As a believer in what Jesus has done for us on the cross, it places me and you in a position that we couldn’t in any way do for ourselves. Once we have accepted what God has done for us we are given a new identity that cannot change because it’s not based upon what we do or the standards we are trying to keep, but it’s based upon the fact what Jesus has done on our behalf.
Hebrews 8 verse 6, says: ‘ But now he hath obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covanant, which was established upon better promises’.
A more excellent ministry, mediator of a better covanant, established upon better promises’. I was thinking the other day about the two kinds of sacrifices or offerings the scriptures talk about and the difference between the old and new ones.
In the old testament there were animal sacrifices that were offered time and time again and the reason they were offered again and again is because they could never take away sins and get rid of a guilty conscience or make a person clean in God’s sight. So why would God bring in another sacrifice, the offering of his son Jesus, and it does exactly the same as the old offerings in the old testament? It doesn’t make sense.
There is a massive difference between the old offerings that God required under the law of Moses and the offering that Jesus made for us, as we read in Hebrews, ‘he is the mediator of a better covenant’.
The purpose of the old sacrifices was that it reminded us of what we have done wrong, that was the purpose of the law. Paul says in Romans 3 verse 19: ‘Now we know that what things the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God’.
That is the purpose of the law, to point where every one of us has gone wrong. This is why God then brought in another offering, not like the ones before, and so the offering that Jesus made on our behalf is not to remind us of what you and i have done wrong, it is there to remind us of what God has put right.
This is called ‘the gift of righteousness’ in Romans 5 verse 17.
So the old offering makes us aware of what we’ve done wrong, but this new covenant and the offering that was made on our behalf, now makes us right in God’s sight!
Hebrews again remind us in chapter 10 verse 14, ‘For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified’. If you’re saying, see you have to be sanctified, then the same offering covers this as well. Look at verse 10 of the same chapter, ‘By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of Jesus Christ once for all’.
What more do we need? We have a perfect offering that now and always remind us of our position, our status and our identity because it was all provided by the love of God expressed through what Jesus has done on our behalf.
No wonder we sing the song, what a wonderful, wonderful saviour, who would die on the cross for me!
Remember this truth as you go through today, and when the thoughts come to remind you of your past and where you slipped up or what you done wrong, be quick to remind yourself what God has done to make you perfect in His sight forever
