Hebrews 7:27

Hebrews 7:27

Once for all

It is hard for us to imagine just what a conveyor belt of ritual and ceremony the role of an Aaronic priest embraced. There would be daily queues of men standing with their animals and other offerings waiting to be attended by those on duty. Every offering must be explained, the various sacrificial rules must be followed; was this a peace offering, a sin offering or a burnt offering? The priests needed to know because in some cases they were entitled to a share of the meat, in the case of the peace offering a portion would be returned to the offeror’s family. Imagine the clamour and commotion as the various participants queued with their animals awaiting their turn. On the special Feast days, the hubbub would be greatly increased, for up to 2 million people could descend on Jerusalem for the celebrations! The trouble is, each sacrifice and each offering was only temporary, the rituals were repeated over and over by every individual, because as time elapsed and sin intervened in people’s daily lives, the Law demanded repetition, there was no one-off offering that could be made. The most serious of the sacrifices was the sin offering, made for unintentional sins or ritual impurities. We only have to look at ourselves to know that we would have to repeat this ritual many, many times if we were to remain cleansed before God. 

In addition to the sacred needs of the people, the priests were well aware that to perform their duties they must remain ritually clean themselves, so they too must offer sacrifices to the Lord. What a relief it is to read the verse before us, to find that our High Priest does not demand repetition, He was able to make one offering to His Father that covered all sins for all time. He did not need to sacrifice for Himself for He had committed no sin. Instead, He gave Himself for His people, once for all, and that was it! Sacrifices and offerings ended at Calvary and there is no longer any need for altars and a robed priesthood or the slaughter of countless animals, or the various purifying rituals that accompanied this ceremonial panorama. In fact, there is no longer any need for a Temple for the system was terminated at the cross for all time, there is no need for the Jewish Temple to be restored although it seems that it will. (Can we imagine how the Lord would feel if the Temple was restored, priests were appointed and sacrifices started to be offered all over again? That would be anti-Christ would it not?) The Temple is now God’s people, each one of who is a priest serving the Lord, day by day. And as priests, we have clean hands, clean hearts and are covered by the blood of our sacrificial Lamb – forever! Hallelujah!

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