The Cross Is the Cure | Hebrews 10:1-18
Brian Hedges | September 22, 2024
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 10. Last week we looked at the second half of Hebrews 9, and our focus was on the final sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It was really all about the cross, and we talked about the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ and how he offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins on the cross.
I believe that message with all of my heart, but I walked away from the sermon last week feeling like I raised an objection in the sermon that I didn’t really answer. Then, in the staff review—we do this every week as a staff; we get together and we talk about how everything has gone in the last week, including the sermon—in the staff review, that conversation also confirmed that I didn’t really answer the deepest objections to this doctrine of a substitutionary atonement.
That may not be a particular problem for you, but it might be. It might be that you have heard these objections and some of them resonate in your mind, or maybe you have friends who are unbelievers or who are maybe more progressive in their Christianity and have rejected the doctrine of substitution.
Some people would say that the very concept seems archaic, that this sounds more like the bloodthirsty pagan gods of ancient times, who needed to have a blood sacrifice in order to be appeased, than the God of love and mercy that we have in the Bible. Some would say that this was really an invention of the Protestant Reformation, “and certainly the fundamentalists talk about this and the evangelicals talk about this, but this isn’t really something that was taught by Jesus or the early church.”
Critics of substitutionary atonement would say that requiring the death of his Son to forgive humanity suggests that God is unhinged and abusive, even, driven by desire for vengeance rather than love. I could give you direct quotations from theologians who critique this and who reject this and say that we ought to reject it as well.
Today, I want to try to answer at least some of those objections, and I want to do so in the course of our exposition of Hebrews 10:1-18. We’re going to be reading this passage in just a moment, but just note here at the outset that there is something of a shift in focus in Hebrews 10. It’s part of the developing argument of Hebrews 8, 9, and 10, that focus on the priestly ministry of Christ and specifically highlight the new covenant and the perfect and final sacrifice that Jesus has offered on the cross in the heavenly sanctuary, in the very presence of God, by which he has enacted that new covenant.
But, whereas Hebrews 9 has a strong focus on the objective aspects of the cross, as Jesus offered this sacrifice to God, the commentators (and especially William Lane, I noticed this week) point out that there is more of a subjective focus in Hebrews 10.
In Hebrews 9, he says that Christ through his offering has cleansed our conscience, purged our conscience, from dead works to serve the living God, but there’s no real explanation of that. But he does begin to dig into that in Hebrews 10, so part of what I want us to do this morning is just see how the cross actually changes us and how it affects us. We’ll see that as we dig into the passage. Let’s read it, Hebrews 10:1-18.
“For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.”’
When he said above, ‘You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings’ (these are offered according to the law), then he added, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will.’ He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,’
then he adds,
‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”
This is God’s word, and, as with so much that we read in Hebrews, this is complex, this is difficult for us to understand, as the author here is making this argument for the supremacy or the superiority of Jesus Christ over everything that went before, including the old covenant sacrifices. He’s saying here that because of the single, solitary, sufficient offering and sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, there’s no longer any need for the temple worship and for the sacrifices of the old covenant.
We’ve talked a lot about that in the past weeks. I want to focus this morning on something a little bit different, but I think it’s here in the passage, as he talks about how, through the sacrifice of Christ, we are perfected, we are sanctified. There’s something that happens to us subjectively because of what Jesus did on the cross.
I think we can go about it in this way. Let’s look at three things. This passage shows us:
- The Diagnosis of Our Condition
- The Strong Medicine Needed for Our Cure
- How It Heals Our Hearts
I want us to look at each one of those things.
- The Diagnosis of Our Condition
I think we can say that this passage implicitly shows us that there are three basic problems that we have that required the cross, that required a substitutionary atonement. Those problems are a guilty conscience, the cancer of sin that lies beneath the guilty conscience, and then the wrath of God. Let’s talk about these for a minute.
(1) First of all, a guilty conscience. You can see this in Hebrews 10:1-3, where the author says that “the law was a shadow of the good things to come” but that the sacrifice “could not remove the consciousness of sins.” Just underline that phrase “consciousness of sins.”
William Lane says that “this expression connotes the Hebrew sense of a burdened, smitten heart, which became most pronounced on the Day of Atonement, when it was necessary to confront the holiness of God.”
Here was the deal. The ancient Israelite, on the Day of Atonement, would especially feel this consciousness of sins, and in fact, the very sacrifice which in some ways was meant to appease the conscience actually ended up being a reminder to them every year that they were still sinners and that the problem of sin had not been dealt with. So, it doesn’t remove the consciousness of sins. It doesn't cleanse the conscience. It doesn’t really deal with the problem of a guilty conscience.
Now, most of us probably are not Jewish and are not trying to follow Old Testament laws, but we still deal with the problem of a guilty conscience.
This is reflected in our literature and in our popular culture. You might think of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, who, after murdering Duncan, cries out these words: “Out, damned spot!” as she’s trying to wash her hands of the stain of blood, and she just can’t get rid of the guilt on her conscience.
Or you might think of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, where the protagonist is haunted and tortured and tormented by this crime that he has committed.
If you don’t prefer literature and you’d rather have something that’s a little more popular, try this. Do you remember the TV show Lost? I imagine a lot of you watched the TV show Lost. There’s a great episode in Lost, maybe my favorite in the whole series, that’s called “Man of Science, Man of Faith,” and it goes into the backstory of this character named Jack. Jack is a medical doctor, and there’s a scene where he’s just running up and down these bleachers. He’s just punishing his body, running up and down these bleachers, a really, really intense workout.
Somebody asks, “What are you running from? I bet it’s a girl, right? A woman, right?” It actually turns out that that’s the case; he had promised a woman that he could fix her. She was paralyzed; he had promised that he could fix her, and he was actually unable to do it, and he’s tormented by this guilt of having been unable to keep his promise and to meet the need of this woman. So he’s just running. It’s like he’s running away from the guilt that he feels.
This is the way that we tend to deal with guilt. We either try to work harder to compensate for it—maybe live a better life or become a more generous person or do something extraordinary to prove to myself and to others that I’m a good person—we do something to try to compensate, or maybe we just deny it. We live in denial, and maybe we bury the guilt with other kinds of behaviors that are something like an escape.
That’s really what an addiction is, isn’t it? An addiction is an attempt to escape from something that is making us unhappy. This is why people turn to alcohol or to drugs or pornography or even to food and overeating or binge-watching TV, or whatever it is. It’s an attempt to deal with this lack of ease, this lack of rest in our hearts, which is reflective of a guilty conscience.
I think before we just move on you should pause and reflect and ask yourself, what are the ways that you’re trying to do that? Are there ways that you are trying to compensate for the lack of peace and rest in your own heart? Maybe it is an addictive behavior, or maybe it’s living in denial, or maybe it’s something else, but you’re doing something that’s trying to deal with that problem. How is that working for you? Are you really getting peace of conscience? We all need this, because we struggle with the problem of guilt.
(2) But the guilt is really a symptom of something deeper, right? The guilt is like pain in our bodies, pain in our nerves that’s telling us that something is wrong. It’s a symptom of the deeper problem of the cancer of sin.
This passage, of course, talks about sin and the forgiveness of sin, and while Hebrews 10 doesn’t specifically use the language of disease, that is a biblical metaphor for sin. The prophets talked about this a lot. Take the prophet Isaiah, who spoke of God’s people as being sick from the sole of the foot even to the head, full of bruises and sores and raw wounds; or Jeremiah, who laments the incurable wound of Israel; or even Jesus, who says the healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick, and Jesus came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
Sin is a cancer; it’s a disease; it’s something not just that we do, but it’s something that’s working in us, in our hearts. We might even put it like this: sin is not just something we do, it is something that does something to us, because sin is this internal disorder of the soul that distorts us and twists us and misshapes us, making us incapable of healthy relationships with God and others. That’s why sin has to be dealt with. That’s why sin is such a terrible problem, because of what it does to us internally and personally.
C.S. Lewis talked about this in Mere Christianity. He said, “Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you into something a little different from what it was before, slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature.” He said, “To be one kind of creature is heaven; to be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness.”
Those are serious words that confront us with the reality of our own sinful choices and how the things that we choose to do shape us either one way or the other.
You know, when reformed theology talks about total depravity, it’s really talking about this. Total depravity doesn’t mean that we are all as sinful as we could possibly be, it doesn’t mean that we are as bad or as wicked as we could be, but it does mean this: it means that the disease of sin has infected every part of our humanity and that there’s something wrong with our minds, with our hearts, with our wills. There’s something that’s dragging us down, that’s pulling us back, holding us back. We’re sick with sin, the cancer of sin, and it ultimately is a sickness that leads to death, and not just physical death but spiritual death—alienation from the life and the love of God.
(3) Because sin is such a serious problem, God has a particular response to the sin, and that response is called the wrath of God. This is what makes so many people uncomfortable. They hear about the wrath of God and they begin to think about wrath in a particular kind of way. We have to be careful here.
We need to understand that wrath, when we’re talking about the wrath of God, doesn’t mean that God is an emotional being who loses his temper with sinners. That’s not the picture at all. In fact, I agree with the classic theologians who say that God is “impassable.” He doesn’t have emotions the way humans have emotions. But his wrath is, rather, his settled opposition to sin, because of what sin is, because sin is this cancer, and because sin is the very thing that’s destroying what he loves. Sin destroys his image-bearers; it destroys his creatures and the creation that he loves. So God’s wrath is his holy response to that devastation.
This is similar to a parent who, maybe without ever losing their temper, without ever losing their cool, say a parent has an adult child that’s addicted to drugs. Maybe they never blow their top and lose their temper, but there is a deep opposition to the very thing that’s destroying the life of their child. A parent who is not angry and who did not hate the thing that was destroying the life of his child would not actually love his child. God’s wrath is like that.
There’s a great illustration of this in the European theologian Miroslov Volf, who at one time held to the fashionable idea that God was only a God of love and there was no wrath at all. But then war came to his country, and when he saw the atrocities of war—the pillaging and the raping and the murders and all of the devastation in his country—he realized that he wouldn’t even be able to worship a God who was not angry at this. But a God of justice and a God of love would have to be angry at this. Here’s the key quote, quoted by Chris Wright in his wonderful book The God I Don’t Understand. He says,
“God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That’s exactly why God is wrathful. I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love; God is wrathful because God is love.”
This is our problem. Hebrews is seeking to address this problem when it talks about the consciousness of sin and the need for forgiveness and the fact that the Old Testament sacrifices could not deal with that problem and remove sin and couldn’t perfect the conscience or cleanse the conscience or make a person whole again.
It reminds us that guilt is more than just a bad feeling, it is this profound sense of our inadequacy that is tied to the spiritual disease of sin, this cancer that is eating us away from the inside out, leading to our death, and thus bringing about God’s just and loving response of opposition to our sin.
That shows us just how bad the problem is, and that we need a really, really strong medicine to cure the problem.
- The Strong Medicine Needed for Our Cure
That’s point number two. We can say simply this: if sin is the disease, the cross is the cure. Jesus’ sacrifice is the only remedy that can heal the deep sickness of sin, and the cross fully addresses our condition. The cross brings about the forgiveness of our sins. It satisfies God’s justice, and it’s through the power of the cross and the Spirit applying it to our hearts that our conscience can be perfected or cleansed.
We talked about this last week. We saw the basic features of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. We said that it was voluntary, it was sacrificial, it was substitutionary, final, effective—a mini-theology of the cross from Hebrews 9. We don’t need to repeat all of that again today. Instead, what I want us to do is understand that the cross is actually such an important reality, and the sacrifice that Jesus accomplished on the cross is such an important and multi-faceted reality, that one set of metaphors for understanding it is not enough. We actually need to balance that out with other things that Scripture also teaches about the cross. That helps us then begin to address some of these objections.
For example, we could say that there are multiple theories of the atonement, and all of these theories are true to certain parts of Scripture. I think the Scriptures comprehensively teach it all. You can see this in a chart.
There is, for example, the judicial theory. This is the one that people react to. It’s the idea that sin is the breaking of God’s law, that God is a divine judge, and that what Jesus came to do was satisfy divine justice through his death.
Now, Scriptures teach that. You have that especially in the book of Romans and in other places as well. But that’s not the only way of understanding the cross.
We could also say that the cross is God’s victory over the powers of evil, where Jesus, in his death, in an ultimate act of nonviolence, actually overcomes the power of evil and delivers us from those powers. That’s the classic Christus victor theme or theory of the atonement.
We could say that the cross is an expression of God’s love; that God the Father loved us so much that he sent his Son to die for us, and that when Jesus died on the cross he was dying as an example, and he was dying as a demonstration of God’s love for us. That’s also true and is emphasized by the apostle John in his writings. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
Then in Hebrews we have this temple imagery that we’ve been wrestling with for the last several weeks. It’s the idea that God is a holy God. It’s not just his justice, it’s his holiness, it’s his otherness, it’s his transcendent purity. The problem is sin, which defiles us, and it’s the need for purity, for cleansing, for purification. Here, Christ is seen as the priest who offers the perfect sacrifice that actually removes sin from us so that we are again clean before God.
That’s really close to this medical model that we’re working with this morning, where sin is seen as a contaminating disease that has to be removed so that we are healthy and whole again. The Scriptures use that language as well. You remember how Isaiah says, “By his wounds you have been healed” (Isaiah 53). That’s quoted by Peter in 1 Peter 2.
What I want you to see here is that these multiple perspectives on the cross actually help us, because they show us that the cross has not only objective power that deals with the problem of injustice and the wrath of God and all of these things—that’s true, but the cross also does something subjectively to us. I think that’s what Hebrews 10 is pointing out.
We could say that the cross is the cure. It secures the forgiveness of our sins—again, it’s the promises of the new covenant, quoted in Hebrews 10:17-18: “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” And the way in which Jesus accomplished all this was through his incarnation, where he came to live as one of us and then to die on the cross in our place.
You see this in Hebrews 10:5-7, which quotes another passage from the Old Testament, Psalm 40. “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,” talking about the animal sacrifices, “but a body you have prepared for me. I have come to do your will, O God.” These words are put in the mouth of Jesus, and it’s showing us that there was something about the incarnation that was necessary for Jesus to come and to complete the will of God, to do what God really required. What he did was offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins on the cross, and that was necessary to deal with the problem of sin in our hearts.
Now, this raises this objection: is this just? Is substitutionary atonement just? Someone might even put it like this: “Isn’t it unjust for a parent to punish one child in order to let the other kids go free?” Wouldn’t that be an unjust thing to do? Any parent who did that would be considered unjust.
I think the response here is that the parent-child analogy breaks down if you take it too far. You have to remember that the Son of God is not just one of God’s children; the Son of God is the eternal Son of God, “who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1). Jesus is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God; of the same essence as the Father,” as we say in the Nicene Creed. In other words, when Jesus died on the cross, it was God incarnate who was taking our punishment on the cross. It was God who was stepping in place to take the brunt of his own justice against our sin.
Nobody has put it better, perhaps, than John Stott in his classic book The Cross of Christ. He says,
“The concept of substitution may be said to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation, for the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, and salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God; God sacrifices himself for man. He must either inflict punishment or assume it, and he chose the latter course as honoring the law while saving the guilty. He took his own judgment.”
So we see here that God incarnate, the Son of God taking our sin, is actually the greatest possible demonstration of his love.
Now, again, someone might say, “Of course John Stott said that. He’s an evangelical! This is just Reformed theology.”
Again, probably for most of you this isn’t your objection, but maybe it’s the objection of somebody you know, or maybe it’s the conversation you’re having with your post-evangelical or post-Christian friend, or maybe it’s the objection of the non-Christian that you know.
The answer here, especially for those red-letter Christians who just want to say, “We reject the teaching of Paul and we certainly reject the Protestant Reformation; let’s just go back to the message of Jesus,” the answer here is that Jesus himself taught that he was to be the substitute. You have it right there in the meal that he has with his disciples. It’s a Passover meal, right? It’s the night before his death, and as he hands them the cup, he says, “This is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” He said that he was the suffering servant who came to give his life as a ransom for many! “I’m the good shepherd, and the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus saw himself as a substitute!
For those who say this was the invention of the Reformation, just read this wonderful quotation from the early church, a second-century apologetic document called “The Letter to Diognetus.” Beautiful words. It says,
“When our iniquity had come to its full height and it was clear retribution in the form of punishment and death must be looked for—” get that, retribution “—the hour arrived in which God had determined to make known his lovingkindness and his power. How surpassing is the love and tenderness of God! In that hour, instead of hating us and rejecting us and remembering our wickedness against us, he showed how long-suffering he is. He bore with us and in pity took our sins upon himself and gave his Son as a ransom for us—the holy for the wicked, the sinless for sinners, the just for the unjust, the incorrupt for the corrupt, the immortal for the mortal. For was there, indeed, anything except his righteousness that could have availed to cover our sins? In whom could we, in our lawlessness and ungodliness, have been made holy but in the Son of God alone? O sweet exchange, O benefits unhoped for, that the wickedness of multitudes should thus be hidden in the one holy and the holiness of one should sanctify the countless wicked.”
The sweet exchange of the gospel—the early church believed it, the Protestant Reformers certainly taught it, but it’s right at the heart of Christianity, as we can see in books like Hebrews and the teaching of Jesus himself.
Brothers and sisters, this is the strong medicine that is needed to heal our hearts. This is what deals with the conscience. This is what cleanses us from sin. This is what leads to real transformation.
- How It Heals Our Hearts
That leads us to point number three: how this heals our hearts. How does it heal our hearts? I think we can point out two things in Hebrews 10 that the cross does.
(1) First of all, it gives us freedom from the shadow of law. We see in Hebrews 10:1. I’ve already read it. The law was just a shadow of the good things to come, and the whole thrust of this passage in Hebrews 10 is that Jesus, through his single and final offering of himself on the cross, has done away with the need for those sacrifices. He does away with the first so that he can establish the second. So there’s this transfer from old covenant to new covenant.
It’s part of this thrust of Hebrews, that Jesus is better than everything that came before, and his better priesthood and better sacrifice frees us from the shadows of old covenant law-keeping.
Now, most of us are not trying to keep the old covenant. But here’s the deal: even if you’re not, even if this all feels somewhat remote to you, a lot of us still live as if we are under some kind of law. There are lots of ways that that can be seen in our lives. You can see it with the problem of guilt, which we’ve talked about already. If you feel like you never measure up; if you constantly feel like you’re on this performance treadmill and that you have to do better and be better in order for God to bless you or in order to feel good about yourself; if you would say reluctantly, “Yeah, I know that God loves me,” but you don’t really feel like he likes you, you just feel like God tolerates you; you’re living with this burden of guilt because you’re still living as if you’re under the law! You haven’t really fully come to terms with the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ that frees you from guilt.
For others, the expression may be different. It may be that you feel let down by God, you feel disappointed with God, or maybe you even feel angry with God because deep down inside you believe that God owes you something, and if you just keep all the rules and live in a certain way, then God has to bless you. So when God doesn’t come through with the blessings you expected or prayed for or desired, there’s something in you that feels like, “Wait a minute! I’ve been doing the best I can! God, why are you treating me this way?” Don’t you see that’s still kind of a legalistic spirit? You’re still living as if God’s favor in your life depended on performance.
For others, the expression is some kind of pride, or maybe you just judge other people. You have a critical spirit. You’re constantly looking at other people as if they are inferior to you. You would never say that you’re superior to others, but in a subtle way you kind of look down on other Christians who maybe are not as spiritual mature, maybe they’re not as orthodox in their theology. But you haven’t really grasped how the cross humbles us and shows us our desperate need for God’s forgiveness and God’s grace, humbles us in such a way that we could never really feel superior to another person.
Listen, brothers and sisters: the cross is meant to deliver us from this kind of legalism, from this legal spirit, the shadow of the law. It invites us to live humbly and gratefully, receptively, as recipients of God’s free grace, because of his love for us, because of what Jesus has done. So, freedom from the shadow of the law, freedom from legalism. That’s one way our hearts need to be healed.
(2) Here’s the other: it is this internal renewal of the heart which is promised in the new covenant, quoted again from Jeremiah 31. You have it in Hebrews 8; here you have it in Hebrews 10, bookends for these three chapters. You have it in Hebrews 10:15-16.
“And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds.’”
It is the promise of heart transformation, that God by His Spirit would write his laws on our hearts, so that it’s not just something external to us, telling us what we should do, but it’s something internal to us, changing our desires and our motivations, so that living the good life as God intended it, the life of love, the life of obedience, the life of humility, that this is something we then want to do.
It’s the promise of Ezekiel that “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh.” There’s something about the cross of Jesus Christ, as this strong medicine needed for our cure, there’s something about seeing the cross, about understanding the cross, about embracing the cross, about trusting what Christ did on the cross—there’s something about that that actually does something to us. Again, it’s through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But once you grasp that, something changes, doesn’t it?
All the great stories—I give you these stories all the time; whether it’s Charles Wesley or Martin Luther or many others—it’s when they saw the cross, it’s when they understood what Jesus did on the cross, that their hearts were changed. They said, “That’s when my heart was strangely warmed. I walked through the gates of Paradise.” It’s because they understood something about the cross.
The poet William Cowper put it like this:
“To see the law by Christ fulfilled,
To hear his pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child
And duty into choice.”
I wonder this morning if that’s happened to you, if something has happened in your heart where you have seen the cross, you have embraced the gospel, and the power of the Holy Spirit has begun to renew your heart from the inside out.
Let me end in this way. We’ve talked about the desperate condition we have, we’ve talked about the cure that comes through the cross and the healing it brings to our hearts. Let me end with this story. I got this from Tim Keller. It’s a story about Billy Graham.
In 1955, so fairly early in Billy Graham’s ministry, he was invited to preach at Cambridge University in England. Lots of people were very critical of this. They thought, “Billy Graham is not going to resonate with the academics and the sophisticated, elite people in Cambridge.” There were even newspaper articles in London that were criticizing Graham for what they called his “fundamentalism.” It was really just his evangelical convictions. He preached on the blood of Christ.
Graham himself kind of took this heart, and he thought that he really needed to work hard to meet that particular audience. So he tried to prepare very intellectual, sophisticated sermons. And he went to Cambridge, and even though there were lots of people there, for the first three nights he was preaching these sophisticated, intellectual sermons, and no one was really moved. Nothing really seemed to happen.
On the fourth night, he just put his sophisticated sermons away and instead he just started with his Bible and he just started taking passage after passage, working through the Old Testament, talking about the blood and how the blood cleanses us, how the blood atones for our sins, the whole system of sacrifice in the Old Testament, and how all of that culminates in Jesus Christ. And everyone was shocked when he gave an invitation and four hundred students stayed behind to respond to the gospel.
It was a demonstration, against everyone’s expectations, of the power of the cross to meet the deepest needs of the human heart. (This, by the way, is a picture of Billy Graham with John Stott.)
Brothers and sisters, the cross of Christ changes everything. It heals our hearts from the cancer of sin. It removes our guilt. It frees us from the law. It restores us to a right relationship with God. This morning, the call is this. It’s really a twofold call.
First of all, it’s to believe this message. Especially if you’ve never embraced it for yourself, to believe this message, to quit trying to earn salvation, to quit trying to fix yourself and entrust yourself into the hands of the great physician, who has the only cure for the brokenness of sin. Trust in Christ. If you’ve never done that, I hope you’ll do that today. If you’d like to talk to somebody, if you want to pray with somebody, I would love to pray with you. There are elders, there are pastors, there’s staff around. There are people all around you who would love to pray with you. Don’t leave today without talking to someone about what it means to follow Jesus.
Then the second part of the call is for all of us who are believers. It’s to not lose the doctrine of the cross, but hold fast to this message. This is the message that we need. It’s the message that will heal our hearts; it’s the only message that will bring healing into this broken world. Let’s pray together.
Gracious, merciful God, we thank you that in your love and in your grace, before the world began, you had a plan to deal with the problem of sin, the problem of my sin, of our sins. You had a plan that would work effectually to heal our conscience, to restore us to a right relationship with you, and that plan culminated in the cross, where Jesus took our sins upon himself, where he offered himself to you as the spotless Lamb of God, the sacrifice that would take away the sins of the world; where he took the judgment that we deserved and through it all demonstrated your love for sinners.
Lord, we thank you for this message. We receive it this morning, and in our hearts we express our trust in Christ. We can’t save ourselves, only you can save us, and we trust not in what our hands can do but in what you have done for us through the cross.
Lord, as we come to the Lord’s table this morning, we ask you to renew our hearts again, to work by your Spirit to make these truths real to us, to change anything in our hearts that needs to be changed this morning. Give us repentance where repentance is needed. Especially deepen in our hearts our gratitude for you, for what you’ve done, and our love for you. May the table be for us a means of grace. We ask you, Lord, to draw near to us as we draw near to you, and work within us what is pleasing in your sight. We pray it in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
