Christ’s One Offering and Second Coming

Introduction

Good morning to everyone. It is a real blessing to be here with you and to be in your midst. What an encouraging thing to have such a great number here and singing out in praise to God. And we’re thankful to have our visitors who are with us, as well as those who are not visitors, who are our members. We’re thankful to have you. And I think that God is pleased as well. Want to today in this sermon finish the four-part series that Greg and I have been doing on sermons from the book of Hebrews. The title for this morning’s lesson is Christ’s One Offering and Second Coming. Hebrews chapter 9, verses 27 and 28. If you will be turning there to Hebrews chapter 9. It took me five and a half years to come up with a title for this lesson.

The first time I preached this lesson, the only other time I preached this lesson was in Monticello, Florida, five and a half years ago, and a lady asked me to preach on these two verses because she had some questions, and I couldn’t think of a title because these two verses hit so many different things. And so I just titled it Hebrews 9 27 and 28. But as I was working on it this week and a couple of days ago, I came up with this title. And I think this is one way to sum up these two verses Christ’s one offering and second coming. The verses read, and inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment. So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation, without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

These two verses, in a very concise yet sweeping manner, sum up really what Christianity is all about. Christ died on the cross once, and he will return a second time to receive those who are his.

Hebrews 9 in verse 22 says that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Brethren, sin is bad. It is really bad. It is so bad that because of sin, something has to die. In the Old Testament, that something were animals that were sacrificed for people. These innocent, unblemished animals, the best of the flock that could be given the firstborn, and these animals would bear the sins of the sinner in the sense that they would suffer the death that the sinner deserved. Now, in the new covenant, we don’t have animal sacrifices. But the one who has died is Jesus Christ, the very begotten Son of God, the only begotten Son of God. You ever stop to think about how serious sin is? We make it a trivial matter, but because of our sin, the very Son of God had to die on the cross.

Verses 23 through 28 then emphasize the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over that of animals. Jesus entered into that holy place that is not made with hands. And he offered, he went in there with his own blood, having offered himself as the sacrifice, and not of an animal. And in every way, Jesus is superior to anything that could be used as a comparison in the law of Moses. And that is, of course, a major theme in the book of Hebrews. And in this very context, we have verses 27 and 28, in which really the main point in context is that Christ was offered only once. Whereas animals had to be offered over and over. So now seeing our context, let’s dig our teeth into the two verses.

1. The Fate Awaiting Mankind

This is going to be a sermon where it’s going to be more of a study, but we’re going to make a lot of applications, especially toward the end. But I ask you to engage your mind as we study the word of God. We can divide up these two verses really into three parts. First, the fate awaiting mankind in verse 27, which begins with, and inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once. And so death awaits all humanity. This has been the case since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. And God said to Adam, From dust you came into dust you shall return. Solomon said, All go to the same place. All came from the dust, and all return to the dust. Sometimes I think about the fact that my car will probably be here longer than me.

My house, even my clothes. My body is more temporary even than those things. You ever think about that? We’re so temporal. Our bodies are just dust, and we’re going to return to the dust. Why do we have to die? Mel Brooks, the actor, writes this. As a young kid, you get nice little white shoes and white laces and a velvet suit with short pants and a nice collar. And you go to college, you meet a nice girl and get married, work a few years, and then you have to die. What is this? They never wrote that in the contract. Well, actually, God did write that in the contract. It is appointed for men to die once. Now, actually, the main emphasis here is not on the fact that it is appointed for a day for us to die that we need to get ready for, though that is certainly true.

I think the main point that’s being gotten out here is the fact that man will die once. And so we have a comparison that’s being set up here that we’re going to see fulfilled in verse 28. So just kind of log that away. The one time death that we all will die. The next part of the verse says, and after this comes judgment. I mean, this demonstrates the finality of our death. It’s not that we die and you know we get to do it over again. And it’s like, you know, groundhog’s day where we die over and over until we get it right. No, that’s not how it works. And I’ve sometimes felt bad for Lazarus. He was risen from the dead, but guess what? The poor guy had to do again eventually.

He had to die again. But we don’t do that. We die, and then comes the judgment. There is a finality about that. The last verse of Ecclesiastes says, For God will bring every act to judgment. Everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. You think about the fact that every single thing that you have ever done, every single thing that you have ever thought, even, everything that you think is hidden that nobody knows about, God knows. And we’re going to have to stand in judgment and give an answer for those very things. And God will judge us. Now God will judge us through his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the point that Paul makes to the Athenians when he says that God has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained, and he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead.

We will be judged by a man, Jesus Christ, who is no mere man. He was God and man at the same time. Colossians 2 9 says, in him all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form. And this man was the only man who is sinless, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all points as we are, and yet without sin. And he is the one who we will stand before. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad, 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 10. You’re not going to stand in judgment collectively with your family, for example, or collectively with this congregation, and hey, hopefully there are some good that will outweigh the bad, and we can maybe all make it together.

2. Christ’s One Offering

It doesn’t work that way. You and I will stand in judgment before Jesus Christ, the only perfect man, before his throne, and we will have to answer before what each one of us individually have chosen to do and think and practice, both religiously and in our moral lives, throughout this entire existence. That is a sobering thought. It’s a sobering thought. And we’re going to come back to this thought later. So we see here in verse 27 the fate that is awaiting mankind. Verse 28, then is going to shift the focus to emphasize Jesus Christ. And we see in the first half of the verse, Christ’s one offering. Now some of you are trying to take notes, and I popped this last thing up there really fast.

So I’m going to, for the benefit of those who want to get this, I’m going to let you write down what I forgot to put up on the screen there. Kind of skipped over it. So hopefully you got it, because now I’m moving. Okay, verse 28. So, Christ’s one offering is emphasized at the beginning of verse 28, the first half of the verse. So Christ also, having been offered once, to bear the sins of many. Now let’s just pause there for a moment. So Christ also means that there is a comparison being made. Man died once, Jesus died once. And as a result of his sacrifice, he was able to enter into the perfect tabernacle with his own blood. This is an emphasis throughout chapter 9.

I want you to read, for example, verses 6 and 7. Now, when these things have been so prepared, the priests are continually entering the outer tabernacle, performing the divine worship. But into the second, only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance. Now, up on the screen, you see a picture of a kind of a model of full scale model of what the tabernacle would have looked something like. It was uh basically a portable um, you know, a tent, as it were, and it represented the dwelling of God among his people, built in the time of Moses. Now, inside of the tabernacle were two sections, one section being larger than the other, in which the priests could do their functions, not just the high priest.

But into the second area behind that veil where the Ark of the Covenant was located, this perfect cubed area was the area where only the high priest could enter, and only once a year on the day of atonement, Leviticus chapter 16. Now we know when we read in Leviticus 16 that the high priest entered in there not only one time on that day, there were more than one occasion that he would enter in there, perhaps as many as four times, the first time with incense, the second time with the blood of a bull offered for his own sins, the third time with the blood of a goat for the people’s sins, and possibly a fourth time to remove the censor. But this was the only day of the whole year that the high priest would enter the holy of holies, with the very presence of God being there above the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.

This was a big deal. Well, I want you with all that in mind to read verses 11 and 12. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. So again, Christ is superior. There is no way you can compare animal sacrifices to that of Jesus Christ. And these Hebrew Christians wanted to go back to the law of Moses. They wanted to return back to these animal sacrifices. But Christ is superior. Christ bore our iniquities. In fact, when you have there at uh the in verse 28, when it says he was offered once to bear the sins of many, that is a clear reference to Isaiah 53, 12.

Yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors. He bore our iniquities. Well, what does that mean? What it means is that he took the punishment that we deserve. He became our substitute to die in our place. We are the ones who deserved to die. And so he died for us, but not just for us. Yes, he is the propitiation for our sins, but not for ours only, also for those of the whole world. 1 John chapter 2 and in verse 2. There is the Calvinistic doctrine that Jesus died only for those who were the elect, this limited atonement. Remember the L and the tulip. And so it wasn’t unlimited atonement, according to Calvin, but that’s wrong. That’s not what the Bible teaches.

The fact that it says here that he was offered for the sins of many does not mean many, but not all. The many means all. He died for the sins of the whole world. He died for the sins of the bum on the side of the street, for the criminal that’s behind bars, for the terrorist that’s committing jihad. For you and for me, he died for all of us, and every single human being on the face of the planet has the opportunity and the chance for eternal salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen. He died for the whole world. And he died once. He offered one sacrifice for sins for all time. This is really the heavy emphasis of chapter 10. There is no need for Christ to die again and again like the animals were offered in the Old Testament.

And in fact, I want to read two verses here that precede our main two verses, verses 25 and 26. Nor was it that he would offer himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And once you turn away from the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, what other sacrifice is there? There’s not going to be another one offered for you. That’s the only one. For if we go on sinning willfully, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire that will consume the adversaries.

Hebrews 10, 26 and 27. Only one sacrifice has been offered. Turn away from that.

3. Christ’s Second Coming

There is salvation and no other sacrifice than that one. So we see Christ’s one offering, emphasized here the first half of verse 28. The second half of verse 28 emphasizes Christ’s second coming.

Your version may say, apart from sin. This is the part of the verse that confuses some people. This was the reason the lady asked me to preach the sermon five and a half years ago. She didn’t understand why it said that in his second coming it would be without reference to sin. The point is, when Jesus came the first time, he dealt with sin. He offered himself to put away sin, as verse 26 emphasizes there. When he returns, that will not be the purpose for that coming. He will be coming for a different purpose than to solve the problem of sin. He’s already done that once. He doesn’t need to do it again. His second coming, the purpose of that coming will be for Christ to save his followers.

Now that doesn’t mean that there will not be a judgment aspect of that second coming, because when he comes, as 2 Thessalonians 1 tells us, he will deal out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. So there will be judgment in that day. But the emphasis that the writer of Hebrews is making here is that the coming will be for salvation of those who fear him and who love him. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Oh, glory. What glory it will be. Do you ever stop to think about the glory of that day? When I sometimes am driving down the road and I see the clouds kind of separated in a beautiful ray of sunshine coming through. I just think, I wonder what it will look like when Christ comes back. What will it be like? What will it be like to all of a sudden hear the shout and the trumpet blast? And to see the Lord on the clouds with the angels, and for the dead to all be raised, both the righteous and the unrighteous, the unrighteous to a resurrection of condemnation, but the righteous to a resurrection of life.

And those who are dead will be suddenly caught up in the air, and their bodies will be transformed, those who are dead in Christ. And then we who are alive and remain, we will also be caught up, and our bodies in a moment in the twinkling of an eye will be transformed into a glorious body. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. You ever stop to think about that? There’s a great emphasis of that in the New Testament, the second coming of Jesus Christ. Well, we’ve dealt now briefly with these two verses, Hebrews 9, 27 and 28, and with some related verses. And I’m not there yet, so I’m getting ahead of myself, because I don’t want to leave this out. Who will be the ones that Jesus Christ comes back to receive?

Those who eagerly await him. On the day of atonement, imagine that you’re a Jew, and this is the one day out of the year that the high priest enters the holy place with the blood of the goat that was offered for the sins of the whole congregation. Imagine that you are watching as he enters into the tabernacle. Of course, you can’t see what he’s doing in there. He’s alone. But you know what he’s doing in there. The whole congregation of Israel, and you’re there, and you’re watching. I imagined you would have been able to hear a pin drop as you waited with anticipation for your high priest to return, because his return was a signal of uh of rejoicing because the sacrifice had been accepted by God.

Our high priest Jesus Christ has entered into the perfect tabernacle into the perfect holy of holies. And we with joy and anticipation are awaiting for his return. The individuals that Christ will save are those who anticipate his coming with confidence and with joy. As Paul said in the last two verses of Philippians 3, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body according to the working by which he is able, even to subdue all things unto himself. Our citizenship is not here. Have you ever visited another country? And maybe you were there for a short time. You realized while you were there, you’re not a citizen of that country.

That your citizenship was here in the United States. And maybe you’ve begun to long to go back home, depending on what country you went to or how long you stayed. Brethren, we’re not citizens of this country of earth. We are citizens of heaven. And we’re here on a pilgrimage. This is a short visit, and we look for a better country, a heavenly one. Hebrews 11 and verse 16. And that’s where we’re going to go. That’s where Jesus is going to come and take us. Now is where I make the movement to the next segment. Because we’ve examined these two verses and related verses. I want to spend the last major portion of this lesson making some practical points of application. And in a way, this is going to be sort of a review of the things that we have been talking about.

4. All Death Is Certain Death

First point I want us to realize is that all death is certain death. It is appointed for men to die once.

And someone says to him, You go to certain death. To which the soldier replied, all death is certain. Kind of stuck with me. All death is certain. It doesn’t matter how many years away it is. You’re not going to just keep living forever here on earth. It comes to all, whether you’re young or whether you’re old or healthy or unhealthy or rich or poor. It is going to eventually come. You might try to postpone it and eat healthy. I like to do that. But you know, you could eat healthy and be as careful as possible and get hit by a car on your way home from church today. On your way home from worshiping God today with the saints. And so death can happen. And as we know recently in Paris on the news, death can come when you’re in a concert hall.

5. Prepare Now for Death and Judgment

It can come at any point. You never know when it’s going to come. You just never know. And so we need to be ready at all times. Prepare now for death and judgment. Have you ever thought about the fact that one moment after death and your eternal destiny will be sealed forever? Even before the judgment day, where your verdict is given to you, your destiny is already sealed. Luke chapter 16. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus. So now’s the time to prepare. Well, this actually is a very short time to prepare when you think about it. This life is a breath. We even realize that. Man, the years go by quickly. They do, they fly. This life is a breath, it’s a science, it’s a flower of the field that today is and tomorrow is gone.

6. The One Offering of Christ Is Our Only Hope

And so we need to be ready. I heard a quote yesterday the only thing we have that we can’t make any more of is time. And that’s true. So now is the time to prepare. Today is the day of salvation. Third point I want us to see is that the one offering of Christ is our only hope. Sometimes it’s helpful just to think about all right, what would the alternative be? Are we going to turn to the world for hope? Are we going to turn to ourselves for salvation? Where else are we going to turn? If you reject the one offering of Christ, what’s the alternative? Had a conversation with a young lady one time. Teenager. She attended the congregation where I preached. Her family went there.

She told me she’s an atheist. I said, why? She said, Well, I just can’t believe that an Almighty God created everything. I said, then what do you believe? She said, I don’t know. I said, well, it’s not an intellectually honest to reject that God created the world and not to accept something else. So if God didn’t create the world, then here’s your only other alternative. It’s all a great big cosmic accident. Everything, even matter. It’s all here without a plan. And all of the order and the precision that we see not only in the universe and the laws of the universe and all of the factors that keep life able to exist here on planet earth, but also life itself. That’s all an unplanned, unorganized accident, chaos.

That’s what you have to accept. She was speechless. And it wasn’t long after that that she became a Christian. Sometimes it’s helpful to think about what’s the alternative. Well, I don’t want to accept the one offering of Jesus Christ. Then what are you going to turn to? Is there another religion? Is there another Savior? There is no other religion. There is no other Savior. Jesus is the only Savior. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. You turn from Him, there is nothing. He is superior. His death is the only death that will propitiate for you and atone for you to be made holy, to be with a holy God. And if you accept that that is true and you devote yourself to Jesus Christ, then you have every reason to have confidence and joy in Christ’s return.

Used to have a neighbor, Jimmy and Denise Johnson. And this is when we lived in Dade City. Jimmy Johnson got very sick while we lived there and was told he had only months to live.

And he told me many times, he was a faithful Christian there, a member of the church where I was preaching, that he looked forward to death. He didn’t mean that to be morbid. But he said, I think of it like when I die, I will just pass through a veil from this world to the next. He was excited about heaven. He was excited to see Jesus and to see God. Is that how we feel? We get so caught up in the here and now, brethren, but what we need to do is look forward to what’s ahead. As Greg so ably preached at the nine hour, that joy that is laid before us is the joy that was laid before Jesus that caused him to endure the suffering.

And we need to remember that for ourselves as well. I talked to so many Christians, and this is, it’s gotten to a point it doesn’t surprise me anymore. Christians that are faithful to the Lord, that are serving the Lord, that tell me, I’m not sure if I’m going to heaven. I think that that’s a faith issue. I think if you are serving the Lord and you have done what the Lord says to do to be saved, and you’re not trusting that you are going to be saved, then that means you’re not trusting in the power of his grace and his mercy to save you, either that or you’re not living right, and you know it. Either way, it’s a problem if you don’t have confidence in your salvation.

Conclusion

We have every reason to have confidence in our salvation and to await not anxiously but eagerly for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In order to do that, however, you’ve got to accept Jesus. You have got to avail yourself of the blessings of the saving power of this one offering, so that you can have hope in his second coming. Paul says, For I’m not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So begin by believing. What’s your alternative? I don’t believe in Jesus. Then what do you believe in? Nothing? Purposelessness. There is no other way. So believe in the Lord. Repent of your sins. Committing yourself not to live a lifestyle of wickedness.

Doesn’t mean you’re going to be perfect. But you live a lifestyle of righteousness where, yes, you might mess up from time to time, but that’s not your normal behavior. Your normal behavior is righteousness, and when you fall, you repent and you turn to God and you pick yourself up and you keep going. Confess the name of Christ without shame. And be baptized, buried with Christ in a watery grave where you put that old self down in the grave and you rise to walk in a new life, a life that is free from the guilt of sin and free from the practice of sin. And continue to obey the gospel from that day forward. Baptism is the only condition of salvation that we only do once. We continue to believe and to repent and to confess.

And in fact, we continue to immerse ourselves in the ways of Christ. And if you continue obeying the gospel until the day of your death, then by God’s grace and his mercy, he will save you. Or if he Jesus returns before you die, you will be saved. And you can live with confidence and joy in your own salvation. If you’re not a Christian, you need to be. Why don’t you become one today? If you’d like to come to the front, we’d love to baptize you. If you’re a Christian and not been living right, you would like the prayers of the church here, we won’t look down on you. We will be encouraged and humbled by your coming if you would let us pray for you now.

If we can assist you, please come as we stand and sing the song of invitation.