curtain had fallen at the end of the pageant, but that the curtain was torn in two as a sign that the pageant would never be played again. The result of this work of Christ for us is that we are given an eternal position of holiness that can never be altered. The final verse of our pas sage looks to that coming of Christ to fulfill the will of God by dying in our place, and doing away with the forms and ceremonies in order that He might establish us forever in Christ. “ By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10). It is when we under stand the meaning of this teaching that we enter into that unchanging certainty of our position in Christ. We are justified — looked upon as though we had never sinned, we are sanctified by this offering of Christ— seen in all of Christ’s perfection. There are two kinds of sanctifica tion. We might call them positional and practical sanctification. Positional sanctification is that holiness in which we are viewed by God because of the payment of our debt by Christ. Prac tical sanctification is that growth in life and living which brings the Chris tian day by day, nearer to that life which God desires that we should live. In the verse before us God is speak ing of the first sanctification. Through the death of Jesus Christ, God is able to look upon us as sinless beings, even though we yet have an old nature in which dwelleth no good thing. The believers are called saints throughout the New Testament not because they are saintly, but because they are sanc tified in Christ. The Greek words for sanctified and saint are from the same root. There are two definite conclusions that must be drawn from Christ’s Christmas message. First, if you are not a believer, you have no standing before God, no access to Him. It is only by faith in the substitutionary work of Christ that you can be saved. Therefore, now is the time to believe in Him as your own personal Saviour. The conclusion for believers is no less a clarion call. You are looked upon as being in Christ, sanctified. You are seen as perfect, called, in fact, saints. Are you living as becometh those who are saints? You, individual ly, are a saint, but are you saintly? Are you walking worthily of the call ing wherewith you have been called? For this is the calling; you have been called saints; you are to walk as saints. The Christmas message of Christ is a call to salvation and to surrender. T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
written in advance in the Book of God. This brings us now, to the fourth point which our Lord made in His conversation with the Father on that first Christmas day. This is the defin ite teaching that the Father, who took no pleasure in the death of the sacrifices, did take pleasure in the voluntary submission of the eternal Son. In fact, this was the definite will o f God. For the Lord, after He stated the fact that God had no pleasure in sacri fices, but that a body had been pre pared for His coming into the world, added that He was coming into the world in order to do the Father’s will. The implication is plain. If we para phrase it we would read it as follows: “ God the Father had no pleasure in the animal sacrifices which He had commanded men to bring, but He has prepared a body for me, so that I can go to the very death of the cross to accomplish His full will, which will indeed give Him pleasure.” In this we hear the echo of the Father’s words at the baptism of Christ and in the moment of His transfiguration. “ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased . . . ” This brings us to a thought which we believe is the most important word that ever could be uttered concerning the death of Jesus Christ. The most important word that ever could be said of the death of Jesus Christ is that GOD is satisfied with the death of Christ. And it is because God is satisfied with the death of Jesus Christ that He was able to do away with the former sacrifices. That is why the Holy Spirit comments upon the pas sage in the way He does in the ninth verse. For as soon as the words of Christ ring out, “ Lo, I come to do thy will, 0 God,” the Spirit speaks as follows, “ He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” The old method of testing and teaching man was done away with by the birth and death of Jesus Christ. The lambs are to give place to the Lamb of God who alone could take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). What an im portant point this is ! If rightly under stood, this passage teaches very definitely that God is through with the priesthood which offered them. This is the very center of the reason why we would never allow ourselves to be called priests. A priest is essential ly one who sacrifices. At the very moment when Christ was dying on the cross there was a great earth quake and the veil of the temple was tom in two from top to bottom. This was God’s gesture, not only that the
CHRIST'S OWN CHRISTMAS MESSAGE (Continued from Page 8) slain lamb was a picture of the Son of God, come to die for sinners. Every drop of blood spoke of The high priest was an actor in God’s pageant of redemption. The animals he used upon the altar were object lessons teaching a rebellious people that salvation was entirely by God’s grace, no matter what the test to which man was being put in order to demonstrate his innate incapacity to provide righteousness for his own account. The body of Jesus Christ was de signed to do effectively that which the figure in the pageant could never do. He was to be made sin for us, He who knew ho sin, in order “ that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). It was with the full consciousness of this fact that the Lord Jesus left the throne of Heaven to be born into this world. Suddenly, in the midst of His mes sage concerning His body and His death, the Lord Jesus Christ brought in a phrase that is seemingly beside the point in question, but which is most important. He said, “ Lo, I come,” and then, parenthetically, “ in the volume of the book it is written of me . . . ” Why does He bring this in? It is a remarkable fact that the Lord JesuS Christ appealed to the Old Testament Scriptures as to a su preme court from which there could be no appeal. In His contest with the Pharisees He cried out, “ Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John 5:39, 40). He then added that those very Scriptures which wit nessed to His deity would rise up at the judgment as their accusers “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that ac- cuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writ ings, how shall ye believe my words?” On His very birthday the Lord Jesus Christ stopped to pay tribute to the Old Testament Scriptures and pro claim that all He was doing, and all that He was about to do, was fully “A sacrifice of nobler name And richer blood than they.”
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs