For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Sermons
I. THE AIM OF GOD. To make men perfect. All God's revelations and the powers belonging to them have this for their end, to take imperfect men (men in whom there are all sorts of imperfections, physical, intellectual, spiritual, men who have mixed with their nature a corrupt and debasing clement) and make them perfect. And this is to be done according to a Divine standard of perfection, not a human one. Indeed, that human excellence should attain a Divine standard is as necessary for the satisfaction of man as it is for the glory of God. All that is instrumental and ministerial about human life is to be measured as it serves towards the perfecting of the individual man in true godliness and Christian character. And we must ever remember this in the midst of all the infirmities and lapses of our present life. We are, indeed, strangely blind to the marvelous possibilities that lie hid in every human being. We often have to say of men that their purposes are broken off, but forget all the time that God's purposes for men may all be fulfilled if only they are willing to be co-workers together with him. II. THE SERVICE OF THE LAW. The Law, taken in its most comprehensive sense, including commandments as to conduct on the out hand, and ceremonies on the other, was of immediate service in two ways. It made men dissatisfied with their present selves, and intensely anxious to be better. If it did not give a standard of life positively, it was something that it gave one negatively. One of the great merits of Psalm 119. is in showing what the Law could do by way of stirring up spiritual aspirations, and filling men with a sublime discontent. For what the writer of this psalm expresses, thousands must have felt. Like Paul, they wanted to do good, yet evil was present with them. And always, to many, the Law must have been indeed a shadow of good things to come, a proof that there was abiding substance which would one day be manifested. III. THE LIMITS OF THE LAW. The Law was good as indicating where perfection lay; but there was in it nothing dynamic, nothing to advance men one stage nearer perfection. Indeed, the Law, apart from its proper sequel in Christ, would have done harm rather than good, inasmuch as it would have driven men to despair. Perfection would have been seen across an impassable abyss. It has always been a curse of fallen human nature that what God gives for one purpose man uses for another. In the course of ages the Jew had reduced a Law meant to rouse the heart, a Law that in the very essence of it was spiritual, to a mere collection of external ceremonies. The Law was reckoned as something that could be obeyed with the hands and lips. And because men had lost the main part of the Law, the Law itself must have fallen into disrepute with many. Outwardly they saw a profession of religion; inwardly they saw a sordid and uncharitable life. And even the gospel may be misused as much as the Law. There may be an outward semblance of connection with Christ, while he has no power over the heart. Men did come to the Law seeking perfection; all Pharisees were not bad men at heart; their consciences were misled by traditional teaching as to the importance of ceremonies. In their own strength they did their very best to obey. What is wanted is that we should really come to Christ, that our hearts should be brought fully under the regenerating power of his Spirit. Then shall we know something of steady and joyous approach 'to perfection; for while perfection itself may only come by slow degrees, yet Christ surely means us to have the satisfaction of knowing constantly that we are in the right way. - Y.
The Law having a shadow of good things to come. He is careful not to say that the Law was itself but a shadow. On the contrary, the very promise includes that God will put His laws in the heart and write them upon the mind. This was one of "the good things to come." The Law was holy, righteous, and good; but the manifestation of its nature in sacrifices was unreal, like the dark outline of an object that breaks the stream of light. Nothing more substantial, as a revelation of God's moral character, was befitting or possible in that stage of human development, when the purposes of His grace also not seldom found expression in dreams of the night and apparitions of the day. To prove the unreal nature of these ever-recurring sacrifices, the writer argues that otherwise they would have ceased to he offered, inasmuch as the worshippers, if they had been once really cleansed from their guilt, would have had no more conscience of sins. The reasoning is very remarkable. It is not that God would have ceased to require sacrifices, but that the worshipper would have ceased to offer them. It implies that, when a sufficient atonement for sin has been offered to God, the sinner knows it is sufficient, and, as the result, has peace of conscience. The possibility of a pardoned sinner still fearing and doubting does not seem to have occurred to the apostle. To men who cannot leave off introspection and forget themselves in the joy of a new faith the apostle's argument will have little force and perhaps less meaning. If the sacrifices were unreal, why, we naturally inquire, were they continually repeated? The answer is that there were two sides to the sacrificial rites of the Old Covenant. On the one hand, they were, like the heathen gods, "nothings"; on the other, their empty shadowiness itself fitted them to be a divinely appointed means to call sins to remembrance. They represented on the one side the invincible, though always baffled, effort of natural conscience; for conscience was endeavouring to purify itself from a sense of guilt. But God also had a purpose in awakening and disciplining conscience. The worshipper sought to appease conscience through sacrifice, and God, by the same sacrifice, proclaimed that reconciliation had not been effected. In allusion to this idea, that the sacrifices were instituted by God in order to renew the remembrance of sins every year, Christ said, "Do this in remembrance of Me" — of Him who hath put away sins by the sacrifice of Himself. Such, then, was the shadow, at once unreal and dark. In contrast to it, the apostle designates the substance as "the very image of the objects." Instead of repeating the indefinite expression "good things to come," he speaks of them as "objects," individually distinct, substantial, true. The image of a thing is the full manifestation of its inmost essence, in the same sense in which St. Paul says that the Son of God's love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, is the image of the invisible God. The gracious purpose of God is to forgive sin, and this was accomplished by the infinite humiliation of the infinite Son. God's will was to sanctify us; that is, to remove our guilt. We have actually been thus sanctified through the one offering of the body of Jesus Christ. The sacrifices of the Law are taken out of the way in order to establish the sacrifice of the Son. It will be observed that the apostle is not contrasting sacrifice and obedience. The dominant thoughts of the passage are the greatness of the Person who obeyed and the greatness of the sacrifice from which His obedience did not shrink. The Son is here represented as existing and acting apart from His human nature. He comes into the world, and is not originated in the world. The purpose of the Son's doming is already formed. He comes to offer His body, and we have been taught in a previous chapter that He did this with an eternal spirit. For the will of God means our sanctification in the meaning attached to the word "sanctification" in this Epistle — the removal of guilt, the forgiveness of sins. But the fulfilment of this gracious will of God demands a sacrifice, even a sacrificial death, and that not the death of beasts, but the infinite self-sacrifice and obedience unto death of the Son of God. This is implied in the expression "the offering of the body of Jesus Christ." The superstructure of argument has been raised. Christ as High Priest has been proved to be superior to the high priests of the former covenant. It remains only to lay the top-stone in its place. Jesus Christ, the eternal High Priest, is for ever King; for the priests under the Law stand while they perform the duties of their ministry. They stand because they are only priests. But Christ has taken His seat, as King, on the right hand of God. They offer the. same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, and wait, and wait, but in vain. Christ also waits, but not to renew an ineffectual sacrifice. He waits eagerly to receive from God the reward of His effective sacrifice in the subjugation of His enemies. The priests under the Law had no enemies. Their persons were sacred. They incurred no hatred, inspired no love. Our High Priest goes out to war, the most hated, the most loved, of all captains of men. The foundation of this kingly power is in two things: first, He has perfected men for ever by His one offering; second, He has put the law of God into the hearts of His people. The final conclusion is that the sacrifices of the Law have passed away, because they are no longer needed. "For where there is forgiveness, there is no more an offering for sin."(T. C. Edwards, D. D.) ( Augustine.) Christianity lay in Judaism as leaves and fruits do in the seed, though certainly it needed the Divine sun to bring them forth.(De Wette.) To pass from the doctrine of the Old Testament to that of the New is to enter a changed world. It is as if we had lived through an Arctic winter, our long night occasionally lit as by an aurora, or by stars the apparent revolutions of which made the mobility of our own minds the more conspicuous, and had suddenly chanced upon a warm and glorious summer with its unsetting sun and nightless day. The age of symbols is no more. Faint administrations of heavenly truths under material forms have given place to the loud proclamation of the same truths under those less material forms of speech and life.(Principal Cave, D. D.) The former constitution was not abolished, but exchanged, and by that change perfected; and in this manner did Jesus say that He came not to abolish, but to complete or accomplish: secondly, that the former was a type, and merged into its reality, not so much dying as passing into a second existence, where a true sacrifice covered a typical oblation, where redemption given passed before redemption expected, where uncertainty had ripened into knowledge, and hope yielded its kingdom to faith. To illustrate the noble by the base, the former state was as that living but creeping sheath wherein lie infolded for a time the corresponding parts of a more splendid and gorgeous insect, which in due time takes upon itself the vital functions till then by the other exercised, and rises towards heaven — the same, yet different — a transmigration rather than an offspring.(Cardinal Wiseman.) No more conscience of sins. Conscience naturally knows nothing of forgiveness; yea, it is against its very trust, work, and office to hear anything of it. If a man of courage and honesty be entrusted to keep a garrison against an enemy, let one come and tell him that there is peace between those whom he serves and their enemies, so that he may leave his guard, and set open the gates, and cease his watchfulness; how worthy will he be, lest, under this pretence, he be betrayed! "No," saith he, "I will keep my hold until I have express orders from my superiors." Conscience is entrusted with the power of God in the soul of a sinner, with command to keep all in subjection, with reference to the judgment to come; it will not betray its trust in believing every report of peace. No; but this it says, and it speaks in the name of God, "Guilt and punishment are inseparable twins." If the soul sin, God will judge. What tell you me of forgiveness.? I know not what my commission is, and that I will abide by. You shall not bring in a superior commander, a cross principle, into my trust; for if this be so, it seems I must let go my throne — another lord must come in — not knowing as yet how this whole business is compounded in the blood of Christ. Now, whom should a man believe if not his own conscience? which, as it will not flatter him, so it intends not to affright him, but to speak the truth as the matter requireth. Conscience hath two works in reference to sin — one to condemn the acts of sin, another to judge the person of the sinner; both with reference to the judgment of God. When forgiveness comes, it would sever and part these employments, and take one of them out of the hand of conscience; it would divide the spoil with this strong one. It shall condemn the fact, or every sin; but it shall no more condemn the sinner, the person of the sinner, that shall be freed from its sentence. Here conscience labours with all its might to keep its whole dominion, and to keep out the power of forgiveness from being enthroned in the soul. It will allow men to talk of forgiveness, to hear it preached, though they abuse it every day; but to receive it in its power, that stands up in direct opposition to its dominion. "In the kingdom," saith conscience, "I will be greater than thou"; and in many — in the most — it keeps its possession, and will not be deposed. Nor, indeed, is it an easy work so to deal with it. The apostle tells us that all the sacrifices of the Law could not do it (ver. 2); they could not bring a man into that estate wherein he could have "no more conscience of sin" — thief is, conscience condemning the person; for conscience, in a sense of sin, and condemnation of it, is never to be taken away. And this can be no otherwise done but by the blood of Christ, as the apostle at large there declares.(J. Owen, D. D.) People Hebrews, JamesPlaces JerusalemTopics TRUE, Altar, Approach, Blessings, Clean, Comers, Complete, Completely, Continually, Copy, Draw, Endlessly, Exhibits, Form, Freedom, Future, Image, Instead, Itself, Law, Matters, Nigh, Offer, Offered, Offerings, Outline, Perfect, Poor, Priests, Realities, Reason, Repeated, Repeating, Representation, Sacrifices, Shadow, Sin, Themselves, Thereunto, Worship, YearlyOutline 1. The weakness of the law sacrifices.10. The sacrifice of Christ's body once offered, 14. for ever has taken away sins. 19. An exhortation to hold fast the faith with patience and thanksgiving. Dictionary of Bible Themes Hebrews 10:1 4846 shadow 1065 God, holiness of 7422 ritual 6175 guilt, removal of 4906 abolition Library July 17. "By one Offering He Hath Perfected Forever them that are Sanctified" (Heb. x. 14). "By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified" (Heb. x. 14). Are you missing what belongs to you? He has promised to sanctify you. He has promised sanctification for you by coming to you Himself and being made of God to you sanctification. Jesus is my sanctification. Having Him I have obedience, rest, patience and everything I need. He is alive forevermore. If you have Him nothing can be against you. Your temptations will not be against you; your bad temper will not be against … Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth Twenty-Eighth Day. The Way into the Holiest. Twenty-Sixth Day. Holiness and the Will of God. June the Fourteenth the Law in the Heart Provoking Each Other to Love and Good Works. The Death of the Saviour the End of all Sacrifices. The Exercise of Mercy Optional with God. The Only Atoning Priest Christ Exalted Perfection in Faith Hebrews x. 26, 27 The Inward Laws Like one of Us. Getting Ready to Enter Canaan A Farewell The Roman Conflagration and the Neronian Persecution. Brought Nigh An Advance in the Exhortation. The Saints' Privilege and Profit; Seventeenth Day. Holiness and Crucifixion. Your Own Salvation A visit to the Harvest Field Brought up from the Horrible Pit The Rent Veil Links Hebrews 10:1 NIVHebrews 10:1 NLT Hebrews 10:1 ESV Hebrews 10:1 NASB Hebrews 10:1 KJV Hebrews 10:1 Bible Apps Hebrews 10:1 Parallel Hebrews 10:1 Biblia Paralela Hebrews 10:1 Chinese Bible Hebrews 10:1 French Bible Hebrews 10:1 German Bible Hebrews 10:1 Commentaries Bible Hub |
    |