《Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary – Hebrews(Vol. 2)》(Various Authors)
10 Chapter 10
Verses 1-10
CHRIST'S ONE SACRIFICE IS ALTOGETHER SUFFICIENT
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
THE first eighteen verses of this chapter are in the nature of a summary of what has already been presented, with some further unfoldings of the argument. One point is made especially prominent; it is that the repetition of the olden sacrifices testified to their inadequacy, while Christ's one offering is perpetually availing to complete the purification of those who are affected by it. The main thesis of the writer should be kept well before the mind. He argues that the Jewish sacrifices availed for nothing more than external or ceremonial purifications, but the one offering of the obedient will of Christ purifies the soul or mind ( συνείδησιν) from the uncleanness of sin, and renders it capable of offering acceptable service to the living God.
Heb . The law.—Used here for the Mosaic system or dispensation. The term is used in the New Testament with other meanings, such as the Ten Commandments, the general law relations of God with man. See St. Paul's use of the word in Romans and Galatians. Shadow.—Imperfect sketch. Very image.—Full representation. The words σκιάν and εἰκών are related, as the Latin umbra and effigies are. See Heb 1:3. Stuart gives the point of the sentence thus: "The law did not go so far as to exhibit a full image of future blessings, but only a slight adumbration." Farrar quotes the following sentence from St. Ambrose: "The Law had the Shadow; the Gospel the Image; the Reality itself is in Heaven." Good things to come.—See Heb 9:11. The spiritual things of the new dispensation. Christ is the very image of God. Christ's work is the very image of heavenly realities. Only it is the image, not the reality. Can never.—This vital imperfection lay in those older sacrifices. Perfect.—Much importance attaches to the writer's use of this word. Compare Heb 9:9-10. It is used here in the sense of fully meeting the whole circle of our spiritual need. The ineffectiveness of the sacrifices is shown in the fact that the sense of sin which they are supposed to remove recurs again, so that fresh sacrifices are found necessary.
Heb . Not have ceased.—The Mosaic ritual might have been retained if it had proved efficient. The precise thought here is, however, rather this—"If the offerings could have perfected those who presented them, would not the offerings have ceased?" It might be answered, "They would have ceased so far as concerned the offerers once purged, but they would have had to be constantly renewed for the sake of other worshippers." Conscience.— συνείδησιν; apprehension of the consequences of sin; consciousness of guilt. Pardon does not remove the fact of our guilt, nor destroy the memory of it, but it does remove the fear of penalty, and bring a sense of freedom.
Heb . Remembrance.—By the repetition of the same sacrifice for the same person. The writer dwells on his point so fully, because this view of the essential imperfection of Judaism would be exceedingly distasteful to his Jewish readers. But the inefficiency would not be apparent to those who lived under the Mosaic dispensation. It came to view only when the higher and spiritual dispensation was introduced. In the light of Christianity the weakness of Judaism appears. Farrar's note on this verse is specially suggestive: "This view of sacrifices—that they are ‘a calling to mind of sins yearly'—is very remarkable. It seems to be derived from Num 5:15, where ‘the offering of jealousy' is called ‘an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.' Philo also speaks of sacrifices as providing, ‘not an oblivion of sins, but a reminder of them.' But if the sacrifices thus called sins to remembrance, they also daily symbolised the means of their removal, so that when offered obediently with repentance and faith they became valid symbols."
Heb .—"This verse explains those which precede. No inconsistency really belonged to these sacrifices and this ceremonial, though so often repeated; for it was impossible that any such sacrifice should really remove sin. The offering was necessary, and it answered its purpose; but it could not remove the necessity for another and a better offering" (Moulton). Not possible.—Compare 1Sa 15:22; Isa 1:11-17; Jer 6:20; Jer 7:21-23; Amo 5:21-24; Mic 6:6-8; Hos 6:6; Psa 40:6-8, etc. "Sins" and "blood of animals" have no necessary relation to each other; none save that which, for teaching purposes, God pleases to fix to them. Sins can only be taken away by spritual influences exerted on spiritual conditions. All physical, material sacrifices are symbols of spiritual things. So is Christ's bodily sacrifice. (See Outline Homily on Heb 9:22.) Sins.—Properly and precisely speaking, sin is not a particular act which is done, but the wilful condition of the mind, for which the act only finds expression. In this verse not penalties are dealt with, but sins. All sacrifices had their value, not in themselves, but in the spiritual condition of the worshippers, as is clearly seen in the cases of Cain and Abel, the first sacrificers.
Heb . When He cometh.—As antitype; spiritual realisation. See Psa 40:7. Sacrifice and offering.—The two classes of sacrifice that Judaism demanded. Victims sacrificed; slaughtered beasts; and unbloody offerings expressing gratitude and dependence. Wouldest not.—See Heb 10:7. No desire for any more such; desire now is for the reality that was symbolised in them. A body hast Thou prepared Me.—The Hebrew seems to mean, "Mine ears hast Thou opened," or "ears hast Thou dug, or hollowed out, for Me." The Hebrews speak of "opening the ears," and of "uncovering the ears," in order to designate the idea of prompt obedience, of attentive listening to the commands of any one. The idea, "Mine ears hast Thou bored through in token of My servitude," does not appear at all suitable here. Better read, "Thou hast given Me the power of hearing, so as to obey. A channel of communication has been opened, through which the knowledge of God's true will can reach the heart, and excite the desire to obey." The obedience (sacrifice) of Christ was the full surrender of His will to the will of God: but to be a human obedience, bearing relation to us, it must have a body sphere. This explains the physical phase of the great sacrifice.
Heb . Burnt-offerings.—Should be "whole burnt-offerings." These represented the full surrender of himself by the offerer, when they were made really spiritual sacrifices. Usually they were regarded but as ceremonials. The idea of corrupt Judaism is, that God is pleased with burnt-offerings as offerings, and for their own sake.
Heb . In the volume of the book.—Besides the reference to Psalms 40, the writer intimates that this is the general burden of the Messianic allusions in the Old Testament Scriptures. Come to do Thy will.—Clearly stating wherein consists the true spiritual sacrifice, even in the full surrender of Christ's whole self in obedience to God, through life and death. Perfect human obedience in human spheres God required. He who rendered it made the "great sacrifice."
Heb . By the which will.—Or by the yielding to the will, in obedience unto death. Or by the voluntary self-sacrifice of Christ. We are sanctified.—Set right and made right. Observe how entirely this is conceived by the writer in a spiritual sense. The antitypical sacrifice is the offering of the will of Jesus, in obedience to the Divine will. But our wills can only act, and gain expression, through our bodies and our bodily relations, and therefore our Lord's sublime self-surrender took a bodily form.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb
The Shadow and Image of Sacrifice.—The law of all effective teaching is, "Simplify and repeat." This writer does not hesitate to repeat, endeavouring to fix on attention the points which he regards as of supreme importance. In the first portion of this chapter there is a summary of previous teachings. He had previously spoken of the "law," or ceremonial and sacrificial system of Judaism, as a copy, or shadow, of heavenly or spiritual things (Heb ). He does not deny the value of the shadow, but it is a value which strictly belongs to it as a shadow, and we must never get to value it for its own sake, only for the sake of the reality, whose existence, and whose presence, it indicates. "Shadow" is an imperfect sketch, a mere outline, a slight representation or resemblance. "Image" is a picture filled out or completed, and made, in all its minuter parts, to resemble the original. Illustration may be found by contrasting the black outline portraits, which were the fashion fifty years ago—mere shadows of our friends—and the modern photographs, which give us their very image. But we need not be so strictly limited to the exact meaning of the terms which this writer uses. And this explanation hardly seems to catch his point of distinction. A shadow is not an independent thing. It is thrown by something. Something real, substantial, exists, which casts the shadow, and which the shadow, in some imperfect way, represents. To this writer the spiritual relations of men with God, as secured by the spiritual sacrifice of the spiritual High Priest, form the reality, the thing itself, the "image"; and the material, outward, ceremonial system of Judaism was the shadow which it flung on earth beforehand, to give men some outline idea of it, and prepare them for realising it fully by-and-by. Taking this view, we inquire—
I. What the "shadow" was.—A system of rules, rites, sacrifices; involving a material tabernacle, articles of furniture, and an order of priesthood. All Divinely arranged, and bearing Divine authority. In no sense to be thought of as an independent system, or an independent revelation. It was the shadow that belonged to something, and told of what it belonged to. No man ever saw it aright without saying, "What can that be which has caused this shadow?"
II. What the "shadow" could do.—Meet the needs of the hour, which were not purely spiritual needs. Religious education was then in no sense complete. It was in its pictorial stage. The nation of Israel was then in its formative period. It was getting all its civil, social, and governmental relations put into order. All its interest was in outward things, and its religion had to be in harmony, and to be concerned also with outward things. So the "shadow" religious system was occupied with arranging religious affairs, and rectifying them when they became disturbed.
III. What the "shadow" could not do.—Satisfy spiritual needs. Deal with the personal, the soul, relations of men with God, who bore on them the conscience of sin. The shadow could take away ceremonial penalties: it could not take away sin. It could not "make the comers thereunto perfect." It might help the spiritually-minded to enter into that spiritual reality, that eternal meaning of things, which its outline could only suggest.
IV. What the "Image" was.—A spiritual High Priest, abiding ever in the presence of God mediating for man. The spiritual and infinitely acceptable sacrifice of the High Priest Himself. The offering of a spotless life of obedience, tested and proved by the strain of an awful death. That sacrifice ever in God's view, because the Priest is always before Him. And a spiritual covenant which pledges, not the mere shaping of conduct, but the renewal of men's hearts and wills; the implanting of a love which will make obedience both easy and acceptable.
V. What the "Image" could not do.—Fit to the age that was past; or to those who persisted in keeping the attitude, and limited capacity, that properly belonged to the past. The times were changed; men's spiritual instincts were awakened; and the system that was called for could do nothing for those who kept down on the materialistic, symbolical, and ceremonial levels. Farrar illustrates the awakened spiritual feeling of the times in which the epistle to the Hebrews was written when he says: "Philo, in one of his finest passages, shows how deeply he had realised that sacrifices were valueless, apart from holiness, and that no mere external acts can cleanse the soul from moral guilt. He adds that God accepts the innocent even when they offer no sacrifices, and delights in unkindled altars if the virtues dance around them. The heathen had learnt the same high truths."
The relativity of a religion of shadows.—The efficiency of a religion of shadows lies in its relativity to a particular age, and a particular people. The Syrian Version gives the first sentence of Heb thus: "The law—not having the reality of the things." The Greek word for "image" means, not a resemblance or likeness, but the essential form of a thing. It stands as the representative of σῶμα, the body or substance.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Heb . The Imperfect Efficiency of the Jewish Sacrifices.—"They can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh" (R.V.). Dr. J. Harris says: "What is the Jewish economy, if we desire to reach its interior truths, but a vast, profound, elaborated enigma—to which the gospel, indeed, brings us the key, but the opening and exploration of which is yet incomplete?" The legal sacrifices, being offered year by year, could never make the comers thereunto perfect, for then there would have been an end of offering them. Could they have satisfied the demands of justice, and made reconciliation for iniquity—could they have purified and pacified conscience—then they had ceased, as being no further necessary, since the offerers would have had no more sin lying upon their consciences. But this was not the case; after one day of atonement was over, the sinner would fall again into one fault or another, and so there would be need of another day of atonement, and of one every year, besides the daily ministrations. Whereas now, under the gospel, the atonement is perfect, and not to be repeated, and the sinner, once pardoned, is ever pardoned as to his state, and only needs to renew his repentance and faith, that he may have a comfortable sense of a continued pardon. As the legal sacrifices did not of themselves take away sin, so it was impossible they should (Heb 10:4). There was an essential defect in them.
1. They were not of the same nature with those who sinned.
2. They were not of sufficient value to make satisfaction for the affronts offered to the justice and government of God. They were not of the same nature that offended, and so could not be suitable. Much less were they of the same nature that was offended, and nothing less than the nature that was offended could make the sacrifice a full satisfaction for the offence.
3. The beasts offered up under the law could not consent to put themselves in the sinner's room and place. The atoning sacrifice must be one capable of consenting, and must voluntarily substitute himself in the sinner's stead: Christ did so.—Matthew Henry.
Heb . The Bad Consciousness taken away.—The reading is, not "conscience of no more sins," as if the sins were stopped, but "no more conscience of sins," as if the conscience of sins already past were somehow extirpated, or else the sins taken quite away from it, and for ever extirpated themselves, as facts, or factors of the life. How is it, or how is it to be imagined, that Christ, by His sacrifice, takes away the condemning conscience, or the felt dishonour of transgression?
I. The supposed answers that are not sufficient.—When it is conceived that Christ has borne our punishment, that, if it were true, might take away our fear of punishment; but fear is one thing, and mortified honour, self-condemning guilt, self-chastising remorse, another and very different thing. Neither will it bring any relief to show that the justice of God is satisfied. Be it so; the transgressor is none the better satisfied with himself. Is it conceived that what has satisfied the justice of God has also atoned the guilty conscience? Will it then make the guilty conscience less guilty, or say sweeter things of itself, that it sees innocence, purity, goodness Divine, put to suffering for it? Is it then brought forward to quell the guilt of the conscience that Christ has evened our account legally by His sacrifice, and that we are even justified of God for Christ's sake? But if God calls us just, do we any the less certainly disapprove ourselves? Forgiveness, taken as a mere release of claim, or a negative letting go of right against transgression, brings, if possible, even less help to the conscience. Christ had forgiven His crucifiers in His dying prayer, but it was the very crime of the cross, nevertheless, that pricked so many hundred hearts on the Day of Pentecost. But Christ renews the soul itself, it will be said, and makes it just within, when, of course, it will be justified. That does not follow. But the fatherhood of God—the disciple of another school will take refuge under that, and say that here, at least, there is truly no more conscience of sin. Conscience, in man, is God's throne of judgment in the man. If God, in His fatherhood, were a being dealing in laxities and fond accommodations, having no care for His rectoral honour, as the defender of right and order, we certainly are not such to ourselves.