It is Friday afternoon, and everyone scurries about getting ready for Sabbath. Just now Mother is mopping the kitchen floor. She is nearly finished when Mary comes in with muddy feet and runs across the floor. What will Mother do now? Some more mopping—if she wants a clean kitchen.
Just as she gets almost through again, Johnny bursts in with muddy feet too! Now what will Mother have to do? Some more mopping. When will she get through? It depends on how long the family will keep tracking in mud.
Ever remember that the thing which keeps Jesus in the sanctuary and delays the finishing of His work in the most holy place is not the iniquity of infidels and pagans. The stream of sin that defiles the sanctuary comes from God’s people. If we really want Jesus to come, we will confess every past sin so that He can pardon, and then we will learn from Him how to quit our habitual lawbreaking. Somebody may say, “that will never be in this world!” Then the sanctuary will have to stay open—unless you have found some other way to deal with the sin problem. But thank God, His plan will succeed. There will come a time when the sanctuary is cleansed and when Christ will demonstrate to all the universe that He has “put away sin by the sacrifice of himself ” (Hebrews 9:26).
The Epistle to the Hebrews contrasts the earthly sanctuary with the heavenly, showing the weakness of the first and the effectual power of the second. Chapter 9 closes with a glorious climax: What the high priest did in type once a year, Jesus does in reality once for all. He puts an end to sin, thus making it possible for Him to “appear the second time without sin” (Hebrews 9:28). “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins” (Hebrews 10:1, 2).
Notice that if those animal sacrifices could have taken away sin, if they could have perfected the worshipers, then they would “have ceased to be offered.” In other words, their continual repetition showed their inefficacy. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).
God intended that in looking at a bleeding bullock or dying lamb the sinner should behold the suffering of the promised Messiah. But many saw in it only the death of an animal, and some even came to look upon those sacrifices as the way to pay for their transgressions. If a man wanted to sin badly enough, he would be willing to lose a lamb or a bullock, wouldn’t he? So the stream of sin continued, and the rivers of blood owed on.
You are acquainted with a great organisation that calls itself the Church. In its confessionals a man can kneel down before another man, recite his sins, and hear the words “I absolve you.” Then the priest gives him a penance to perform. But all this cheapens the concept of sin. People get the idea that sin is not so terrible after all. But there is a Protestant version, not very much better. Multitudes, who day after day and week after week transgress knowingly, ask God to forgive them but then keep right on sinning. What is the matter? If the sacrifice of the cross and Christ’s ministry in the heavenly sanctuary cannot take away sin, if they only offer a repeated program of sinning and repenting, is the new covenant really better than the old?
Let us read on and find how Jesus solves the sin problem: “When he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God. Above when He said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin Thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:5-10).
When Jesus came into the world, He said, “Father, I know that you don’t desire all these sacrifices of animals. I know that You don’t require the blood of bulls and goats. That isn’t what You want, Father.”
Someone may ask, “Why, then, was it done?” Notice that God didn’t require it. The people required it. They needed it to help them understand something. But do you think God took any pleasure in the death of a lamb? No! Every time a bullock was slain, every time a lamb died, God saw His own Son dying upon the cross of Calvary. Could that bring Him any pleasure? Of course not. It broke His heart. So when Jesus came into the world, He said, “Father, I know that You don’t want those sacrifices to continue. They must come to an end.”
And what plan did Jesus have to terminate the sacrificial system with all its pain and suffering? What did He say? “Father, I know that You don’t want all these sacrifices, but I have come to do Your will. ‘I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart’” (Psalm 40:8). In other words, God doesn’t want the payment when men break the law. He wants us to keep the law. He is not looking for some sacrifice so that people can continue breaking the law, whether it is the bringing of a lamb or the doing of some penance or a careless prayer at night.
Christ longs for His children to get to the place where they do not keep on breaking His heart. His goal is not the repeated forgiveness of sin but the putting away of sin. He takes away the first—the continual offering of sacrifices—that He may establish the second—the doing of God’s will (see Hebrews 10:9). In our human flesh He demonstrated that the law could be kept, and He used the same power available to us. Then this body in which He had fully manifested God’s will He offered on Calvary as a complete atonement, providing abundant salvation for you and me. “By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).
What the blood of beasts could never do, the blood of Jesus will accomplish for all who yield themselves. And how? Let me make it simple and very practical. We must sense the pain that sin brings to God. When we realize what our sins did to Jesus and what they do to Him now, there will not be money enough in this world to bribe us to break God’s law. No threat of punishment can scare us into transgression. We would rather die than sin. Soon the “remnant” must meet this test in the final issue over the seal of God and the mark of the beast. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments, for we cannot bear to break His heart by breaking His law.
To many people sin means fun, a way to have what they call a good time. Does it look that way to you? If so, then you must be born again (see John 3:3). You need a new nature. Perhaps somewhere in your past life you did something wrong, and then, as you looked into the face of your father or mother and saw their tears, you began to realize something of how your disobedience had hurt them. And whatever pleasure you had felt was spoiled.
Sin is not funny. Sin brings pain. You and I may not feel it instantly, but God does, and the pain never stops until the sin is gone. is is the message of the sanctuary. And this is the cure for sin. Sin brings separation between man and God, and this hurts God so much that it breaks His heart. God will never rest until sin is taken away so that man and God can be restored to perfect harmony, full unity, and complete fellowship.
“It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit. If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross” (DA 83). R&R WDF
