In the Old testament we had shadows and types of the new covenant. The main purpose of the old testament is to give us insight to what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross.
10:1 ”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.”
- The same sacrifices which the priest offered year by year could never make those who approached perfect.
- Sacrifices were not given to deal with peoples sin, peoples activities, but rather they were given to make them perfect. Humanity doesn’t have an activity problem. It’s not that we do wrong things it is that we have a sinful condition. It is not that we produce bad fruit, it is that our tree is bad.
- To say that Christ only came to forgive our sins is to say that Christ only came to forgive us of the bad fruit that our bad tree produces but still keeps us a bad tree.
Jesus Help us see that its not about action but recognition of our condition
Luke 18:9-14
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
The two different types of confessions
- The Pharisee came and tried to relate to God based on his activities, God my activities are pretty good. Compared to this tax collector and to most people my activities are very good. I come to church, I give tithes, I fast I do all the right things. So God because my activities are good I am sure you receive me.
- But the tax collector doesn't confess his activities. He doesn't say God please forgive me because I have cheated my customers or yelled at my wife. He says God I realize that my problem it is not my activities, my problem is that I am a bad tree, I have a sinful condition, God have mercy on me, I am a sinful man. It is not what I do that is the problem it is what I am.
- The bible says the Tax Collector went home justified not the Pharisee why? Because he understood his problem. So he was able to receive his solution.
Matthew 5:20
“For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
What does that mean?
He is not saying unless you do better than the Pharisees you will not see heaven. They fasted twice a week, He is not saying you should fast 3 times a week because when it came to their activities the Pharisees were the best.
In Matthew Chapter 5 through 7 we see the Sermon on the mount where Jesus tells us about the higher law. He says “you think the Old Law was hard, you think the old testament was hard? Watch what I require of you. In the Old Testament if you murder someone you are a murderer what I am telling you is if you are angry with someone you are a murderer. In the Old, if you sleep with someone else's wife you are an adulterer, in the commandment I give to you, if you have lustful thoughts you are an adulterer.”
Jesus was not trying to tell us we need to take control of our thought life. He was not trying to tell us to stop being angry with other people. He actually gives us the answer in this sermon
Matthew 7:17-18
“17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”
The whole point of the sermon on the mount was to help people realized and come to the conclusion that they are in deep trouble. I thought what I did yesterday was bad or that my activities were or even some were pretty good. Actually Jesus wanted to say the problem with you is not your activities it is you. You are a bad tree and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. So in the sermon on the mount Jesus is saying stop trying to produce good fruit from a bad tree because it doesn’t work. Unless you righteousness far exceeds that of the pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Sinners cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Only family enters the kingdom of heaven. Unless you are born again you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. you problem is a problem of birth, you have the wrong daddy. Unless you are born of a different daddy you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Unless you have a change of nature you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven because your problem was not your activities in the first place. So if we just deal with your activities we have never dealt with the real problem.
Hebrews 10:2
“2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.”
The modern churches don’t seem to believe in the doctrine of once purified. They believe once purified until you mess up again and then you come back to church and give sacrifices and rituals to purify yourself and sing nice songs to God so that he will create in us a clean heart. But he already did create in us a clean heart! And it is so clean and so powerful that it goes so deeply that you have no more need of consciousness of a sinful condition. Jesus came to move you from a sin consciousness to a righteous consciousness. Jesus came so you would never have to feel sinful, dirty and un-pure for the rest of you life. But you can actually feel righteousness, purity and holiness defining and filling you whole being.
Jesus didn’t come to clean you dirty carpet. he came to rip it out and give you a carpet that can never get dirty again.
Hebrews 10:5
“Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;”
but a body you prepared for me;”
In Christianity today we delight in sacrifices and offerings but He does away with the first covenant to establish the second. By his will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. You have been made holy once and for all. you cannot be unholy once he made you holy.
Hebrews 10:11-14
“11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Single Sacrifice.
Perfected forever!
But Priest and Preachers today are still offering and giving sacrifices that can never deal with the real problem. They still ask us to bring offering and sacrifices to deal with our problems, they tell us what we need to give up and put aside and what we need to do and the hours that we need to spend memorizing scripture and praying and fasting. We gotta bring some more offerings to hopefully be pleasing to God and get more holy. But that next sunday and next sunday they keep preaching the same message out of a different scripture they are telling us that it is not working. We always have to bring more sacrifices and more offerings.
He has sat down.
This means the work is over. It is finished. Not only is there no more need for any more sacrifices but there is no more need for us to bring our offerings and sacrifices to complete something that has already taken place. He has sat down, He will never come to give another offering or sacrifice and because he has sat down it is time for us to sit down. Because those who enter his rest, rest from their works the way He has rested from His.
There is one sacrifice that he says you can bring. That is the sacrifice of praise. Which is giving thanks. The only thing left for you is to give thanks. It is the sacrifice of praise because I praise Him for His sacrifice. There are no more sacrifices to be giving to increase us in our Christian walk. Romans 12 says present yourself as a living sacrifice. So now everything that we do is not an offering and sacrifice but an expression of who we are. He says He has perfected forever, for eternity those who are sanctified. Even in heaven we will never be more perfect that we already are.
Every Religion is based on bringing offerings and sacrifices and every religion never stops bringing offerings and sacrifices because no offering or sacrifice can deal with the real problem. Christianity is not a religion its a family that celebrates the one time sacrifice that has already been given.
I am not asking you if you feel what I am saying is true, or if your performance from last week agrees with what I am telling you is true. I am just telling you that what Christ has done inside of you is more powerful then your feelings and more powerful and true than your performance. If you want to believe your shaky performance or your funky feelings go ahead but I am telling you, you don’t have to and you can embrace that fact that you are perfected forever.
It is our job to declare that He sat down. His work in us is completed and He is waiting for us to come into agreement with that reality.
Hebrews 10:19-22
“19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
It is not by the blood of Jesus and our good activities but on the death of Jesus period. End of sentence. He opened up a new way to come to Him that is not through a curtain which was only the shadow but we come through his body. We can come boldly with hearts that have been purified of all consciousness of sin. We have been sprinkled and it is a finished work putting us in a state of being that is free of a guilty conscience.
In Colossians 1 it says because of what Christ has done for you He has made you holy, blameless and unaccuseable. Because when we come to Christ and see that He paid the full penalty of our sins past present and future it forever keeps us in the state of not guilty because He took our judgment.
So why do we feel guilty when we do something bad? When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of knowledge of good and evil the conscience was triggered to function based on a legal system. In that moment how did they feel? What did they do?
They hid, they felt guilty, shameful and tried to run away from God. Because the tree of the knowledge of good and evil says when we do something wrong we must pay for it, and tells us we are guilty. When Christ came He not only came to actually take care of the punishment but to actually disconnect our conscience from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Before the fall the only thing Adam and Eve knew about themselves was what God told them. They never were evaluated or tested to see how well they did. They had no sense of self-consciousness. I know that because when they sinned and God came to them He said “who told you that you are naked.” The implication of this is that they were naked before but didn’t know it. Because before the fall the only thing they knew was what the Father told them and He hadn't told them that they were naked.
But after the fall the new way to evaluate oneself was the law, was the sense of right and wrong that dictates to you how you should feel. In Christianity many times we ask forgiveness to appease our conscience. Our conscience gets cleansed by what we do. Thats the whole system of religion out there. It’s based on appeasing the conscience. It is not wrong to ask for forgiveness to someone we have wronged but if we do it to gain a clear conscience we are actually putting aside the sacrifice of Jesus because only Jesus has reserved the right to clean our conscience.
So yes He might want you to go and ask forgiveness but we must go from a clean conscience. When we have a clean conscience and ask for forgiveness we do it out of honor and love for the relationship. When we go without a clean conscience whether we realize it we are asking forgiveness to appease our conscience.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil is concerned with making wrongs right and the tree of life is concerned with Love and Relationship.
So now I can go boldly before the throne of God even when I make a mistake. I can crawl on His bed and play then after a while I say Father forgive me I love you.
We honor the relationship, we love our relationship and we don’t want to do anything that is displeasing to Him not because it is right or wrong but because of love and honor for the relationship. Christ came to deliver us from the consciousness of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and place us in a place where our consciousness is connected to the tree of life. In the tree of life there is no guilt there is no condemnation, there is only love and honor in the relationship. How can we run boldly to God with a guilty conscience? Christ came to deliver us from a right and wrong paradigm and place us in a love and honor paradigm. Because Christ took care of the right and wrong on the cross. He paid the legal punishment for our sins. Do we really think we can add to His payment?
Doesn’t it feel liberating to even dream of a guilt free life? Isn’t it something that you would do for your kids if you could?
Hebrews 9 actually says that you can have your conscience cleansed from dead works. Have your conscience cleansed from any need to make up for your sins. Have it totally disconnected. The Holy Spirit didn’t come to convict you of your actions but to reveal to you your true identity.
Satan’s name is the accuser.
What I once thought was the conviction of the Holy Spirit was probably actually the accuser of the brethren. I once thought that the more guilt I felt about something the more true my repentance was and if I didn’t feel guilty for my sin then something was wrong with me. I only believed that because I believed that there was something I could do to fix myself of my problem. But if I knew there is nothing I can do to fix my problem then why even know my problem? I don’t need to know whats wrong with me to fix it. I only need to know what He says about me and what He has done for me and that will produce in me a life of true righteousness and holiness.
Every other religion and system of the world is based on discovering our weaknesses and working on them. But that is not what Christ came to do. So I submit a toast and I want us to drink the blood. Jesus said I want you to eat my body and drink my blood. There will be no intimacy until we get our consciences cleansed of guilty feelings. The power is in the blood and we partake of it and we accept His once for all sacrifice and we step into His body and His righteousness is imputed to us. It is finished once and for all. Amen
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