A Better Offering (Hebrews 10:1-16)

Coming now to Hebrews chapter 10, the author stops to summarize his main point:  The superiority of Jesus and the new covenant that He ushered in by His complete and sufficient sacrifice for our sins.  “For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.  Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have consciousness of sins?  But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.  For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:1-4).  The Old Testament sacrifice was not a complete salvation, but only a temporary covering for their sins.

But when Christ came, the temporary sacrificial system was replaced by His permanent obedient sacrifice.  “Therefore, when Christ comes into the world, He says, ‘Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me;  in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.  Then I said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God” ‘ ” (Heb 10:5-7).

“When Christ said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will,’ He takes away the first in order to establish the second.  By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb 10:9-10).  Christ came to replace the old covenant system of sacrifice with the once-for-all obedient sacrifice of His own body.

This sacrifice has a here-and-now application as well as a once-for-all.  “For by one offering He has perfected [completed the salvation] for all time [once for all] those who are being sanctified [in the here and now]” (Heb 10:14).  Being sanctified how?  “By the Holy Spirit who testifies to us; for after saying, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them’ ” (Heb 10:15-16).  This is a repeat of the promise of Hebrews 8:10.

How does God write His laws, His ways, on our heart and mind?  By giving us the mind of Christ Himself through the indwelling Spirit.  “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words…For who has known the mind of the Lord?…But we have the mind of Christ” (I Cor 2:12-13, 16).  Can you believe it?  You have the mind of Christ.  And the implications of this are enormous.