Hebrews 10 — Newell's Commentary on Romans, Hebrews and Revelation & KJV Study Bible

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For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,

This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,

By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

And having an high priest over the house of God;

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;

Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.

For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

Hebrews 9 Hebrews 11

Commentary

MANY DEAR SAINTS who delight in the Word of God insist on the study of the Old Testament types as setting forth fully and accurately the things of Grace we are now enjoying, and the good things to come when the Lord returns. Indeed, we have known some beloved teachers so governed by Old Testament typology as to permit no entrance of New Testament truth except as explained and defined by Old Testament types.

But the first verse of Chapter 10 flatly denies to the types the very thing that these people would give them: the Law (and its entire economy) had a shadow of the good things to come, but not the very image. The Greek word for "image" is _eikon. An image, or _eikon, like a good statue or photograph, reveals features and facts accurately. This a shadow cannot do. A tree casts its shadow on the ground: you see its general shape; but you cannot tell the kind of tree, or discern foliage, blossom, fruit. Now The Law had only shadows. One who tries to turn these shadows into images finds himself presently under their spell. Reversing things, he judges facts by shadows.

Before we leave verse 1, let us remark that "image" (_eikon) sets forth the substance, as in Matthew 22 (also Mk. 12, and Lk. 20) our Lord asks concerning the denarius, a Roman coin, "Whose image (_eikon) and superscription" (Caesar's name) "hath it?" This image was no shadow of Caesar, no mere hint that such a being existed, but the man's very features portrayed on the metal.

But God says in Hosea 8:12, "I wrote for him the ten thousand things of My Law; but they are counted as a strange thing." The "things" here are the ordinances, precepts, judgments, sacrifices, ceremonies; but "My Law" lies in God's mind as one Law. Again, what about John 1:17: "For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"? Can you maintain that the "ceremonial law" is referred to here, while God still holds over the believer what you call the "moral law," with its blessing conditioned on your obedience instead of on Christ's work?

Finally, what will you say, with your man-made distinction between what you call "ceremonial law" and what you really trust in, "the moral law," to the distinction God makes in 2 Corinthians 3 between law-keeping and that blessed operation of the Spirit here described?

"Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit" (Vss. 17-18). Will you retain your "moral law" claim here? Very well, compare that to the contrast in that Chapter, verse 3. A Christian, as an epistle of Christ, is said to be "written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God," and further, "not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh." Now let your tables of stone go! There are your ten words, including the fourth commandment about the Sabbath, given to Israel as a token of God's relation to them (Ex. 31:13, 17; Neh. 9:13-14). Let it go, for Christ (2 Cor. 3:6) "made us (the apostles) sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life"! Mark, finally, that the Law, the Law given on stones, the ten words, is called in verse 7 (same chapter) "the ministration of death," and described as a passing thing: and in verse 9 as "the ministration of condemnation." You are a sinner, and the Law can for all eternity do nothing for you but condemn you. The Law did not even have the very image of the (heavenly) things. There had to be a rectification (Heb. 9:10, last word), a "vanishing away" of "that which is becoming old and waxeth aged."

But you cry, What shall take the place of the Law? We have believed that God forever controls His creatures by Law!

What do you do with "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love" (Eph. 1:4)? Do you still believe that the bending of your will to Divine enactments is a stronger method?

Take the great truth next set forth: The Law can never with the same sacrifices ... make perfect (in standing) them that draw nigh. Else (verse 2) would they not have ceased to be offered? because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would have had no more conscience of sins: If the Israelitish worshiper had known that his sins were all put away forever--which the instructed Christian knows his sins are, by the one offering of Christ--he would have had no more conscience of sins. (The A.V. reads, "conscience of sins".) Doubtless all the Levitical sacrifices pointed to Christ's sacrifice: but they effected nothing in the way of putting away sin. Cleansing is an application, connected with and following Divine forgiveness in Heaven. Cleansing is the removal of sins from the person justified! See Acts 22:16: "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on His name." (We shall return to this matter of cleansing in a moment.)

Again, Hebrews 10:3 says, But in those (Levitical) sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. Let us at once put far from our thought that the Levitical sacrifices ever removed sins. God, in pardoning any sinner, in the Old Testament, looked forward to the work of His dear Son an the Cross. Conceive, therefore, of the true meaning and effect of those Levitical sacrifices: a remembrance (not a removal) of sins year by year.

To return to the word cleansed. This is not pardon, but the result of pardon. Scripture teaches that sins are things; that they are attached to the person, yea, to the very body of the sinner. Certain unpardoned sinners are thus described in Ezekiel 32:27: "They are gone down to Sheol ... and their iniquities are upon their bones." As we read in Psalm 109:18 of a wicked enemy of David (a prophecy of Judas Iscariot--vs. 8 and Acts 1:20),

"He clothed himself also with cursing as with his garment, And it came into his inward parts like water, And like oil into his bones."

The pardoned man is described in Hebrews 10:2 as cleansed. Sins are removed from his person--literally! Christ bare our sins in His body on the tree. He was "delivered up for our trespasses, and raised for our justification." (Rom. 4:25). "So Christ also was once offered to bear the sins of many."

This being so, and God reckoning the atoning work of Christ to a believing sinner, his sins are removed forever from him, from his person. Thus is he, according to God's word in Hebrews 10:2, "cleansed". Looking back at Calvary, he sees the removal of his sins by the shed blood of Christ, and is filled with peace and joy. But the very continuance of the Levitical offerings was proof of their ineffectiveness and "shadow" character.

The conscience of a devout Jew resembled the conscience of a devout Roman Catholic today. The Catholic must go to his "priest," to the "confessional," telling this man-made priest his sins; and the promise is, that the "priest" will get him forgiveness. The "priest" resorts to the figment of the "unbloody sacrifice" of "the Mass," for he knows not the finished work of Christ, by Whose blood sin was put away once for all, on the Cross. What the Romish "priest" finds and the Jew of old found, is a remembrance of sins. (Of course this is an illustration, and we shall not at heart compare the Divinely appointed Levitical system of sacrifices with the blasphemous performances of Rome's self-appointed priests. For to the pope's puppets, with whom He has nothing to do, God makes no promise of forgiveness of sins at all, which He did make to the Hebrew bringing the appointed offering under the Levitical system. (Lev. 4:20, 26, 28; 5:10, 13, 16, 18; 6:7).)

Did a Hebrew sin? Had he committed a trespass? Let him bring the trespass offering according to Leviticus 4 to 6. But why, since on the Great Day of Atonement once a year (Lev. 16) the high priest carried the blood of the slain goat within the veil, then confessed all the transgressions and sins of the children of Israel upon the head of the live goat, and sent it away, bearing upon him "all their iniquities unto a solitary land"--why, when the high priest had done all this, should not a sinning Israelite later simply say, I will confess this trespass unto Jehovah, and rely upon the blood of the slain goat of the Day of Atonement?

He could not do that for two reasons: first, because the blood of the slain goat of Leviticus 16 did not put away all his sins forever as Christ's one Sacrifice has availed to do for us; (Note the seven cases of forgiveness: (1) "The whole congregation": Ch. 4:13, 20. (2) "A ruler": Ch. 4:22, 26. (3) "Anyone of the common people": Ch. 4:27, 31-33. (4) "Any one": Ch. 5:1, 10, 13. (5) "if anyone commit a trespass and sin unwittingly": Ch. 5:15-16. (6) "If any one sin and do" what "Jehovah commanded not to be done": Ch. 5:17-18. (7) "If any one ... deal falsely with his neighbor": Ch. 6:1, 7.); second, because each worshiper was commanded to bring a trespass offering each time he sinned; and he also knew that the high priest must again offer the blood of a goat before Jehovah, and again confess the sins of the children of Israel over another living goat, and send it away, at the next yearly Atonement, and the next--the same forms year after year. For in these sacrifices there is a remembrance (not a removal), made of sins year by year. As we read: