And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, – Hebrews 1:3 NASB

Purification

This is a big deal. One thing we’ll see as we move through Hebrews is the phrase once for all. It shows up three times in Hebrews. We’ll learn of the futility of an annual system of animal sacrifice that made you clean once a year. Due to the weakness of the flesh, it left you unholy, unworthy, and unable to approach God three hundred sixty-four and a half days a year. In fact, only one man could approach the mercy seat and only once a year. Even he came with fear and trembling and a rope tied to his ankle just in case.   

But by Jesus’ sacrifice, once for all, we stand purified, made holy, forever.

But that comes later in the book so we’ll hold a little back for later.

In the meantime, God impressed upon me one further thing about our purification.

Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” – Acts 10:15

Here, Peter receives a lesson from the Father. God shows him things that Peter, a good Jew, would think of as impure and unclean. The Father used an object lesson to prepare Peter for his meeting with those who would become the first Jesus followers without a Jewish background, Cornelius and his cohort.

God says in effect if I call it clean who are you to call it impure.

And that is my word for you today. You’re thinking that you’re too filthy for God to want to have anything to do with you. You’ve done too much. You’ve messed up too many times. God could never overlook your impurity.

How dare you call anything that God has called clean, impure? It is an offense to a holy God to tell Him something He loves is not worthy of His attention.

If you have given your heart to Jesus then you are

Clean.
Forgiven.
Loved.
Holy.

That worth a shout!

Hallelujah.

Thanks for coming by.

More again soon,

Ben

Hey, if you’ve missed any installments of the Hebrews study, you can pick it up here.