Hebrews 10:1-18--Christ's Sacrifice Once for All

​Hebrews 10:1-18 English Standard Version (ESV)
Listen:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Heb.10.1-Heb.10.18
Christ's Sacrifice Once for All
10:1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
    but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
    you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
    as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”
8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
    after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
    and write them on their minds,”
17 then he adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

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The idea of the Old Covenant being a shadow of the New Covenant and the New Covenant being more excellent than the Old Covenant continues to play out here and throughout Hebrews, but once again we will return to the person of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice that was made once for all.  If the blood of rams, bulls, and goats had been sufficient, it would not have been required for the people to return day after day and year after year with more and more sacrifices.

Jesus knew that the offerings themselves were not what God desired.  God desired obedience, not sacrifice, and God desired the hearts of the people to be inclined towards Him and to have a restored relationship with them, but that which was made dead through sin must be born again through the new life that comes through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.  In this the prophecy that God made through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled...that God would make a new covenant with His people where the law would be written on their hearts and on their minds and He would live among them and He would be their God and they would be His people.

Since our sins have not only been covered over, but taken away by Christ--all of our sins, past, present, and future--there is no longer a need for us to make continual atonement for every violation of the Law because the entire penalty and debt has been paid in full.  This is not a license to sin, but instead gives us an assurance that we can do nothing that will make us lose our salvation because if our salvation was real to start off with, Jesus has already paid it all and any sin we commit has already been paid for.  Let us though live our lives by the Greatest Commandments--love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind, and strength (for they all belong to Him anyways) and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Against such there is no law.  We should also walk in the Spirit and live by the Spirit and bear the fruit of the Spirit (we'll see more about this when we get to some of the other epistles) as we are to no longer live according to our flesh and its desires.