Hebrews 10:5-10

Christ, the Better Sacrifice

Since Christ, the better sacrifice, was needed to cleanse man, He came into the world saying the words of Psalms 49:6-8. David recognized burnt offerings did not fulfill his needs. Milligan notes the exact quotation in the King James Version had the words, "ears hast thou digged out for me." It means He was made a fit servant, as Exodus 21:5-6 indicates. For Christ to be a fit servant, He had to have a body to offer as His sacrifice. Thus, our reading, "a body You have prepared for Me." The great weakness of burnt offerings and sacrifices was that God had no pleasure in them. Milligan and Delitzsch agree David spoke "from the very soul of the Antitype," that is Christ himself, when he said he came to do God's will. The Pentateuch, or first five books of the Bible, are the volume of the book which spoke of Christ.

God did not want sacrifices instead of obedience to His will (1 Samuel 15:22). So Christ came to do His will in sacrificing Himself. In contrast to the sacrifices of the old law, Christ could fulfill the will of God. It was for this cause that Christ did away with the old law and established the new. It is this second, or new, law which is the will of God. By it we are sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ. This sacrifice completed the job of sanctification "once for all" (Hebrews 10:5-10).