Once for All, Perfected Forever

What if the reason assurance feels out of reach is because the sacrifice you trust requires a do-over? We walk through Hebrews 9:28 and 10:1–14 to draw a bright line between rituals that never finish and the cross that already has. The law offered shadows—holy rhythms that taught and pointed—but those repeated sacrifices could not make anyone perfect. Then Jesus steps in with a prepared body to do the will of God, taking away the first so He can establish the second. One offering, for sins, forever. That’s not slogan; it’s Scripture.

We press into the logic: if an offering truly removes sin, it would not be repeated. Israel’s calendar, and any system that leans on recurring rites for forgiveness, unintentionally confesses its own inadequacy. By contrast, Christ sits down at the right hand of God because His work is complete. Verse 10 anchors the promise: we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Verse 14 seals it: by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. Eternal security isn’t a mood; it’s the outcome of a finished, effective sacrifice.

Along the way, we address the weight of sacramental habits and performance anxiety that leave people unsure of God’s favor. We do it plainly and pastorally, not to win an argument but to open the cell door: you don’t have to live chained to uncertainty. Assurance doesn’t make holiness optional; it makes holiness possible. Rooted in the finality of the cross, we learn to confess quickly, obey gladly, and rest deeply. The invitation is personal and urgent: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. If this message helps you, share it with someone who needs solid ground.

Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what “once for all” means to you—your testimony helps others find lasting assurance.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W. Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Delant, Florida. Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior. Now here's your host, Pastor James W. Knox.

Framing Eternal Security

Setting The Text In Hebrews

Old Testament Sacrifices Explained

Christ’s Body Prepared To Do God’s Will

Once For All Versus Ongoing Ritual

Perfected Forever By One Offering

Story Contrast: Ritual Or Faith

Call To Believe And Assurance

Listener Engagement And Contact Info

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Okay, thank you for that kind word of introduction. Thanks to every one of you for tuning in today to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. I'm Brother James, and I greet you as always in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. It is a thrill. It is a joy to have this half-hour time slot on this radio station and to use that to preach the blessed truths of the Holy Bible. I like Christian music, and I'm glad for all of it that's played on the station. We like testimonies and things of that nature, but uh our purpose from day one on this broadcast has been to use all the time we can to teach all the Bible that we can to everyone who will listen. And thank you for being part of that, everyone who will listen. We began a series of broadcasts some time ago on the eternal security of the born-again believer. And this is one of those topics that is unnecessarily controversial. People argue against the belief that the gift of God is eternal life because they don't believe the gift of God's eternal life. They argue against the doctrine that God will never leave us nor forsake us because, well, they don't believe him when he said he would never leave us or forsake us. They argue against, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, uh, because apparently they don't believe that if they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they shall be saved. The doctrine of eternal security really comes down to this. Do you believe the promises God made to all those who trust in his son? And what we're doing in trying to persuade you, that's the word used in Romans chapter 8, to believe that having been saved, you will always be saved. What we're really trying to do is get you to take the Bible literally as it is written and embrace, stand upon, rely upon, trust in the promises that God made to all those who believe on his son. We are coming now to the 15th Bible passage that stands in support of Romans chapter 8, verses 38 and 39, which were our foundational verses for this study. And we come now to Hebrews chapter number 10. Hebrews chapter 10. And I'm going to start at verse number 10 and read to you down through verse 14. Hebrews 10, no, no, I've got to go back farther than that. Hebrews 10:1 says, no, I've got to go back farther. Hebrews 9.28. Here we go. Hebrews 9.28. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. So Jesus Christ was offered. And when he was offered in death on the cross, it was to bear the sins of many. Now, chapter 10, verse 1. For the law, all of this, all of this from Genesis chapter 12. Even more. Genesis 12, here we go. From Genesis 12 to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, for the law, the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers there unto perfect. Not one thing that God gave man to do in all of the Old Testament could make him perfect before God, and God required that a man be perfect. Now, what does that mean? It simply means that the laws, the commandments, the sacrifices, the offerings were not given to take away men's sins. They were given so that forgiven people would know how to live before the God who had saved and forgiven them. Let's press on. For then would they not have ceased to be offered because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. Okay. If you could bring on a high holy day to the temple in Jerusalem the offering of a bullock or a ram or a turtle dove or a sheaf of grain and offer that to God for your sins. If that offering was sufficient to take away your sins, you would never have to offer it again. You would never have to bring any offering again, because the offering you brought would have been sufficient to make you perfect before God. And what you just read is that they kept bringing sacrifices every week, every day, every month, every year, every century, because even when they brought the sacrifices God told them to bring, those sacrifices didn't take away the sins. And anyone who taught who thought then or now that those sacrifices could take away sins or can take away sins, God says, you're wrong. Verse 5. Wherefore? Because nothing in the Old Testament law, nothing in the Old Testament law could make a man perfect before God. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, now who are we talking about? 928, Christ. So Christ predates his coming into the world. He, the word, was made flesh and dwelt among us. God manifest in the flesh. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, he taketh away the first, all those prior sacrifices, that he may establish the second. Now, now, listen carefully, please. Please, listen carefully. The reason people kept bringing sacrifices under the Old Testament law, even after they had brought a required sacrifice in perfect order. On this day, this animal presented in this fashion to this priest who cut it up in this way, who burned this part of it and threw away that part of it, and took home and ate that part of it. But if you did all of that just right, it didn't take away your sins. It's an act of worship, it's an act of sacrifice, it's an act of obedience, but it couldn't take away your sins. And so they just kept bringing those sacrifices and kept bringing them over and over and over again because they didn't get the job done. So Jesus Christ comes and offers himself a sacrifice. And listen to me, my my my dear, oftentimes poor, misguided Roman Catholic friend. You don't have to kill him every Sunday in the Mass. One time took care of it. Jesus doesn't get crucified a thousand times over in church after church after church all around the world every morning. He accomplished the payment for sins one time. That's what you just read in the Bible. Well, my church teaches, well, then your church is wrong. Don't be offended. Be thankful. Why people get so angry when God shows them from his holy word that someone's been keeping them in bondage by false teaching instead of saying, saying, why thank you for opening this prison cell of religion and freeing me to come to Christ? My Orthodox friend, my high church friend, why are you letting someone pretend to kill Jesus when all they're really doing is eating a piece of bread? Why do you allow them to keep deceiving you when the Bible is so clear on this matter? Verse 10. By the which will, through Jesus Christ's willingness to offer himself once for the sins of the world, by which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. Listen, once for all, not baby masses, not confirmation masses, not adult masses, not special masses, not holiday masses, not dead people masses. Once for all, Jesus Christ offered his body, and that one offering sanctifies everyone that believes on his one offering. That's what the Bible says. You say, Preacher, you sound hateful. Can you be so deceived as to think a man who is reading you the Bible is hateful, and a man who's keeping you from the truth the Bible is not? Let's be reasonable. You say, I think you're taking that out of context. Listen, verse 11. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. Got it? You say, preacher, don't you think that's talking about Jewish priests under the Old Testament? I do. But it's talking about a whole lot more than that. Because the Holy Spirit of God in the Word of God said, every priest standeth daily, every priest offering oftentimes, every priest offering the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. Now let me ask you something. If you went to church on Sunday and the priest, uh I I'm not I'm not trying to be disrespectful, I'm not. So let me be careful. Uh the priest held aloft a cookie and said some magic words and told you that he turned that cookie into the flesh, the very physical body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he was going to sacrifice the priest was going to kill Christ again, and you were going to participate in that in that killing of Christ by chewing him up and eating him. And you did that. Are your sins gone forever? Or will you have to go do it again? Come on now. Ask your priest, ask your ask your high priest, ask your cardinal, ask your bishop, ask your ask your pope. I killed Christ. I chewed him up and ate him. Are my sins gone? Or do I have to do it again? He'll say, not only do you have to do it again, but after you're dead, your family will have to pay somebody else to kill Christ because it still hasn't worked. That's what you're reading about in the Bible. Let me be really careful. Let me be careful. If you went to church Sunday morning, you went to church Sunday morning, and a man or a woman in religious garb stood in front of you holding a cup of fermented alcohol, which God told you not to drink, and said, Don't worry about it. I'm going to turn it into the blood of Christ. And he says the magic words, and the wine turns into the blood of Christ. Did you know that the Old Testament and the New Testament both forbid you to ingest blood? Well, now what are you going to do? You're not supposed to drink the wine when it's red moving in a cup, and you're not supposed to drink blood. Now what are you going to do? You say, well, well, my church teaches, and now we got a problem. So you get in line, and you happen to be in one of the churches where you get to drink part of the blood slash wine, wine slash blood, or maybe uh you're you go to those churches where you get to eat the cookie and chew up Jesus Christ and crush him with your teeth and kill him, but you don't get to drink his blood, because the the priest he wants the whole cup, you know, but but you kind of share in it by watching. Here's what I want to know. If this past Sunday you drank the very blood of Jesus Christ, did it take away your sins? Then you never have to do it again, right? Wait, wait. If you have to do it again, it's proof that that sacrifice is one of those God is warning you against and not the one that takes away your sins. Oh, this it's so easy to understand. You've just got to be willing to believe it. Say, preacher, my mother's part of this church, my grandma's part of this church, my ancestor part of this church, as far back as I can see from the top of a mountain. Are you telling me they were all wrong? If they go against the Bible, uh, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. You say they were good people. They're probably very good people, very sincere people. But they had an opportunity to believe the Bible or reject the Bible and keep being deceived by their religion. I hope they didn't choose to keep being deceived. But if they did, that's a bad reason for you to do it. Very bad reason for you to do it. Now, listen, we're off track, but we're not off track. Verse 12. But this man, Jesus Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever. Got it? The one sacrifice Jesus made took care of all sins for all time. And it's done, it's finished. It doesn't keep going, it doesn't happen over and over again. Why? Because it got the job done. He took away the sins, sat down on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. Now, we're talking about eternal security, and this is the point we we said all that to make this point. Verse 10. By the which will, the will of Jesus Christ to offer himself for your sins and for mine, by which will we are sanctified. Here I am. Sin, me, intertwined, uh, inseparable. I can't get loose from sin. Sin won't turn me loose. The moment I trusted Christ as my Savior, I was sanctified. Set apart, set free from my sin by the power of my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctified through the offering the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Now, now wait. You say, what if after that I stumble and fall? What if after that I do something I shouldn't do? What if after that I commit? Verse 14. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Now, how do I get sanctified? Believing on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am sanctified. How long will I be sanctified as a result of by the power of that one sacrifice? God says, sanctified forever, forever, by the same one offering. Not that offering plus my good works, not that offering plus my subsequent good life, not that offering plus not going astray, not that offering plus never breaking any rules, that one offering so fully paid for the forever of my sins, that when I trusted Christ as my Savior, I received a forever sanctification. Well, glory to God, hallelujah. Why would you want a religion, a Jewish religion, a sacramental religion, a Protestant religion, a Baptist religion? Why would you want any religion that keeps you coming back again and again and again and offering different sacrifices to different gods or one sacrifice to one God and going home every single time and knowing in your heart of hearts, you're still guilty before God. You still don't know for certain you're going to heaven when you die. Why don't you know? Well, because you haven't trusted what God did for you. You're still trusting what you're doing for God. This thing is not by your works. My salvation is not by my works. It's my faith, I hope, your faith in the finished, what what a blessed word, the finished work of Jesus Christ. Now go back in your mind, go back in time. Some of you are so offended right now, and you shouldn't be. You're so angry right now, and you shouldn't be. You're gonna call the station manager and say, take that program off the air because he said something I didn't like. Oh, get get get over yourself. The world doesn't have to align with what makes you happy. I hear things every single day that don't make me happy. People gotta say what they want to say. Now hear me, hear me. Here's a little Jewish boy, 10 years old. Here's a little Jewish girl, nine years old, and the fact Family loads up and they travel a great long distance to the high holy feast day at Jerusalem. It is the big time of the year. I mean, the stockings are hung and the trees are trimmed and the lights are on the uh hung around the uh gutters on the on the roof, and uh it's just it's a big deal. They got the inflatable um Hanukkah bar mitzvah uh Yule-tide Santa Claus reindeer. I mean, it's just it's the big, big time of the year. You understand? It's the big time of the year. And they go to the temple, like they're told to do, and they take the sacrificial offering to the priest, and they stand at a distance and watch as the smoke arises up to heaven from those sacrifices. And when the entire holiday is over and they put the tree back in the attic and put the Easter baskets back in the closet, and and and the whole big religious ceremony is over, and they start for home. And the son says, Daddy, it's so great. We offered that sacrifice, and now we know our sins are forgiven, right? And dad hangs his head and said, No, son, no son, they're they're not gone. Daddy, why not? We offered the sacrifice, and and the little girl says, Will we ever come back here again, Daddy? Oh yes, oh yes, next year we'll come and we'll offer the same sacrifice all over again. And then will our sins be gone, Daddy? Then will they be gone? And mother tries to quiet the little daughter and says, now, honey, honey, let's let's not get into all that. Let's just let's just live in the afterglow. It was a wonderful holiday, wasn't it? We saw the family and and we had a great time, and and the message this year was it was especially touching. Let's let's not think about the fact that everything we did didn't get us any closer to heaven than we were when we left home. Now, now, listen. On the road, right behind them is another family. And the little boy says to his daddy, Daddy, did that sacrifice take away our sins? He said, Oh no, son, no, no. Here's what I learned a long time ago. Like David when he had sinned, like David when he had sinned, I realized there was no offering I could bring that could ever make me righteous enough for God to forgive my sins and give me sure mercies. So I did what David did. I repented. I called on the Lord. And son, I'm not offering these sacrifices to try and get God to take away my sins. I'm offering them because, well, to quote our great King David, blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven. Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven. Blessed is the man to whom God will not impute sin. And one more time on the way home from that holiday, that man explains to his son and his daughter, looking forward to the day when they'll understand it and believe it themselves, that God saves by grace through faith those that trust in his revealed truth. My friend, I don't want you to go to church all your life and on your deathbed not know where you're going when you die. And I don't want you to have to call in a priest, a rabbi, a minister, a pastor, a preacher who doesn't know where he's going when he dies. I want you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in the one acceptable sacrifice that paid for all sins for all time that can sanctify you for today and tomorrow and forever. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Neither is there salvation in any other. There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. This is the preaching of the cross radio broadcast. It's our joy to minister to you. And it's a second and equal joy when you minister to us. How can you do that? Your letters of testimony, your your notes, uh, your cards, they are they're such a blessing. They really are. If you're watching the simulcast on the internet, in most formats, there's a place for you to leave comments. We hope you will. There's a place for you to hit a little like button and a subscribe button. And when you do those two things, I'm told, it brings more people to the place where they can hear this preaching. So if you do those things for us, that'd be a real blessing. If you want to contact us through our website, that address is jameswnox.org. Jameswnox.org. And if you write the old-fashioned way, the mailing address is 872 Glenwood Road. 872 Glenwood Road, D Land, Florida, 32720. All right, the announcer will be on now in just a moment to let you know when this program will be heard again on this radio station. And we hope at that time that you and a friend that you invite to listen with you will join us for the preaching of the cross radio broadcast. Until then, I'm Brother James. May the Lord richly bless you, and good day.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Join us every weekday for another episode of the Preaching of the Cross Radio Podcast. For hundreds of hours of in-depth expository Bible teaching, please visit our YouTube channel, James W. Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptistoland, or our website, Bible Baptisttoland.com. Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.