The Perfect Sacrifice
1 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things w to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. 2 Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said:
You did not desire sacrifice and offering,
but you prepared a body for me.
6 You did not delight
in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings.
7 Then I said, “See—
it is written about me
in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, O God.” ,x
8 After he says above, You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law y ), 9 he then says, See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. z
11 Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. a 12 But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. ,b 13 He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. c 14 For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. 15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says:
16 This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days,
the Lord says,
I will put my laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds,
17 and I will never again remember
their sins and their lawless acts. ,d
18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
Exhortations to Godliness
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus e— 20 he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh f )— 21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, g 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. h 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. i 24 And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, j and all the more as you see the day approaching.
Warning against Deliberate Sin
26 For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, k 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. l 28 Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy, based on the testimony of two or three witnesses. m 29 How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? n 30 For we know the one who has said,
Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, ,
and again,
The Lord will judge his people. ,o
31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. p
32 Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. q 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to taunts and afflictions, and at other times you were companions of those who were treated that way. r 34 For you sympathized with the prisoners and accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, because you know that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession. ,s 35 So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. t 36 For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised. u
37 For yet in a very little while,
the Coming One will come and not delay.
38 But my righteous one will live by faith;
and if he draws back,
I have no pleasure in him. ,v
39 But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.
10:1–4. The Levitical sacrifices are portrayed as inadequate. They only foreshadowed the true salvation, which Christ has guaranteed and will someday bring to completion (10:1). The appeal to the repetitive character of Levitical worship and its inability to cleanse the conscience (10:2–3; cf. 9:13–14) indicates that the author has not deviated from the letter’s original purpose. The author is determined to persuade the readers that for salvation they must trust in Christ and his sacrifice and not in the rituals of Judaism.
10:5–7. Unwilling to leave a single stone unturned in the attempt to demonstrate to the readers that the Levitical rituals are an insubstantial foundation on which to rest one’s hope of salvation, the author launches into another argument that adds some new points and recapitulates others (10:5–18). The author understands Ps 40:6–8 to be prophetic of Christ. The author takes the phrase “you prepared a body for me” (10:5), from the Greek Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Masoretic Text, as referring to the body the Son of God assumed at his incarnation, the human nature in which he obeyed God and died in his people’s place (Heb 2:14; 5:8; cf. Jn 6:38; Php 2:7–8). The citation is perfectly suited because it compares the Levitical sacrifices unfavorably with the work of Christ.
10:8–10. It was a truism of the OT revelation that the Levitical ritual served no good purpose without faith and obedience on the part of the worshiper (1 Sm 15:22; Ps 51:16–19; Is 1:11–17; Am 5:21–24). This is the simple meaning of Ps 40:6–8. Further, the faithful of the former era did offer such willing obedience, and their sacrifices were pleasing to God (10:8; cf. 11:4; Lv 1:9). But the author is dealing with the whole Levitical ritual in itself, which had no intrinsic power to save from sin. Yet Christ and his sacrifice have just that saving efficacy in themselves that the Levitical ritual lacks (10:10). The contrast drawn between the alternatives of the psalm citation is intended to nullify any idea that the sacrificial ritual could ever be the substance of salvation. This holiness or perfection has both present and future aspects (6:1; 10:14; 12:23).
10:11–14. The point made in 10:1–4 is recapitulated here. The ineffectuality of sacrifices that must be performed repeatedly is contrasted with the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, the effectuality of which is attested by the singular honor of a place at God’s right hand (10:11–12). The priests continue to stand (cf. Dt 10:8; Ps 134:1); the great high priest has sat, a sign both of the ultimacy of his single sacrifice for sin (Heb 1:3–4; 2:9) and of his royal dominion, now hidden but soon to be revealed (1:13; 2:7–8). It is to Christ, therefore, not to Levitical priests and rituals, that sinners must come.
10:15–18. The author now returns to the citation from Jr 31:31–34 (cf. Heb 8:8–12) for the dramatic conclusion to the great demonstration begun at 4:14 of the superiority of Christ’s priesthood and sacrifice (10:15–17). The true salvation in Christ that God promises and applies to the hearts of those he calls eventuates in a full and permanent absolution. Looking to some regularly repeated sacrificial ritual as the basis of forgiveness, as the readers were tempted to do, amounts to a repudiation of the glorious gospel of salvation by the grace of God (10:18; cf. 13:9).
10:19–21. First, the just-completed argument is passed briefly in review. Christ’s death for sin and his abiding priesthood provide free access to God (10:19; cf. 4:15–16; 6:19–20; 7:23–25; 9:8, 12–15). The “new and living way” (10:20) does not suggest that believers of the former age were somehow fettered in their access to God (see “draw near” in 10:22; 11:6). The old-new contrast in the Bible is never merely chronological. “Old” signifies the situation of humankind in sin, “new” the experience of God’s salvation (Ps 98:1; Rm 6:4, 6; 7:6; 1 Co 5:7, 8; 2 Co 3:6, 14; 5:17; Eph 4:22–23; Col 3:9, 10; Rv 2:17; 5:9; 21:1, 5). “The curtain (that is, through his flesh)” (10:20) is best understood as a comparison between the curtain through which the high priest gained access to the most holy place (cf. Heb 9:3; Mk 15:38) and Christ’s bodily sacrifice, by which believers gain access to God.
10:22–25. The exhortation to “hold on to the confession of our hope” (10:23) reiterates the author’s previous admonitions to persevere in faith with eyes fixed firmly on Christ (3:6, 14; 4:14). But such endurance requires the encouragement of others, and that is given and received chiefly in the life of the congregation (10:24–25). That the exhortation is in the first person throughout (“let us”) expresses the author’s personal interest in the readers, hopes for their restoration, and solidarity with them in the good fight of faith (cf. 6:9; on “hearts sprinkled” [10:22] see 9:13–14; Lv 14:6–7; Ps 51:7, 10). “Bodies washed” (10:22) is no doubt a reference to baptism but in its spiritual signification (cf. Ezk 36:25; Jn 3:5; Eph 5:26; 1 Pt 3:21).
10:26–31. Exhortation is now reinforced with solemn warnings (cf. 6:4–8) regarding the horrifying and irremediable consequences of apostasy (cf. 2:2–3; 2 Pt 2:20–22). “Deliberately go on sinning” (10:26) refers not to the immense sinfulness that remains in every believer’s life, over which one mourns, of which one repents, and for which one turns to Christ (Heb 4:15–5:12), but to the renunciation of the faith (3:12; 6:6). If, having once become acquainted with and having laid claim to the final and perfect sacrifice of Christ, one rejects it as the hope of salvation, all hope is forever lost.
B. Encouragements to press on (10:32–39). 10:32–36. As in 6:9–12, warning is followed by encouragement, as the author reminds the readers of their noble steadfastness in the days of their first love (10:32). They have endured public scorn, willingly identified themselves with those already in prison for faith in Christ (and so exposed themselves to the possibility of a similar fate), and suffered the loss of their property by looting or as a legal penalty, which happened frequently when Christians became the objects of a community’s wrath (10:33–34). They suffered all but martyrdom (12:4) courageously, even gladly, confident that they would reap an eternal harvest if they did not give up (Gl 6:9; cf. Mt 5:11–12; Ac 5:41; 1 Pt 4:13). They must not lose heart now and have no excuse to do so (10:35–36). The Lord helped them before to resist the opposition that now unnerves them, and he will do so again. The living faith that alone obtains the eternal inheritance expresses itself in a tenacity in the face of worldly opposition and temptation and the long waiting made necessary by the futurity of the consummation.
10:37–39. The citation of Hab 2:3–4 derives from the Greek Septuagint, which has interpreted the original “it” (the revelation of divine judgment) as “he” (a personal deliverer), an interpretation that is ratified by the author of Hebrews, who adds the definite article to the Septuagint’s “he will surely come,” yielding “the Coming One,” virtually a messianic title (cf. Mt 11:3), though now with reference to Christ’s coming again (10:37–38). There are but two alternatives and two destinies (10:39), and the author is confident that at least most of the readers, having flirted with danger, will at last stand fast.