Once for All

As I was reading through the book of Hebrews recently, I discovered repetition of this thought-provoking phrase, ‘once for all.’ This is used quite a few times to indicate the fact that Jesus came as a sacrifice for the sin of mankind, and what He did was a ‘once for all time’ act of redemption. According to the concordance I consulted, this phrase means ‘done as to be of perpetual validity and never need repetition, once for all.’

I found this same phrase in a couple of other places. ‘Unlike those other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices every day … Jesus did this once for all when he offered himself as the sacrifice for the people’s sins’ (Hebrews 7:27). ‘But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice’ (Hebrews 9:26).  ‘Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God’ (1 Peter 3:18).   ‘The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God’ (Romans 6:10).

The reason this thought of the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus impressed me so deeply was not because I did not know this truth. I have known and served the Lord for many years, and grew up understanding that Jesus came to die for my sin, and that He was raised to life and would come back one day to fetch me to be with Him in glory. And yet, I found myself feeling so unworthy at times, almost as if I was not a ‘good enough’ child of God, and striving to do better to please my Saviour and live a life worthy of this great sacrifice He paid for my sins.

This sounds very noble and, in essence, there is nothing wrong with the desire to please the Lord and to live a life of righteousness. But I realised that, somewhere along the line, I have started to believe a lie of the enemy that there was something more I should be doing to be considered worthy of what Jesus did for me. It happened ever so subtly, perhaps because of some hurtful criticism I received, and because I was battling to keep up with all the demands and pressures of the season I found myself in. I started feeling unworthy in my quiet times and all the weaknesses I saw in myself felt magnified. I ‘tried harder,’ but felt only worse when my silly little efforts made no difference.

How kind and compassionate the Lord is! As I read through Hebrews, the Lord reminded me of the fact that nobody would ever be worthy enough, or good enough, or work hard enough to be able to repay such a costly sacrifice. ‘All our righteous acts are like filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6). And yet, Jesus died for us while we were still sinners – completely lost and even oblivious of our need for a Saviour (see Romans 5:6-8). So many truths came to mind as I started to meditate on the all-sufficiency of Jesus’ sacrifice.

In Jesus, God sees me as righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21), and therefore He invites me to come boldly to His throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). He knows that I will not always get everything right, but He knows my heart, because He is the One who created me and knit me together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139). He bends down to listen when I cry out to Him (Psalm 166:2, NLT).

When Jesus was on the cross, He said, “It is finished.” Nothing more remains to be done for my redemption and salvation, or for God’s love and acceptance. He has done it once for all! I can rest in the knowledge that His love is unconditional and eternal. I can rest in this truth.

In conclusion: ‘What can I offer the Lord for all he has done for me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and praise the Lord’s name for saving me’ (Psalm 116:12-13).