The book of Hebrews repeatedly emphasizes the “once-for-all” nature of Christ’s work of atonement. Do we fully appreciate how unique this claim is in all of human spirituality?
Consider the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, likely written by King Solomon. It’s a book of wisdom that is stunningly realistic in its description of the tiredness of this world. In its prologue it says, “All is vanity…a generation goes, and a generation comes, the sun rises, and the sun goes down, around and around blows the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it…what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has been already in the ages before us.”
That’s a peppy outlook, isn’t it? If you take just that paragraph and used it, not as one piece of the picture but instead as the sole foundation of a religion, it would be something not too different from Tibetan Buddhism. That belief system starts with the conclusion that life is unsatisfactory, void, and ultimately meaningless. Seeing life as an endless circle of suffering, their visual art form called “The Wheel of Life” depicts different stages of existence in a closed circle from which there is no escape. The wheel itself is held by a hideous creature called the Lord of Hell. And around and around and around we go.
Maybe you’ve felt that futility for yourself. Everything seems to entropy into sin and suffering. Sure, there are bright spots, but they they fade and everything circles round again. Nothing unique lasts, and our lives can feel like an imprisonment in meaningless cycles. Maybe it’s made you have a midlife crisis, or enter a season of depression.
Keep in mind that writing this is Solomon, the wealthiest, wisest, most powerful king of his time. He built the first temple in Jerusalem, stunning in its beauty and contribution to the people’s worship of God. And yet there would be two more versions of that temple after this one’s destruction by the Babylonians, and then Herod’s temple would be destroyed in turn by the Romans. And as for that worship instituted in the temple…yes, it was glorious to know that God was pleased with the sin and guilt offerings. But next year, next month, next week, new sacrifices would be needed. And so even the temple builder felt trapped in vain cycles.
Nothing happens just once. Well, almost nothing. While Solomon’s observations were entirely true, he didn’t have a full picture of what his descendant would accomplish about 1,000 years later. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, breaking the closed circle of fallen human history and connecting a path to light and surprising joy and immortality.
Even though this Divine breakthrough (or break-in and break-out?) is uniquely the Christian’s heritage, we too at times can get trapped in cycles of futility. We may not offer blood sacrifices, but we return to a religion of unexpectant maintenance. We can default to “going through the motions” of life with God, forgetting that something utterly unique and paradigm-shifting has happened to lift us out of vain predictability.
Don’t forget that the only true “once-for-all” has happened so that you would never be the same. The next time you feel trapped in futility, remember your reality with Christ – that through your union with Him you’ve broken out of “The Wheel of Life”, just as a Tibetan Christian has reflected in the gospel-preaching artwork below. If you follow Jesus, vanity and weariness have given way to an existence of eternal significance!