How was Jesus' sacrifice better than the Levitical sacrifices?

Now when we examine the testimony that the Holy Ghost bears to the work of the Son of God, we find three great points in it. First, it satisfies God as the blood of bulls and goats never could; secondly, it leaves us no more conscience of sins; and thirdly, we have boldness of access into the holiest — the immediate presence of God, the veil being rent. Without the second we could not have the third, and both rest upon the infinite perfection of the work in itself satisfying God perfectly. As to the second point, you will find it is in direct contrast with the blood of bulls and goats that needed to be constantly applied, bringing sins constantly to remembrance in being so applied, because their blood never could put away sins. There was nothing in the blood of a bull or of a goat adequate to the enormity of our sins; there is in the blood of the Son of God. The whole glory of God has been made good as to sin in His blood-shedding, so that the moment we believe God's testimony to the infinite value He finds in it, we have no more conscience of sins for blood to be applied to. And in contrast to the priests standing daily (ver. 11), we have the Lord Jesus sat down continuously or uninterruptedly (it is not the ordinary word for "for ever," but that translated "continually" in ver. 1) "for by one offering he hath perfected uninterruptedly" (same word) "them that are sanctified."

"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 worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in these 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 for ever 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 comes into the world he says, 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 to 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 for ever 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.

I have no doubt we often fail to remember this first verse in connection with the law, from the fact that we go back to the Old Testament with the light of the New. When we turn to the book of Leviticus, with all its sacrifices and ordinances, there seems such a beautiful harmony and unfolding of the truths of Christ that perhaps we forget it was all enacted centuries before the coming of our Lord Jesus. If we could obliterate from memory the knowledge of Himself and all the truths made known to us by the Holy Spirit in this present dispensation, we would find that the law was indeed a shadow; there was simply a contour, an outline of divine truth. This is not to cast a slight upon the perfect word of God, — perfect in its place, as surely it is, — but to show that until the coming of our blessed Lord everything was in abeyance. These were shadows of things to come; the body, the substance, is of Christ.

The apostle illustrates and emphasizes that in these verses. There was a shadowy forgiveness, a shadowy access to God, a shadowy putting away of sins, but there was not the very image of those things, as shown in the fact that these sacrifices were offered year by year continually. The effect was, that those who brought them could not be made perfect. This does not mean perfection of the person, of course, but perfection as to his standing and relation to God. It is the same kind of perfection that we have spoken of afterwards in connection with the work of Christ, where it says, "By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." The various sacrifices under the law could not give that perfection as to one's present and eternal acceptance. The apostle says, If it had given such perfection of conscience, they would have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers once purged should have no more conscience of sins. If those sacrifices had brought actual peace to the soul and conscious relationship with God, it would have been an insult to that sacrifice, and a denial of its value, to have repeated it. So the very repetitions were a witness of their utter ineffectiveness.

Now in the expression "the worshipers once purged" we have Christian truth, the very opposite of this imperfection which was under the law. An effectual substitutionary sacrifice having been made for sin, the conscience is at perfect rest in God's presence, so that the question of sin and relation to God is never raised again. Notice the expression. It is not "no more consciousness of sins" — which would be contrary to all our experience; for who is there that has not consciousness of sins — the countless sins against God in the days before his conversion, or since that time? who cannot remember with bitter sorrow again and again that which has dishonored a holy and a loving God? And who that knows his own heart, with the possibilities of evil that are in it, could doubt for a moment that if left to himself he may fall into that which would dishonor God again? But while there is consciousness, there is no conscience of sins; that is, sin is not resting upon the conscience as affecting our relationship with God, or our standing before Him. The work of Christ has perfectly settled that question; so that, in spite of the sin of the past life, in spite of the sinfulness of the heart, in spite of failures, nothing remains upon the conscience between the soul and God.

Inefficacy of Sacrifices. — "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many," we have read (9:28). "For," adds the sacred writer, "the law having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offer [rather than, offered] year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins" (10:1-2). To make perfect those that draw nigh, to remove from them all conscience of sins, is plainly stated here to be at once the purpose of our God, as well as the need of the offerer. Under the law, however careful they might be in carrying out the prescribed ceremonial, the perfecting of the one who approached the altar, his cleansing so urgently needed, could never really take place. And this, as the sacred writer points out, was manifest. The man, or the woman, possessed of the feeblest intellect, might grasp this solemn fact; for the repetition of a sacrifice proclaims in the clearest manner possible that it has not done what was wanted in the past, nor can do it by any repetition in the future. There must be of necessity in all such sacrifices an inherent want. Well is it to remember this. For whatever be the nature of the sacrifice, whether bloody, or unbloody as men speak, its repetition proclaims its inefficacy in the past, and also its inability for the future. It cannot deal with or settle the question of the offerer's guilt. It cannot ensure him acceptance before God. This is a cardinal truth in connection with sacrifice. To repeat a sacrifice is labour thrown away. But more, it is to despise the one perfect sacrifice that God has provided.

The One Offering. — New indeed might be the thought to many that one sacrifice was enough instead of many. Solomon on the altar at Gibeon had offered a thousand burnt offerings. Before the ark, as it made its way into the Temple, they sacrificed sheep and oxen that could not be told nor numbered for multitude. At the dedication of the Temple he offered peace offerings to the number of two and twenty thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. Our author, however, directs attention in the Epistle to but one sacrifice, which far outweighed in value all that had ever been offered on Bezaleel's altar, or on that made by Solomon for the Temple. Daily might there be seen by any one visiting the Temple courts how the Levitical service was being carried on. Each day the priest was found at his post at the altar ministering there, but only to repeat the same service at the altar on the next day, or on the next recurring occasion for which that sacrifice was enjoined. But all was in vain as regards the taking away of sins. Daily offering. Then there was no cessation of devotedness of service at the altar. The same sacrifices. Then they failed not from any non-observance of the ritual. Wherein then was their inefficacy? It was inherent in them. For the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sins (10:4). How this is kept before the reader! Gifts and sacrifices, we read, were being offered, which could never make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the conscience (9:9). Again: "They can never with those sacrifices, which they offer year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect" (10:1). And again: "Offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins" (10:11).

It may be added that there is no good reason here to give the preposition translated "by" the mere local (10) or instrumental (12) notion of "through," though capable of either when contextually required. But διὰ may and does when needed express the circumstantial condition, as in Rom. 2:27, and elsewhere. So it is best understood here. Into the holies (the veil being now rent) He entered once for all. There He abides without change or the need of repetition, indeed contrasted with any such thing; and His own blood was not for Himself, as if He required any sacrificial means of entrance: therewith it was an eternal redemption He found.

There had been of old a provisional value attached to the Levitical offerings. "The blood of goats and bulls," on the day of atonement, etc., had an impressive significance; so had a heifer's ashes sprinkling those that had been defiled in the wilderness (Num. 19). But if these things sanctified "unto the cleanness of the flesh," how much more shall the blood of the Christ cleanse your [or, our] conscience from dead works (as all the acts of a sinful nature must be) to serve religiously (λατρεύειν) a living God? Only consider the Christ, glorious in Himself, in the character of His offering, "who by an eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God." As He stands alone, so does that offering of Himself and the Holy Spirit's part in it is marked here as "an Eternal Spirit": so does eternity characterise this Epistle, and so was the Christ as ever dependent on God thus, while offering Himself up without spot to bear our sins. For here it is the previous act: not ἀνήνεγκεν but προσήνεγκεν. Compare verse 28, where both occur and in their due relation of course.

In Aaron's case he had, "as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins." In this we again find contrast and not comparison. Christ is indeed an offering priest, for it says later on, "it is of necessity that this Man have somewhat also to offer" (Hebrews 8:3). But when we read on yet further in the Epistle we shall discover that Christ, "through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God" (Hebrews 9:14). There is all the difference in the world between Aaron offering FOR himself and Christ offering HIMSELF.

(Vv. 13, 14). The blood of Christ, by which eternal redemption has been obtained, sets aside the blood of bulls and of goats. The blood of these animals did indeed have a sanctifying effect, so far as the cleansing of the body is concerned. (See Numbers 19:7-8.) But the blood of Christ purges the conscience. The blood of an animal offered through a priest is entirely set aside by “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.” By the Holy Spirit Christ became incarnate; by the Holy Spirit He lived His life of perfection. So, by the eternal Spirit, as the perfect Man He “offered Himself without spot to God”. (Compare Luke 1:35 and Acts 10:38.) In the ninth verse of the second chapter we read that by “the grace of God” Jesus tasted death “for every man”. Here we learn that He has offered Himself without spot to God. Thus we can announce to the sinner that Christ has offered Himself to God, but for you.

For the one that believes, the effect of this great sacrifice is to purge the “conscience from dead works”. As Christ has offered Himself without spot to God and God has accepted the great sacrifice and is infinitely satisfied with Christ and His shed blood, the conscience of the believer is relieved of all thought of working to secure the blessing. Such works, however good in themselves, would only be dead works. Thus set free in conscience, the believer becomes a worshipper of God.

It is by virtue of His own blood that Christ has entered into the Holiest of all. He has gone in permanently. When Aaron entered the Holiest of all in the tabernacle in the wilderness it was on a temporary basis, and only once a year did it take place. The expression "by His own blood" is significant. In verse 25 reference is again made to the day of atonement which was year by year. Referring to the required offerings of that day it says "with blood of others." There was no permanence connected with those offerings. How beautiful to contrast these with "His own blood" by which He has entered in "once," never to be repeated. Added to this is the obtaining of an "eternal redemption." There was no thought in the Old Testament of an eternal redemption. It is only by the Lord's death that this has been effected. There is therefore a setting aside now of the inadequate offerings of the Old Testament times.

In contrast still with the Tabernacle and the Old Testament figure, Christ as our Priest has not entered holy places made with hands, as the high priest did, but into heaven itself; the witness there of the establishment of an eternal basis of relationship between God and His people. How has He entered in? He had a personal right to enter because of what He was personally; but He could not enter in that way as our representative. If He is to appear for us, it must be with the witness of the blood. The priest, who appeared for the people and himself, had to carry the blood into the holiest. Christ has gone in by His own blood, having accomplished eternal redemption.