One Sacrifice for Sins Forever

But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, (Hebrews 10:12 NKJV)

Old Testament Sacrifices

I have been reading through Leviticus and have noted the detailed instructions given for the sacrifices that the nation of Israel was asked to offer to God.  There was a burnt offering, a meal offering, a peace or thanksgiving offering, the trespass offering and the sin offering.  Each one was to be offered at special times in special ways.  We know that it took all of those offerings to give us some sense of the value of the one sacrifice for sins forever that we read about in the book of Hebrews.  The sacrifices in the Old Testament had to be repeated over and over again.  Our sacrifice in the new testament was offered only once and will never be repeated.  The only thing that is repeated is the remembrance of this one sacrifice for sins forever in the Lord’s supper.  I am convinced that the Old Testament sacrifices did not “save” but were the way those who were “saved by faith” worshipped their Savior (Jehovah).  In like manner, the Lord’s supper does not save but is the way the saved show their faith.  But demonstrating faith in the Old Testament was a much more complicated matter than showing our faith in the New Testament era.

New Testament Simplicity

The Lord has made things fairly simple in the New Testament.  We are to trust or believe in the Lord and then get baptized to show that trust.  We then remember Him “often” in the ceremonial Lord’s supper.  Of course, living a life pleasing to the Lord subsequent to salvation is one evidence of salvation or the “new birth.”   

In the Old Testament if the rituals were not carried out exactly, death or at least separation from the congregation would be the result.  In the New Testament, we are given some instructions on how to “remember” or “memorialize” the Lord, but when the instructions are not followed, the Lord does not immediately judge that disobedience with death. 

What About Those who “Believe not?”

In the Old Testament, there were a lot of people that “believed not (KJV).” Jude reminds us, “But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe (Jude 1:5 NKJV).”  I suspect that there are a lot of people in the New Testament who carry out ceremonies in the way that they want to carry them out who also “believe not.”  Some baptize infants.  Some claim that taking the Lord’s supper forgives sins.  I could go on and on.  They complicate what is really fairly easy to understand.   But for those who truly want to please God, it seems to me that things are a lot simpler in the New Testament.  We have “one sacrifice for sins” that we who are “saved”  believe in and remember. But we do not have to be legal experts to please the Lord by the multitude of sacrifices that were repeated over and over again in the Old Testament. 

I am glad that I am a New Testament believer in that one sacrifice for sins forever.  I am not sure that I would have survived the requirements of the worship of Old Testament believers.

Bruce Collins

Meditation for the weeks of February 1, 8, and 15, 2026