Weaver1has's Blog

14 08 2021

Apollos whom I believe wrote this book quotes from the Old Testament:

King David (Hebrews 10;5-7 from Psalm 40; 6 onwards) and Jeremiah the Prophet (Hebrews 10; 16-17 from Jeremiah 31;33).

King David who was one of the ancestors of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and Jeremiah the Prophet were two characters that suffered a lot for their faith through the trials that they went through.  Both men had a close walk with God.  Sometimes we need to go through sufferings to reach our final destination.   All the kings of Israel were anointed with oil hence Messiah means the ‘anointed one’.   Jesus’ title of Christ, messiah shows his kingship lineage.  Jesus is the only king that brought the sacrificial system and kingship into one union in his person.   We have already touched on this in earlier blogs.  In verses 5 to 7 God is speaking through king David and in verses 16 to 18 God is speaking through the voice of Jeremiah.   Let us now read from Hebrews 10; 5-18

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;

6 IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.

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.’”

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), 9 then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11 Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; 12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, 13 waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. 14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,

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,

17 “AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS

I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”

18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. Hebrews 10:5-18

Verses 5-11 The Writer then quotes a Psalm that relates to the messiah ps40-6-7.  We can see in the Hebraic parallelism Christ contrasted with the sacrificial system.  However, the key that the Writer uses in this verse is found as the son doing the will of God in verse 9.  Not anyone doing the will of God but namely the Son of God the Christ. In verse 10 the Writer finishes off by stating that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient once and for all.   Let us quote verses 9 and 10 again:

“9 then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” NASB

There is only one man in the whole of the human race who has not sinned.  There is only one man in the whole of the human race who kept God’s will perfectly.  This Man being fully divine and full human at the same time is the one who has never sinned and kept God’s council perfectly.   The little phrase ‘takes away’ literally means makes an end, kills off (g0337. ἀναιρέω anaireō ; from 303 and 138; to take up, take away, make an end:– Taken from Olive tree software).  The sacrificial Judaic system finds its fulfilment in Christ therefore the sacrificial Old Testament system has become redundant.  Jesus was the main sacrifice and in him we are sanctified.  It is through Jesus offering himself and keeping God’s will perfectly. We see this in the garden of Gethsemane:

“39 And He came out and went, as was His habit, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. 40 Now when He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you do not come into temptation.” 41 And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, 42 saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” 43 [[n]Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground]. 45 When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, 46 and He said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you do not come into temptation.”  “(Fromhttps://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2022&version=NASB)

In this passage we see the prayer that shows how far Jesus would go in order to do God’s will.

Reflection

We cannot fulfil God’s will in our own strength.  It is what Jesus has done for us that allows us to come into the presence of God by faith.  There have been serious debates between Roman Catholic and Protestant teachings based on the above text.  As a biblical exegete I’m only interested in making the text clearer for us to understand.  Each person needs to make up their own mind on how to interpret the text in their church situations. All I know is that Jesus died for me once so that it is possible to have eternal life by faith.   As Christians we ought to live in such a way that we love one another and through this, the world can see a sign of the divine in our lives and be convinced that they need to repent and accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour.  Jesus is the fulfilment of the law.  The sacrificial system, the Tabernacle, the priesthood all pointed to the work and person of Jesus Christ, and he resides in the true Tabernacle, not a copy.  Everything on earth are mere copies of the real thing.  That does not mean that they were not important; they were important because even as a shadow they pointed to the work and person of Christ.  It was a devastating thing when the Temple was destroyed in AD 70 but it is interesting that in historical retrospect that three great religions have a serious claim to Jerusalem.  Jerusalem has always been a Holy Place. 

Jerusalem was the old Salem in which king Melchizedek lived.  Since the time of Abraham though Salem became corrupted and at the time of Joshua the ‘Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem’ was planning to attack Joshua (Joshua 10:1).  He has the same name form as Melchizedek king of Salem.  There are other links in the Psalms for example that link Zion and Salem to Jerusalem for example:

“His tabernacle is in Salem;

His dwelling place also is in Zion. Psalms 76:2”

And then how about this verse:

31 For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of the LORD will perform this. 2 Kings 19:31

Dr Katrina Larking at KCL in the Hebrew lectures many years agon once made the point that all the other nations in Palestine such as Moab, Edom and so on did not survive.  The only nation to have survived was Israel.  Perhaps we are seeing God’s plan being worked out somehow. 

Notes

Some Christian theologians in the past have used this verse as a polemic on the Roman Catholic Church to combat the doctrine of transubstantiation. This is an erroneous way to use the text.  The verse is in light of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament not in light of any disagreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants. To be more precise, if you want to follow the argument about transubstantiation that Roman Catholic theologians use, you need to understand Aquinas’ borrowing of Aristotelian metaphysics. Be careful not to fall into the trap of reading something into the text that is not there (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation).   We are interested in exegesis (https://www.britannica.com/topic/exegesis) reading out the meaning that is there in the text, taking into consideration the original readers.

This entry was posted on August 14, 2021 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Hebrews course, Turkish Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.