A Permanent Solution

“The one-time offering of Christ’s “body” has made us holy. . . . . When he offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down on the right hand of God. . . . By one offering he has perfected forever the ones he sanctified. . . . Where there’s forgiveness for sins, there’s no more sacrificing for them” (Hebrews 10:10, 12, 14, 18).

Jesus lived out full righteousness in the human realm, resurrected after his death on a cross, and ascended to God’s right hand in the real temple: heaven itself. So he remains there (Hebrews 7:23) as the One we can stay committed to for continued righteousness and friendship with God. As 1 John 1:7 puts it, the blood he shed keeps us clean from sin by continued identity with him. We show our ongoing aspiration for goodness by ongoing commitment to his achieved goodness.

He did not need to die many times as if for each sin, for each kind of sin, for each sinner, or for each period of sinning—like the annual Day of Atonement in Mosaism. There is not a different solution for sin in different ages or circumstances as is patriarchal (1 Peter 4:6), Mosaic (Hebrews 9:15), or Christian dispensations. In short, the solution to human sin does not rest in numbered acts under legal process, but in the unchanging character of the One good man. That permanent person always lives for us to stay committed to for permanent goodness. Being “in him” has been the Father’s original and ongoing condition for considering us good like him, for having his blood continually applied, so to speak, to our purification. To put it more broadly, we no longer stand in the sin category because of sins, no longer alienated from God but reconciled to our creator through our redeemer.

In this remembrance of Christ’s crucifixion, we express our continued commitment to friendship with him and therefore to unity with each other. Our observance helps keep our conscious commitment to him alive and well. The Lord’s Supper represents “the permanent solution.”