LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE:
HEBREWS 9:23- 10:4, 11-14, 19-25
Key Verse
“For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true: but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us”.
Hebrews 9:24
INTRODUCTION
It is sad to admit that we human beings are not the same as the beings God created and what He intended to come from the marital union of Adam and Eve. Both our foreparents disobeyed God who warned them that if they did not follow His instructions life would get unpleasant and death would begin to affect everything and everyone in the world. But disobedience to God happened and sin came into the world and messed up everything. Everything went bad.
God however knew what would happen and His Plan was made long before man’s foolishness in order to correct the effects of sin. But it would take a long time and man would have to have to learn that God was absolutely holy and would never tolerate the existence of sin. Man had to be taken into something like a kindergarten school where man would be disciplined and taught the truths about life. God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle a place of worship which would have to be a detailed and complete copy of the sanctuary in heaven. There would have to be a priesthood led by a High Priest that would offer sacrifices to God every day, and especially a great sacrifice and confession of sins to God called the Day of Atonement. They were given the Ten Commandments and a detailed set of laws to guide their behaviour. They had to be taught how to live before God and how to treat each other.
Aaron was the first High Priest and once a year he would enter into the inner chamber of the tabernacle called the Holy of Holiest with blood from the sacrifice and sprinkle it on the Mercy Seat, the top lid of the Ark of the Covenant which had image of Cherubim angels. This place was appointed as the throne of God on earth, and Aaron had to confess the sins of the nations and obtain forgiveness of their sins to cover what they had done. Blood had to be shed every day. This had to be repeated every year. So just image the amount of animals that had to be killed in sacrifice as a substitute for guilty human beings, who should have been killed for their sins instead of the animals.
Finally Jesus came to be the lamb that was sacrificed to remove sins from those who belonged to God. He was God, but in love for helpless human beings who could not stop sinning, He would take on himself a human body. This perfect, sinless person from heaven would be our substitute and would shed His blood in a violent crucifixion so that we would be freed from the ultimate punishment for sin which is death.
Jesus did not have to die in the sacrifices like the animals had to die. They had to be sacrificed every day and on the Day of Atonement. But being the perfect sacrifice, Jesus only had to die once to meet the forgiveness of God for all men and for all times.
After Jesus died once for all on the Cross He was resurrected and went to heaven to sit beside His Father right in heaven. He entered the sanctuary in heaven and forgiveness was obtained for all who had accepted him as their Saviour, and for all those who before had accepted the plan of God to send the Messiah/Saviour. The High Priest like Aaron when they offered sacrifice in the Holy of Holiest Place could only go to meet God once every year. But Jesus did not have to repeat that activity. His sacrifice and His blood that was shed on the Cross was sufficient to make atonement, that is, bring forgiveness for sins once for all.
Besides this, Jesus sits in the place of power all the time and He is our High Priest able to represent us before His Father and have our sins forgiven. So we are secure. Our salvation is guaranteed and our position in the family of God with our certain inheritance is guaranteed because of the once for all sacrifice of Christ.
So we thank God for His great love for us, and His mercy and forgiveness.