Hebrews Chapter 10 - The Perfecting Covenant

The new covenant provides perfection in obedience for all who believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the purpose of the covenantal change — to bring about an atonement that accomplishes what the old covenant could not do, that is, bring about perfection.

Hebrews chapter ten is crucial for understanding this atonement. It begins with the statement of the inadequacy of the old covenant Law. It could not make people perfect:

"For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near."

The next verse explains what is meant by "perfect."

"Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?" (Hebrews 10:2)

If the sacrifices under the old covenant had made people perfect, they would no longer need to offer sacrifices. They would have stopped sinning.

The inadequacy of the Law was this - it could not make people perfect in obedience. It could not make them sinless. Why?

Verse 4 says, "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins."

Thus the problem is stated. The Law could not make people perfect (sinless), because the sacrifices were unable to bring about this state. Death occurs in an animal, a surrogate, not within the sinner himself. It cannot accomplish any permanent change.

The writer of Hebrews then explains the solution to the inadequacy:

Heb 10:5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, "Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me;
Heb 10:6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure.
Heb 10:7 "Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.’”
Heb 10:8 After saying above, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law),
Heb 10:9 then He said, "Behold, I have come to do your will." He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

The new covenant was established by the obedience of the one who came to do God's will. What does this will accomplish?

Verse 10 answers: "By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

God's will brings about sanctification for believers. We are set apart for Him.

How does that happen? The next three verses answer:

Heb 10:11 Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;
Heb 10:12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,
Heb 10:13 waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet.

Instead of multiple continual offerings that cannot take away sins, Jesus provided a single offering for all time. What did that one sacrifice do?

Verse 14 answers: "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." (Hebrews 10:14)

This takes us back to the first verse. The Law could not make people perfect (sinless), but the offering of Jesus does. Remember, verse 10 established that believers are sanctified, so this means that believers have been perfected in obedience, in sinlessness.

With this atonement, instead of a surrogate sacrifice, the believer himself dies with Christ, as explained in Romans 6:

“knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:6-7)

Such a death makes a permanent change in the believer. He is freed from sin.

Then the writer of Hebrews defines this as the new covenant:

Heb 10:15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,
Heb 10:16 "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them," He then says,
Heb 10:17 "And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
Heb 10:18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Now that we are forgiven, there is no longer an offering. Since we stopped sinning, there is no need of another offering, which takes us back to verse 2

"Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?" (Hebrews 10:2)

The sacrifice of Jesus is a one-time event. The worshipers who have once been cleansed no longer have consciousness of sins. Again, there is no reason for another offering.

Many claim that Christ’s sacrifice forgives of future sins, but there is no hint of that concept here. In fact, that idea is contradicted in this chapter. There was one sacrifice for the sins we committed in the past, and that sacrifice perfected us. It took away sins. There are no future sins.

Yet, if a believer did defy his new state of sinlessness, what would happen? The writer of Hebrews tells us:

Heb 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
Heb 10:27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
Heb 10:28 He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
Heb 10:29 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 unto the Spirit of grace?
Heb 10:30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
Heb 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

That one sacrifice no longer applies to such a person (verse 26). He is not forgiven of "future sins." In fact, it states the opposite, that such a person will be judged more severely than someone who dies without mercy under the Law's (old covenant) judgment.

The new covenant atonement is a one-time cleansing from all sin, a process that makes us perfectly sinless. We have a new nature that abhors sin and would never commit it. Yet, the theoretical possibility of sin does exist, and if someone does actually sin, that person would be lost forever.

The hypothetical scenario the writer provides contains two parts: (1) If we sin willfully and (2) If we have received the knowledge of the truth. The result of this two-fold hypothetical is that there remains no more sacrifice for such a person.

Some have said that this lack of sacrifice refers to the old covenant, but that’s not what the writer is discussing. This is a person who has received the knowledge of the truth, which in context would be the new covenant, because the new covenant is the truth that the writer has taken great pains to describe in verses 15 through 18, quoted above.

Verse 18 is crucial – “Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.” Once there is forgiveness under the new covenant there is no more offering for sin, just as he stated in verse 26. In contrast, under the old covenant, sacrifices continued indefinitely for sinners who had knowledge of that covenant, so this kind of ongoing sacrifice is not in the writer’s mind in verse 26.

The point is therefore stated twice (verses 18 and 26): those who are forgiven under the new covenant and then sin have no sacrifice available to them.

Why? The writer tells us. Because he has trodden under foot the Son of God and counted unholy the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and because he has been spiteful to the spirit of grace. And this punishment’s severity is set in contrast to those who were under the old covenant, meaning that this elimination of a sacrifice for such a person is so severe because he intentionally rebelled even after being perfected (verse 14) under the new covenant, even after being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, two advantages those under the old covenant did not have.

In my view, nearly all people who claim to be Christians and still sin were never Christians to begin with. They never really repented. They never stopped sinning. They were never made perfect. So they don’t come under this severe punishment.

Those who are in this state cannot be saved, because, among other reasons, there is nothing more that can be done for them. They already had the Holy Spirit. They were already made perfect. What else can be done? They have been given everything. This insult to the Holy Spirit and rejection of an already-received perfection is a damning crime against God’s completed work.

Remember, these are people who have been completely cleansed of sin. The old man is dead. The flesh is crucified (Galatians 5:24) with its passions and desires and has been removed by spiritual circumcision (Colossians 2:11). They have been made new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). They don’t “stumble.” They don’t “fall.” They deliberately act against this new, glorious state and rebel against God. To do this even in such radiant light is contrary to all knowledge. It is spitting in God’s face with full understanding of his grace, mercy, and love.

Yet, I maintain that for nearly everyone who sins as a “Christian,” there is much hope. They likely never were perfected. They never came to true salvation.

Other Scripture refers to this never-saved condition in those who possess a pretend salvation:

Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Jesus never knew them. They were never saved. And it is their sin (iniquity) that is the proof of their condition. Their verbal confessions hold no sway.

John expressed a similar idea: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (1 John 2:19)

When we evangelize sinning “Christians,” we should assume that they never were saved, and we should believe that they can be converted. This stands to reason, because they never forsook their sins in the first place. They never heard the true gospel. They were never perfected. So they don’t come under this category of unredeemable rebels in Hebrews 10:26 and the following verses.

If true Christians can forfeit salvation, then return to it by having the sacrifice reapplied to them, there would be practically no difference between the old and new covenants. These Christians would be repeating the old covenant cycle of sinning and sacrificing, thereby destroying the force of the passage.

The entire purpose of the new covenant was to make people perfect and put an end to the old covenant cycle or sinning, repentance, and the provision of a sacrifice. In the new covenant, we are made perfect by a single sacrifice, so there is no forgiveness for future sin. Why should there be? God in His amazing grace has provided a way for us to be perfect, and someone who sins after that has to turn away from a perfect heart. It would be madness and pure evil to do so.

What, then, is the status of those who profess to believe, are still in sin, and have a repentant heart? The Hebrews 10:26 warning does not apply to them. They were never saved. Since they did not sin while in a perfected state, they are not in an incurably reprobate condition.

The writer of Hebrews provides a hypothetical situation describing what would happen if this event were to occur, and he later states that this reprobate condition isn’t true for the people to whom he is writing. “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” (10:39)

 

Since the scenario is presented in a hypothetical manner, and since John tells us that those who are born of God do not sin (1 John 3:9 and 5:18), perhaps it has never happened. It makes no sense for anyone who is born of God to actually sin. We should view professing Christians who do sin as unregenerate and never saved. They need to hear and believe the real gospel, the new covenant truth that Jesus cleanses us from all sin and perfects us for all time.