Wednesday: The Cross and the Cost of Forgiveness
Read Hebrews 9:22-28. What does this passage say about the work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary?
The idea that the heavenly sanctuary needs cleansing makes sense in the context of the Old Testament sanctuary. The sanctuary is a symbol of God’s government (1 Samuel 4:4, 2 Samuel 6:2), and the way God deals with the sin of His people affects the public perception of the righteousness of His government (Psalm 97:2). As ruler, God is the Judge of His people, and He is expected to be fair, vindicating the innocent and condemning the guilty.
Image © Krieg Barrie at Goodsalt.com
Thus, when God forgives the sinner, He carries judicial responsibility. The sanctuary, which represents God’s character and administration, is contaminated. This explains why God bears our sins when He forgives (Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:17-19, the original Hebrew for “forgiving” [nose?] in these verses means “carrying, bearing”).
The system of sacrifices in the Israelite sanctuary illustrated this point. When a person sought forgiveness, he brought an animal as a sacrifice in his behalf, confessed his sins over it, and slaughtered it. The blood of the animal was daubed upon the horns of the altar or sprinkled before the veil in the temple in the first apartment. Thus, the sin was symbolically transferred into the sanctuary. God took the sins of the people and bore them Himself.
In the Israelite system, cleansing from or atonement for sins occurred in two phases. During the year, repentant sinners brought sacrifices to the sanctuary, which cleansed them from their sin but transferred the sin to the sanctuary, to God Himself. At the end of the year, on the Day of Atonement, which was the day of judgment, God would cleanse the sanctuary, clearing His judicial responsibility by transferring the sins from the sanctuary to the scapegoat, Azazel, who represented Satan (Leviticus 16:15-22).
This two-phase system, represented by the two apartments in the earthly sanctuary, which were a pattern of the heavenly sanctuary (Exodus 25:9, Hebrews 8:5), permitted God to show mercy and justice at the same time. Those who confessed their sins during the year showed loyalty to God by observing a solemn rest and afflicting themselves on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29-31). Those who did not show loyalty would be “cut off” (Leviticus 23:27-32).
| Think what you would face if you had to face the just punishment for your sins. How should that truth help you understand what Christ has done for you? |
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Christ ir our hope for life! He is our bodyguard, who took all the bullets we should take instead! Without Him coming and sacrificing Himself for us we would be lost forever. We can only be reconciled with God because Jesus chose to die for us! He is our creator, brother, mediator and savior, all at once!
Do I want to know what true love is? I must learn from Jesus!
The "copies" (animal sacrifices and mortal human priests) were just copies of the "heavenly things." These copies needed purifying by the "copies" themselves. But the actual and real "Heavenly things" (Heaven Itself) could only be purified by "God Himself," Jesus His Son. This He accomplished "Once For All," 2,000 plus or minus years ago at Calvary. Now He just intercedes for "All believers" in His Fathers' Presence till He returns in "Power and Great Glory."
“The Cross and the Cost of Forgiveness” - As I understand Heb.9:22-28 –
v.22 points out that Israel’s law of purification required that “almost all things be purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is(was) no remission.”
v.23 points out “that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these”; meaning that the earthly copies of the things which are in heave are purified with blood.
v.26 states that “He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself”. If remission of sin was assured already, what was the real reason the Son of God came to earth to live among man? Was it to show man how to live?
The lesson writer states that it is the ‘heavenly sanctuary’ that needs cleaning; I disagree with this interpretation of the text. If, like the lesson writer states, “the sin was symbolically transferred into the sanctuary and God took the sins of the people and bore them Himself”, why would He still need to come in the form of sinful man if man’s sin finds its ‘forgiveness’ in Him already?
I hold that He came to show man how to live! His Gospel is filled with ‘how-to-live-advise’; it offers 'True life'! His rejection and death by the hands of those who could not bear the Truth was foretold; it was a rejection of His 'Way of Life'. He knew that those who should have welcomed Him with open arms would reject Him, but still came to live among us. His teachings were essential for man's life, teaching man the living Truth, bringing heavenly Light into a dark and sinful world, a mortal humanity that would have no chance of resurrection if He does not show us how to live!
God’s Love has always been a matter of the heart’s allegiance to Him; without this connection, all sacrifices were works void of their spiritual effect upon the sinner. The one who kept His commandments because he loved God was blessed, not because he kept the commandments, but because His love reached the heart of God.
The Creator always loved us; now we know this for certain – He lived among us! His life demonstrated His Love, even as man put Him to death. He forgives the ignorant and hopes that man will take His example of love and learn from it to truely live!
Many wonder how Satan could possibly be the scapegoat. There is a song I remember singing a hundred years ago, when I was a teenager. It went something like this, “I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt He did not owe.” Beautiful song, but not exactly theologically correct if you want to get technical. And no, I do not like to get technical and I guess it may be theologically correct in one way, but in another way, it’s not. You see, fact is, I can pay the debt that I owe myself. Romans 6:23 tells us the wages of sin is death. I can pay for and atone for my sins all by myself with no help from Jesus, by dying. I am eternally grateful though, that Jesus did paid that debt for me! Because fact is, I could not pay the debt and live.
Satan, on the other hand, will have to pay the debt and atone for his sins himself.
“But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, [and] to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.” Leviticus 16:10
The scapegoat is cast into the wilderness to atone for sin. The scapegoat represents Satan who, after the cleansing of the sanctuary and investigative judgment, has now been blamed for the sin problem.
The guilt and responsibility for sin is placed upon the scapegoat who goes off to the wilderness. This represents Satan spending a thousand years after the Second Coming here on earth, as it lies wasted and barren. After a thousand years of considering his great idea to rebel against God’s government and start his own, he will realize it was not such a great idea after all.
Many have trouble with the scapegoat representing Satan. The Seventh-day Adventist church is unique in believing Satan is the scapegoat. Other denominations ask how can Satan bear our sin? Good question!
Satan does not bear our sin; he bears his own sin. He shares our guilt when he tempts us to sin. While Jesus died for our guilt, He did not die for Satan’s guilt, so it is still placed upon Satan.
Others point out that the word “atonement” is used. How can Satan atone for our sins? Again, he does not atone for our sins, he atones for his own sin by dying an eternal death.
Often it is said Jesus died for our sins because we could not atone for our own sins, but this is not strictly true. We can atone for our own sins by dying an eternal death. The wages of sin is death. and we can pay those wages in full if we so choose. We can atone for our own sin if we want.
Satan atones for his own sin and shared guilt in our sins by being sent off to die an eternal death (Revelation 20). The universe will no longer blame God for the sin problem.
Ironically, when the sin problem has been done away with, the only trace of sin will be the nail scars in Jesus’ hands. Thus, the only Person who will bear eternally the result of sin will be the only Person who was totally innocent.
The perfect Lamb of God is my Savior for all eternity! Hebrews 7:25 says, “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” My Savior does not live so that He can force angels and humanity to worship Him and sing His praises. He does not live so that He can be a tyrant and boss everybody around. Once the sanctuary is cleansed, and guilt is put in its proper place, it will be seen that the Son of God lives to make intercession for sinners. We will be able to look as far in the past as eternity goes and as far into the future as eternity goes, and see that Jesus lives for one reason – to be our Savior!
Thank you William for this clear insight into the cleansing of sin. This is something that I often struggle with- how does Jesus carry all my sin? I look forward to the day when Jesus comes to take us home where we will understand so much more.
Today's lesson states in part, "... God bears our sins when He forgives (Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:17-19, the original Hebrew for “forgiving” [nose?] in these verses means “carrying, bearing”. If you pause and reflect upon what that actually involves, that is a 'mindblowingly' different notion of forgiveness than we are used to as humans. But when you can see this, Jesus statement on the cross (Luke 23:34) makes perfect sense - particularly when you also keep the mind of central dynamic to true life and living is self-renouncing (other-benefiting) love (Philippians 2:3-4; 1 Corinthians 13:5; John 15:13; 1 John 4:7-8).