Scripture: Hebrews 10:1-18
I want to make three points in this sermon. Point Number One, I address a popular, widespread false teaching that today’s scripture contradicts… And in doing so, we’ll learn a lot about what today’s scripture means. Point Number Two, I focus on verse 1 and the the “shadow of good things to come”… And Point Number Three, I’m going to emphasize Christ the “shadow-caster,” and the assurance and security that we have through faith in him.
I need to begin this sermon, however, talking about a popular, widespread, yet very badly mistaken idea… One I’ve often heard in Sunday school classes over the years, in Bible studies, in sermons preached by many pastors—certainly in our previous denomination, unfortunately… I’ve seen this idea expressed in social media posts, and even in the mainline Protestant seminary I attended. It’s a teaching to which many of you have been exposed. And by the way, it’s a teaching that I’ve heard on the lips both of people who identify as theological liberals… and even on the lips of those who, like many of us here, identify as theological “conservatives.” As I say, this false teaching is widespread.
And it’s also a teaching with which at least a small part of me is sympathetic—at least until I consider the way in which it diminishes the work of Christ, it diminishes his glory, it undermines his gospel, and it makes God out to be a liar… since nearly every page of scripture contradicts this otherwise popular teaching.
And it goes something like this: “We Christians have a covenant with God through faith in his Son Jesus… This is called the ‘new covenant.’ And through this new covenant we Christians have our sins forgiven and are brought into a right relationship with God.
“But… Our Jewish friends, whom we rightly love and support… on whose behalf we are horrified by the widespread anti-Semitism in the world… and with whom we have so much in common—after all, we share in common a very large portion of the Bible… even if the books are placed in a different order from our Old Testament… but [according to this false teaching] our Jewish friends have their own, separate covenant with God… the old covenant of the Law of Moses… and through that covenant, they too are made right with God… apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ and his new covenant.”
We Christians have our way; our Jewish friends have their way; and both are equally okay.
Of course this false teaching disrespects the many, many Jews in this world—our brothers and sisters in Christ—who also embrace Jesus as their Messiah, their Savior, and their Lord. Ask them where and in whom salvation is found!
But more importantly, it simply makes no sense of the Bible itself… including, for instance, the apostle Paul’s words in Romans 9:3. For context, in chapter 9 of Romans, Paul is heartbroken that so many of his fellow Jews have rejected Christ as their Messiah… and then he goes on, in the next two chapters, to express his confidence that this rejection of Christ among his fellow Jews is only temporary… and that before the Second Coming, there will be a much more widespread embrace of Christ as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. And that will be glorious, and I look forward to that day.
But in chapter 9, verse 3, Paul says these startling words: “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers [and sisters], my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
What is Paul saying? He’s saying that if it were possible—and of course it’s not possible, as he well knows—but if it were, he would himself wish to be damned—he would be willing to suffer hell and eternal separation from God—if it meant salvation for his fellow Jews. Paul, contrary to a stubbornly widespread modern prejudice, is not anti-Semitic. He would not only be willing to die for his fellow Jews, but even to go to hell for them, if by doing so he could save them! Yes, he’s the apostle to the Gentiles, but he loves his own people enough to go to hell for them!
That is love!
And this expression of love only makes sense if Paul understands how high the stakes are when it comes believing in Christ or rejecting him… Paul’s words only make sense if he understands that everyone in the world, both Jew and Gentile—must receive the gospel of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
I can’t help but think that modern Christians reluctance to believe the clear biblical teaching that Christ is the only way to salvation isn’t rooted, in part, on guilty feelings about our failure to take evangelism seriously. Like… If it’s true that Christ is the only way, then what could be more urgent than sharing the gospel? Yet we so often fall short.
[Talk about son-in-law Brian’s powerful witness at the wedding reception…]
Well, to say the least, today’s scripture—along with the rest of the Book of Hebrews—makes no sense unless salvation happens only through the new covenant of Christ’s atoning death on the cross.
In fact, the Book of Hebrews was originally written mostly to Jewish Christians who were enduring intense suffering and persecution in the Roman Empire… perhaps under Nero Caesar, and perhaps in connection to the “Great Fire of Rome,” in the year 64. The wicked emperor Nero may have started the fire himself, for his own purposes, but he hated Christians and blamed them for the fire… and so persecution of the Church became even more intense.
And it’s likely that some of these Jewish Christians were tempted to take the path of least resistance, to abandon the Christian faith and return to Judaism—which would be far less trouble at that moment in history.
So the author says, in so many words, if you do return to the old covenant—in which priests sacrifice bulls, goats, and lambs on the altar of the Tabernacle or Temple, you’ll no longer be saved!
Because, in today’s scripture, in particular, he makes the point that God never intended for God’s law—including this sacrificial system—to provide the ultimate forgiveness of sins; it was never intended to bring us into a right relationship with God.
And he even gives two examples from the Old Testament that tell us this…
He quotes Psalm 40:
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Don’t misunderstand: God gave us this sacrificial system for a good reasons; there’s nothing wrong with it in and of itself! But if you think the bare rituals can take away the guilt of sin and make us right with God, then we are misusing it, misunderstanding it. As David says in Psalm 51, which he wrote after his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah:
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Notice those words: “a broken and contrite heart.” The heart is the “heart of the matter,” and the rituals of offering sacrifices can’t change the heart. And that’s what God desires: a changed heart.
As if to make this perfectly clear, in verse 16 of today’s scripture, the author quotes Jeremiah, who looks forward to the new covenant in Christ when he says, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds…”
As Jeremiah and the other authors and prophets of the Old Testament well understood, the old covenant can’t do that for us! We need Jesus for that! This new covenant that Christ instituted by his blood… is for everyone.
That’s Point Number One…
So what was the Law of Moses, and the sacrificial system, and the old covenant intended to do? Let’s talk about that in Point Number Two… “the shadow of good things to come.”
These words come from verse 1: “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.”
What does this mean?
I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but given how obviously athletic I am today… you may be surprised to know that I was pretty lousy at sports when I was a kid. My parents eventually blamed themselves. See… I should have been a southpaw, a lefty… but back in 1970, there was a stigma associated with being left-handed, so whenever I picked up a spoon, for instance, with my left hand, my parents would transfer it to my right… forcing me to be right-handed.
Even to this day, when I write with a pen or pencil, I hold it in my right hand upside down like a lefty. So it’s sad… I was terrible at baseball.
But that didn’t stop me from the annual humiliation of being signed up to play rec-league baseball every spring. I dreaded it. And when I was about ten years old, I remember coming up to bat in the bottom of the ninth. We’re down by one run. Bases loaded. Full count. And the worst player on the team is at bat. My poor teammates! Next pitch… what happens? Fast ball down the middle. I swing for the fences. Walk off grand slam. I’m the hero…
[Laughs] Yeah… Nothing like that ever happened to me playing any sport!
Instead… it was bases loaded, full count, down by one run, fast ball down the middle… And I just watched it go by. I didn’t even swing.
But even that wasn’t the worst part… The worst part was… I cried. In front of everybody. So embarrassing.
Even walking to the car after the game, I think my parents were ashamed to be seen with me. They were like, “This is a neighbor’s kid. We’re just giving him a ride home!”
But listen: The coaches themselves rose to the occasion. I’m serious! They said, “Brent, you feel like you lost the game for us, but you didn’t. There were so many other reasons, in addition to your strikeout, that cost us the game.” They talked about errors and mistakes that other players—even talented players—made. They talked about other innings and other missed scoring opportunities. They talked about bad pitching and bad fielding and bad coaching decisions.
Their words comforted me… a little. They were saying, in so many words, “Yes, you messed up, but it’s not so bad.” They were minimizing my guilt—making it seem less severe, less consequential, less costly. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”
This is a very human tendency. To try to minimize our guilt. When it comes to our sins, for example, we are often likewise tempted to say, “It’s not as bad as it seems. Our sins are not as bad as they seem.”
And so… one very important reason for the old covenant… for the Law of Moses and the sacrificial system… was to remind God’s people again and again… “Actually, your sins are much worse than they seem. You’re actually are more guilty than you think.”
Verse 1 again: “[God’s law] can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” Verse 3: “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.” Or listen to the way the New Living Translation translates verse 11, which nicely captures the underlying Greek: “Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins.”
Do you get the point: The purpose of these rituals is to amplify our guilt…to underline the severity of our sins… to maximize how deadly serious they seem… to remind us sinners frequently of just how severe our sin problem is, and how desperately we need a better kind of sacrifice… how desperately we need a Savior that can take them away… that can remove them completely.
And thank God he gave us such a Savior!
The late Presbyterian pastor Tim Keller famously said, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
I’m going to get to the “more loved and accepted part” in Point Number Three in a moment… But pay attention to that first part: “We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.” I don’t think that most people in the world think that any part of the gospel—which literally means, in Greek, “good news”—is bad news. But about half of the gospel is the bad news that “we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe.”
The gospel of Jesus Christ must remind us of that truth before we’re ready or able to hear the good news that “we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
The author of Hebrews, in verse 1, says that the “old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview”—as the NLT puts it—“not the good things themselves.”
Speaking of previews, have you ever gone to the movies and watched “coming attractions.” And a particular preview or “trailer” appears to give the whole movie away? “I don’t have to see the movie now. I know what happens.” We’ve all had that experience. But listen: if it’s a good movie, no two or three minute preview can ever substitute for the real movie that this “preview” is advertising. A preview can give us a lot of information; it can prepare us for what’s ahead; it can make us look forward with joy to what will happen in the future.
But we won’t be satisfied until we experience the real thing!
That’s what the old covenant was for… to prepare us, to make us look forward to, the coming of Jesus Christ!
And that’s Point Number Two…
Point Number Three…
The old covenant law was a “shadow of the good things to come,” not the good things themselves. But since that’s the case, the “good things to come” are the things that were casting the shadow in the first place… and the main “good thing” casting the shadow is Jesus Christ. He is the shadow-caster.
And for this third point, I want to briefly explore the difference between the shadow and Jesus Christ, the shadow-caster.
In his commentary on today’s scripture, pastor Chuck Swindoll wrote the following:
Imagine if a married couple had to run back to the altar and get remarried every time they got into an argument. Or if they had to buy a marriage license, find a judge or preacher, and exchange vows every time they had a break in their relationship. Thankfully, marriage doesn’t work that way.
It takes just one trip to the altar for a bride and groom to be married. No matter how frequent or loud the fights or how cool the personal connection, there’s never a legal need to go through a second ceremony… or a third… or a fourth. Only if a couple were legally divorced would a second marriage be required. Continual marriage ceremonies would imply a repeated state of being unmarried. In such a scenario there would be no security. In fact, it would hardly be a marriage at all.
This is what it was like with the sacrificial system in the Law. If the Law had been able to perfectly and completely deal with the relationship-breaking power of sin and guilt, there wouldn’t have been a need for a continual return to the altar… All the guilt would have been gone—banished when the blood was spilled, forgotten when the sacrificial lamb went up in smoke. 1
All the guilt would have been gone… The word “guilt” doesn’t show up in our English Standard Version of today’s scripture, but “guilt” is what the author has in mind in verse 2 when he refers to our “consciousness of sins.”
And the main thing that today’s scripture tells us about Christ the shadow-caster is that he does what God’s law was unable to do: he takes away the guilt of our sins—sins we’ve committed in the past, sins we’re committing in the present, and sins we will commit in the future. The guilt is gone… forever… at least so long as we keep on trusting in Christ!
Speaking of guilt, let me tell you about my friend Keith… not Keith Watson. Another Keith. He was my best friend in the ’90’s. We hung out all the time back then. We went to concerts and football games frequently. Twenty years ago, after I decided to change careers and go into ministry, we were selling our house, packing up our furniture, and downsizing our lives dramatically so we could afford seminary. We needed to get rid of a lot of stuff. Keith, meanwhile, had recently gotten married, and his wife had two children from a previous marriage. He could use some of our stuff—including some nice furniture. So he bought it. We were giving him a “best friend” discount, for sure. But we could use the money, for sure!
Anyway, not long after we moved, however, it was as if Keith dropped off the face of the earth. I never heard from him until a couple of years later when I found out he was moving his family to Seattle. Even today, except for an occasional Facebook post, I never hear from him. And I’m like, What happened? We were best friends. It didn’t make sense to me.
Lisa and I were talking about it one day. She reminded me, “You know, Keith never paid us for that furniture. He owed us a thousand bucks, and he never paid us.” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I had forgotten all about that!”
And Lisa said, “But maybe he hasn’tforgotten. Maybe he’s ashamed and embarrassed, and he doesn’t want to face us. Maybe he feels guilty. Maybe he thinks we’re mad about it. Maybe he thinks we’re holding this debt over his head. So he doesn’t want to face us.”
I think Lisa was right… It’s likely that that debt had come between us… and prevented us from continuing to be friends. In Keith’s mind, I was “remembering” his debt… turning it over in my mind and and holding it against him… unless or until he paid it… and he couldn’t afford it to pay it.
By contrast, what I need you to hear this morning is this: If you are a Christian, your sins—as far as God is concerned—are wiped out. Vanished. In fact, look what the author of Hebrews says in verse 17, quoting Jeremiah 31 again, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” God can’t be holding our sins against us because it’s as if he doesn’t even remember them!
This doesn’t mean we’re without sin; it doesn’t mean we don’t sin; it doesn’t mean we’ve now “overcome” sin.
But verse 14 tells us what it does mean: “For by a single offering he [Christ] has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Who are the ones who are “being sanctified”? Christians like you and me. If we are “being sanctified,” then that means we are not perfect yet… maybe not even close!
But that fact doesn’t matter: Because at the same time, scripture says, we are already “perfected for all time.” There is a sense in which—when God sees us—he sees us as if we were already perfect. And he continues to see us that way so long as we have faith… so long as we keep trusting in his Son Jesus. This is often referred to as “positional” righteousness. And it’s made possible because Christ himself gives us his righteousness as a gift when we believe in him.
We already stand as perfectly righteous before God.
So, to say the least, there’s no room for guilt!
Let me give you an example… Just last week, in my quiet time, I read the last chapter—chapter 5—of Lamentations. This is the short book that follows Jeremiah. It was possibly written by Jeremiah. But whoever wrote it, he wrote it from the perceptive of someone living in Jerusalem after the Babylonians have conquered the city and taken so many Jews into exile in Babylon.
And listen to what he prays at the very end of the book, starting in verse 20:
Why do you continue to forget us?
Why have you abandoned us for so long?
Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again!
Give us back the joys we once had!
Or have you utterly rejected us?
Are you angry with us still?
Because of what Christ our “shadow-caster” has done for us, as described in today’s scripture, we simply never need to ask these kinds of questions: God has not forgotten us. He has not abandoned us. He has not and never will “utterly reject” us. And he is not “angry with us still.”
That would be impossible…Because in God’s eyes… Because of Christ’s imputed righteousness toward us… we are already perfect.
Totally agree with you about the Jews! The rest of the sermon is good too.
Thanks, bro!