He Sat Down - Hebrews 10:11-18 - August 30, 2026 - Brad Smith
/Brad Smith opens by painting a vivid picture of the Old Testament priest — a grueling, never-ending cycle of slaughter, washing, and offering from sunup to sundown, with no chair to sit in and no finish line to cross. Drawing from Hebrews 10:11-17, Brad contrasts that relentless labor with the stunning moment in verse 12 when Christ, after offering a single sacrifice for sins, sat down. For the first time in human history, a High Priest was finished. The work was complete.
Brad unpacks two key theological concepts to explain why Christ's sacrifice was so different. Expiation — removing guilt and placing it elsewhere, illustrated powerfully by the scapegoat of Yom Kippur in Leviticus 16 — was something the Old Testament sacrifices could only picture temporarily. But what was truly needed was propitiation, a permanent change in standing before God. Christ accomplished both in what theologians call "the great exchange" (2 Corinthians 5:21): He was treated as sinful so that we could be treated as righteous. That required a truly God, truly man Savior — nothing less would be sufficient.
From there, Brad turns to the practical implications, tracing the arc from justification to glorification, with sanctification as the messy, Spirit-powered middle ground we actually live in. Using the imagery of D-Day and V-Day, he urges believers to understand that the decisive battle has already been won, but the war is not yet over. We are being conformed to the image of Christ — and that process looks like death, cross-carrying, and hard work. Yet it is not legalism; it is simply becoming who we already are in Christ. As Brad puts it, quoting John Piper, we are called to "act the miracle" — trusting that God works in us both to will and to work, even as we fight, stumble, and press on.
Transcript
Have you ever heard of the Sunday Scaries? It’s more of a Millennial/Gen Z term, but it’s the feeling you get on Sunday nights, especially if you work a monotonous, 9-5 job you don’t love. You’ve had a great weekend, you’ve relaxed, you’re having fun, then it hits you around 7 pm Sunday night:
Oh no…I’ve got to get up early tomorrow and go back to work. And I’ve got to get in the car, sit in traffic, sit in my cubicle, stare at a screen and do conference calls for 8-10 hours each day.
No, some of you might have exciting, thrilling work to look forward to, but I’ll be honest, the Sunday Scaries tend to hit me pretty hard. Expense reports are due, reporting needs to be updated, files have to be written, Powerpoints need updated, 1:1s with each of my employees, pipeline reviews for each of the teams that my employees support, hour after hour of Zoom & Teams calls where people try talk while they’re still on mute…the single phrase I say the most each week is “you forgot to come off mute”. Some of you know exactly what I’m saying.
Others of you have no clue what I’m talking about, and God bless you if you don’t. But let me tell you, that sense of dread, of doing the same thing week after week, the Sunday Scaries hit HARD.
But that’s nothing compared to one of the most grueling, relentless jobs of all-time: OT Priest. You’re up every morning before the sun is up. Exodus 29 says the day begins with offering a lamb as a sacrifice on behalf of the people, and it ends with the same sacrifice. But if a Priest has sin in their life, they had to offer a sacrifice of a bull for themselves, before they do anything.
I won’t get too graphic, but the OT describes in very specific detail how each sacrifice was to be prepared & offered. The animal killed, the blood drained & collected, certain parts of the animal set on fire & burned, the remaining parts, which were very heavy, carried outside the camp, upwards of miles away, to be disposed of. Attending to the things of the Tabernacle or Temple. Many, very precise cleansing & preparation rituals.
And guess what? Now you’re ready for all the people to come bring their sacrifices. Burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, & trespass offerings. So many different types, scores & scores of sacrifices daily.
Wrangling animals, slaughtering them, preparing them, offering them, disposing of the remains…just bloody, exhausting, relentless, backbreaking work. And the sacrifices never stop coming.
From sunup to sundown, you’re never sitting down to rest. In fact, there wasn’t a single seat for resting anywhere in the Tabernacle/Temple. The Priests never stopped or sat down in the presence of God.
That’s what our text says in vs. 11: Every priest stands DAILY at his service, offering repeatedly the SAME sacrifices…but guess what? It can never fully take away sins. The sin keeps coming, so the sacrifices keep coming.
I wonder if the Priests got the Sabbath Scaries. After the Sabbath, their one day of rest, I wonder if they thought, Now it starts all over again.
And as the Preacher of Hebrews continues to make his case that all of the OT were pictures, shadows, pointing us to the Truer, the Better, the ULTIMATE Priest, Temple, Sacrifice…the Preacher gives us what might be the ultimate illustration of that.
The OT priests stood daily, REPEATEDLY offering the same sacrifices, yet never making a dent, never fully taking away sins. But vs. 12 says, when CHRIST offered – for ALL TIME – a SINGLE sacrifice…HE. SAT. DOWN. It was finished.
What we could never hope to achieve, HE DID. What made His sacrifice so different? Let’s dig in.
3) What was required? A perfect sacrifice
Some of you might have looked at the bulletin & thought, wait a minute, the points are backward. It’s supposed to be 1-2-3. But the numbering is intentional and will help us drive each point home.
The Priests were special. Set apart, holy, to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. But what does vs. 11 tell us about them? They never actually took away sins. So why even offer them?
What were they doing as they went through all the required rituals, sacrificing those animals? What was the point? The lesson? The theological term for it is called Expiation. Anytime “ex” is used to begin a word, it signifies something going “out”. Exit – go out. Extend – stretch out. Exclude – shut out.
Expiation is removing, pulling out the guilt for sin, and placing it somewhere, on something else.
We use the word “atonement” normally. Expiation & atonement mean the same thing. And it’s perfectly illustrated in Leviticus 16 where it talks about what happened on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
The High Priest would first sacrifice a bull to make atonement, expiation, for himself. Then he would sprinkle the blood on the Mercy Seat, the altar in the Holy of Holies. Then God said for the Priest to take 2 goats & cast a lot to see which goat would be sacrificed as a burnt sin offering for the people.
After the High Priest offered that goat, the other goat was presented alive to make atonement, expiation, for the people. The High Priest would lay both of his hands on the head of that other goat.
Leviticus 16:21 says he confessed the sins of all the people, literally placing them on the head of the goat, and then sent it away into the wilderness, so that the goat can carry on itself all of Israel’s iniquities to a solitary place as an outcast. Cut off.
Expiation: placing my guilt & shame on something else so that I can live while it is cut off.
When William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, he struggled to come up with an English term for this goat that was sent off, bearing the sins of the people, in Leviticus 16. The Hebrew is confusing & we don’t quite know what all of it means, and there was no easy English word for it.
So Tyndale invented the word escapegoat, which eventually became our word “scapegoat”. Someone who takes the blame so I can go free. And this act of atonement, expiation, was pictured, day after day through the sacrifices, and very specifically on Yom Kippur, but it was never enough. Sin keeps coming.
Year after year, sacrifice after sacrifice, what was ultimately needed to put an end to the cycle & deliver us from the death & judgment our sin deserves? Not just EXpiation, a temporary reprieve.
We needed PROpitiation. “Ex” means out. “Pro” means FOR/INTO. Expiation is never enough, because taking the sin out & placing it somewhere else is never enough when sin just keeps coming.
To break the cycle, a permanent change in my status had to happen. I needed to be made forever holy, righteous, in the eyes of God. For Him to look & not see sin & shame, but holy perfection.
Propitiation was the missing piece to stop the sacrifices. GIVEN righteousness. Forever clean.
When Christ died, He accomplished expiation AND propitiation. Theologians call it the great exchange. 2 Cor. 5:21: The one who knew no sin BECAME sin for us – expiation – so that IN HIM we might BECOME the righteousness of God – propitiation.
Jesus was treated AS IF He was sinful & cursed, even though He wasn’t, so that I can be treated as if I’m righteous, even though I know I’m not.
Earthly priests couldn’t accomplish that. Their sacrifices were one-sided. They took sin & shame & put it somewhere else to die on our behalf, but it’s a temporary reprieve. It’s a stay of execution, never giving us a full pardon. The sin keeps coming. We need a PERFECT sacrifice. One that permanently changes our status.
Where on EARTH were we ever going to find that? Not in earthly priests. They weren’t perfect, so they could never give us a perfect standing. They modeled the price for removing sin, but they could never transfer righteousness, what is good, into us. Jesus told us that in Luke 18:19: No one is good – except God alone. God had to step in.
Heaven had to come to earth & provide us with a miracle, something supernatural. That’s exactly what God promised was coming in the Old Testament. That’s why the Preacher of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31 here in vs. 16-17. God promised a NEW Covenant, one that was supernaturally written on the tablets of our hearts, not just on tablets of stone, like Moses had.
A complete rewiring, a new creation. A permanent status change, so that our sins & lawless deeds would never be remembered & when God looks at us, He no longer sees sin, He sees righteousness. But how? Who could ever accomplish that?
GOD. Remember that number 3 in front of this point? Our Triune, thrice-holy God, had to step in, otherwise the cycle would never stop. Goodness, perfection was required. And only God is good, so only God could save us. So…
2) What was offered? A perfect Person
Thank God for those first 3 words in vs 12: BUT when Christ… Remember the number 3 in front of the last point? Our Triune, thrice holy, perfect God had to step in. There’s no one good but Him. But notice the 2 in front of this point as we count down:
Do you remember our series on the Creeds? I preached about the Definition of Chalcedon, which outlined the mystery of this duality: our Triune God is one - one Nature. But He eternally exists in 3 Persons – Father, Son & Holy Spirit.
But when the eternal Son, Jesus Christ, who was in beginning with God and was God, John 1 says. As He takes on flesh & walks among us, who is He?
Our Triune God is 1 Nature in 3 Persons. Jesus, God in flesh, is 1 Person with 2 Natures. Remember what Chalcedon said? Truly God, truly man. And I don’t have time to go back & re-preach that whole message, but we HAD to have this kind of Savior, truly God, truly man, for us to finally have a perfect once-for-all sacrifice for our sin.
That’s why Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15: For as by a man came death, by a man has come ALSO the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam (a sinful man) all die, so also in Christ (the perfect man) shall all be made alive.
In Romans 3, Paul says, Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law - the Law was given to show us we could never be good enough, never provide the required sacrifice, no matter how many the Priests offered daily.
So the righteousness of God was provided through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. We are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that can only be found in Christ Jesus.
We needed THIS kind of Savior - Whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood. REAL, truly human blood, shed for us, YET without sin – that’s the difference. Our flesh can never be perfectly righteous, so our righteous God took on flesh.
By man came death, so by man ALSO had to come resurrection. Because Jesus was treated AS IF He were sinful - even though He wasn’t - now I can be treated AS IF I’m righteous, even though I’m not.
Why did it have to be this way? Paul tells us: This showed God’s righteousness. His justice. This is how He squared the circle, so to speak. He didn’t hand-wave away the penalty of our sin. To do that would make God UN-righteous. Instead, because God IS righteous AND gracious & merciful & loving, Christ comes down and becomes both JUST & JUSTIFIER of the one who has faith in Jesus.
He’s JUST, so God doesn’t say, Eh, no biggie. We’ll let bygones be bygones. People who say, A loving God wouldn’t judge me! They’re dishonest with themselves. First, when THEY are harmed, they’re ALL about justice. Someone harms me, I want them to get what’s coming to them! We love justice when it’s someone else, just not me.
But 2nd, they reject what God HAS done & say, No, I want God to do it MY way. Forgive me at no cost. That’s not how it works. There’s a HUGE cost & Christ’s death reminds us we can’t pay it. But God’s not only JUST, He’s also the JUSTIFIER.
He took our penalty; bore the wrath & death we deserve – expiation. Then He makes the great exchange & gives us His righteousness, ending the never-ending cycle of sacrifices – propitiation.
Then Christ rose & ascended to the right hand of the Father. And for the first time in all human history, a High Priest – the true, better, GREAT High Priest – sits down. The work. Is. Finished.
So now what? Do we just kick back & sit around until Jesus comes back? That’s not what the Bible tells us to do. Everything we just talked about, that’s Justification. When I put my faith & trust in Christ’s perfect, single sacrifice, it’s just-as-if-I’d never sinned.
Then at the end of all things, when Christ returns to rule & reign & we live eternally in a new Heaven & new Earth – that’s called Glorification. No more death. Perfect, eternal life. A return to the Garden, a restoration of all that was lost when we sinned. Boy, we like those two parts: Justification & Glorification. But where do we live NOW?
In between Justification & Glorification is this messy part called Sanctification. Let’s talk about it.
1) What was the result? A perfect Union
Now, if you’re using another translation than the ESV, including my personal favorite translation, the Christian Standard Bible, they often translate vs. 14 and say, By a single offering we HAVE BEEN sanctified, or by a single offering we ARE sanctified
But the ESV says, By a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are BEING sanctified. So which translation is right? HAVE we been sanctified or ARE we being sanctified? BOTH.
There’s such an abrupt change in the verb tense here that I think the ESV puts it best: we ARE perfected - justified through the single offering Christ made – but we are also BEING perfected. Being sanctified, made holy, here and NOW.
It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. We don’t experience justification so that we can sit around waiting for glorification. We’re to get busy in that messy, in between sanctification process. Eph. 2:8-10 says by grace we’re saved through faith - Justification.
But then it continues & says we’re His workmanship created in Christ Jesus FOR good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. That’s Sanctification. BEING holy.
In 2 Cor. 5:17-18, Paul says if we’re IN CHRIST, we’re a new creation. Catch that. IN Christ. I’m Unified with Him. I have what He has. His identity, His inheritance, His perfect standing before the Father, it’s now mine. I’m POSITIONALLY holy. IN Christ. The old has passed/new has come.
But then it tells us we’re to be PRACTICALLY holy. God, through Christ, reconciled us to Himself and gave US the ministry of reconciliation. We have a calling. We’re to DO something in the here & now.
That’s what Paul says in Philippians 2:12-13: Work OUT your own salvation – Let the POSITIONAL holiness that you now have in Christ work its way out PRACTICALLY… God works IN you, both to will AND to WORK for His good pleasure
If you’re in Christ, you should have the WILL - the desire – to be holy. And God gives us the ABILITY to work according to His pleasure. I love the way Kevin DeYoung puts it: TRUSTING is not exclusive from TRYING. That’s how Paul tells us in I Cor. 15: I worked harder than ANY of them…though it was not I…but the grace of God that is with me.
Justification, being made right – just as if I’d never sinned…not you. Supernatural act of God. Glorification, recreated, eternally set free from sin, no more death & sorrow…not you. Supernatural act of God. And sanctification, being changed in the here and NOW, being transformed into the SAME image of Christ, from one degree of glory to the next, BEING what we ARE now in Christ, conformed to His image…Paul says in 2 Cor. 3 this comes from the Lord. It’s a miracle too.
And yet we should WORK, Paul says. I’m created for good works. I ACT the miracle, as John Piper puts it. God works in me, giving me the will, the desire, then He empowers me to do the WORK.
To fight against my sin, to learn God’s Word, to pray & trust, to share the Gospel, to grow in My faith, to cling to Christ when everything falls apart, to be patient, kind, loving…different from those around me, even in the hardest of circumstances.
That’s what Paul’s talking about in 2 Cor. 4: Though our outer self wastes away, our inner self is BEING renewed day by day. And this light, momentary affliction - in light of eternity – the testing, the sorrow, the difficulty I experience here – it isn’t God BETRAYING & abandoning me…Paul says it’s PREPARING me for an eternal weight of glory.
God’s doing it for my GOOD – that’s the context of Romans 8: that the sufferings of this present time DO NOT compare with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. As we, along with all creation, GROAN, eagerly awaiting the redemption of our bodies – glorification. In this messy in-between sanctification process, when we know not what to pray for as we ought, even THEN, WE KNOW that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.
For those He foreknew – called, chose, redeemed – He ALSO predestined to be conformed NOW to the image of His Son. And those He predestined, He called, He Justified and WILL glorify.
And if God is for us, who can be against us? We put Romans 8:28 on coffee cups & t-shirts, but read it in it’s CONTEXT. Romans 8 is so much more than a feel-good pick-me-up. It’s WORK.
If we’re united with Christ, destined to be conformed into His image, what does that MEAN? It means DEATH. What do we think Jesus meant when He said if any man is going to be My disciple, He’s got to pick up a cross and follow Me?
What if, during the darkest moments of your life, when you feel the most alone & abandoned, when you can barely put one foot in front of the other, when it feels like DEATH…what if it means God has NOT abandoned you? What if it means He’s doing a great work IN you? What if it mean He’s conforming you to His image for your good?
Sanctification is a MIRACLE, same as Justification & Glorification. But it requires DEATH, same as Justification & Glorification. I pick up a cross. I take the shame. I absorb the debt & forgive when others do me wrong. I say, Not my will, but Thine be done. What did we think it meant to follow Jesus? It’s DEATH. But it’s also resurrection.
I love the way theologian Oscar Cullmann put it: that we live in between D Day & V Day. Christ’s death & resurrection was D Day: the decisive battle that guarantees us victory. He stormed spiritual beaches of Normandy, and He rooted the enemy out of the bunkers & turned the tide. Justification.
Victory is assured. But V Day isn’t here yet. The party in Times Square, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, hasn’t kicked off yet. We’re not yet glorified. We’re in the messy in-between. We’re in the Battle of the Bulge, if you will. Cold, slogging, difficult, crushing trench warfare. You look around & think you’re all alone. You feel like the rations are gone. It feels like you’re out of ammo & all hope is lost.
You’re dug in, trying to hold on, freezing & shivering as bullets whiz overhead. But even though the war isn’t over, victory is assured. V Day is coming. But in there here & now, you’re going to have to dig in and FIGHT when it’s not easy. We’ve got to remember we are BEING sanctified. And we aren’t alone in this fight.
An external, eternal power is fueling you. So with everything that is in you, calling out to the Spirit of God that’s now lives in you, keep going! Make WAR on your sin & crucify your flesh.
Put away the porn. Pick up your Bible. Love & serve your spouse when it feels like death. Disciple your children. Submit to others. Quit hitting snooze & go to church. Sacrifice your time, talent & treasure for the Kingdom of God. Serve when you’d rather be served. Share the Gospel when it feels like you’d rather die. Absorb the debt & forgive rather than extracting payment & drowning in bitterness. Do not be weary in well doing.
Be anxious for NOTHING – that’s the one I struggle with - but in everything, through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Don’t neglect to meet together with the church, as the habit of some is, but ENCOURAGE one another. We’re not alone!
You say, That all sounds like legalism to me! It’s legalism if you do any of that IN ORDER to earn salvation. But if you’re IN Christ - unified with Him - if you’ve been perfected for all time through Christ’s single offering, you’ll engage in sanctification BECAUSE of salvation. It’s who you ARE in Jesus.
So ACT the miracle. Christ works, and so do I. Christ picked up a cross, and so will I. Christ surrendered to the will of the Father, and so will I. Christ forgave, and so will I. Christ resisted temptation, and so will I. Christ loved until the end, and so will I. You say, God’s asking me to be something that I’m not! No, He’s not.
Don’t miss verses 16 & 17. When the Preacher of Hebrews quotes from Jeremiah 31, why does he do that? To first let us know that this was always God’s plan. But also, to let us know who we now are.
0) What do we now have? A perfect standing
God promised Israel, through Jeremiah: I’m going to make a NEW Covenant. Better than the old. Laws written on your hearts & mind, not in stone.
This covenant is internal, not external. It rewrites everything about you inside out. Do you know that when you erase a file or delete a picture on your phone, it doesn’t just vanish. It’s data, binary code, written directly onto the flash memory. In order to ever be changed, it has to be overwritten.
New data has to replace it. That’s what the new covenant is. New data, new code, overwritten & replacing the old. That’s how we’re made new. I will remember their sins & lawless deeds no more. He does it by overwriting the existing data of your heart
We can’t overwrite the data that’s hardcoded in our hearts & mind through our own efforts. No sacrifice we offer can ever be good enough. So Jesus steps in. And He calls you to come & die. Repent & believe His Gospel. Pick up your cross & follow Him. Die to your way, your desires, your wishes, your efforts. He’ll overwrite the data of your heart.
He’ll transform you from one degree of glory to the next. He’ll conform you to His image. He’ll slowly, but surely, as you’re dug into the trenches, in between D Day & V Day, show you how to be what you now ARE: a new creature. A new creation.
This is point number ZERO. Nothing held against us in Christ. Made new. Guiltless, blameless, unashamed, fully loved & accepted. Our sin & lawlessness remembered no more. So simply BE the righteous, law-in-your-heart, brand new creation that you ARE in Jesus Christ. All our “Yeah, buts…” overwritten & replaced by “Yes, AND!” Amen.