The Divine Exchange #3: Perfected Forever by One Sacrifice

The divine exchange is the heart of the gospel: on the cross Jesus took everything that was wrong with us so that everything that was right with Him could come to us. In this third message of the series, Dr. William P. Hohman teaches from Isaiah 53 and Hebrews 10:14 that one sacrifice has perfected believers forever and met every need. It continues from The Divine Exchange #2: One Sacrifice That Perfected Forever.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps you can take this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries and posted on September 17, 2024, on a Sunday when the church shared soup and communion together. Dr. Hohman recalls that the series began at a service at the fair, where he laid the foundation in Isaiah 52 to 54: chapter 52 describes the problem, chapter 53 the cure, and chapter 54 the covenant of blessing that flows from the cure.

Isaiah, he says, had the greatest revelation of Christ of any prophet of old. This message walks through Isaiah 53 verse by verse and names four aspects of the great exchange Jesus made on the cross.

Doctrine, Not Tradition

Jesus told the religious leaders that they searched the Scriptures thinking they had life in them, yet the Scriptures testify of Him (John 5:39). Many ministers prefer theme preaching, Dr. Hohman says, but he is dedicated to doctrinal teaching: how God is, what He has done and how we are to live.

Doctrine helps us relate to God the way knowing someone’s likes and dislikes helps us relate to a person. Names carry information. “I’m called William,” he says, and the name means defender of the family, which he believes is built into him. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, a father of many (Genesis 17:5), and that name shaped how Abraham related to God.

Moses’ law had 613 commandments, he notes, but rabbinic law added more than a thousand rules, such as the Sabbath day’s journey. When the Pharisees rebuked the disciples for picking heads of grain on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1–2), Dr. Hohman notes, they had walked out to those fields themselves. Do as I say, not as I do.

Laws have a purpose in their place, he says, but they do not restrict God, who walked on water. Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees that they strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel (Matthew 23:23–24), counting out a tenth of every spice while hiding the greater matters of love and mercy. Love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34), and every other commandment can live within that. All condemnation, he adds, has been taken away, yet it is one of the heaviest things people carry.

One Sacrifice, Perfected Forever

The whole gospel, Dr. Hohman teaches, revolves around one event: the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” The word offering means sacrifice, so by one sacrifice Jesus has perfected us forever, even while He keeps working on us.

He illustrates how we fixate on flaws: a teenager with one pimple is sure the whole world is staring at it. God wants us to stop focusing on our weakness and look to Him. “Perfected forever” covers every weakness, inability and flaw we magnify.

This one sacrifice covers every need of the whole human population. That is why Paul could write that God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). Rome had many gods for different needs, and he notes that Hinduism has over 100,000. The gospel offers one solution, Jesus Christ, once for all.

Every sin, every penalty, every effect of condemnation and guilt came together in one moment at the cross. Jesus said that in this world we will have trouble, but to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world (John 16:33). Provision has already been made.

Many Christians, he says, think salvation is only about heaven by and by. What about the great here and now? Communion is a picture of receiving it today. The early church held the agape meal, the love feast, an all-day affair of eating, preaching, testimony and song. David asked what he could render to the Lord for all His benefits and answered that he would take up the cup of salvation (Psalm 116:12–13). Dr. Hohman compares it to a friend who works two jobs for a year to pay off your debt. You thank him by taking the money and using it as he intended.

God offers not a variety of solutions but one. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death (Proverbs 14:12). When a man asked to discuss reincarnation with him, Dr. Hohman’s answer was that it is appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

Wrath for Peace, Wounds for Healing

The most complete account of the cross, he says, is Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53:6 says all we like sheep have gone astray, each to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Doing things my way means turning my back on God’s way. Dr. Hohman teaches that the Hebrew word for iniquity, avon, means not only the sin but its penalty.

He explains the scapegoat of the old covenant (Leviticus 16:21–22). The high priest laid his hands on its head, confessed all the sin and its penalty onto it, and it was led into the wilderness, never to return. People also brought personal sacrifices for each failure. Many Christians still live that way, he says, feeling they must atone, but Jesus took every sin and every penalty on His own body.

His summary is simple: evil came on Jesus and into Jesus so that good could come on us and into us. The first two aspects of the exchange come from Isaiah 53:5: He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

All the wrath of God came on Jesus. Dr. Hohman points to God’s oath in Isaiah 54:9: as He swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth, so He has sworn not to be angry with His people. God has not appointed believers to wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9). Jesus said “It is finished” (John 19:30), and our part is to enter that rest.

So peace must rule. Colossians 3:15 tells us to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, and 2 Thessalonians 3:16 prays that the Lord of peace Himself would give us peace always in every way. You cannot manufacture peace, he says, but you can let it rule. Jesus took your worry, guilt and condemnation so that you could have His peace.

The second aspect is healing. Matthew 8:16–17 says Jesus healed all who were sick to fulfill Isaiah’s word that He took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses (Isaiah 53:4). We were bought at a price, so we glorify God in body and spirit (1 Corinthians 6:20). Jesus slept through a storm and then said, “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:39). That security, Dr. Hohman says, is what He died to give us.

His Soul an Offering for Sin

The third aspect is in Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed.” Dr. Hohman teaches that the Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, is also used for animal life.

He remembers a bear in a city park pit in Iron Mountain that paced so often it wore a groove four or five inches deep into the concrete. That, he says, is the fallen soul: to and fro, endlessly working out the next problem. God wants us carefree. He refuses to “take care,” he jokes, because he casts all his care on the Lord (1 Peter 5:7).

Jesus’ soul was untouched by corruption, yet He made it an offering for sin. Dr. Hohman explains bruise and grief as meaning to wound, pierce, break and crush. All the wrath of the Father fell on Jesus, who cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). He was both our scapegoat and our sacrificial lamb.

Israel’s bondage in Isaiah 52 traced back to not knowing God’s name. When Moses asked what name to give the people, God told him to say that I AM had sent him (Exodus 3:13–14), everything they need. Trust your education, a government or medical institutions, Dr. Hohman says, and you get only what they can do. Trust Jesus, and you get what God can do.

He tells a story from his boyhood in Michigan in the 1960s. He begged his father for a built-in pool like the neighbors had, and came home one day to find their above-ground pool set into a hole, all 18 inches deep. People fall short, he says, but God does exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

Animal sacrifices only foreshadowed Jesus’ final, all-sufficient sacrifice. On a mission trip to Haiti, students who looked into a hut found a chicken being sacrificed and were chased off by a man with a machete. People sacrifice to get power, he says, but Jesus promised that we would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us (Acts 1:8).

Isaiah 53:11 says He shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied, and that the righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. In Isaiah 53:12, God divides Him a portion with the great and He divides the spoil with the strong. So the weak can say they are strong (Joel 3:10), because believers are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

The Divine Exchange: Sin for Righteousness

Jesus made atonement for all humanity, Dr. Hohman says, but only those who put their faith in Him receive the benefits (Mark 16:16). Having too many problems is not a reason to wait; it is the reason to come. All who come to Him He will by no means cast out (John 6:37), and whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13).

Paul states the positive side of Isaiah 53:10 in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Being the righteousness of God does not mean you never sin, he explains. It is a gift; you accept it while God replaces the weakness.

In the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1–13), he says, the wise accepted that they were the righteousness of God and their lamps were full; the foolish kept calling themselves dead dogs and sinners saved by grace, and had no oil.

Righteousness does not come by our efforts. In Romans 4:3–8, Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, while to the one who works, wages are counted as debt. Thinking God will not answer because you did not do well this week, he says, treats Him as a creditor. David described the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

“God’s not mad at you, he’s mad about you,” Dr. Hohman says. He gave his life to Jesus at 11 without understanding any of this. Later, after a drug overdose, he sat for three days in a stranger’s apartment in San Diego, believing he would die if he closed his eyes. He heard the Lord’s voice as clear as a bell: “William, I love you. You’re not going to die. I’m going to use you. You’re mine.”

The table below follows his outline of the four aspects of the exchange covered so far.

His Death for Our Life

The fourth aspect, given briefly, flows from the third. The whole Bible teaches that sin brings death: the soul who sins shall die (Ezekiel 18:4), and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death (James 1:15). Jesus became sin for us, so on the cross He gave up His spirit and died, so that we would not have to.

Hebrews 2:9 says Jesus was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that He by the grace of God might taste death for everyone. Dr. Hohman stresses the word taste: it was a brief moment, not a place He stayed. In John 11:25–26, Jesus told Martha that whoever believes in Him, though he may die, shall live, and whoever lives and believes shall never die.

He points to the catching away in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, when the dead in Christ rise first and the living are caught up to meet the Lord, and says every believer will be resurrected whole. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:23).

He urges the church never to treat salvation as common, a warning he draws from Hebrews 10:29. If you do not understand the great exchange, he says, you will have little love for others, and the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). Knowing God’s names keeps the relationship real: Jehovah Nissi our banner of victory, Jehovah Rapha our healer, Jehovah Tsidkenu our righteousness, Jehovah M’Kaddesh our holiness.

He closes by inviting the church to lift the cup of the New Covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20), drink all of it, and receive Jesus as the sacrifice for their lives.

Living the Divine Exchange This Week

Here are practical steps drawn from this teaching on the divine exchange:

• Take the cup of salvation. Thank God by receiving what Jesus paid for instead of refusing it out of false humility.
• Let peace rule. When worry or guilt rises, remind yourself that Jesus already carried it, and let His peace decide.
• Cast your care. Notice when your soul paces to and fro like that bear in the pit, and hand the matter to the Lord.
• Speak as the righteous. Replace “I’m just a sinner saved by grace” with “I am the righteousness of God in Christ.”
• Stop paying a debt. Pray on the basis of grace, not on how well your week went.
• Learn His names. Study a name of God each day and trust Him to be that in your situation.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Isaiah 52 to 54: problem, cure and covenant
• 1:08 Why doctrinal teaching matters
• 3:17 Bible doctrine versus rabbinic law
• 7:35 Hebrews 10:14: one offering
• 10:29 Philippians 4:19: every need supplied
• 13:09 Everything met at the cross
• 15:29 The agape feast and the cup of blessing
• 17:35 One solution: Jesus the way
• 19:56 Isaiah 53:6 and the scapegoat
• 23:10 Isaiah 53:5: wounded and bruised
• 24:30 The wrath of God fell on Jesus
• 26:55 Colossians 3:15: let peace rule
• 29:19 Healing: Matthew 8:16–17
• 31:44 Isaiah 53:10: His soul an offering
• 32:53 The bear in the pit
• 36:38 I AM: knowing God’s name
• 39:01 The 18-inch in-ground pool
• 44:26 Isaiah 53:11–12: the portion and the spoil
• 48:07 2 Corinthians 5:21: the righteousness of God
• 51:37 Romans 4: righteousness by faith
• 52:43 His testimony from San Diego
• 55:31 The fourth aspect: His death for our life
• 1:01:41 The names of God and closing invitation

Divine Exchange Series

This message is part of a teaching series at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or continue where this one leaves off:

• First message: The Divine Exchange #1: Hope, Faith and the Greatest Exchange Program Ever
• Previous: The Divine Exchange #2: One Sacrifice That Perfected Forever
• You are here: The Divine Exchange #3: Perfected Forever by One Sacrifice
• Next: The Divine Exchange #5: How Jesus Bore Our Shame and Rejection

Frequently Asked Questions

Does God still punish believers with His wrath?

Dr. Hohman teaches that He does not. All the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus on the cross, and God has sworn, as He did with Noah, not to be angry with those who believe in Jesus. Problems still come, he says, but they come from human corruption, not from God destroying His people. God has rested from His works, and believers are called to enter that rest.

Why does this sermon call communion a feast?

Dr. Hohman explains that the early church held the agape meal, or love feast, as an all-day gathering of eating, preaching, testimony and singing about the goodness of God. Today it is often reduced to a little bread and juice. He wants believers to see communion as feasting on everything Jesus provided, and to drink all of the cup of the New Covenant.

Why are animal sacrifices no longer needed?

According to Dr. Hohman, every sacrifice under the old covenant, from the scapegoat to the personal offering of a sheep or a bird, foreshadowed one final, all-sufficient sacrifice. Jesus fulfilled it once for all. What a person needs now, he says, is the blood of Jesus, not the blood of an animal, and every blessing of God is available to those who receive Him.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Isaiah 53:4–6 — wounded for our transgressions
• Isaiah 53:10 — His soul an offering for sin
• Isaiah 53:11 and Isaiah 53:12 — the labor of His soul and the spoil
• Hebrews 10:14 — perfected forever by one offering
• Philippians 4:19 — all your need supplied
• 2 Corinthians 5:21 — the righteousness of God in Him
• Romans 4:3–8 — righteousness by faith
• Hebrews 2:9 — tasting death for everyone
• John 11:25–26 — the resurrection and the life
• Isaiah 54:9 — God’s oath of peace

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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