Eternal Redemption in Christ
The sacrifice of Christ was totally different from the sacrifices of the other high priests, which were offered over and over, year after year. Jesus Christ, our High Priest, offered one sacrifice, Himself, that secured eternal redemption so that the sacrifice never needed to be repeated:
And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him (Heb. 9:27, 28).
Christ offered one sacrifice for sin for all time. He is coming back to earth again, but it will not be to offer another sacrifice. Rather, it will be to usher in His eternal rule on earth when all those who believe in Him will share in the glory of His reign in the kingdom He will establish.
We need to stand before God in perfection to be forgiven. However, the Law cannot provide that perfection:
For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near (Heb. 10:1).
As fallen, sinful human beings, we need to be made acceptable before God. That acceptance cannot come by repeated religious experiences but only by the sacrifice of God’s Son. The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament were a constant reminder that men and women are sinners, worthy of death: “But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year” (Heb. 10:3).
There is no hope for us unless someone dies in our place. The writer of Hebrews wrote that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin, and then drew attention to what the Old Testament recorded about God preparing a body for His Son (see Heb. 10:4-5).
Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who existed with the Father in heaven through all eternity. At a specific point in time, God prepared a human body for Him. He came to earth and was born of a virgin that He might be identified with humanity in every way and then die bearing the sins of humanity in His body on the cross. Jesus suffered, died and rose again that we may have eternal redemption in Him.
The completeness of Christ’s sacrifice is an exciting truth, “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). Believers have been perfected for eternity because they have been set apart by Jesus Christ. He provided perfection for eternity in the presence of God through His death on the cross of Calvary, and His resurrection is God’s testimony that redemption is secured for all who believe.