But further—“It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet _that He should offer Himself often_, as the high-priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then _must He often have suffered_ since the foundation of the world; but now _once_ in the end of the world hath. He appeared _to put away sin_ by the sacrifice of Himself.” Sin, therefore, has been put away. It cannot be put away and at the same time be on the believer’s conscience. This is plain. It must either be admitted that the believer’s sins are blotted out, and his conscience perfectly purged, or that Christ must die over again. But this latter is not only needless, but wholly out of the question; for, as the apostle goes on to say, “as it is appointed unto men _once_ to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation.”
There is something most marvelous in the patient elaborateness with which the Holy Ghost argues out this entire subject. He expounds, illustrates, and enforces the great doctrine of the completeness of the sacrifice in such a way as to carry conviction to the soul, and relieve the conscience of its heavy burden. Such is the exceeding grace of God, that He has not only accomplished the work of eternal redemption for us, but, in the most patient and painstaking manner, has argued and reasoned, and proved the whole point in question, so as not to leave one hair’s breadth of ground on which to base an objection. Let us hearken to His further powerful reasonings, and may the Spirit apply them in power to the heart of the anxious reader.
“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_. For then would they not have _ceased to be offered_? because that the worshipers _once purged_ should have had _no more conscience of sins_. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” But that which the blood of bulls could never do, the blood of Jesus has forever done. This makes all the difference. All the blood that ever flowed around Israel’s altars—the millions of sacrifices offered according to the requirements of the Mosaic ritual—could not blot out one stain from the conscience, or justify a sin-hating God in receiving a sinner to Himself. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” “Wherefore when He cometh into the world He saith, ‘Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God.’ ... By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ _once_.” Mark the contrast. God had no pleasure in the endless round of sacrifices under the law,—they did not please Him. They left wholly unaccomplished that which He had in His loving heart to do for His people, namely, to rid them completely of sin’s heavy load, and bring them unto Himself, in perfect peace of conscience and liberty of heart. This, Jesus, by the one offering of His blessed body, did. He did the will of God; and, blessed forever be His name, He has not to do His work over again. We may refuse to believe that the work is done, refuse to commit our souls to its efficacy—to enter into the rest which it is calculated to impart—to enjoy the holy liberty of spirit which it is fitted to yield; but there stands the work in its own imperishable virtue; and there, too, stand the Spirit’s arguments respecting that work, in their own unanswerable force and clearness; and neither Satan’s dark suggestions nor our own unbelieving reasonings can ever touch either the one or the other. They may, and, alas! they do, most sadly interfere with our soul’s enjoyment of the truth; but the truth itself remains ever the same.