“ONCE FOR ALL”
Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 27)
November 8, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by
the sacrifice of Himself.
Hebrews 9:26 (ESV)
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” That’s what we often say,
but do we really put it into practice? How do you usually react when
someone offers you something that’s absolutely free to you--something
that’s already been paid for by someone else--something that comes to
you with no obligation whatsoever? I can tell you how I usually
react: “Thanks,” I say, “but no thanks.” I guess I’ve gotten to be
so skeptical because of the world that we live in. Experience has
taught me to replace that old proverb about looking a gift horse in
the mouth with couple of other pearls of wisdom like: “It’ll all come
out in the wash” or “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” My
skepticism may be a wise course of action when I am dealing with
people in this broken world of ours, but it can be tragic when the
people of God start taking a skeptical view toward the gifts of
God--especially His gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.
This gift is given to us sinners precisely on those terms--absolutely
free--but so many people have a difficult time believing that God has
really done it all for us in His Son--that there is nothing left for
us to do in order to make ourselves right with God. We may be tempted
to point out certain examples: the Mormons, for instance, who do not
believe that Jesus’ work was done with the cross and the empty tomb,
but that after His ascension into heaven He returned to earth to
repeat His ministry among the inhabitants of the American continents.
Or we Lutherans might criticize the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching
that the mass is a sacrifice for the living and the dead, and that
when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated the priest is offering once again
the body and blood of Christ as a sacrifice for sin. But we ourselves
can easily fall into the same trap whenever we think that we must do
something to be worthy of the grace of God. If we could be worthy of
it, then it wouldn’t be grace, because what grace really is is
undeserved favor. This is the free gift that we have received through
the Christ who closed the case on our sin when He proclaimed from the
cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). To really grasp in faith the
sacrifice that Christ made for us once for all, we need to understand
that His sacrifice is both complete and irrevocable.
When God’s Word says that the sacrifice of Jesus for our sin was
rendered “once for all,” it means that our salvation--the
reconciliation of us sinners to our just God--is complete. We can’t
do anything to improve on the perfect sacrifice that God has made
“once for all” on the cross, because you can’t improve on perfection.
Anything that we might do to try to add to it will only corrupt it.
Remember: God in Christ made this sacrifice for us because we weren’t
able to do it for ourselves. Why should we by our own feeble efforts
mess up what God has already done for us perfectly and completely?
When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we are not in any way repeating
Jesus’ one-time sacrifice for sin; we are merely receiving the
benefits and the blessings of that “once for all” sacrifice. And when
we seek to please God by our good works, as we certainly should do, we
are not trying to gain His favor because we already have it! We are
merely thanking Him for the forgiveness and hope that He has given us
freely in Christ.
This idea may be frustrating to us at times, since our sense of pride
is always telling us to fend for ourselves--to “pull ourselves up by
our own bootstraps”--to accomplish things on our own rather than
depending on the generosity of others. But when it comes to our
justification before God, we can’t do it on our own. To listen in
faith as Jesus tells us that He has done everything for us that needed
to be done is in fact a great comfort. When we Christians think about
death and judgment (which await us all), we never have to entertain
the question of whether or not we are good enough to get into heaven.
We never have to worry about whether or not God has some kind of
scorecard of sins that He’s going to pull out just when we don’t want
Him to. In the “once for all” sacrifice of Christ, our past is past,
never to arise again and convict us. Our sin is history: We are free
from both its guilt and its power. We can have confidence as we seek
to thank God for His grace by living for Him, knowing that He accepts
both us and our worship, no matter how imperfect they may be, and
receives them and us as perfect for the sake of His perfect Son.
The Word of God also assures us that the effect of Jesus’ sacrifice
on the cross is irrevocable. That means that nothing can negate it.
No amount of evil or unbelief can alter the fact that Jesus Christ
suffered and died for the sins of all humanity and made atonement for
all. True, no one is forced to receive the gift of God’s redeeming
grace in Christ. You have every right to say that you’re not
interested--but if you do (as many do), you will have to live (and
die) with the consequences. And I don’t think that any of us want to
do that. There’s a common misunderstanding about the Christian
doctrine of hell in our world--a misunderstanding that we as
Christians have a responsibility to correct. People don’t go to hell
because they sin. If they did, we’d all be headed there. People end
up in hell because they reject the redeeming grace of God in Jesus
Christ, which He has extended to everyone in Christ and has given to
all in the Gospel. Some don’t believe that there is a heaven or a
hell, so why would they want to go to one and avoid the other? Others
are too stubborn to receive salvation as a free gift, so they try to
get there on their own, which of course is futile. I suppose that the
great majority of them don’t want to have fellowship with God, so
heaven is the last place in the world where they would want to be. In
any case, their rejection of the grace of Christ and their ultimate
damnation doesn’t in any way change the fact that Jesus died for them
just as much as He died for us.
Because the sacrifice of Christ is irrevocable, His forgiveness and
spiritual healing are always available to sinners. I once heard an
elderly man say that he didn’t see much of a point in trusting in
Christ at this late stage of his life. “There’s no way that anyone
can forgive me for the life that I’ve lived and the things that I’ve
done,” he said. That’s tragic! A person who says that is not
doubting himself; he’s doubting God’s power to forgive. Do you know
someone like that?--someone who has steadfastly refused to have
anything to do with the Gospel of Christ? Don’t give up on that
person! As long as he breathes, he can be forgiven and received into
the kingdom of God. And don’t ever give up on yourself either, no
matter how many times you fall back into the same old sinful and
destructive habits. The sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary’s cross is
stronger than anyone’s sin. If this were not so, the crucifixion of
Christ would mean nothing. Through His chosen means of grace God’s
Holy Spirit keeps our eyes and our hearts fixed on Jesus--the One who
“has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by
the sacrifice of Himself.”
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in
you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and
strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our
world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able
ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful, and He will do it. Amen.