Hebrews 10:1–10

10:1–4 On Mount Sinai God showed Moses his heavenly sanctuary and directed him to construct the tabernacle after that pattern; thus it was “a copy and shadow [skia] of the heavenly things” (Heb. 8:5, citing Ex. 25:40). Likewise, the sacrifices ordered by the law were “but a shadow [skia] of the good things to come” and not “the true form [eikōn]” of those realities (10:1). In Colossians 2:16–17 Paul makes a similar point: the law’s regulations were a “shadow of the things to come [skia tōn mellontōn],” whereas “the substance belongs to Christ.” The contrast between shadow and substantial reality is not ontological (immaterial vs. physical), as in Platonic dualism. Rather, the contrast is historical and eschatological. Because the law and its rituals belonged to an earlier era, they traced the silhouette of a better mode of atonement that was, at that time, still “to come.”

The annual Day of Atonement ritual has already been contrasted to Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice and entrance into the heavenly sanctuary (Heb. 9:25–28). Now our author argues that this year-by-year repetition demonstrates that the blood of bulls and goats cannot “perfect” worshipers (10:1) by removing sin’s guilt (10:4). Again the plurality characterizing old covenant institutions shows their imperfection (cf. 1:1–2; 7:23–25). Now the repetition of animal sacrifices year by year on the Day of Atonement testifies to their inability to cleanse worshipers’ consciences of sin’s stain.

The terms “make perfect” (teleioō), “cleansed” (katharizō, sometimes “purify” in ESV), and “sanctified” (hagiazō) (10:1–2, 10) are complementary ways of describing the results of forgiveness, namely, the purification of conscience that qualifies worshipers to “draw near” to God. This “perfection” could never be achieved by the Levitical priesthood, for the law “made nothing perfect” and thus could not enable sin-stained people to “draw near to God” (7:19; cf. 7:11; 9:9). Whereas slain animals’ blood could “sanctify” and “purify” the flesh, only Christ’s blood could purify the human conscience (9:13–14). Rather than removing sin’s defilement from the conscience, the slain bulls constituted a “reminder of sins every year” (10:3). Numbers 5:15 spoke of an “offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance” in connection with a rite to address suspicions of adultery. Our preacher’s point is broader: again and again the Day of Atonement sacrifices brought Israelites’ sins to their minds and “reminded” the Lord of their guilt. Only with the new covenant’s arrival would the Lord “remember their sins no more” (Heb. 8:12; 10:17, citing Jer. 31:34).

The “blood of bulls and goats” (Heb. 10:4) was central to the Day of Atonement liturgy (9:12–13). The high priest first entered the Most Holy Place with the blood of a bull to atone for his own sin and that of his family (Lev. 16:6–14). Then he emerged to slay a goat and return to God’s presence with its blood to atone for the people (Lev. 16:5–9). The mention of bulls’ blood thus first reinforces the point that Levitical high priests were sinners needing atonement before they could intercede for others (Heb. 5:2–3; 7:26–27; 9:7).

Second, the shedding of animals’ blood on the Day of Atonement demonstrated that “the blood of bulls and goats” could not remove sins, for otherwise it would have been performed only once, not yearly. The question remains of why animal victims cannot die to atone for human sinners. Our preacher has already answered: those enslaved by the Devil could be saved only by a Rescuer who shared their flesh and blood, so that through his own death he might destroy the Devil’s power to inflict death (2:14–15).

10:5–7 The citation of Psalm 40:6–8 (LXX 39:7–9) is introduced as the words Christ spoke to God the Father as he “came into the world” at the incarnation. In John 11:27 Martha confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” At his incarnation, the Son received the “body . . . prepared” for him (Heb. 10:5), henceforth partaking of the flesh and blood his brothers and children share (Heb. 2:10–14). Here in Hebrews 10:5, “world” represents a different Greek word (kosmos) from that used in 1:6 and 2:5 to refer to the glorious realm of the age to come (oikoumenē). Here the “world” is our sin-cursed world (cf. 11:7, 38), in which Christ would fulfill God’s will by sacrificing the body prepared for him.

Psalm 40 is one of several OT texts affirming that what God seeks from his people is not the sacrificial slaughter of animals but loyalty, integrity, mercy, and obedience (1 Sam. 15:22; Pss. 50:12–16; 51:16–17; Isa. 1:11–17; Jer. 7:22–23; Hos. 6:6; Mic. 6:6–8). These warnings against formalism refute the assumption that sacrificial rituals will placate God’s righteous wrath regardless of the state of worshipers’ hearts. But our preacher views Psalm 40 in a wider perspective, as a timeline of redemptive history that has progressed chronologically from a defective sacrificial system to the final sacrifice offered by Christ. Our author’s interpretation of Psalm 40, in Hebrews 10:8–10, will therefore unpack his redemptive-historical reading of the psalm.

The citation in Hebrews of Psalm 40:6–8 follows the wording of the main LXX manuscripts with minor variations. English readers who compare Psalm 40:6–8 to its citation in Hebrews 10:5–7 will note two differences: First, English versions translate the Hebrew original of Psalm 40:6 along the lines of “You have given me an open ear” (ESV). The author of Hebrews, following the textual tradition reflected in the major LXX manuscripts, reads, “A body have you prepared for me.” The origin of the LXX’s departure from the Hebrew original is uncertain. Perhaps the Greek translators understood “open ears” as representative of the whole body, offered in obedience to God’s voice. The reading “body” (sōma) serves our author’s point, as we see in his explanation of the psalm, which addresses “the offering of the body [soma] of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10). Second, the ESV rearranges the word order of verse 7 from that of both the OT Hebrew and the LXX of Psalm 40:7–8 (39:8–9), as well as the Greek of Hebrews 10:7:

Hebrew and LXX of Psalm 40:7–8 (39:8–9); Greek of Hebrews 10:7:

Then I said, “Behold I have come,

in the scroll of the book it is written of me: . . .

to do your will, O God.”

ESV of Hebrews 10:7:

Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.”

The rearrangement makes the ESV flow smoothly, without the interruption of the parenthetical comment “in the scroll of the book it is written of me.” But this change perhaps minimizes the striking declaration, “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come!’” That announcement was foreshadowed in the introduction to this citation: “When Christ came into the world, he said . . .” (Heb. 10:5). The “then” opening verse 7 signals the temporal transition from the era of the law to the era of the new covenant that dawned when Christ entered the world to do God’s will.

The citation is structured in two couplets of lines in antithetical parallelism. The first line of each couplet expresses God’s disfavor toward animal sacrifices (vv. 5b, 6). In the second line of each couplet, the speaker presents himself as a positive alternative to the (rejected) sacrifices: God has prepared a body for him, and with that body he will do God’s will (vv. 5c, 7):

Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, (v. 5b) . . .

in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure. (v. 6)

but a body have you prepared for me; (v. 5c) . . .

Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,

as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.” (v. 7)

10:8–10 In his interpretation our preacher sorts the features of the psalm citation, connecting like with like. From the first lines of the couplets he draws together four terms describing animal sacrifices: “sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.” Their concentration emphasizes how numerous those old covenant offerings were. Then the verbs expressing God’s displeasure are united (“You have neither desired nor taken pleasure”). This pairing makes the point that, in God’s estimation, the blood of bulls and goats was never sufficient to take away sins.

Although our preacher is citing Holy Scripture, some might misconstrue his strong assertion that God disapproves of animal sacrifices. He therefore acknowledges that “these [animal sacrifices] are offered according to the law”—the message God spoke to Moses (2:2; 3:3–5; 8:5; 12:18–21). God himself instituted that first covenant at Sinai, yet that covenant was not faultless (8:7–13) since “the law made nothing perfect” (7:19). The first covenant, with its sanctuary and sacrifices, was destined to be replaced by a new and better covenant (8:6). The psalm’s “then” reappears (10:9) to signal that the new covenant, with its better means of removing sin’s defilement, has appeared in history in the Son who announced, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” By his coming, Christ “does away with the first”—the first covenant, with its earthly sanctuary and slain animals (9:1)—“in order to establish the second” means of atonement and access, which is God’s “will” (thelēma) for the complete, conscience-deep cleansing of his people—in contrast to the ineffective animal sacrifices that “you have not desired [thelō]” (10:5).

The key terms “will” and “body” from Psalm 40 reappear as the author concludes his interpretation. The will of God that Jesus Christ came into the world to accomplish was his offering of the body prepared for him—the flesh and blood he now shared with his children (Heb. 2:14)—as the sacrifice that could remove our sinful pollution once for all. Christ was “without sin” throughout his life (4:15); but here our preacher focuses on God’s specific redemptive purpose leading Jesus to the cross, the will to which he submitted in Gethsemane when he “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death” (5:7; cf. Mark 14:34–36). Every high priest approaches God with gifts and sacrifices (Heb. 8:3), but only Jesus offered himself, the body he shares with his human brothers, to atone for their sin.

Christ’s self-offering in death “sanctified” his people “once for all” (cf. also 7:27; 9:12, 26, 28). Unlike later theologians, the author to the Hebrews typically uses the verb “sanctify” (hagiazō) to refer not to the lifelong process of the Holy Spirit’s subjective transformation of believers’ character to conform us to Christ’s holiness (e.g., 1 Thess. 5:23; cf. Heb. 12:14) but rather to a status of blameless purity. This status is conferred immediately on believers through forgiveness of sins, qualifying them to enter God’s holy presence with confidence (2:11; 9:13; 10:14, 29; 13:12).