I am writing this nearly 20 years to the day from when the television series LOST dropped its pop-cultural phenomenon on an unsuspecting world. Before streaming services and social media, there was the waiting a whole week to learn more about this plane crash in the South Pacific, with polar bears and smoke monsters, flashbacks and filler episodes. At the risk of sounding old, you just had to be there to truly appreciate it.
LOST built its storytelling on the use of flashbacks that were scattered throughout each episode. You gained understanding and appreciation of the core characters as you saw their backstories sprinkled amid their present circumstances. So when the Season 3 finale aired, you didn’t think anything of it when you followed a flashback of Jack and his Nirvana-themed playlist. Except, it wasn’t a flashback. We were all collectively staggered in the closing seconds of the episode, when Jack uttered those words, “we have to go back.”
Wait—what?!? Not a flashback but a flash-forward? How?!?
And since there were no streaming services, you just had to sit in that until the next season even though you wanted to immediately watch the episode again. You wanted to see all the scenes that you once interpreted as flashbacks with the new knowledge that they were actually flash-forwards. It changed everything about the show and your expectations for it.
The letter to the Hebrews centers around the ultimate twist that changed everything about what we knew and everything about our expectations going forward. And Hebrews 10 sits in the culminating, new knowledge that changes everything.
We Have To Go Back
Hebrews 10:1-18 is that plot-twist culmination: the whole enterprise of the Old Covenant worship system was about Jesus all along.
The sermonic letter to the Hebrews was written to encourage and exhort the Jewish background audience to embrace the sufficiency of Jesus and to forsake their clinging to the Old Testament sacrificial system. The writer continually led the original audience through a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, showing how Jesus changed everything they knew and everything they were to expect going forward. Let’s follow this through in Hebrews 10.
Shadow of the Good to Come
In Hebrews 10:1-4, the author sets up the audience to see that the Old Testament was the shadow of something greater yet to come. It’s not that the old was somehow bad or misguided or wrong. Rather, the shadow of the old was cast by the true form of the new that would then be revealed in Jesus.
And yet, as the author shows, the shadow couldn’t do what the true form would come to do: make perfect those who draw near (v. 2). The shadow was sufficient to point forward but insufficient to save.
The logical argument of this chapter is that if the old covenant worship system of ongoing sacrifices was sufficient to make perfect those who draw near and to take away sins (v. 4), then why the repetitive nature of the sacrifices? If it works, why do we have to keep doing it? The dynamic of the shadow sets up the audience to see the flash-forward reality of what was to come in Jesus.
Sufficiency of the Good that Came
In Hebrews 10:5-18, the author demonstrates why Jesus is the true form that does what the shadows could not. Like re-watching that Season 3 finale, the author of Hebrews takes us back through the Old, showing us how it was pointing us to Jesus all along. We are encouraged with three realities of the sufficiency of the good that came in Jesus.
Jesus is the Final Sacrifice
Hebrews 10:5-10 takes us back to Psalm 40 and puts the words of Psalm 40:6-8 on Jesus’s lips. In so doing, the author shows that Jesus is the full and final sacrifice that is forever sufficient. No longer do there need to be ongoing sacrifices because the final one has now come (v. 9). And this final sacrifice is good once for all (v. 10).
Jesus is the Successful Sacrifice
Hebrews 10:11-14 takes us back to Psalm 110 and shows how Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment. The emphasis in this flashback to Psalm 110 is squarely set on how Jesus is the one who sat down. His once-for-all sacrifice was so successful, Jesus could sit down, having completed it. Compare that to the ongoing, always busy old system. No one sat down. You won’t find any chairs in the old system; just the standing and always working priests (v. 11).
Jesus is the Applied Sacrifice
Then the author takes us back to Jeremiah 31 to show how the final, successful sacrifice is applied to our lives. In Hebrews 10:15-18, the fulfillment of the good that came in Jesus is applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit. The newness of life (v. 16) and the forgiveness of sin (v. 18) are now ours because of Jesus! No mere shadow.
But We Also Don’t Go Back
In true ironic form, the “we have to go back” awakening leads us to see that we don’t have to go back! Hebrews 10:19-39 is the unpacking of how what we now know in Christ changes our expectations going forward. We can’t live out old ways in the reality of what is new, full, and final. So in this sense, there is no going back! Once you know the flash-forward, everything changes. The rest of Hebrews 10 serves as an encouragement to hold on and an exhortation to not let go.
Hold On
Positively, the application of the full and final sacrifice of Christ and his forever sufficiency is encouragement to press on in the faith. Hebrews 10:19-25 encourages us to draw near, hold fast, and stir up one another in the reality of the sufficiency of Jesus. These aren’t the actions of someone trying to gain, but the responses of someone who has already received.
This threefold encouragement says that Jesus is trustworthy to be the center of our lives and our churches. It says that we can experience the goodness of God and the nearness of his grace. It says we don’t have to look elsewhere for what Jesus has provided fully, finally, and forever. What a remarkable relief! The bloody busyness of the old system was replaced with the eternal sufficiency of the final sacrifice.
Don’t Let Go
Hebrews 10:26-39 then exhorts us to not let go of that which is true and lasting. The author was writing to those who were feeling the gravitational pull back to the old system. While much ink has been spilt on the various warning passages of Hebrews, there is a clear sense that many were not understanding the sufficiency of Jesus. They were seeking to live a flashback life in a flash-forward reality, thereby misunderstanding what has come in Christ.
We may encounter many who are restless due to their misunderstanding of the sufficiency of Christ. Like a bedraggled Jack, they are restlessly cruising around in life in their 1970 Ford Bronco, desperately seeking some sort of assurance. Perhaps if they do enough right things the right way, they will find peace. Pastors, ministry leaders, Christians, we have the privilege of holding out Jesus. Hebrews says there is no going back when we have Christ. We have that same message to share as we call others to not let go.
One of the consequences of letting go is to throw away any sort of confidence in this life (v. 35). The author of Hebrews masterfully showed how the Old was about Jesus all along, showing how Jesus was the final sufficiency of what God purposed to do. This finality and fulfillment changes everything. It brings comfort, courage, and confidence. To let go of it is to let go of the great reward of the final sacrifice.
I have come to find that much of ministry is helping people not lose sight of the full, final, and forever sufficiency of Jesus. Maybe you have found this too. We help people look back through God’s Word with the flash-forward reality of Jesus. We call people to hold on and not let go. And our hearts grieve when we see people throw away their confidence as they look to something other than Jesus. I have also found that my heart needs to be staggered with awe at all that we see here in Hebrews 10. Jesus is the good to come, the full and final sacrifice with forever sufficiency. May this reality keep changing us as we labor to help others see how Jesus changes everything.