Jesus Is The Ultimate Sacrifice For All Eternity

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What qualifies Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for all eternity? Our verse for today sheds some light on the answer. So what it is saying is that with His own blood He entered the Holy of Holies and secured our salvation.

So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. Hebrews 9:11-12

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The Old Testament Sacrifice

In the Old Testament, only the High Priest was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. He entered it once a year after he made some preparations. He had to make sacrifices for his sins and then for the sins of the nation.

It took the shedding of blood from many animals for the forgiveness of all of those sins. The drawback, however, those sacrifices couldn’t cleanse them, they were ceremonial and only reminded them of their sins.

I wonder how each of the priests handled their duties as they made all of the required sacrifices. Some may have had an attitude about how this was a dirty job. They needed to pour the blood into a basin. Then they had to sling it against the altar, it had to have stank.

Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice — Photo by Sam Carter on unsplash

The smell of what was going on could have affected some of their attitudes. First in a negative way because it wasn’t a pleasant smell. Between the blood on the sides of the altar and the stench of the burnt offerings, it smelled repulsive.

On the other hand, there could have been another attitude because of what the smell represented.

The stench represented how the sins of God’s people smelled to the Lord. So, if the priests did their jobs daily with a humbled attitude, I’m sure it would have meant much more to them.

A related post written on Leviticus 1:3, 9 on burnt offering can be read here.

Check out this related post, Once And For All Jesus Made Us Holy.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

God changed things up. Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for all eternity. The Holy of Holies is no longer on the earth. Because our verse for today says He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven.

Right after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and said this.

“Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” John 20:17

Even though he lived a sin-free life, He was now, officially sinless. He was no longer confined to a human body imputed with sin caused by Adam. It was at that point he defeated the death and the grave. It was at that moment his sacrifice was accepted by God for the atonement of our sin. Once and for all!

In other words, you and I can go to heaven because of what Jesus did after He died on the cross to offer a gift to you and it’s yours if you accept it. You can do that by believing that when Jesus died and rose again, He did for you.

Check out one of the Holy Week posts called, Jesus’ Resurrection, The Most Important Event Of Christianity.

Lord, we will never really understand all the accomplishments on that day. Fortunately, we don’t need to understand it, we just need to accept it. And we do!

You can read the entire chapter of Hebrews 9.

Read more on evangelism at this post called How To Reach Lost People For The Kingdom Of God.