Once and For All
5 Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said:
You did not desire sacrifice and offering,
but you prepared a body for me.
6 You did not delight
in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings.
7 Then I said, “See—
it is written about me
in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, God.”
8 After he says above, You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law), 9 he then says, See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. Hebrews 10:5-10
We have read on how the animal sacrifices of the first covenant were insufficient in the ability to forgive sins. The author quotes from Psalm 40:6-8 in reference to Christ after He had entered into the world physically. Jesus says that the Father “did not desire sacrifice and offering, but You prepared a body for Me.” The Father was not looking for a particular animal sacrifice, but rather, people dedicated to do His will. Yet, the people offered sacrifices out of habit, losing the heart of repentance and obedience to God. As Thomas D. Lea writes, God “was pleased only when the sacrifices were a demonstration of a broken and contrite heart.” Jesus reiterates this in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee stated, “‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people—greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’ (Luke 18:11-12) However, the tax collector cried out, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ (v. 13) Jesus states that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (v.14) The sacrifices of the first covenant were to show the brokenness of the individual and their need for forgiveness and change. Many lost sight of this and did so out of repetition. Therefore, Jesus came to take “away the first to establish the second.” Christ came “to do Your will, God.” Christ obeyed completely the Father’s will, humbled Himself by offering His body “once and for all time”, through which, “we have been sanctified.” If you have humbled yourself before God, repent of your sin, and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you are purified of your sin once and for all.
Blessings,
Isaac De Guzman
Commentaires