Hebrews 10:11

And every priest indeed standeth day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the which can never take away sins; but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.

These, and through Hebrews 10:18, are the final summation and shout of victory. Christ is all and in all. Nothing in the old institution is any better than a feeble shadow of the riches and glory in Christ; and a few choice comparisons are reserved for this concluding thrust of the author's overwhelming presentation. The old priests STOOD, as servants; Jesus SITS, enthroned. They repeated over and over the same rites; Jesus made one perfect offering for ever. They served; Christ reigns. They could not procure forgiveness; Christ removes our sins even from the memory of God! They offered enough blood during the long centuries of Judaism to have washed away a city; but the blood of Christ is more efficacious than an ocean of such blood.

Milligan's quotation from Menkin contrasts the respective attitudes of sitting and standing.

The priest of the Old Testament stands timid and uneasy in the Holy Place, anxiously performing his awful service there, and hastening to depart when the service is done, as from a place where he has no free access, and can never feel at home; whereas Christ sits down in everlasting rest and blessedness at the right hand of the Majesty in the Holy of Holies, his work accomplished, and he himself awaiting his reward.[15]

Christ has not ceased from all work; because he intercedes, reigns, sustains all things by the word of his power, and administers the whole creation from the throne of God. Despite this, there is a sense in which Christ's work was done when he ascended on high; it was the work of providing the atonement for man's redemption. Again from Milligan, who said,

Not that he has ceased to work for the redemption of mankind, for he must reign, and that too, with infinite power and energy, until the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:25,26; Revelation 19:11-21). But his sacrificial work was done."[16]

THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

The fantastic burden of importance which this epistle places upon the blood of Christ as the means, and the only means, of human redemption calls for a more detailed exploration of this subject at this juncture in Hebrews. In New Mexico and Colorado, one of the most spectacular and beautiful mountain ranges on earth is called the "Sangre de Cristo Range," that is, "The Blood of Christ Range"! It is a tribute to the faith and perception of the Conquistadors that they named the most beautiful mountains they had ever seen after that which they valued most, "the blood of Christ." For one who truly understands and appreciates the blood by which we are sanctified, the commemorative naming of every good and beautiful thing on earth could not do sufficient honor to the blood of Christ. Spiritual dwarfs in our own secular age may not properly appreciate the blood of the covenant; but make no mistake about this, "without the shedding of blood there is no remission," in our own dispensation, or in that.

Lenski said:

This is the climax. The whole will of God and the whole sacrifice of (Christ's) death is the removal of our sins. Freed of these, heaven is ours. Without Christ's expiation there are no remission and deliverance from sin. This is the heart of all Scripture. Those who removed this heart because they regard it as "the old blood theology" have left only a hopeless corpse.[17]

It is a mystery, of course, how the blood of Christ saves us; and there are doubtless many who do not understand it. Perhaps, in a sense, no one can fully understand all that is in it. Once, on a train south from St. Louis, this writer fell into conversation with a professor in a great university. He said, "You Christians have your arithmetic all wrong. How can the blood of one man atone for the sins of a billion people? and as for God's putting all the blame on one good little Johnny, that would not be fair! If one of our teachers gave all the demerits to one student, the PTA would be up in arms." Such sophistry, of course, is grounded in ignorance, regardless of the attainments of the person who may hold such a view. To be sure, the blood of one man, if only a man, would be insufficient to save any man, not even the man who might offer it. It was who Christ WAS AND IS that makes all the difference. As a member of the Godhead, Christ's death was of sufficient consequence to save all on our poor earth or a million other worlds all together. The identity of Christ also resolves the other quibble. It was not so much a question of God's laying all the sins upon Christ (although this he did); but it was a matter of God's laying the sum total of all human wickedness upon his own great heart in the person of Christ. Remember that "God was in Christ" reconciling the world unto himself (1 Corinthians 5:19). "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

People may object; they may rip all reference to the blood from their hymn-books and banish the mention of it from sophisticated pulpits; but if such is done, the sentence of God's rejection falls upon them that do it, even as Christ said of others who rejected him, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate" (Matthew 23:38).

[15] R. Milligan, op. cit., p. 273.

[16] Ibid.

[17] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 333.