Look at the context. Mark the strong words which immediately precede the last clause of my text. This Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.' The writer has just been arguing that all Jewish sacrifice, which he regarded as being of divine appointment, was inadequate, and derived its whole importance from being a prophetic shadow of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And he points, first, in proof of his thesis, to the entire disparity of the two things--the taking away of sin, and the blood of bulls and of goats. And then he adds a subsidiary consideration, saying in effect,' The very fact that day after day the sacrifices are continued, shows that they had no power to do the thing for which they were offered--viz., to quiet consciences.' For, if the consciences were quieted, then the sacrifice would cease to be offered. And so he draws a sharp contrast between the priests who stand daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifice,' which by their very repetition are demonstrated to be inadequate to effect their purpose, and Jesus. Instead of these priests standing, offering, and doing over and over again their impotent sacrifices, this Man' offered His once. That was enough, and for ever. And the token that the one sacrifice was adequate, really could take away sin, would never, through all the rolling ages of the world's history, lose its efficacy, lies here--He sits at the right hand of God.
Brethren, in that session, which the Lord Himself commanded us to believe, is the divine answer and endorsement of the triumphant cry upon the Cross, It is finished,' and it is God's last, loudest, and ever-reverberating proclamation to all the world, in all its generations, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'
Do you think of Christ's mission and Christ's work as this writer thought of it, finding the vital centre in its sacrificial efficacy, seeing it as being mainly a work caused by, in relation to, and victorious over, man's sin and my sin, and as attested as sufficient for all sin, for the sins of the world, in all generations, by the fact that, having offered it once, the High Priest, as this same writer says in another place, sat at the right hand of God? These two things, the high Scriptural notion of the essential characteristic and efficacy of Christ's work as being sacrificial, and the high Scriptural notion of His present session at the right hand of God; these two things are correlated and bound inseparably together. If you only think of Jesus Christ as being a great teacher, a blessed example, the very flower and crown of immaculate humanity, if you listen go His words, and rejoice over the beauty of His character, but do not see that the thing which He, and He alone, does, is to deal with the tremendous reality of human transgression, and to annihilate it, both in regard of its guilt and of its power, then the notion of His session at the right hand of God becomes surplusage and superstition. But if we see, as I pray God that we may each see for ourselves, that when He came, He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,' and that even that does not exhaust the significance of His Person, and the purpose of His mission, but that He came to give His life a ransom for many,' then, oh! then, when my conscience asks in agony,' Is there a way of getting rid of my transgressions?' and when my weak will asks, in tremulous indecision, Is there a way by which I can shake off the tyranny of this usurping evil power that has fixed its claws in my character and my habits?' then I turn and look to the Christ enthroned at the right hand of power, and I say, This Man has offered one sacrifice for sins for ever'; and there, in that calm session at God's right hand, is the attestation that His sacrifice is complete, is sufficient, and is perpetual.
