Hebrews 10

28. When he cometh again, he shall appear “without sin,” without that guilt which was charged upon him, while he sustained the character of Surety and stood in the place of sinful man. It shall not be such an appearance as his first was, when he “made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant,” and submitted to all the indignities attending that mean condition. No; he shall come in the clouds with great power and glory; he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels; he shall appear in all the splendor of Zion’s King, arrayed with that glory which he had with the Father before the world was. Then shall the reproach of the cross be wiped off, and all his sufferings fully recompensed. R. W.—For the death of the cross God hath highly exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour. The cross links on to the kingdom—the kingdom lights up the cross! The Saviour comes—the Saviour comes a king! The kingdom that he establishes is all full of blessing and love and gentleness; and to us (if we will unite the thoughts of cross and crown) there is opened up, not only the possibility of having boldness before him in the day of judgment, but there is opened up this likewise—the certainty that he “shall receive of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.” Oh, remember that, as certain as the historical fact, he died on Calvary, so certain is the prophetic fact, he shall reign, and you and I will stand there! Take it into your own hearts and think about it—a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, execution of the sentence. And oh! ask yourselves, “When that gentle eye, with lightning in its depths, falls upon me, individualizes me, summons out me to its bar, how shall I stand?” “Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness before him in the day of judgment.” A. M.

1. 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 2 the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because 3 that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in 4 those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possi- 5 ble that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he com- 6 eth into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou 7 prepared me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said 8 I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above 9 when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest 10 not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I 11 come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 12 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once 13 for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacri- 14 fices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for 15 sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his ene- 16 mies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are 17 sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said 18 before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, 19 I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins 20 and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more 21 offering for sin. 22 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by 23 a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, 24 his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true 25 heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and 26 our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without 27 wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto 28 love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner 29 of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approach- 30 ing. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there 31 remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery

28 indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without 29 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 30 unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, 31 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. 32 But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured 33 a great fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches 34 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, know- 35 ing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not 36 away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need 37 of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For 38 yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall 39 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.

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. We must find the meaning so precious to every soul that really has laid hold of it, in those strange words, “The Lord Jesus Christ died for me.” We must see the Jesus of the cross on the cross. And what then? Full of profoundest gratitude, the soul looks round to see what it can give to the Saviour in token of its feeling of his love. And, hopeless of finding anything, it simply gives itself. It is its own no longer. It is given away to Christ. It lives his life and not its own. Can you imagine that becoming real to a man and not changing his relation to the temptations that beset him? He feels now with Christ’s feeling, and corruption drops away from him. Shame, love, hope, every good passion wakes in the soul. It walks unharmed, because it walks in this new sense of consecration. That seems to be the perfect ransom of a soul. When I am so thankful to Christ for all he suffered in my behalf that I give up my life to him to show him how I love him, and by my dedication of myself to him am saved from the world’s low slaveries and stains, then my heaven is begun, its security and peace I have entered, and all my happy, restful life takes up already its eternal psalm. P. B.

THE writer resumes his great theme—the com- parison of the old covenant with the new—the sac- rifices under the law of Moses with the one great sacrifice of Christ—and brings it to its close and its practical application. H. C.

1-4. By ceasing to apply the term “sacrifice” in its proper sense under the gospel to everything save the death of Christ as an atonement for sin, the inspired writers evidently designed to embody this vitally important teaching, that the one great and only propitiatory sacrifice having been offered once for all, the whole system of typical and repre- sentative sacrifices is at an end for ever, and is for ever to remain without successor and without sub- stitute. Under the old dispensation, when the great atonement had been neither publicly offered nor fully revealed, it was necessary to keep up a lively idea of sin, and of the necessity of atonement, by a system of most speaking types. Hence living vic- tims were ordered to be slain, and animal blood to be sprinkled, amid all the solemnities of an impos- ing ritual; a ritual carrying, nevertheless, on its very face the truth that “those sacrifices, which were offered year by year continually,” could not of themselves “take away sin”; while, at the same moment, it served to keep alive both a sense of sin and the idea that a real and efficacious atonement was necessary. But, now this real and efficacious atonement having been both publicly offered and fully revealed, the whole system of typical and representative sacrifices is abolished, and the pall of significant silence is, under the gospel, thrown over the dead body of that system, in order that there may be nothing, not even a word, to turn away our eye from the sacrifice on the cross, the true “Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world,” as he stands forth luminously manifest in the gospel, the only hope of the sinner. J. S. S.

5-9. The Psalmist affirms the inadequacy of animal sacrifices to fulfill the divine requirement; personal surrender is the thing demanded. This statement involves a principle which the inspired author of the Hebrews makes use of to establish the point that he is arguing, viz., that the Mosaic sacrifices are superseded and abolished by the one all-perfect and atoning sacrifice of Christ. If the only true sacrifice, and that which alone is accept- able to God, is a personal surrender, then, in order to a perfect and thoroughly acceptable sacrifice, this surrender must be complete. There is but one of our race who can claim that his submission to the will of God has been unreserved, and that he has fulfilled that will in every particular. It is he who came down from heaven not to do his own will but the will of the Father who had sent him; and who did always those things that please him. Here, and here only, is a subjection to the will of God that completely fills the true idea of a sacrifice. Language that David and other servants of God employed in their own feeble measure could be adopted by him in its highest sense without abate- ment or alloy. The words which the Psalmist used to express his own devout feelings first find their adequate embodiment in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ. The Psalmist was not specifically thinking of Christ when he penned these words. He did not at the time intend them as the utterance of Messiah. But, if the meaning of Christ’s act in coming into the world is to be put into words, these are its true expression. And hence the writer of this Epistle represents him as saying when he came into the world just what that act in effect did say. W. H. G.

7. He became Mediator and reconciling Peacemaker between God and men, having offered himself up to God the Father for a sweet-smelling savor. For what offering or sacrifice could he have needed for himself, when, being God, he was already far above all sin? Then what room is left for doubting that on our account and for us he was sacrificed as the true Lamb? Cyrii of Alex.—The freeness of the sacrifice was its efficacy. It was not the offering of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, but of the divine heart of God in them both—a heart that was loving before the foundation of the world, and finding this overwhelming utterance at last. F. D. H.

9. At the table, in the temple, on the mount, by the wayside, weary, hungry, defamed, by night, by day, in every state and place, weeping over the grave of Lazarus, riding triumphantly into Jerusalem, praying in the garden, hanging on the cross, Jesus was still the same—he did the will of the Father who sent him. Fancy can imagine nothing more sublime than the unity of that great purpose. Bowdler.—“He taketh away the first,” viz., the sacrifices, “that he may establish the second,” viz., the will of God. C.

Altar of Burnt Offering, from Surenhusius’s Mishna.

11. For four thousand years the animal tribes, by their appointed representatives, paid for man the forfeiture of his life by their own. For thousands of years the priests of God stood daily offering the same sacrifices, all holding forth the same truths: The wages of sin is death; and, Without shedding of blood, is no remission. N. A.—12. Under the law there was no end to the priest’s work; for, besides the two great public sacrifices at morning and evening, any man might bring his sin-offering or trespass-offering at any hour to the temple, and there must be a priest waiting to receive and present it. And all this went on year after year for ages. The fire on the altar was kept continually burning, and the blood of victims almost as continually flowing—significant but awful emblems of the unceasing, ever-burning displeasure of Jehovah against man’s transgressions, and the utter insufficiency of all that man can do to remove it. “But this man,” the Lord Jesus, our great High Priest, “offered one sacrifice,” one only, and when he had offered that, his work was done. His precious blood once shed, all is over. The fire on the altar goes out, and the altar itself is soon thrown down and destroyed. C. B.—He obtained by one act that which mankind, from the beginning of the world, had been endeavoring in vain to accomplish by innumerable and continual sacrifices, the pardon of sin and reconciliation with God. After this universal and effectual expiation, in every country that embraced the gospel, all sacrifices, both animal and human, immediately ceased; a sudden and absolute period was put to that incredible effusion of blood which had deluged the world almost from the very creation down to that time. P.

As the virtue of his death looks backward to all preceding ages, whose faith and sacrifices looked forward to it, so the same death is of force and perpetual value to the end of the world. The cross on which he was extended points in the length of it to heaven and earth, reconciling them together; and in the breadth of it to former and following ages, as being equally salvation to both. L.—For ever sat down. The mediatorial dominion stands in inseparable connection with the sacerdotal offering of Christ. He sits a Priest upon his throne. Nor will any enlightened, unprejudiced subject of Zion’s King feel that there is any incongruity, in his case at least, between the miter and the crown, the altar and the throne, the censer and the scepter, the smoking incense and the shout of victory. “We have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens. This man for ever sat down on the right hand of God.” W. S.—In his wonderful personality, uniting the divine with the human constitution—after his amazing and unparalleled experience, of the endurance unto death, of resurrection and ascension—as the head of the system which represents him among men, he abideth henceforth in the presence of God. He there awaits the extension through the earth of his spiritual kingdom. R. S. S.

14-18. “By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” That this is so, saith he, the Holy Ghost himself witnesses by the express terms of the new covenant. For, after promising to be the author of sanctification to the heirs of promise, he adds, “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” “Now,” argues the apostle, “where remission of these is,” such a remission as is complete and final, “there is no more offering for sin.” Goode.—Perfected. They lie no longer under a sense of condemnation. They are really accepted before the infinite throne as redeemed and saved children of God. More than merely forgiven, they are renewed in heart to love and obedience; born of God unto a new and heavenly life of soul. The work of salvation is for them made perfect. In a blessed sense they are “perfected for ever.” H. C.

15-17. (See Section 342, verses 10-12.) In this covenant, life and every blessing is freely made over in Christ; it is a covenant founded on free forgiveness of all iniquity, consisting of exceeding great and precious promises from him who is able to make them good, and having no other conditions to be fulfilled, on man’s part, than simply to accept its grace. Goode.

19. The meaning of this is, that the flesh (or manhood) of Christ was a veil which hid his true nature; this veil he rent when he gave up his body to death; and through his incarnation, thus revealed under its true aspect, we must pass, if we would enter into the presence of God. We can have no real knowledge of God but through his incarnation. C.—The blood by which we now enter into the heavenly sanctuary is the blood of him who hath life in himself; who, though he voluntarily submitted to death for a season, yet soon rose again from the grave by his own power; “who liveth for evermore.” His flesh, or human nature, gets the name of a veil, through which the new and living way into the holiest is consecrated for us. It is such a veil as doth not exclude from but opens to give its admittance to a throne of grace; nay, Christ himself is the true propitiatory or mercy-seat: the sacrifice, the altar, and the high priest are all united in his wonderful person. In short, “he is the way, the truth, and the life”; the true, the living, and the only way to the Father. R. W.

22. Draw near.** The outer temple was the figure of the whole Church upon earth; like as the holy of holies represented heaven. Nothing can better resemble faithful prayers than sweet perfume. These God looks that we should send up unto him morning and evening. The elevation of our hearts should be perpetual; but, if twice in the day we do not present God with our solemn invocations, we make the gospel less effective than the law. Now, every man is a priest unto God; every man, since the veil was rent, prays within the temple. What are we the better for our greater freedom of access to God under the gospel, if we do not make use of our privilege? Bp. H.—In full assurance. We have the promise of God confirmed by his oath; we have the gift of his own Son to be the propitiation for our sins; we are not only permitted, but invited, nay, commanded, to come to the Saviour, with this most endearing declaration, that such as come to him shall in no wise be rejected or cast out by him. And shall not this accumulated, this superabundant evidence produce in us that full assurance of faith with which the apostle exhorteth us to draw near to God by the blood of Jesus? R. W.

Hearts sprinkled. Pardoned sins can not hurt the sinner, and, though it troubles him that he hath sinned, yet his sins can not trouble him. Free grace in justification takes all our sins off the file as if they were not at all. Pardon is the blotting of transgressions out of God’s book, and, if they are once blotted out of God’s book, we need not care who writes them in their book, nor what books men or devils write against us. Caryl.—What the apostle subjoins, having our bodies washed with pure water, ought to be transferred to the following verse; in which case, without any straining, they obviously apply to the ordinance of baptism, and are urged, with great propriety, to enforce a steadfast, unwavering adherence to that faith which the converted Hebrews had professed with such solemnity, when, at their admission into the Church of Christ, their bodies were washed with pure water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. R. W.

23. There are four things ascribed to God in Scripture which may assure us he will be just in performing all his promises: he remembers them all, he is unchangeable, he is furnished with power to perform them, he is most faithful, and will not deny nor falsify them. To keep commandments is our work—to keep promises is God’s work; though we may fail much in our work, God will not fail at all in his work. To believe this is our highest and truest work of faith. Caryl.—“God,” it is written, “is faithful,” as promising to save; he will save assuredly, yet so as he has promised. But in what way has he promised? On our willing it and on our hearing him; for he does not make a promise to blocks of wood and to inert stones. Chrys.

24,25. I do not know anything more impressive than the sight of a congregation evidently in earnest in the service in which they are engaged. We then feel how different is our lonely prayer from the united voice of many hearts, each cheering, strengthening, enkindling the other. We then consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. How different are the feelings with which we regard a number of persons met for any common purpose, and the same persons engaged together in serious prayer or praise! Then Christ seems to appear to us in each of them; we are all one in him. How little do all earthly unkindnesses, dislikes, prejudices become in our eyes when the real bond of our common faith is discerned clearly! T. A.

Should you be really and lawfully hindered by works of necessity and love from attending public worship, you break no law whatever by absenting yourself from it; nay, because God sends the hindrance in the order of his providence, you shall none the less realize his presence and receive his blessing in the sanctuary of your heart. Whereas, on the other hand, when there is no such hindrance, and when opportunities offer, you do forsake the assembling of yourself together with your brethren, if you do not avail yourself of them. The precept is free enough to give dispensation in circumstances of necessity, while at the same time it is strict enough to secure obedience where there are no such circumstances. E. M. G.—We should be alarmed to know that the prayers of God’s house are proceeding without us; that the songs of the temple are sung, and our voices are dumb; that the treasury of benevolence is filled, while our money cankers and eats our flesh; that dying souls need us not, while others search them out as gems for our Redeemer’s crown. R. T.

25. The day approaching.** The Church being in all ages kept uncertain how soon Christ is coming, the day is, and has been in each age, practically always near, whence believers have been called on always to be watching for it as nigh at hand. The Hebrews were now living close upon one of those great types and foretastes of it—the destruction of Jerusalem. Fausse!—That day is the day of days, the ending day of all days, the settling day of all days, the day of the promotion of time into eternity, the day which, for the Church, breaks through and breaks off the night of the present world. Delitzsch.

26-31. This and the similar passage, 6: 4-6, have proved perplexing to many readers; yet neither passage asserts the impossibility of an apostate’s repentance. What is said amounts to this: that for the conversion of a deliberate apostate, God has (according to the ordinary laws of his working) no further means in store than those which have been already tried in vain. It should be remembered also that the parties addressed are not those who had already apostatized, but those who were in danger of so doing, and who needed the most earnest warning. C.

26,27. God is now merciful; he deals with us through the medium of his Son. If we will be reconciled to him as he is to us through Christ, we shall have peace, and the blood of Christ shall cleanse us from all unrighteousness; but, if not, God will have judgment without mercy. This is a result of evil proportioned to the cost and preciousness of the good we decline; and both reason and conscience give forth this “looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.” This is the handwriting of conscience upon the wall which we need no prophet to divine. H. H.—God will punish sin in a way corresponding to the infinite wonders of his love and grace in redemption; and they who neglect Christ and continue in sin will endure a punishment corresponding to the greatness of the salvation which was provided for them. N. A.

29. Man is voluntary in his departure from God; he is voluntary in loving the creature more than God; and he is voluntary in refusing to return to God by Jesus Christ. A complete atonement has been made for all his sins, and a free pardon is offered if he will repent. But he will not repent. Christ is able and willing to save him if he will come to him, but he will not come. God has built an eternal prison, and the sinner fits himself for it; goes there of his own accord, in spite of all the restraints which God has laid upon him and all the obstructions by which he has blocked up the way to ruin. God has done everything but just to exert almighty power; yet he will not turn. He will die! He shuts his eyes; he stops his ears to prayers and entreaties; he treads under foot the blood of the covenant and does despite to the Spirit of grace; and, through a host of opposing means, and while God and angels and men are entreating him to stop, he forces his way down to ruin. L. B.—Believe it, whoever hewed the cross, or drove the nails, or platted the thorns, or pierced the side, it is indifference, it is ingratitude, it is unbelief, it is selfishness, it is hard, cold, narrow worldliness, everywhere, always, which crucifies the Lord of Glory, and is the agency of his crucifixion. F. D. H.

30,31. What say we of the penalty? Shall we amuse our leisure by showing the inconclusiveness of certain terrific and probable arguments on this subject? Shall we spend the hours of life that remain in gathering reasons which seem to make it less than absolutely certain that the worst that has been affirmed shall prove to be true? Shall we court those dreams concerning the lenity of the divine government which the miseries even of the present life are enough to dissipate? Nay, rather than any longer debilitate the moral forces of the mind by giving ear to flatteries that breathe the very nausea of sin, let us take up, as the first axiom of our religious notions, the truth—that “it is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” I. T.

36. Need of patience.** All other virtues and graces have need of patience to perfect or to secure them. Patience interposes herself, and receives and stops every dart which the evil one aims at them. “Patience is the root and guardian of all virtue”

impatience is the enemy of all. Impatience disquiets the soul, makes her weary of conflict, ready to lay aside her armor and to leave difficult duty. Impatience, by troubling the smooth mirror of the soul, hinders her from reflecting the face of God; by its din, it hinders her from hearing the voice of God. Impatience listens to nothing, heeds nothing, fears nothing, hopes nothing, judges aright of nothing, perseveres in nothing except in restlessness. Impatience distrusts man and rebels against God. Pusey.—The active working time in some manner comes to an end. Perhaps health fails, or circumstances change, or doors of opportunity are closed, or fields once white unto the harvest are now reaped and bare, and no other fields are whitening. Arrest, in some way, is laid upon the active power, and there is “need of patience.” Or, the work still going on, without abatement of energy in the doing of it, with no slackening of diligence or narrowing of opportunity, there is still, it may be, much need of patience. Work, and have patience. And still work, as long as working power is given, and still have patience. A. R.