Certainty
This past week I was reading through the book of Hebrews again. Can a person really read that book too much? I didn’t think so either. The whole book is this really neat comparison of the old way (the old covenant) and the new way that Jesus instituted. In chapter 10, there is a discussion about some of the ways that the priests went about their business; the rituals, the sacrifices, the blood, all in an attempt to remedy the guilt of sin. Verse 11 of chapter 10 is this hopeless sounding verse. The ESV translates it this way,
“Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.”
Do you see the futility, feel the frustration? Offering repeatedly the same, useless sacrifices. Then Jesus appears and listen to the different tone of the next three verses,
“But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Quite a difference right? From futility to certainty. If you were to keep reading, you would find even more certainty. Listen to the author of Hebrews in verse 19,
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Confidence, new and living, full assurance…That’s more like it right. Here’s the thing. It may be cliche, but we live in politically, financially, environmentally uncertain times. In the midst of all this, Jesus is a certainty. The work he did once for all on the cross is just as effective today as it was then and will be a thousand years from now. Jesus is trustworthy, and placing faith in him is no risk at all. His broken body and shed blood was the perfect sacrifice that is the only remedy for a sinful, guilty, broken world.
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