Context No. 2530 of 4322 · Hebrews

Hebrews 10:1-7: in context

1For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. 2Or else wouldn’t they have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins? 3But in those sacrifices there is a yearly reminder of sins. 4For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. 5Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, “You didn’t desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. 6You had no pleasure in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. 7Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.’”

Hebrews explains why the old sacrifices could never finish their work. The law was a shadow of the good things to come, not the reality itself, and the same offerings, repeated year after year, could not perfect the worshipers or truly take away sins; the blood of bulls and goats cannot do that. So, the writer says, when Christ came into the world, he spoke the words of the psalm: sacrifice you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. Behold, I have come to do your will.

The endless animal offerings were a standing reminder of sin, not a removal of it. What they could not accomplish, Christ accomplished not by another sacrifice of the same kind, but by obedience, offering the body God prepared, coming to do the Father's will. I have come to do your will is the sentence that changes everything. God was never finally after the smoke of offerings; he was after a life wholly given to his will, and that is what Christ brought. The temptation to substitute religious activity for actual obedience runs straight into this.

Am I offering God a stream of religious activity as a substitute for the one thing he wants, a life that has come to do his will?

Sources

Hebrews 10:4: For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
Hebrews 10:5: You didn't desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me.
Hebrews 10:7: Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.