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Reflection on Hebrews 10:11-18

Tim Visher

Mine:

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin, 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.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

This is the covenant 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,

then he adds,

I will remember their lawless deeds and their sins no longer.

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sins.

Real:

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 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.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

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,

then he adds,

I will remember theirs sins and their lawless deeds no more.

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Diff:

I can’t seem to get my unified diff output to work correctly. I have no idea why. It makes me sad.

However, you can see from the above that basically I screwed up the sins vs. sin in what Christ did. During the whole process of memorizing this I struggled with whether or not sin was plural, and I kept thinking it changed between lines. Also, I messed up the order of lawless deeds and sins in what the Spirit adds.

Observations:

1. I love how God not only makes the law more unavoidable in the present age by putting it on our hearts and writing it on our minds, but then he also takes away the law’s guilt-inducing power by forgetting our sins and our lawless deeds. It’s like he is at once making us more worthy of guilt and more able to approach him without shame. In fact, it’s not like that, it is that.

2. I struggle with the idea of Messianic Jewish communities even now. I heard a ‘good’ argument for them at Onething this past year in that there is going to be a Jewish presence at the end of the age when Jesus returns that welcomes their promised Messiah with ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ as he rescues them from the hands of the Antichrist’s army at the sound of the trumpet (Romans 11, Isaiah 63, Revelation 19, Matthew 23.37-39) and so even if you believe that Jesus is the Messiah and has indeed already come, there’s clearly evidence that perhaps you should remain Jewish and continue to practice Judaism until the second coming so you can be there for him. However, a strong part of me rejects this because of testimonies such as Hebrews 10:18 where it clearly states that if you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, there’s a new order to things. There is no longer any offering for sin, a clear tenet of the Jewish faith, because the sacrifice has been made. What does it mean to be Jewish and Christian? It means as much as to be Christian and Buddhist or Christian and Muslim. In other words, it’s a contradiction in and of itself. It’s as meaningless as saying I’m a Christian and an American. We are aliens here on this planet, pilgrims on our way towards our home. We are called to be a culture of our own within the culture that is hosting us. So why would you be both Jewish and Christian? It doesn’t make sense to me.

3. Christ’s kingship has been inaugurated and yet not realized. However, his silence at the present time, his allowance of evil to continue, should not be taken as a sign of weakness or death. There will come a day when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead. All of his enemies shall be made into a footstool for his feet. This speaks, I believe, of his active role in their punishment throughout eternity. It is one of the hardest things for me to realize that we will rejoice in heaven at the judgement of God. The saints sing songs in worship to God that he destroys Babylon the great and causes her smoke to ‘rise up forever’ (Revelation 19. The concept that we will not know that God has judged our friends and family members and the fallen world around us who rejected him and his love is one that cannot be found in scripture. His very judgements will be the subject of our rejoicing. We will then see them perfectly and realize their righteousness. It’s a terrifying thought to me. I know too many who I couldn’t say with any confidence will be with me there. May this drive me to seek their good and God’s glory.

4. Thank God that the work is completed in Jesus!

I understand that this has been incredibly irregular anyway, but just to be clear, I feel like God is calling me to memorize all of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). This is going to take me a considerable amount of time. I’m not sure whether or not I’ll do it chunks that I can post here as I go along or whether I’m going to wait till the end. It probably makes sense to do the former, but we’ll see. Wish me luck and keep me accountable if you’re so inclined.

• On June 19, 2009 @ 6:00 am
• In Bible
• Tagged 10, Bible, hebrews, meditation, memorization, reflection