Heb. 10:1-18, Once For All! Never Again!

The idea of the old covenant being weak and ineffective might be confusing and even troubling to some.  Why did God do this, establishing a covenant with Israel that they could not keep and that would not be able to make them perfect?  This closing passage (10:1-18) of the main argument of Hebrews gives us some important insight into the answer to that question.

The old covenant was “a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things.”  The glory of the old covenant was the way it pointed to the new covenant and the Savior who would come.  The Savior was promised as soon as sin entered the world (Gen. 3:15).  But the Savior was not going to come until God’s perfect time.  In the meantime, there needed to be a way that men could come to God, and that way involved the sacrificial system of the old covenant.  While it could not actually take away sins (10:4) it was a way that men could demonstrate their hope in the Savior that God promised. 

Heb. 10:5-10 tell us that the old covenant was not a “mistake” God made, a mistake He cleared up in the new covenant.  This was God’s plan all along.  The passage is built on Psalm 40:6-8.  Psalm 40 is a great Messianic Psalm.  I encourage you to read it now, remembering that the writer of Hebrews was quoting from the Greek translation of the Old Testament. 

What does this tell us?  The old covenant established the sacrificial system.  The blood of animals was shed, all pointing to the coming of the Savior.  The old blood sacrifices were a picture of what the Savior would have to do.  The salvation He would provide would require the shedding of His blood.  As Gen. 3:15 indicates, the Savior was going to be a Man, the seed of the woman.” 

But what else did God know?  God knew that He would have to be the sacrifice.  There would never be anyone else who could satisfy God’s righteous wrath but God Himself.  Thus, when God the Father sent God the Son to be the Savior, it was required that the Son become Man so that He would have a body and blood to offer.  That takes us back to Heb. 1-2, the beginning of this discussion.  The Son came, fully human, with a body, and with the perfect obedience to do the will of His Father.  It is “by that will” that “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10).  Hallelujah!

The Aaronic priests never stopped their work (10:11).  But Christ did His work and then “sat down at the right hand of God” where He awaits the day of His glorious return (10:12-13).  The important truth is, that “by this one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (10:14).  He has done what was promised in the new covenant (10:16-17).  And because sins have been forgiven, there never again needs to be an offering for sin.  He is truly a great High Priest.