Bible Commentaries
Hebrews 10

Verses 1-39

X 1-18 Superior Efficacy of Christ’s One Sacrifice Abolishes Legal Sacrifices— Here the Apostle’s gaze is still more on the Church militant, as it undergoes sanctification for heaven. Christ’s sacrifice is compared once again with the yearly liturgy of atonement and subsequently with the perpetual daily round of Israelite sacrifices. Here also our points seem to sum up the text: (1) Sacrifices incessantly repeated show their powerlessness by their very repetition, 1-4; (2) Christ’s one obedience, as the Scriptures show, replaced them all, 5-10; (3) the daily liturgy of simple Levitical priests is as powerless as that of Atonement Day and even more palpably powerless, 11; (4) the sacrifice of Christ is the consummation of everything, for it really remits sins, 12-18.

1-4 Legal Sacriflees Powerless— The best way of conceiving the Apostle’s terminology (shadow, image, things) seems to be this. 1. The Law had only mere shadow signs, the new economy of the Church militant has the image (the object itself, the reality) in the institutional means of grace, while the good things to come embrace both grace and glory. The impotence of the yearly expiation, shown by its constant repetition, was its inability to give interior perfection (te?e??+?sa?) or effect pardon of sin.

2. The sacrificial ritual was really only a yearly amnesty, not a purification of consciences once for all.

3. In fact the amnesty included a yearly anamnesis or commemoration of sins.

4. It was, of course, impossible that the blood of calves and goats should take away guilt.

5-10 Christ’s Obedience— Christ himself in a programmatic Psalm-text, 39:7-9a, announces the abolition of legal sacrifices of every sort and their replacement by his own obedience—which obedience actually was sacrificial obedience unto death. 5. Coming into the world he speaks the words of this Psalm which may well be directly Messianic as most of the ancients and also post-Tridentine commentators of note, like Agellius and Bellarmine, held. It is at the very least typally Messianic. In this latter case, David must have been in such a situation that God wanted no sort of material sacrifice from him. The language used is, it seems, the most absolute rejection of legal sacrifice in any OT passage, ’cf.Pss 49:8; 50:18: 68:32. The verses are cited according to LXX, which differs from the Heb. mainly which reads ’Ears thou hast opened for me’, instead of Paul’s ’a body thou hast fitted to me’. In spite of the high editorial authority of Rahlfs, this seems to be the original Alexandrian Gk reading. The sense of the verse is not substantially changed, for the obedience of Christ (open-eared promptness) was exercised by offering his body. Hence St Paul can lawfully emphasize the word ’body’ from the LXX. 5-10. The Psalm text, as expounded here is a five-point oracle: (1) ’Thou wouldst not’, 5, removes legal sacrifices; (2) ’Behold, I come’, 7, marks a new era, but, of course, not an era without sacrifice; (3) the sacrifice of the Messias, though instinct with obedience, is not metaphorical but real, 8-2; (4) it is the sacrifice of his body, 10; (5) it is the will of God, to, that this obedience unto death be our sanctifying sacrifice offered once for all (?F?pa? used since 7:27 for the third and last time with a thud of emphasis).

11-18 The Daily Liturgy and the One Eternal Sacrifice — 11. Repetition, repetition, repetition—that is the law of the daily sacrifices of Mosaism, for they can never take away sin. Christ’s sacrifice for sins is, on the contrary, one and unrepeatable.

12-13. Having offered it, he sits for ever at the right hand of God, awaiting the full actualization of his sovereignty in the subjection of all his enemies.

14. For by one offering he has perfected (tete?eí??e?) for ever those who are undergoing sanctification.

15. Once again, under the name of the Holy Ghost the Inspirer, part of the oracle of Jeremias is quoted in inverted order, to show that the New Covenant brings the remission of sins.

18. Then the Apostle concludes: ’Where there is remission of these, an oblation for sin finds no place any longer’. What then of all our Masses? one may ask. The answer is that they are only the one Sacrifice of Christ perpetually commemorated, re-presented, applied to our daily needs, individual and social. The unity of Christ’s sacrifice is a tremendous truth, and nowhere is it so tremendously driven home as in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

PARAENETIC PART, X 19-XIII 17 This moral part is an exhortation to perseverance in the faith. Its, first section, 10:19-39, opens with an encouraging ’we-exhortation’ to faith, hope and charity, 19-25, continues with a severe warning against apostasy, 26-31, and terminates in a direct and comforting appeal based on past good deeds, 32-39. Each of the three subdivisions ends in the thought of judgement. The second section (ch 11) opening with a practical definition of faith, 1-3, is a Martyrology of heroic examples of faith from the primitive age, 4-7, the patriarchal age, 8-22, the days of the Exodus, and Conquest, 23-31, followed by more miscellaneous examples out of the long period from Judges to ’Machabees, 32-38. The Martyrology is crowned by the remark that all those heroes of faith attained the perfection of ’glory (te?e???+?sTa?) only in our Christian age, 39. The third section (ch 12) resumes exhortation especially to patience, firstly, with a ’we-appeal’ centring in the example of Christ, 1, 2—this continues in the second person plural with consolatory remarks on God’s paternal discipline, 3-13; then, in a special admonition to peace, holiness and fidelity which ends in a grandiose characterization of the Mosaic Sinai and the Christian Sion, 14-24. There follows a final warning, 25-29, in which, as it were, the sound of the last trumpet itself accompanies the proclamation that there can be no refusal of this final revelation of God now spoken in the Messianic end of time. The Epistle, in a sense, ends here; 13:1-17 is of the nature of an appendix and contains a set of precepts loosely strung together but skilfully attached to the main theme of the Epistle.

X 19-26 Steadfastness— ’Unwavering confidence I rooted in faith and working in charity’ is the watchword. 20. Christ is the inaugurator of the newly opened way to the Sanctuary through the veil of his flesh, and since he is also High Priest over the House of God, he inspires the boldness of our confidence. 22-24. Sincerity, fullness of faith, the sprinkling and washing that come from repentance and baptism give the conscience freedom of access. ’Let us approach . . . let us hold fast . . . let us consider each other ’are the three exhortatives which urge the practice of the three divine virtues. Hope particularly is founded on the fidelity of God to his promises, and charity must be social. 25. The necessity of ’provoking’ charity, of frequenting liturgical gatherings, of mutual exhortation is all the greater ’as you see the day approaching’. The Parousia is meant, but the judgement on Jerusalem five years hence) is probably included.

26-31 Apostasy— 26-29. The sin contemplated is I deliberate and persistent rejection of the truth once sufficiently received. For such sinners, on account of their moral condition, no sacrifice is operative and there is no prospect but the wrath of God. Much worse than the capital crime of blasphemy, mercilessly punished with death under the old legislation, is the sin of him who has trampled on the Son of God, treated the sanctifying blood of the Covenant as a common thing-ofnothing, and outraged the Spirit of grace.

30. The vengeance text from Deuteronomy 32:35 verbally differs from both Heb. and LXX but agrees with St Paul’s citation in Romans 12:19. The judgement text as uttered by Moses, Deuteronomy 32:36, really refers to judgement in favour of God’s people, but every such judgement entails punishment of enemies.

31. ’The Apostle ends with one of the three terrible dicta of Heb, cf. 6:8; 12:29.

32-39 Old Memories— Remembrance of days of fervour is a most powerful antidote against relaxation. The Hebrews had ’endured a great contest of sufferings’ and proved themselves good spiritual athletes. Pain, shame, active sympathy with persecuted fellowChristians, and spoliation fell to their lot—in the days of Stephen, for example.

35. This courage of confidence must not be thrown away, and patience is necessary in order to keep doing God’s will and thus secure salvation. 39-39. Prefaced by the words: a little while, a very little while’, Isaiah 26:20, the well-known text of Habakkuk 2:3c, 4a, 4b is cited in the order 3c, 4b, 4a. Thus an eschatological warning is made to end in the chiasmus: faith gives life, withdrawal displeasure to God—’but we are not persons of withdrawal to our. perdition, rather of faith to the saving of our souls The homiletic ’we’ concludes this direct appeal.