Hebrews 10:1-10
The law of Moses states that the high priest shall make atonement for himself by offering a bullock (Lev. 16:6) and for the people shall make a sin offering with a goat to be determined by lot (God’s choosing) and shall make atonement by releasing a scapegoat (also determined by lot) into the wilderness (Lev. 16:9-10). The scapegoat shall carry away the iniquities of the people (Lev. 16:22). In verse 4, the author states that it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. The purposes for which the law required the bullock sin offering and the goat sin offering was not to take away sin. The law cannot take sin away.
The purpose of the law of Moses was to provide a shadow of good things to come (v. 1). A shadow provides limited information concerning that which casts the shadow. In the instance of Leviticus 16, the shadow reveals that both the goat for the sin offering and the scapegoat to carry sin from the camp were chosen by God. New Testament believers know by revelation that God chose His only begotten Son to be made an offering for sin and to take sin away. There is no uncertainty. The Son is not a shadow. He was foreordained from the beginning (I Pet. 1:20).
The law required that these offerings be performed upon a set date each year. The offerings were repeated year after year because the time of the good things was yet to come. The last possible date upon which these offerings were performed would have been in AD 69 as the temple was burned to the ground more than one month prior to the Day of Atonement in AD 70. The generation which saw the good thing to come witnessed the last bullock and last goat sin offerings.
The author of this epistle is unknown. Some have suggested that the writer might be Paul because of the manner in which the epistle reads. The author states that the gospel “was confirmed to us by them who heard him” (Heb. 2:3). Paul could not be the author since the gospel was revealed directly to him (I Cor. 15:8, Gal. 1:12). The unknown author, like Paul, possessed a thorough knowledge of and understanding of the law and the prophets. In verse 3, he makes an indirect reference to Leviticus 16:21 (the high priest made remembrance of the sin which the scapegoat was to carry away). The author argues that a sacrificial goat and a scapegoat were needed each year because the blood of bullocks and goats cannot take away sins.
“Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith . . .” (v. 5). That which follows is baffling but simple. That which he that came into the world said in verses 5-7 both is and is not Psalm 40:6-8. Psalm 40, a psalm of David, is a record of that which the Holy Spirit spoke through David. The speaker who said “a body hast thou prepared me” is not David; it is the promised Son of David. There is no place in the four gospels in which Jesus said “a body hast thou prepared me” but Genesis 3:15 declares that the body which He would be given would be that of the seed of woman, which seed would suffer a bruised heel but bruise the serpent’s head. Verses 5-7, while employing the words of Psalm 40, capture the ministry of the promised Son of David. The Son came into the world to fulfill every detail of the law (Matt. 5:17-18). God does not desire sacrifice and offering. Again, the purpose of the sacrifice and offering requirements of the law was to provide a shadow of the good things to come. The law revealed the shadow of the cross and the victory over hell, death and the grave.
“Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God” (v. 7). Again, the speaker is the promised Son of David, the prophet like unto Moses. The volume of the book was written of the Messiah, the prophet like unto Moses who would speak the very words of God (Deut. 18:18). Jesus came to do the Father’s will. The volume of the book includes Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”
In verses 8 and 9, the unknown author of Hebrews comments upon the offerings required by the law. They were offerings which the Lord God does not desire. The offerings were needed to impart ritualistic purity upon the people. A ritual commemorates a real happening. God does not desire a ritual. He desires the real thing. The real thing, however, requires a presentation which no man can perform. No man can present himself as a spotless sacrifice because all have sinned and fallen short. “Lo, I come to do thy will” (v. 9). The Son took on the body of the seed of woman to do the Father’s will. It was the will of God the Father that the Son take away the first. The first was taken away when Christ presented himself, a spotless sacrifice. His spotless sacrifice was real. It was not a ritualistic substitution. Christ did not die a symbolic death. He died, not for Himself. He died that the second would be established.
And what is the second? It is that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is God’s will that we be sanctified (be made pure) by the body which Christ offered once, and for all. All, in this instance, is not totally inclusive. All is totally inclusive only for “whosover shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). God’s gift of salvation is universally available to everyone. Salvation is available to all who believe in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord. The second is that salvation be made possible through a combination of faith and outward declaration of that faith.
We (believers) are saved by faith, believing that His death is counted as our death and we shall rise to be with Him in the presence of God forevermore. Believing that we are sanctified by Him, “let us consider one another to provoke love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . .” (Heb. 10:24-25). The day of His coming approaches. It is near. The Lord keeps every promise without fail.
