Jesus the Purifier (Hebrews 1:3)

Obviously, the author is giving reasons for the greatness of Jesus. The writer has already mentioned that Jesus is God’s perfect spokesman for revealing his will, greater than all the prophets. He is also the heir of all things, the One for whom everything exists. In addition, he is the creator and upholder of the universe with regard to all aspects of its existence. Now he mentions another reason, the fourth, which is what he did at the cross.

 

The first detail that we can note from this fourth reason is that the purification for sins was achieved. We can see that was the case from the use of the word ‘after’. It is possible that we might read this phrase quickly and not observe the dramatic nature of the statement. We need to put ourselves into the outlook of the readers of this book. They were Jews, and purification for sins was a dominant aspect of life, something they thought about a great deal, probably every day. Throughout their history, millions of sacrifices had been offered for purification of their sins and numerous rituals had been engaged in. But the one feature of their outlook was that none of those sacrifices and rituals had provided permanent purification. But here the author says that eventually purification was provided by Jesus.

 

The achievement is also indicated in the next description of Jesus which says that he ‘sat down’ at the right hand of God. Providing purification by sacrifice was the work of the priests of Israel. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest went into the inner space of the temple (the holy of holies) with the blood of the sacrifice. But he could not sit on the only seat there, the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant, which symbolised the throne of God. A Jewish reader would immediately pick up the significance of Jesus sitting down at God’s right hand. He was able to sit there because he is divine, and he is able to sit there because he has provided all that was necessary for him to rule with mercy. 

 

What is sin, we may ask? Sin is disobedience, disease and defilement. We are rebels against the good law of God, and we require clemency; we are terminally ill as a result and we require a cure; we are loathsome in God’s sight and we require cleansing. Jesus provided what we needed, and he did it by himself.

 

The shortness of the statement about purification raises several questions for us to consider. So we can think about five questions: to whom did Jesus make purification? For whom did Jesus make purification? What qualifications were necessary for him to have? What does the reality of purification mean for us? And what does the reality of purification not mean for us?

 

Who did Jesus make purification to?

The answer to this question is that he made it to God the Father. But in what ways did he do so? He made it to the Father as the Lawgiver whose requirements had been disobeyed and as the Judge requiring the payment of the penalty for disobedience. In everyday life, lawmakers and judges are different people. Lawmakers make the laws and judges pass sentences according to those laws. But as far as God the Father is concerned, he made the laws, and he is also the judge. Because he is good, his laws are beneficial and his penalties will be righteous and exact. 

 

Jesus also made purification to the Father because the Father called him to the role. In Israel, God called a specific family to offer sacrifices for purification – Aaron and his descendants. Long before he called them, he had also called his Son to be the priest who would offer the perfect sacrifice for sin. This call has always been there within their Triune relationship, which is hard for us to understand. But even if we think about the fact that God knows everything, then it means that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit knew about the call of the Father to the Son.

 

So Jesus made purification to the Father because the Father is the lawgiver and the judge and because the Father had called him to this task.

 

Who did he make purification for?

The second question for us to consider is to ask who receives purification as a result of the successful work of Jesus. Basically, there are three options. One would be that the work of Jesus purifies everyone. But we are told numerous times in the Bible that that is not what happens. Sadly, there are millions who are not purified in this sense. So we can dismiss this option. 

 

A second option is that the intentions of the Father and the Son were imprecise, that it would depend on those accepting it who heard of its availability. But since everyone who hears the gospel does not accept the offer of pardon from God the Judge, it means that Jesus when he made purification for sins did not deal with the sins of particular people but made a general purification. But that would be impossible, even if we recall that many millions had perished before Jesus was born, and he would not have made purification for them.

 

So that leaves the third option, which is that Jesus made purification for sins for a specific number of persons. There are aspects of why they were selected that we cannot understand because God has not chosen to reveal his reasons apart from the fact that he selected them. His choice of them remains a secret, and it does not mean that they were less sinful than others. But the Bible does stress that Jesus took the place of those that the Father gave him. It also indicates that the reality of this divine choice is not a barrier to anyone from being converted if they want to be.  

 

What qualified him to make purification?

No doubt, a great deal can be said about the necessary qualifications. To begin with, I would mention four. First, since he is the eternal God, it means that anything he did was and is done by an eternal person. We might assume that, since Jesus is the divine Son, he would not need any additional abilities. Yet his experience reveals to us that he had to be more than that the eternal Son, which in itself describes an astonishing requirement. 

 

Second, Jesus also had to be a man because it was humans he was going to cleanse from their sins. The Son of God became a human when his human nature was conceived in the womb of Mary, and he did so without ceasing to be fully divine. As his follower John, a man who was very likely a cousin of Jesus, said in his Gospel: ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). He remains the eternal Son of God, but with the additional and extraordinary possession of a human nature united forever to his divine person. 

 

Thirdly, Jesus had to be a sinless man. Although he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, as Paul says in Romans 8:3, yet he was not sinful in any way. Throughout his life he remained holy in thought, word and deed. A picture of why this was necessary for his sacrifice of purification is the lamb that was offered in the Passover in that it had to be without any flaws or marks that would prevent it being suitable for an offering to God in the place of the worshipper. Jesus had to be sinless in order for him to offer himself as a sacrifice on behalf of sinful rebels against God.

 

But more was required in that he needed to have the strength to bear the penalty that God brought on him. So, fourthly, how was that strength provided? One answer would be that the Holy Spirit enabled him to do so. Later on in this book, the author of Hebrews says that Jesus ‘through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God’ (Heb. 9:10). The Holy Spirit was with him throughout his life, enabling him to do all that he did perfectly.

 

There has been disagreement about what this verse means. But George Smeaton puts it well: ‘The expression: “the eternal Spirit,” can only mean the Holy Spirit according to the usual acceptation of the term,—not the divine nature of Christ, as too many expositors have understood it. The meaning is, that the Son of God, moved and animated by the Holy Ghost, offered Himself without spot as an atoning sacrifice. The Spirit rendered Him an unspotted sacrifice. The Spirit discovered to Him the inflexible claims of God as well as inflamed Him with such love to man and zeal for God as prompted Him to go forward in spite of every hindrance, pain, and difficulty, to effect the world’s redemption, and thus fitted Him as man for His work. The Holy Spirit, in a word, filled His mind with the unflagging ardour, zeal, and love which led Him to complete the sacrifice.’ 

 

What do we see as we look at the cross? Many answers could be given to that question. One way of describing it is in this way: we see the Father bringing the penalty of divine justice on his Son, we see the Son committing himself to pay it, and we see the Holy Spirit empowering the human nature of the Son as he bore the penalty. We almost see a pre-run of it in Gethsemane: the Father reveals the depth of suffering about to occur, the Son although apprehensive resolves to proceed with his mission, and he is led by the Spirit to march on and face what was coming towards him. He did not flinch from completing the work of salvation, which he did on the cross.

 

What does it mean for us to be purified?

We can answer this question in different ways. First, we can say that we were cleansed prospectively in the sense that Jesus provided the basis for our cleansing long before we came into existence. That happened, as we have observed, at the cross when he paid the penalty for our sins. The sacrifice of Jesus works backwards in its benefits to those believers who lived before he came and forwards in its benefits to those believers who live after he came. So Abraham and David and all believers before the coming of Jesus were cleansed because of what Jesus would do. And all believers since the coming of Jesus have been cleansed by what he did on the cross.

 

Second, we can say that we are cleansed positionally when we come to God through Jesus and ask for pardon for our sins. At that moment, we are forgiven all our sins, past, present and future. We listen to the gospel and hear the promises of welcome into the family of God. How can we expect to be blessed while we are still sinners? Because Jesus has provided by his death what was needed for our purification, our cleansing and purging from the effects of sin.

 

Third, we can say that we have been cleansed practically in that our consciences realise that, although we are still sinners, we can please God because our acts of service for him, whether internal or external, are acceptable to him because they are cleansed by the blood of Christ. Believers continually live under the protection of the blood of Jesus. They are those blessed by the new covenant, which promises progression in holiness in this life, but not perfection until we die. The apostle John refers to this reality: ‘But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7).

 

Fourth, the cleansing provided by the blood of Jesus renders our praise and prayers acceptable in God’s sight. We draw near to the presence of the holy God, whether individually or collectively, aware that we will fall short, not because we want to fall short, but because we are still sinners which means that we will fall short. Through the effects of the blood of Jesus, God has made it possible for sinners like us to come into his presence. While it is likely that some of us have made greater progress in holiness and others, we don’t have access to God because we are holier. There is only one way of coming into the presence of God and that is through the merits of Jesus.

 

What does it not mean?

A possible but wrong deduction that a person could make from the reality of Jesus having fully dealt with the penalty of sin is that we no longer need to be serious about our sins. Earlier, we referred to the apostle John’s words about how the blood of Christ cleanses us from sin (1 John 1:7). He goes on to say: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:8-9). John wrote those words to warn some who had made the wrong deduction. The truth is that although we have been cleansed by the sacrifice of Jesus, we still must confess our sins to God.

 

Responding

So far in his description of Jesus, the author of Hebrews has highlighted the ongoing effects of his actions as the Son of God. As the heir of all things, he made all things; as the creator of the universe, he maintains it in existence; as the purifier he provided the remedy on the cross and its benefits will never end for those who are purged because of it. Of whom else can that be said? And prophets who were sent down the centuries prior to his coming announced what he would do with regard to deal with sin, and he did it all. 

 

We ourselves can borrow the question of Spurgeon who asked after preaching on this verse, ‘Is it not a wonderful thing that Christ purged our sins even before we had committed them?... Before I sinned, He purged my sins away – amazing and strange as it is, yet it is so!’