PERFECTION

PERDITION

OR

We have been misled here in 10:1 by the twofold meaning of an English word, and this is not by any means an

isolated case. Let us translate eis to dienekes, `unto perpetuity', which phrase is less cumbersome than the more

literal rendering given above.

The next verse exposes the fatal failure of every sacrifice offered under the law. They never touched the

This feature has been enlarged upon in 9:12-14, where the `blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of an heifer'

are seen in their typical `purifying of the flesh', and the blood of Christ Who offered Himself without spot to God is

seen as the great antitype purging the conscience from dead works, that those thus cleansed may serve the living

God. Likewise in the same chapter the apostle, speaking of the gifts, sacrifices, meats, drinks and divers baptisms,

says they were imposed until the time of reformation and could never make those who did the service `perfect as

pertaining to the conscience'. Further in 10:22 when the controversy is over, the apostle exhorts his readers to:

`Draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience'.

Had the sacrifice once perfected the offerer as pertaining to the conscience, no further offering would have been

necessary or tolerated. The law was a shadow, it purified the flesh, and its repeated offerings testify to its

insufficiency. Further, the very repetition is a continual remembrance of sin, whereas when the New Covenant is in

force God says, `Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more'.

The final setting aside of the sacrifices of the law is made in verse 4:

`For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins'.

The argument now rests upon the very nature of things. Nothing more can be said. Can a shadow save us? Will

a ceremonial, an external cleansing satisfy us? Can the blood of an animal make reconciliation for a man? The

answer is No, and that answer Scripture has already anticipated in the fortieth Psalm.

In brushing aside the last remaining hope of Israel under the law, and in shutting down any future argument by

the word `impossible', the apostle was but reaching forward to the glorious fact that `what the law could not do, God

did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh' (Rom. 8:3). The quotation from Psalm 40 is prefaced by the

words, `Wherefore when He cometh into the world'. This can only refer to His first coming in the flesh. He is yet

to be brought into the world again, when all the angels of God shall worship Him (Heb. 1:6). We are permitted (let

us remember what holy ground is here) to learn the words that the Son of God breathed when the moment came for

His birth at Bethlehem. His name was to be called Jesus, for He was coming into the flesh to save His people from

their sins by the sacrifice of Himself:

`Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me' (Heb. 10:5).

When we turn to the Psalm quoted we read:

`Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast Thou opened' (Psa. 40:6).

It is a fact unquestioned that Psalm 40 gives a translation of the Hebrew, yet the LXX which purports to translate

the Hebrew reads as the Greek New Testament it is too wide a subject to discuss here as to how the LXX came by

its present rendering; what we may do is to realize that the twofold statement of Psalm 40 and Hebrews 10 present

two versions of one truth. Just as Matthew and Luke, both recording one utterance of the Lord, use slightly different

words to express their phase of the utterance, yet without fully exhausting it, so we must take both Old Testament

and New Testament records as supplying a full quotation of the utterance of the Word immediately before He

became flesh and tabernacled among us. The Hebrew word `opened' is karah and is usually translated `dig', as a

grave, a pit, or a well. The feminine form of the noun, however, mekurah, is translated `birth' in Ezekiel 16:3, and

`nativity' in Ezekiel 21:30. Compare the two references following:

`Thy birth (margin cutting out or habitation) and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and

thy mother an Hittite' (Ezek. 16:3).

`The place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity' (Ezek. 21:30).