Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Easter Week

11 April 2023

Text: Heb 10:1-18

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia! 

The Old Covenant’s law, with all of its sacrifices, can “never… make perfect those who draw near.”  This is why the sacrifices were continually offered.  If they really did purify from sin, “would they not have ceased to be offered?”  The author of Hebrews teaches us that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were a “shadow of the good things to come.”  They were only pointers and tokens of “the true form of these realities.”

The law’s fulfillment is “the offering of Jesus Christ once for all.”  The animal sacrifices were a bloody preview of the cross.  These violent substitutionary offerings kept the image in the people’s minds for thousands of years of what the promise would entail.  The Old Testament is also filled with “types” – that is, pictures and vignettes revealing the coming of God in the flesh, the cross, and the resurrection.  Indeed, these things were all “shadows,” but the people of God were commanded to continue these sacrifices and rituals to hold the cross in front of their eyes beforehand.

As we look back, not forward, to the cross, our Lord shares His body and blood with us, saying, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19).  For those living under the Old Covenant, they were doing these sacrifices in pre-remembrance of Jesus and the “good things to come,” namely, forgiveness, life, and salvation given by God’s grace through the actual sacrifice to end all sacrifices, the “true form” of what the animal sacrifices only pointed at.

For “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”  And yet, God commanded these sacrifices to be done, and the faithful carried them out.  The priests, even though they offered these sacrifices “which can never take away sins,” nevertheless offered daily “service.”  This is the very meaning of the word “faith,” dear friends.  For they obeyed without having an explanation from God.  These pointers and tokens, though not effective in themselves, were effective as previews of “when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.”  For “by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” 

And so the law, though it indeed cannot save us, and can “never… make perfect those who draw near,” is not useless.  For “The Holy Spirit also bears witness to us,” when He says, “I will put my laws on their hearts and write them in their minds.”  The law doesn’t change us from sinners to saints, but once Christ has redeemed us, the Spirit sanctifies us on our way to perfection in Christ Jesus.  Though we will not be perfected in this life, the Lord’s sacrifice atones for us, and will perfect us in the age to come.  Thanks to the cross, God the Holy Spirit says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” 

And the cross is the final sacrifice, as the author of Hebrews writes by this same Holy Spirit, for “where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.