8. The First Christmas Eve Celebration (Hebrews 10:1-25)

On December 23, 1823, The Troy Sentinel newspaper in upstate New York published one of the oldest and most popular Christmas poems. The first few lines of the original lyrics go like this...

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc’d in their heads,
And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.”

And so the poem goes, painting the fictional picture of this idyllic, irenic scene, which was abruptly disrupted by the arrival of old St. Nick, whoever he may be. But the very first Christmas Eve wasn’t like that at all. The very first Christmas Eve must have been an amazing time in heaven. Using our sanctified imaginations, we can visualize the scene when all the preliminary work was finished and everything was ready…

Gabriel had appeared to Zacharias in a vision, announcing to him the wonderful news that his barren wife, Elizabeth, would give birth to a baby boy whose name would be John and who (a) would be great before the Lord, (b) would be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb, and (c) would be used by God to turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God (Luke 1:11-19). And sure enough, by the first Christmas Eve, Elizabeth had duly given birth to John, the forerunner of Jesus, the one who would announce in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God... And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (Is. 40:3-5; cf. Luke 3:4-6).

Gabriel had made the life-changing announcement to Mary, (a) that she, a virgin, would conceive by the Holy Spirit and bear a son, the Holy One, the Son of God whose name would be Jesus (Luke 1:31); (b) that He would be great and would be called the Son of the highest, and the Lord God would give him the throne of his father David (Luke 1:32); (c) that He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:33); (d) that with God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37). To this earth-shattering, history-changing announcement Mary responded to Gabriel in total submission and acceptance with the simple statement, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Added to this simple statement of submission and acceptance, Mary expressed her gratitude and worship when she said to Elizabeth, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name” (Luke 1:46-49). And Mary “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

The angel had told Joseph words of assurance in a dream, “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).

As prophesied, Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit and was now ready to deliver her firstborn son.

Joseph and Mary had completed their journey to Bethlehem and were bedded down in the only place they could find for the night, a manger “because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).

The choir of angels was ready to make their angelic announcement to the shepherds. All they were waiting for was the word from Gabriel and they would “wing their flight o’er all the earth.” How do we know that the angels were ready and waiting to burst forth on their long-awaited mission? We know because Hebrews 1:6 says, “When he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’” According to the Christmas carol, “the world in solemn stillness lay” but heaven was ready to erupt in sacred song.

Indeed, the time had come for God to send forth his Son, ”born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). The time had come when the Dayspring from on high, the Messiah, would visit his people (Luke 1:78-79). The time had come when the people who walked in darkness would see a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them light would shine (Isa. 9:2), “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to (God’s) people, Israel (Luke 2:32).

Thus, everything was prepared and ready for the most earth-shattering event ever to occur in world history, an event which would never occur again – the birth of the Son of God. And something else majestic and awe-inspiring happened, not a fictional poetic dialogue about sugar plums dancing and reindeers prancing but what could perhaps be the last conversation recorded in heaven between God the Father and his beloved Son before Jesus came to earth. We find this conversation in Hebrew 10.

The subject of this study is: “Why Jesus came to earth” (Hebrews 10:1-25). The lesson we learn from this passage is that Jesus came to be the perfect sacrifice for us, so that by faith in him we could be saved from our sins. This dialogue between the Father and the Son gives two reasons why Jesus came to earth...

I. Jesus Came To Fulfill The Old Testament Sacrifices (10:1-6)

The context for this dialogue was the Old Testament sacrifices as required in the Law: “Since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near” (10:1).

1. The Old Testament sacrifices were imperfect and temporary (10:1-4). Prior to the coming of Jesus, the Israelites had offered sacrifices year after year for centuries. But these sacrifices were only “a shadow of the good things to come,” not the reality itself. For the deaths of all those sacrificial animals and the oceans of blood shed were only symbolic (“a shadow”), not the actual reality itself to which they pointed. And because they were only a shadow of the permanent sacrifice for sins that was to come through Jesus, those sacrifices could never make perfect those who offered them, “otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?” (10:2).

In other words, if those sacrifices were efficacious in permanently washing away sins, then the worshippers who offered those sacrifices would have been cleansed from their sins once-for-all; they would no longer have had any consciousness of sins. But they did have a consciousness of sins; that’s why they offered the sacrifices year after year. In fact, rather than washing away their sins, “in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (10:3-4). So, the Old Testament sacrifices required under the Law were imperfect and temporary, but...

2. Jesus’ sacrifice was perfect and permanent (10:5-6). “Consequently, (i.e. because the sacrifices of the Law did not permanently remove the sins of the worshippers), when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure’” (10:5-6). Since this quote from Psalm 40:6-8 could not have referred to David himself, it must have been a prophetic statement concerning Jesus, the coming Messiah. This is what Jesus said to his Father in their conversation, recorded here in Hebrews 10, on, perhaps, that very first Christmas eve. So, what do we learn here?

a) We learn here that Jesus existed prior to his birth. “...when Christ came into the world, he said... (10:5a). How could Jesus speak before he was born? He could speak before he was born because his existence did not begin with his birth to Mary at Bethlehem. Indeed, he had no beginning because he is the eternal Son of God. That’s why Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). He had no beginning and he has no end.

Speaking of Jesus pre-incarnate existence, John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1). Then, in his epistle, John adds his personal eye-witness testimony, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us - that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you…” (1 John 1:1-2).

In fact, God the Father himself affirms Jesus’ pre-incarnate existence: “When he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him’” (Hebrews 1:6). How could God the Father make this declaration before Jesus was born? He could make this declaration because Jesus and the Father co-existed from eternity past. Thus, it does not say, “when he created the firstborn” but “when he brings the firstborn into the world.” Jesus came into the world from another world, from his eternal glory with he Father, a glory to which he returned when he ascended back to heaven (John 17:5; 20:17).

This truth about Jesus’ pre-incarnate, eternal existence is so important for us to meditate on during the Christmas season. It is right and proper for us to celebrate Jesus’ birth, but we should always remember that to be born into this world, Jesus willingly left that glorious, perfect existence that he enjoyed with the Father.

b) We learn here that Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament sacrifices. Jesus knew that all the Old Testament sacrifices throughout the previous centuries did not satisfy God’s holy requirements for sin. He said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired” (10:5b). The deaths of all these animals was not what God desired. Someone has said: “What God desires from us is our obedience, not sacrifices to cover our disobedience” (Richard D. Phillips, Hebrews, 338). As Samuel said, “to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22).

True, God had said that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22), but the deaths of these animals did not grant the people permanent forgiveness. Those sacrifices merely reminded them, year after year, of their need for cleansing and forgiveness, that they would die for their sins unless a permanent and acceptable sacrifice could be found. Their sacrifices merely deferred the judgement of God for another year when they would have to do it all over again. Those sacrifices could never permanently wash away sins (10:4). They merely portrayed the reality of God’s holy justice and pointed forward to the one future sacrifice that would fully and permanently satisfy God’s holy requirement.

c) We learn that Jesus came to offer himself to God as the only sufficient and acceptable sacrifice for our sins. The Old Testament sacrifices pointed forward to the incarnation of Christ, to the coming of the Messiah in a human body, a body which God had prepared in the womb of a virgin when she conceived through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, a body which Jesus would sacrifice to God as the one perfect and final sacrifice for our sins.

The coming of Jesus into the world was all planned long before in a past eternity. The plan of salvation was prepared in the eternal counsels of the godhead. This wasn’t “plan B” to be enacted when the Old Testament sacrifices didn’t work. This was how God had ordained it to be. God had “prepared a body” (10:5c) for Jesus in which he would take on human nature (in addition to his divine nature), live a sinless life and ultimately die on the cross. Here’s how the author of Hebrews puts it, “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrew 9:13-14). Christ’s offering of himself on the cross at Calvary was the one sacrifice which could and did permanently satisfy God’s holy requirements for sin on our behalf.

From the start, Jesus’ body was like no other because his birth was like no other. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, not by the normal union of a man and a woman. Thus, Jesus was born without a sinful nature. He was “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26). Thus, “he has no need, like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27). The Bible is clear that Jesus is perfectly sinless and that sin came into the world through Adam’s sin, which corrupted human nature for all subsequent generations, being passed on from one generation to the next by human conception. In other words, every baby born into the world since the sin of Adam is born with an inherited sinful nature. “Just as sin came into the world through one man (Adam), and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans. 5:12).

So, Jesus’ birth was like no other and his sacrificial death also was like no other. Jesus was the Lamb of God, who “offered himself without blemish to God: (Hebrews 9:14). Thus, his substitutionary death on the cross is the only means of our salvation by faith in him. As John the Baptist pointed out when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

d) We learn that Jesus came to take away our sins forever. He came to offer the one, final, perfect sacrifice for sins, which never has to be repeated and which would forever cleanse from sin those who believe. That’s why Jesus came to earth - to take a human body and offer the perfect, permanent, once-for-all sacrifice, to be the substitute for us in dying the death we deserved. And on that very first Christmas Eve, Jesus said to his Father, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure” (10:5-6).

God took no pleasure in those annual rituals. It wasn’t that the Old Testament Jewish priests were wrong in sacrificing all those animals year after year. It was that they didn’t understand what they stood for. They didn’t understand that their sacrifices merely pointed to the need for a permanent sacrifice for sins, that what they were doing each year pointed forward to the coming of the one perfect and final sacrifice. They didn’t understand the absolute futility of what they were doing, that “every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” (10:11). They didn’t understand that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (10:4). What these sacrifices did was remind the people of their sinfulness and of God’s holiness and justice. As the hymn writer, Isaac Watts, wrote in 1709, “Not all the blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain, could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away its stain.” So, you ask, what could take our sins away? Isaac Watts’ next verse gives the answer: “But Christ the heavenly Lamb took all our sins away; a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they.”

So, why did Jesus come? He came to fulfill the Old Testament sacrifices. And...

II. Jesus Came To Fulfill The Will Of God (10:7-10; 17-25)

1. Jesus came to do the Father’s will which was prophesied in the Old Testament (10:7-10). “Then I said, ‘Behold I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book’” (10:7). That is why Jesus came – to fulfill the Father’s will. He knew why he had come; he didn’t find out after the fact. He didn’t sort of stumble into it and reluctantly do it. He willingly came to fulfill the Father’s will.

Has any other baby ever known why they came into the world? Has any other baby ever agreed to his or her destiny before they were born? Was any other baby ever born to die for the sins of others? No! But Jesus knew why he had come before he ever came. He came to obediently and willingly do the Father’s will.

By offering himself as a willing sacrifice, he fulfilled God’s will (a) by making possible through his death the salvation of sinners; (b) by offering the only sacrifice which was acceptable to God and which was offered as a substitute for others who deserved to die; (c) by offering himself as the one and only mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5); (d) by making it possible for sinners to be reconciled to a holy God (Romans 5:10; 2 Corinthians 5:18-21); (e) by making it possible for “God to be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26); (f) by redeeming a people for God with whom he will dwell forever (Revelation 21:3); (g) by restoring what sin had taken away – the communion of God with human beings, who were the apex of God’s creation and with whom he desires a relationship.

Jesus came in obedience to do the Father’s will, which had long before been prophesied, as Jesus said on the very first Christmas Eve, “... as it is written of me in the scroll of the book” (10:7b). The Old Testament Scriptures had said this would happen (Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 7:14; Psalm 22:16-18; Isaiah 53:5-9). The Old Testament Scriptures were clear that all the sacrifices according to the Law would one day be fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, the One who would save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

“8 When he said above, ’You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings’ (which are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, ’See, I have come to do your will’” (10:8-9a). By connecting the reason he came (“to do your will”) with God’s displeasure with sacrifices, burnt offerings, and sin offerings, Jesus makes it clear that he came to earth to set aside once-and-for-all the Old Testament sacrificial rituals and to do the Father’s will in fulfilling Scripture. “He does away with the first (the Old Testament sacrifices) in order to establish the second” (10:9b), God’s perfect will in the sacrifice of himself. And “by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time” (10:10). Jesus came in obedience to do the Father’s perfect will. And the object of the Father’s will was our sanctification. We could never satisfy God’s holy requirement on our own. We needed someone else to pay the price for us.

Sometime ago I read a story about Czar Nicholas I of Russia. Apparently, the czar had a good friend who asked him to provide a job for his son, which the czar did. He appointed his friend’s son to the position of paymaster for a barracks in the Russian army. It turned out that the son was morally weak and soon gambled away nearly all the money entrusted to him. When the word came that the auditors were going to examine his records, the young man despaired, knowing that he was certain to be found out. He calculated the amount he owed, and the total came to a huge debt – one that he could never pay. He decided that the night before the auditors arrived, he would take his gun and end his own life at midnight.

Before going to bed, he wrote out a full confession, listing all he had stolen, and writing underneath it these words, “A great debt. Who can pay?” Then he fell asleep, weary from worry and exertion.

Late that night the czar himself paid a surprise visit to the barracks as was his occasional custom. Seeing a light on, he peered into the room and found the young man asleep with the letter of confession next to him. He read the letter and instantly understood what had happened. He paused for a moment, considering what punishment to impose. Then he bent over, and wrote one word on the paper, and left. Eventually the young man woke up, realizing that he had slept past midnight. Taking his gun, he prepared to kill himself when he noticed that someone had written something on the ledger. Under his words, “A great debt. Who can pay?” he saw one word, “Nicholas.” He was dumbfounded and then terrified when he realized that the czar knew what he had done. Checking his records, he found that the signature was genuine. Finally he settled in his mind that the czar knew the whole story and was willing to pay the debt himself. Resting on the words of his commander-in-chief, he fell asleep. In the morning a messenger came from the palace with the exact amount the young man owed. Only the czar could pay. And he did. (Harry Ironside, cited in Ray Pritchard, “T’was the night before Christmas”).

Only Jesus could pay the debt of our sins – and he did! The offering of the body of Jesus was a once-for-all, never-to-be repeated sacrifice by which we are sanctified, set apart and made fit for a relationship with God. Commenting on the above story, Ray Pritchard writes, “When we look at our sins and realize our hopeless condition, we say, ‘A great debt. Who can pay?’ Then the Lord Jesus Christ steps forward and signs his name to our ledger: ‘Jesus Christ’ – he can pay; and he did!”

Jesus came in obedience to do the Father’s will which was prophesied in the Old Testament, and…

2. Jesus came to do the Father’s will to reconcile us to God (10:17-25). That was God’s purpose in sending his Son into the world. Jesus came to do the Father’s will (a) so that now, God says to those of us who believe, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more” (10:17), (b) so that now we can enter into God’s presence “by a new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (10:20); (c) so that now we can “draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10:22); (d) so that now we can “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (10:23); (e) so that now we can “stir up one another to love and good works” (10:24); (f) so that now we can meet together and encourage one another, “and all the more as you see the Day (of Christ) drawing near” (10:25).

That’s why Jesus came. And we learn all that through a glimpse into what might have been the first Christmas Eve in heaven. We are privileged to listen in on this marvelous divine dialogue in which Jesus declared that he was coming to earth to fulfill the Old Testament sacrifices and to fulfill the Father’s will. And then came Christmas day, when the fullness of time had come, when Jesus came as the perfect sacrifice so that we could be saved forever from our sins, when Gabriel’s announcement 9 months before came to completion, when Mary experienced the birth of her virgin-born son, the very “Son of God” himself, Immanuel, God with us, a birth that was witnessed on earth only by some farm animals and then some shepherds, a birth that was private on earth but witnessed and celebrated in heaven (Hebrews 1:6).

No longer could the angels be constrained but they broke forth as in a “flame of fire” (Hebrews 1:7), “winging their flight o’er all the earth” as the Christmas carol says and appearing to some lowly shepherds, who were watching over their flocks at night, to whom an angel declared the greatest news ever heard on earth: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord... And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased’” (Luke 2:10-14).

At the same time, in a far-eastern land, wise men, who were searching for truth, saw and recognized Jesus’ star and started out on their epic journey to “worship him” (Matthew 2:2). These men undoubtedly represent and were the forerunners of untold millions of Gentiles who over the coming centuries would do the same, come to worship him. That’s what Christmas is all about, worshipping Jesus, our Saviour.

Final Remarks

Jesus is worthy of our worship. That’s why he was born, for us to fall down and worship him as cleansed, holy worshippers (Hebrews 10:22), for us to worship him “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

Jesus is worthy of our worship because he fulfilled that once-for-all sacrifice of himself and in so doing fulfilled the Father’s will. He fulfilled the Father’s will at Christmas by being born to a virgin, living a sinless life, dying as a perfect sacrifice at the cross to meet God’s holy requirements for sin, being raised again the third day for our justification, ascending back to heaven where he is glorified, and now he is waiting to complete his work of redemption by taking all who believe to heaven to be with him forever.

The theme of this study, that I stated at the beginning, is that Jesus came to be the perfect sacrifice for us, so that by faith in him we could be saved from our sins. The question is: “Have you been obedient to God’s will in trusting Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning to him in faith? Do you truly worship him?” That’s what Christmas is ultimately about. Christmas isn’t about quaint songs about the world lying in “peaceful stillness” or imaginative carols about the “little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie, above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.” And it certainly isn’t about the night before Christmas when stockings are hung by the fire awaiting a visit from the fictional “old Saint Nick.” No! Christmas is about the coming of the Savior of the world to save his people from their sins, thus to give us peace with God and the privilege of worshipping him now and forever.