Perfect Impliments
by Cathy Vinson |
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At
the hopeful end of a drawnout case of poison ivy and its effects, I can earnestly embrace
a lesson from Scripture. If I am concluding correctly, I have continually reacted to this
allergic reaction in my system by releasing histamine; the effect is itching. The itching
is a symptom of an underlying problem. This persistent sign of body-wide itching has clued
me in that this foreign invader is still at large within me. Healing is not yet complete.
In a similar way, I see the sign of often-offered sacrifices of the Old Testament
covenant. "[they] can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after
year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If they could, would they not have
stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would
no longer have felt guilty for their sins" (Heb 10: 1b-2). Continual and often vs
once for all. The "often" nature of offering sacrifices for sin is a symptom
that all is not well. If a conscience is completely pure, such offerings end. It is that
lingering sense of sin that drives one to this type of sacrifices.
God through the writer to the Hebrews is thoroughly convincing us to look at the perfected
side of all this. We need to look at the excellence of the new covenant: "now has He
obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better
covenant, which was established upon better promises" (8:6). The implements of our
cleansing surgery are full-proof, impeccable, perfect..."by His own blood He entered
in once into the holy place..." (9:12). By such excellence we are cleansed to the
very innermost of our being and conscience. We are ready to go onward.
I am drawn to God even more to realize He knows what repels us, and that very thing He
focused upon: the issue of a guilty conscience. We are now securely liberated and draw
near to Him, so near. We are receiving now a covenant meant to be continuous (8:9b) and
carrying a "once for all"
stableness.
So as my detection of itching sends a message to me, more importantly a beggarly impulse
to repeatedly sacrifice signals that something true of such worth has not yet been grasped
fully within me. "For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, figures
of the true, but into Heaven itself, now [in the immediate present] to appear in the
presence [before the face] of God for us" (Heb 9:24)..."by which we draw
near..." (7:19). |
