pre-existence apart from his body. It's not like David ever existed and awaited a body. A body you have prepared for me. But for the Christ, who was incarnate, well that's a very fitting thing. We keep going on, verse 7, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. In the pre-David scriptures, there's just nothing that might be rightly regarded as having been written by or about, I'm sorry, not by, about King David that would come even close to any of this. How could David say that I've been written about in the scriptures? But the Christ can say that. So we see that our author is justified in assigning these words from Psalm 40 to the mouth of Jesus. So we pick up again in verse five. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you've prepared for me, and burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God. And as it is written of me in the scroll of the book Now, would it not be fair to say that the Messiah of God ought to know that God established the sacrificial system? That's a fair statement to make. So how can our author assign to the lips of Christ a statement that says God takes no pleasure in sacrifices? What's going on here? Well, you see, God's Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, not only does he know that God established that religious system, he also knows the underlying facts about it. And one of those was that it was never to be merely an outward system. There are a lot of places where the scriptures illustrate this, but perhaps none is better known than events surrounding King Saul, and the language here mirrors the language of that. So in 1 Samuel, chapter 15, we have an account of Saul going to war against the Amalekites, and he is victorious. And in the aftermath of the victory, Saul takes a portion of the booty from that victory, and he gives it as a sacrificial offering to Yahweh, who had given him the victory. Now, doesn't that sound pretty good? Doesn't that sound very righteous? I have won a victory, I admit that my God gave me the victory, and I'm going to take a portion of what has been granted me and I'm going to give it to that God. That sounds almost exactly like what we do every Sunday in our worship services. We come, we thank God for all that he's given us, and we give back a portion to him. Here's the catch. That's not what Saul was told to do. As good as it sounds, as right as we might judge it, Saul was told to do otherwise. And so when the prophet Samuel arrived on the scene, Samuel doesn't congratulate Saul, doesn't pat him on the back and say, good job, way to execute religion to the best you could figure out how to do it. He excoriates Saul. He says, you fool. Why would you do this? And Saul's like, well, I was just trying to be thankful. I'm just trying to be religious. Just going to church. And then Samuel very famously says, do you not understand? To obey is better than sacrifice. And to listen is better than the fact of wrath. to cover over sin. It was the pill designed to remind us that we're dying and that we were in desperate need of a Savior. What does God really want from us? What is it that Samuel tells Saul? What is it that Saul misdeclares? What does God really want? He has always wanted the same thing from us. Don't eat from that tree. I want you to obey me. to obey is better than sacrifice. You see, the problem with a religion built merely on ceremony is that it can't do anything about our need for moral purity and perfect obedience. The process of religion is not what saves. So what does? Verse 7. Look at verse 7. Behold, I have come to do your will. Oh God, that's what we need. One who will obey, who will heed, who will listen, who will do what he's told to do. That's what makes us right with God is obedience. You see, when the dying man stands in front of the mirror and takes yet another pill, which serves only to remind him of his fatal condition, if he becomes desperate enough and he throws himself and all his hope upon the doctor, upon the great physician, and he says, cure me, save me, when he's moved past his bucket list distractions, past the worthless attempts to save himself through home remedies, when he finally puts all of his hope in the doctor, then salvation comes. Look finally at verses 8, 9, and 10. In these verses, our author goes back and interprets for us the psalm. When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings, and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sacrificed through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. You see, our cure is obedience. Our moral hope, our hope is moral perfection. And that's found in Christ. Behold, I have come to do your will, O God. But it was also the will of God that sin be punished by death. You see, the will of God in Eden was not just be fruitful and increase in number. It was not just rule over and have dominion. It was not just stay away from that tree. It also included, and if you eat of it, you will die. The will of God includes death as the penalty for sin. If we go back to our sick man, it's as if, in one sense, the disease has no cure at all. Nothing can undo the fate of the one who has the disease. Death is inevitable. That's the will of God. But Jesus says, I have come to do your will. It's as if the disease can be transferred. It's as if the fate can be passed on to another. It's not so much that the disease can be cured, it's that it can be put on somebody else. Our fatal illness can be passed. What do we see in verse nine? We come to the middle of verse nine, I have come to do your will. And then in verse 10, and by that will, we have been sanctified. Through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all, you connect those, I have come to do your will, and by that will, we have been sanctified. through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. It all comes together right there. Now there's a lot left in chapter 10. He's gonna unfold a lot of the consequences of this and a lot of how this plays out in practical and important ways. But right now, he's brought it to this point. You're dying. Sin is bringing you down to hell and eternal death. And there's got to be moral perfection to correct for that. And there's got to be a penalty paid for it. But it was the will of God to accept the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ. Now, most of us are probably gonna die physically. Oh, maybe the Lord will come back before all of us do. Most of us are probably going to die physically. But we needn't die spiritually. We needn't die eternally. We needn't be separated from God for all time. He is willing to sanctify us, to make us holy, to set us apart through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, His perfect life. That's why the sacrifices had to be without blemish. His death, that's why they had to die. Not as the cure in and of themselves, but as the reminder that we needed a cure. And as the shadow of that cure, as the thing that pointed forward to that cure. Why would we go back? to a religion of mere rituals and rites and ceremonies. You say, well, we wouldn't go back. We weren't Jews in the past. We would never go back to Judaism. No, but we do pervert our own faith. We do turn our own Christianity into the practice of mere rituals. And we must guard against it, for it is not What does Paul say to the Corinthians? Every time you take up the Lord's table, you proclaim his death until he comes. That's what saves us. It's not in our baptism that we are washed, as much of a blessing as that is. It's in Christ that we are washed and regenerated by the renewal of the Holy Spirit. We must never let our religion become one of practice, of ceremony, of procedure, of tradition, of any mere outward formalism, though the outward forms are important. It must always be pointing us back to the condition of our sinful hearts. and the hope that was found in the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you for being willing to give your son on our behalf, being willing to find this way, to make this way to redeem us. for seeing it through to the completion. As our author will say in a future chapter, for seeing the joy that was set before you and enduring the cross on our behalf. Thank you for doing that for us so that we can be reunited to you. And Spirit of God, we thank you for this word in the book of Hebrews that reminds us of this and for your application of it to us. by regenerating us and making us alive, renew us in faith also, that we would hold fast the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, because he is almighty.