Devotion for March 30, 2021 from Vicar Anand Darla of Good Shepherd South Asian Ministries:
He, offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God
Hebrews 10:12
Vicar Anand Darla GSSAM Fremont CA
Hebrews makes much of him finishing his work sitting down. Hebrews 10:12, “He, offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of god.” He sat down. “Fix -” says 12:2 “ – your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So, we see many times through the book of Hebrews, the emphasis is made on the completion of His work. It was done. Nobody needed to do it again. And he was a fully acceptable priest who entered into the heavens. He passed through the heavens. That’s what verse 14 is saying. He was the perfect priest who passed though the heavens and took His own blood, as it were, into the very holy of holies in heaven itself and brought satisfaction to God and stayed there to ever live and intercede for his own.
How He is able to do that?
He was a perfect priest because He was the perfect person. The verse 15. “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet As God, he is free from sin. Both of those realities are tied into the very name: Jesus, his human name; Son of God, his divine identity. As man, He can sympathize with our weakness. He’s able to understand us. In fact, he has sympathy for us. He came into this world as a man and he suffered all the things that humans suffer except sin. He had to be a man to die in our place, to have full sympathy. And he had to be God in the midst of all of that suffering to never sin. So, the sinless, spotless, without blemish sacrifice is also the perfect priest 100% human at the same time 100% divine.
What we need to do?
He is the perfect priest who is the perfect person made the perfect provision in verse 16. “Draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Draw near with parrsia.” That means that word, “confidence, absence of fear. That we don’t have to worry about what we say. Say anything. It’s also a word that means “openness of speech, freedom of speech, freedom to speak.” We can now go into the holy of holies. We can go into the presence of God anytime we want and say whatever is on our hearts without any fear. We who are in Christ. All we will ever find at the throne of God is grace. All we will ever find is mercy because Jesus paid in full for our sins, our iniquities, and our transgressions. Hold onto your confession. Come all the way to Christ, the perfect priest because he’s the perfect person who made the perfect provision. Amen!