INTRODUCTION

1. Death is a curse on all the descendants of Adam (Gen. 3:17-19), but no one is born for the express purpose of dying.  We are all born to live.

2. However, the Son of God was born of a woman to die, just as He said in Mark 10:45, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

3. In this lesson, we will consider the sacrifice of the body and the blood of Jesus as it is explained in Hebrews 9:11-10:10.

   1. The concepts in these verses are fundamental to the gospel of Christ.

   2. At the same time, they also comprise the "solid food" of the gospel, which "is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil" (Heb. 5:14).

       

THE OFFERING OF THE BODY OF JESUS CHRIST

1. The sacrifices made under the Law of Moses could never take away sins.

   1. Consider Hebrews 10:1-4:

      ¹For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. ²Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?  ³But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.  ⁴For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

   2. It is obvious by the continual, repetitious nature of the Law's sacrifices that they did not take away sin.  If they had, then it would not have been necessary to offer them year after year.

2. Therefore, God prepared a body for Jesus Christ so that He could offer Himself as an effective sacrifice to take away sins forever.

   1. Consider Hebrews 10:5-10:

      ⁵Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, "Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me; ⁶in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.  ⁷Then I said, 'Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of Me) to do Your will, O God.'"  ⁸After saying above, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the Law), ⁹then He said, "Behold, I have come to do your will."  He takes away the first in order to establish the second.  ¹⁰By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

   2. Verses 5-9 of this passage quote from Psalm 40:6-8, which is a psalm of David.

      1. In that passage, David recognized by inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the sacrifices of the Law did not fulfill the will of God to take away sins.

      2. This prophecy looked forward to Christ, who was coming to completely fulfill the will of God in taking away sin.  In doing so, He would take away "the first" (the old covenant under Moses) and establish the second (the new covenant through Jesus).

   3. Notice that a body was prepared for Christ for this purpose so that He could die.

      1. The Son of God existed before His fleshly incarnation.  He was in the beginning with God, but He became flesh for our sake at the fullness of time (John 1:1-2, 14; Gal. 4:4-5).

      2. Philippians 2:6-8 says that Christ...

         ⁶...although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  ⁸Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

      3. Christ did this for us so that our sins could be taken away and we could overcome death.  Notice Hebrews 2:14-15:

         ¹⁴Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

      4. The sacrifice of His body was sufficient to take away sins once for all.  He did not have to suffer many times, but His single, complete sacrifice fulfilled God's will.

THROUGH HIS OWN BLOOD

1. Jesus serves as our High Priest by the offering of His own blood to cleanse us from dead works.

   1. Consider Hebrews 9:11-14:

      ¹¹But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; ¹²and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.  ¹³For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, ¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

   2. Jesus is our High Priest not according to Moses' Law but according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:10; 7:1-28).  As such, He entered the tabernacle of heaven.

   3. It is His own shed blood that Jesus carried into the true tabernacle and holy place of heaven, and this blood cleanses us from sin forever.

2. It is necessary for covenants to be inaugurated with blood, which was demonstrated by the covenant God made with Israel through Moses.

   1. Consider Hebrews 9:15-22:

      ¹⁵For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.  ¹⁶For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.  ¹⁷For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives.¹⁸Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood.  ¹⁹For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, ²⁰saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you." ²¹And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood.  ²²And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

   2. A covenant is a will and testament, and it cannot come into effect until the death of the one who makes it.  Thus, our "eternal inheritance" could not be executed unless Christ died.

   3. The old covenant through Moses required all things to be cleansed by blood.  It established a pattern to be fulfilled in the new covenant of Christ.

3. Likewise, the new covenant made by God through Christ has been inaugurated with the blood of Christ.

   1. Consider Hebrews 9:23-28:

      ²³Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.  ²⁴For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; ²⁵nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own.  ²⁶Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.  ²⁷And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, ²⁸so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

   2. The better sacrifice that cleansed the heavenly things is the blood of Jesus, who has entered the tabernacle of heaven to offer Himself for us to put away sin forever.

   3. When Jesus comes again, He will not come in flesh and blood, for He will not need to die again or shed His blood for our sins.  Instead, He will come again to save those who eagerly wait for Him.

       

CONCLUSION

1. Think about these things often and especially when you partake of the Lord's Supper (1Cor. 11:23-29).

2. Also, use these things to prepare yourself for His return, for Christians have turned "to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come" (1Thess. 1:10).