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The sermon teaches that Christ’s single offering accomplishes lasting perfection for those sanctified, in the sense of a complete and accepted standing before God. This perfection is not sinless character but justification and access secured through Christ’s blood. Believers remain sinners who must grow in holiness, yet they are accepted as useful instruments of God because they are perfected in Christ. The appropriate response is both restful assurance in Christ’s finished work and wholehearted consecration to God’s service.
Theological center: Christ’s atoning blood permanently justifies and accepts sanctified believers before God, while sanctification expresses their consecration and ongoing holiness.
Applications: Rest in Christ’s finished sacrifice · Yield yourself to God’s service · Examine whether you are sanctified · Distinguish standing from character
Primary texts: Hebrews 10:14 · Hebrews 9:22-23 · Hebrews 10:22
“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14 THINK of this morning’s text—“The LORD WILL perfect that which concerneth me.” Is it not very grateful to observe, that what is just in one part of Scripture presented to us as a matter of faith, is in another place stated as a matter of fact? Think of this evening’s text—“He HATH perfected us for ever.” This morning we went downwards, from faith to prayer. After having said in confidence, “The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me,” we meekly besought Him—“Forsake not the works of thine own hands”—sinking as it were to a lower note in the scale of music. Then we beheld perfection in the dim obscurity of the future, like the sun veiled behind a cloud. Our faith rested on it as a thing at present unseen, our hearts yearned after it as an inheritance yet in reserve for us. Now tonight, this perfection is brought nigh to us, a thing accomplished, as an ever-present fact, whose eternal reality shines upon us with unclouded luster. It is thus I read this verse—“By one offering our Lord Jesus Christ HATH perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” I have been turning this text over, and over, and over in my mind, and praying about it, and looking into it, and seeking illumination from the Holy Spirit, but I was a long time before I could be clear about its exact meaning. It is very easy to select a meaning, and then to say, that is what the text means, and very easy also to look at something which lies upon the surface, but I am not quite so sure that after several hours of meditation any brother would be able to ascertain what is the Spirit’s mind in this particular verse, “By one offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” When I was trying to find out what this meant, I thought I would read the chapters before it, and if I should happen to find any word that should seem to be the key to this verse, I would then under the Spirit’s guidance, seek to open this lock and mystery with the picklock which was there furnished to me. Well, I read the chapters, and I did find out a word which seemed to me to explain the whole of this verse. You must have patience with me, while I try to show you what I think it means, and then I think it will stand out in a very clear and glorious light. First, the condition of the child of God—what he is. He is a sanctified person, “Them that are sanctified.” Secondly, what Christ has done for him, “He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” I. First then, THE CHILDREN OF GOD ARE HERE INTENDED, UNDER THE…