Perfection of Christ's Sacrifice

A child drawing a perfect square must have four equal lines meeting at 90-degree angles — illustrating that perfection means being complete in all its parts.

If you have four lines, all of them an inch, but you have something other than a 90-degree angle between them where they meet, you do not have a perfect square. So when the teacher says, make a perfect square, she means make a square that is what? That is complete in all. Four lines of equal length, and at every point where they touch, a 90-degree angle.

4:39 - 5:05 Read in full sermon

An appraiser examining a diamond under magnification and pronouncing it 'perfect' means it is without defects — used to picture a sacrifice without flaw.

Now, you might go to have a diamond assessed, and the appraiser looks at the diamond, and after examining it, says, it is a perfect diamond. What does he mean? He means it's without defects. It has no flaws.

5:14 - 5:29 Read in full sermon

Arriving home without turbulence, engine loss, or near misses illustrates perfection as reaching an intended end.

What do we mean? Well, it's reached its intended end. It brought us home safely. Without mishap and without too much that would have...

5:52 - 5:59 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The poor priest could never sit down and say, my work is done. Morning sacrifice, evening sacrifice, day in, day out, year in, year out. Imperfection is written over the whole economy.

There was no place to sit in the tabernacle or temple — the standing priest perpetually offering sacrifices eloquently testified to the imperfection of the old economy.

An imperfect worshipper, why? Imperfect sacrifices. What's the essence of the imperfection? All of those sacrifices never put away sin.

10:10 - 10:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I will find no rest for my conscience until I know that something more than a notion is held before me as the gospel.

Vivid description of standing near Calvary hearing the hammer's clank, the spurt of blood, the thunk of the cross, the moan of dislocated shoulders — grounding redemption in historic objectivity.

What about the guilt of those sins? How can I know that I shall face the God of the universe, my Maker, and know that my sins, which were objective historic reality, have in reality been blotted out? Thank God this is how I can know that there was a time in a piece of real estate in Palestine, when if you stood there, you could have heard the clank of metal upon metal as the hammer came down and drove the spikes into his hands. You could have seen the bloods as the point of the nail was driven in.

24:29 - 25:11 Read in full sermon

The point: When conscience smites you afresh from newly committed sin, go out of everything in yourself and rest only in the historic, objective reality of Christ's one perfect sacrifice.

A man who imagines solid walls are a mirage and runs headlong into them, battering himself senseless — a picture of the fool who treats the objective realities of sin and judgment as unreal.

And my friend, your sin is an objective reality. And Almighty God is an objective reality. And His law is an objective reality. And the Day of Judgment is an objective reality.

28:01 - 28:13 Read in full sermon

Water's intrinsic power to quench (unlike its lack of intrinsic flavor, which needs orange juice added) pictures how Christ's sacrifice has in itself all that is needed to save.

but for all his men shall he mourning to some who trifle with this perfect sacrifice. Because you trifle with the high priest who made it and you can't separate the two. That's why the writer to Hebrews says, Though put the Son of God, and you cannot say that you love and trust the sacrifice if you despise the high priest. The two stand or fall.

48:57 - 49:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Bring nothing to the sacrifice as a qualification — no penance, no purgatory, no works of your own — only a heart that looks out of itself to Christ alone.

A wealthy relative telling you to write checks for any amount against a limitless balance — picturing the infinite resources of Christ's sacrifice for every need of every believer.

You have something better than a relative with infinite resources. There is infinite virtue in the sacrifice of an infinite Savior. Oh, may God help us as his people. Someone says, oh, but wouldn't that lead to carelessness?

53:26 - 53:42 Read in full sermon