June 12, 2025 - Hebrews 10:8-10 - "Once For All"

Hebrews 10:8-10

"Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

In these verses from Hebrews 10, the Holy Spirit opens to us the glorious fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose in Christ. The sacrifices and offerings of the law, though many and continual, could never take away sins. But in His sovereign eternal purpose, God the Father had prepared a body for His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He might come into the world to accomplish His will. By that one perfect will, accomplished through the obedience and sacrifice of Christ at the cross, all the elect of God were justified and sanctified—set apart, cleansed, and accepted once for all. May our hearts be drawn to this glorious Christ and Savior in beholding the sufficiency and triumph of His finished work, whereby grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life (Romans 5:21).

The body of the Perfect Man, Jesus, had to be prepared. He took on the sins of His people, as stated in Isaiah 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." However, He remained sinless, being the Perfect Lamb of God, as Hebrews 7:26 describes, "For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." His body had to endure the weight of God’s justice on behalf of the chosen sinners for whom He died, as prophesied in Isaiah 53:10, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand."

Remarkably, not a bone of His body was broken, fulfilling the law as noted in John 19:36, "For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken." Real blood had to be shed, "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22), representing the blood of a real man as the Substitute for sinners. Acts 20:28 describes it as God’s blood because it satisfied God the Father, ensuring justice while justifying those He chose to redeem once the work was completed, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." 

Jesus, as a real man, had to obey every aspect of the law (Matthew 5:17) and satisfy God the Father's infinite justice, which He did, "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost" (John 19:30). No angel or physical lamb could achieve this, Hebrews 1:4-14; 10:4.  He fulfilled the law entirely, both in its requirements and penalties. He took on the charge and curse of sin on behalf of God’s elect, bearing their sins in His body, and as Hebrews 7:27 states, carried them away once and for all when He had shed His blood unto death.  

Though Christ was purposed as the Surety of God’s elect before the world’s foundation, Scripture tells us that He became that Surety in the fulness of the time appointed by the Father through His death on the cross, "By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament" (Hebrews 7:22), dying the Just for the unjust, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:" (1 Peter 3:18). At that moment, God the Father redeemed, justified and forgave all the sins of the elect in His one sacrifice. This fulfilled the prophecy in Daniel 9:24: “He finished transgression, ended sins, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness.”  

This glorious work of redemption, justification, and salvation that the LORD Jesus accomplished for His sheep is astounding. By the revelation of God’s Spirit in them, each of the chosen ones looks, in God’s appointed time, to the Lamb alone Who completed the work for them. "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace" (Galatians 1:15). On the other hand, there is a solemn warning, as Hebrews 10:26-27 states, that if we sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the Truth, there remains no other sacrifice for sins, but only the fearful anticipation of judgment.  

Let us then rejoice in the perfect and finished work of Christ, by which the elect have been justified and sanctified once for all through the offering of His body. This is the will of God, fulfilled in His Son—the true and final sacrifice that has put away sin forever for those He came to redeem. All who rest in Him have peace with God and are accepted in the Beloved. But to those who remain in unbelief, there is no other offering for sin appointed by God. All who turn from this sacrifice of the LORD Jesus Christ alone do so to their eternal peril, having rejected the only Hope that God the Father has ordained for the salvation of His people. Therefore, we take refuge in the LORD Jesus Christ and His accomplished work at the cross alone. He alone has done the will of God the Father, as His Dear Eternal Son, and whose one offering is the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness (Zechariah 13:1).