God’s Deliberate Sacrifice

NIV Hebrews 5:1 Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. 3 This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.

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Reading this book backwards has resulted in an interesting observation: The truth of Hebrews is becoming more complex as I get closer to it’s beginning.  Sacrifices seem pretty straightforward until I read this by William Barclay “…the Jew was always quite clear, when thinking at his highest, that the sins for which sacrifice could atone were sins of ignorance. The deliberate sin did not find its atonement in sacrifice.”  

There were two sacrifices demanded by the Lord; one for satisfaction of the sins of ignorance and another for the guilt of deliberate sin.  None of the diligent and and rigid rules of sacrifice had the power to deal with the full capacity of a broken human being to choose to sin on purpose.  Jesus was “appointed by God to represent the people in matters related to God” in place of those sacrifices.  He became God’s deliberate Sacrifice that could remove the deliberate guilt of all sin when He “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”