CHAPTER 10. God's Will Was Always, Even From The Beginning, That Sin Would Be Dealt With Through The Offering of the Body of Jesus As The Perfect Sacrifice For The Perfecting Of Those Whom He Has Set Apart (Hebrews 10:1). As we come to the close of this long section on Christ's High Priesthood it i... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually (or ‘in perpetuity'), make perfect those who draw near.' For the fact is that the old ceremonial Law could not make men perfect so... [ Continue Reading ]
THE OLD COVENANT (THE LAW) COULD NOT DO MAKE MEN AND WOMEN PERFECT. IT WAS A FAILURE AS FAR AS TAKING AWAY SIN WAS CONCERNED (HEBREWS 10:1).... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Else would they not have ceased to be offered? because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins.' And this lack must be true for if they had not been shadows, would they not have accomplished their end? If the worshippers had been truly cleansed, wou... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year, for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.' But this was not so with ‘those sacrifices'. Indeed their continually being offered, rather than suggesting that they were a solution to the prob... [ Continue Reading ]
‘That is the reason why when he comes into the world, he says, “Sacrifice and offering you would not, But a body did you prepare for me. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure.” ' So it was because of the failure of these offerings and sacrifices to finally achieve God'... [ Continue Reading ]
THE ONCE-FOR-ALL NATURE OF CHRIST'S SACRIFICE FOR US IN THE BODY (HEBREWS 10:5).... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ “Then said I, Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do your will, O God.” ' And recognising that it was written in the Scriptures that God required the offering up of His own body, of His own self, given willingly in full obedience, He set His face like a flint to go to Je... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin were not your will, neither did you have pleasure in them (the which are offered according to the law),' ‘Saying above.' In Hebrews 10:5. ‘Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for s... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Then has he said, “Lo, I am come to do your will.” He abrogates the first, that he may establish the second.' And in particular what God wanted was that His will might be done in accordance with His eternal plan, and that will was the offering up of the body of His Son Jesus once for all. And that... [ Continue Reading ]
‘By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.' ‘By which will.' And thus it is by the will of God, as well as by His own will, that the body of Jesus the Messiah has been offered up, once for all, so that also by God's will those whom He has ch... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And every priest indeed stands day by day ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, the which can never take away sins, but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God, henceforth expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his f... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For by one offering he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified.' For by one offering He has fully achieved His aim, He has perfected for ever (perfected in the past so that the benefit continues to the present day) those who are being sanctified (are in the process of having their sanctifi... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after he has said,' And this is borne witness to by the Holy Spirit in the words of the new covenant that follow, when He speaks of the transformation of their inner hearts and lives and the total and complete remission and ‘forgetting' of their si... [ Continue Reading ]
“This is the covenant that I will make with them. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws on their heart, And upon their mind also will I write them.” The new covenant is now repeated from Hebrews 8:10; Hebrews 8:12, referring to the work of the Spirit in writing God's laws in their hear... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Then he says, “And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” ' And added to this will be the complete removal of their sinfulness. All their sins and iniquities, their outward failures (‘sins') and their inward sinfulness (‘iniquities'), will be remembered no more. They will be del... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.' And all this being so no further offerings for sin will be required. For once sins are remitted, removed and sent away, there is no more an offering for sin. All offerings for sin have become redundant. The inference behind all... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way through the veil, that is to say, his flesh,' The first consequence of what He has done is that they can now have the boldness to enter into the Holie... [ Continue Reading ]
THE PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCE OF WHAT HE HAS DONE (HEBREWS 10:19). What He has done will now bring about a number of consequences. Firstly there is what we now have, boldness to enter into the very presence of God because all that can hinder it is removed (Hebrews 10:19), and a looking to our great prie... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And having a great priest over the house of God,' The second consequence of what He has done is that we have a ‘great priest' over the house of God. Note that He is called ‘a great priest' not ‘a High Priest'. There is an emphasis here on His true greatness. He is a super-priest. (While ‘great prie... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure (‘clean') water.' The first consequence of our new means of entry into God's presence and of our new High Priest is that we can draw near to God. And i... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not, for he is faithful who promised,' The writer now applies this to his specific purpose in writing, to maintain their faith and testimony. Because of all this they are not to waver but to hold fast the confession of their hope (compare He... [ Continue Reading ]
‘And let us consider one another to provoke to love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as you see the day drawing near.' And equally important is that they have a concern for each other and stir each... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries.' For they must note that now that Christ has come there remains no o... [ Continue Reading ]
‘A man who has set at naught Moses law dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses,' The connection with sin with a high hand comes out here. They were the sins that ‘set at naught the Law of Moses'. It was only for such sins that the immediate death penalty was required. But when... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Of how much sorer punishment, do you think, will he be judged worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified (or ‘by which there was sanctification') an unholy thing, and has shown wanton arrogance to the Spirit of grace?'... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For we know him who said, “Vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense.” And again, “The Lord shall judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' And, he says, we can see this clearly for ourselves, for we know Him as He is and as He is revealed to be by the Sc... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But call to mind the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly, being continually made a gazingstock, both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with those who were so used.' He writes to remind them how they have... [ Continue Reading ]
A CALL TO HIS READERS SO AS TO ENSURE THAT THEY WILL NOT SO FAIL (HEBREWS 10:32). He now reminds them of what they had suffered for Christ's sake in the past, and the compassion that they had revealed for fellow-sufferers in those persecutions. Now they must not give up heart but must patiently end... [ Continue Reading ]
‘For you both had compassion on those who were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one.' Indeed they had visited those who had been imprisoned, taking them food and offering encouragement, (prisoners w... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Do not therefore cast not away your boldness, which has great recompense of reward, for you have need of patient endurance, that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.' So he begs them not to be moved by the present uncertainties, Not to toss away their boldness as previously re... [ Continue Reading ]
‘ For yet a very little while, He who comes will come, and will not tarry.' For it is to that future hope that they must look. There is now not long to go (speaking from Heaven's point of view). ‘For yet a little while.' (mikron oson oson means ‘little, how much, how much', or ‘a little, a short di... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrink back, my soul has no pleasure in him.' Again taken almost exactly from Habakkuk 2:4 LXX (although ‘of me' (mou) is moved in order to stress that His righteous ones are truly His), but with the phrases transposed to bring out his point. LXX... [ Continue Reading ]
‘But we are not of those who shrink back to perdition, but of those who have faith to the saving of the soul.' The section is finally summed up in these words. It is a declaration of confidence in his readers. He is sure that like himself, they will not shrink back to destruction, for they have tha... [ Continue Reading ]