Hebrews 10:1-18 represents the final unit and climax to the exposition on the superior high priestly ministry of Christ in 8:1-10:18.193 It concludes (10:16-17) by repeating a portion of Jeremiah’s quotation cited in Hebrews 8:8-12. The new covenant prophecy, thus, forms a sort of inclusio framing the exposition.194 Its reappearance—
specifically the promise of the law written on the heart in 10:16—demonstrates that the intervening exposition since the prior citation is concerned with describing how the promise is fulfilled in the lives of believers.195
Following 9:6-14 and the declaration in 9:15 of Christ’s new covenant
mediatorial death to secure an inheritance for those called by God, the author explains the necessity of Christ’s death (9:16-17)196 and the requirement that blood be shed to
193See Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 257.
194Guthrie, The Structure of Hebrews, 85; deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude, 325; Thompson, Hebrews, 170. Cf. Lindars, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, 80.
195Contra Peter Gräbe who claims, “Forgiveness of sins, the subject upon which the author wishes to focus, appears in 10:16-17. The central part of the Jeremiah quote receives no emphasis or attention. The author does not touch on the Torah being written on the heart, knowledge of God, or the covenant formula” (“The New Covenant and Christian Identity” in A Cloud of Witnesses, 123). However, Gräbe overlooks (1) that the promise of the law written on the heart appears in 10:16-17 as well and (2) that while 9:1-10:18 certainly emphasizes the forgiveness of sins, the author also intends his description of believers’ perfection to signify the fulfillment of the promise of heart transformation. Gräbe’s comments are a sharp contrast to those of Joslin, whose essay (“Hebrews 7-10 and the Transformation of the Law”) appears immediately before his in the same volume. Joslin writes, “The [new covenant] blessings (8.10-12) are essential and integral to one another . . . . Forgiveness is based on the work of the new High Priest, and is tethered to the reality of a perfect and cleansed conscience (9.10, 14) . . . and a sincere and cleansed heart (10.22) . . . . [T]he [new covenant] blessings of the laws on the heart and forgiveness of sins (8.10-12;
1016-17) are intertwined” (114). According to Edgar V. McKnight, the repetition of the two features of
“interior covenant and forgiveness of sins” in 10:16-17 makes clear “that these features are foremost in the author’s mind” (Hebrews-James [Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2004], 186).
196For opposing views from modern commentators on the difficult question of the meaning of
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inaugurate the first covenant (9:18-22). Based on this reality of cultic cleansing by blood, the author affirms the need for the heavenly things197 to be cleansed by the better
sacrifice of Christ (9:23). That Christ’s sacrifice is better—and definitive—is made clear because he entered heaven itself (not a mere copy) to appear in God’s presence (9:24) and, unlike the repetitive offerings of the high priest, Christ’s sacrifice to put away sin was offered once for all (9:25-28).
Having emphasized the definitive nature of Christ’s sacrifice, the author points to the inability of the law, through its annual sacrifices, to bring about perfection for those who draw near, because the law only has “a shadow of the good things to come, not the true form of the realities” (10:1). The description is similar to 8:5, which speaks of the priests who serve “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” In other words, the law had a “foreshadowing” function to point forward to that which was complete.198 The
“good things to come” (τῶν µελλόντων ἀγαθῶν) surely represent the new covenant blessings. In 9:11 Christ is called a high priest of the “good things that have come” (τῶν γενοµένων ἀγαθῶν), and the following verses make clear that the good things his high priesthood has obtained include eternal redemption (9:12), cleansing of the conscience (9:14), an eternal inheritance (9:15), and abolition of sin (9:26). The now-fulfilled new covenant promises are the “good things to come.”
diaqh,kh in vv. 16-17, see Bruce, Hebrews, 221-24; Attridge, Hebrews, 255-56; deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude, 308-09; Koester, Hebrews, 417-18 (who affirm the meaning “will” or “testament”) versus Westcott, Hebrews, 300-304; Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 242-43; Guthrie, Hebrews, 313 (who affirm the meaning “covenant”). O’Brien defends the view that it refers, not to covenants in general, “but the broken Sinai covenant” (Hebrews, 331). He follows the interpretation set forth in Scott W. Hahn, “A Broken Covenant and the Curse of Death: A Study of Hebrews 9:15-22,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 66 (2004):
416-36.
197The discussion and conclusions of Hughes (Hebrews, 379-82) and Koester (Hebrews, 421) are helpful in understanding the claim that the “heavenly things” require cleansing.
198Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 259. Joslin writes, “[The writer of Hebrews] envisions the cultus to be a shadow that outlines and prefigures the priestly ministry of Christ” (“Hebrews 7-10 and the
Transformation of the Law,” 115)
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The failure of the old covenant to bring about perfection, whether through the priesthood, the Law, or animal sacrifices, has been repeatedly emphasized (7:11, 19; 9:9).
In each case, man is presented as worshipper, as one who draws near to God.199 The same observation is made now in 10:1: the law can never “perfect those who draw near” (τοὺς προσερχοµένους τελειῶσαι)—it cannot fit them for an intimate relationship to God as promised in LXX Jeremiah 38:31-34.200 The reason for the failure is that the sacrifices had to be continually offered every year. If the law could make the worshippers perfect through its sacrifices, the author argues in verse 2, would they not have ceased to be offered? For then “having been cleansed once for all” (ἅπαξ κεκαθαρισµένατον), the worshippers would no longer have “consciousness of sins” (συνείδησιν ἁµαρτιῶν)—what the author will later describe as an “evil conscience” (10:22).201 In other words, the continual nature of the sacrifices—as opposed to the singular sacrifice of Christ (9:26- 28)—attests to their ineffectiveness at achieving perfection. Rather, these perpetual sacrifices are an annual “reminder of sins” (10:3), and, since the blood of bulls and goats only availed for an external cleansing (9:13-14), it is impossible for them to take away sin (10:4).
“Therefore,” the author claims in verse 5, God had something better and definitive in mind. In verses 5-7, he quotes from Psalm 40:6-8 (LXX 39:7-9) and argues for a Christological fulfillment of the passage. The psalm prophetically implies that Christ has come to do God’s will by sacrificing himself—an offering that supercedes those of the old cultus (10:8-9).202 Through Christ’s obedience to God’s will, “we have
199Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 145.
200See Attridge, Hebrews, 271-72.
201As with the parallel between 9:9 and 9:14, so in 10:2, perfection is seen to include the cleansing of the conscience. “That the perfecting of believers involves not only cleansing but also the consequent approach to God seems likely from the fact that the object of τελειῶσαι in 10:1 is τοὺς προσερχοµένους” (Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 146 [emphasis in original]).
202On the author’s use of the psalm and the textual issues involved, see especially Kistemaker, The Psalm Citations, 124-30; McCullough, “The Old Testament Quotations in Hebrews,” 368; Guthrie,
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been sanctified (ἡγιασµένοι ἐσµὲν) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10).
The concepts of “sanctification,” “perfection,” and “cleansing” all overlap in Hebrews but none should be equated.203 To “sanctify” (ἁγιάζω) is to consecrate, to set apart. It is used in Hebrews with cultic and covenantal connotations.204 In 2:11 and 10:14, believers are described as “those who are sanctified” (ἁγιαζοµένοι, a`giazome,nouj) because of the atoning death of Christ. In the former verse, they are associated with Christ who is
“the sanctifier” (ἁγιάζων). The blood of goats and bulls sanctifies for the cleansing of the
“Hebrews,” 975-78.
203One must be careful to distinguish the author’s use of the verbs for “make perfect”
(τελειόω), “cleanse” (καθαρίζω), and “sanctify” (ἁγιάζω). As argued above, the parallel between 9:9 (κατὰ συνείδησιν τελειῶσαι τὸν λατρεύοντα) and 9:14 (καθαριεῖ τὴν συνείδηαιν) should not be used to argue that
“perfecting” is to be identified with “cleansing” here (contra Michel, Hebräer, 333 n. 4). A cleansed conscience is necessary for one to be perfected (10:1-2), but perfection includes more than cleansing, as the broader context shows (see Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 136, 259 n. 69). Neither are “sanctify” and
“make perfect” “used interchangeably” in Hebrews (contra Ellingworth, Hebrews, 511; cf. John Dunnill, Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992], 223), as the statement in 10:14 would amount to a tautology. Finally, while there is overlap between “cleanse”
and “sanctify” in Hebrews (e.g., both are achieved by blood [9:13-14; 10:29; 13:12]), “cleansing” alone involves the purging of sin.
Most interpreters recognize overlap in meaning among the terms without equating them. To
“cleanse” involves removal of defilement—to purge or purify. In Hebrews the defilement to be cleansed is sin (1:3; 9:14; 10:2). To “sanctify” means to consecrate, to set apart as holy. As Peterson recognizes, it is used in Hebrews in a cultic and covenantal sense (10:10-18; 10:29; 13:12) (Hebrews and Perfection, 150;
cf. Peterson, Possessed by God, 35). Christ’s blood and death sanctify, “setting people apart for a covenant relationship with God” (Koester, Hebrews, 121). See also Friedrich Hauck, “καθαρίζω, et al.”; Christian Procksch, “ἁγιάζω, et al.” in TDNT, as well as the discussions of the terms in Davidson, Hebrews, 203-09;
William C. Johnson, “Defilement and Purgation in the Book of Hebrews” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1973), 260-75.
DeSilva relates the three concepts by seeing perfection as signaling “at one stroke both the cleansing and the consecration of the worshipper, the accomplishment (completion) of two rites designed to bring an object to an appointed goal (cleanness, holiness)” (Perseverance in Gratitude, 202). However, though perfection certainly involves both cleansing and sanctification, it seems to go beyond this. Some measure of cleansing and sanctification was possible under the old covenant (9:13). What was not possible was perfection. Cleansing is the basis for sanctification; it is preparatory to sanctification (see Peterson, Possessed by God, 34). Furthermore, 10:14 seems to indicate that sanctification is the logical preparation for perfection (Johnson, “Defilement and Purgation,” 263): “He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (the translation of the present passive ἁγιαζόµενος will be discussed below). More helpful is the image (taken from Peterson’s illustration in Possessed by God, 37) of the three concepts relating as concentric circles, with cleansing at the center, followed by sanctification, and having perfection as the outermost circle including the other two.
204Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 150.
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flesh (9:13). But the conscience is cleaned by the blood of Christ (9:14), that is, the
“blood of the covenant” which also sanctifies his people (10:29; cf. 13:12). Moreover, the whole context in which 10:10 and 14 are situated is an exposition on new covenant fulfillment: “This is the covenant I will make with them” (10:16). Thus, Christ’s blood and death sanctify, “setting people apart for a covenant relationship with God.”205
While the old covenant priests offer repeated sacrifices that can never take away sins (10:11), Christ made one offering for sins (10:12). That this sacrifice was definitive is obvious because, although the old covenant priest “stands” daily to minister (10:11), this superior priest has, in fulfillment of Psalm 110, “sat down” at God’s right hand, until his enemies become his footstool (10:12-13).206 Why was his single sacrifice effective enough so that he might sit down? “For” (γὰρ) by one offering “he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (τετελείωκεν εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς τοὺς ἁγιαζόµενους) (10:14).
What has been anticipated for the last several chapters is finally made explicit.
For the first time in the letter, believers are the object of the verb “make perfect.” The dilemma of 10:1 is solved in 10:14. The law could not, through its sacrifices offered continually, perfect those who drew near. But Christ, through his one offering, has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.207 What the law could not do, Christ has definitively accomplished. The author subsequently quotes again from Jeremiah’s prophecy (10:15-17), this time abbreviated (LXX Jer 38:33-34), providing confirmation from scripture that Christ’s sacrifice was definitive.208 The shortened quotation focuses
205Koester, Hebrews, 121.
206On the use of Ps 110:1 in Heb 10:12-13, see David R. Anderson, The King-Priest of Psalm 110 in Hebrews, Studies in Biblical Literature 21 (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 233-36.
207DeSilva observes the parallel between 10:1 and 14, arguing that the author framed the latter specifically to answer the former. The three shared terms or phrases in the verses (προσφέρουσιν, εἰς τὸ διηνεκές, τελειῶσαι), he believes, “mark this strongly as an inclusio” (Perseverance in Gratitude, 324).
208Aside from the fact that the passage is abbreviated, the text differs in a few respects from the previous quotation, but the changes seem mostly insignificant: (1) The covenant is said to be made “with
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on two of the four new covenant blessings: renewal of the heart and the forgiveness of sins.209 In this way, the author directly ties the perfecting of believers (10:14) to the new covenant promises (10:15-17), arguing that the former fulfills the latter—particularly the promise to write God’s laws on the hearts of his people.210 Moreover, the prophecy’s repetition shows that the whole purpose of the exposition in chapters 9-10, which
them” (πρὸς αὐτούς) in 10:16 rather than τῷ οἴκῳ Ἰσραήλ. (2) “Minds” and “hearts” are inverted, so that the latter comes first in 10:16. Kistemaker suggests that the author wanted to bring the words “law” and “heart”
closer together, because of their importance earlier in the letter (The Psalm Citations, 129). Thomas agrees, noting that while chap. 10 refers to the failure of the law, 3:12 and 4:12 refer to the failure of the heart. But with the laws put on our hearts, “we have a new confidence and a new hope” (“The Old Testament Citations in Hebrews,” 311). While this thesis is impossible to prove, it would certainly be consistent with what has been said thus far concerning the significance of the “heart” in Hebrews. (3) In 10:17 the words καὶ τῶν ἀνοµιῶν αὐτῶν are added after καὶ τῶν ἀµαρτιῶν αὐτῶν. (4) The future µνησθήσοµαι is used in 10:17 instead of the aorist subjunctive µνησθῶ in 8:12. See the discussion in Guthrie, “Hebrews,” 978-79.
209A difficulty with the quotation’s introductory formula (“And the Holy Sprit also testifies to us. For after saying”) lies in the fact that the temporal infinitive (µετὰ τὸ εἰρηκέναι) seems to require something like “then he says” at a later point to introduce the remainder of the quotation. That some scribes felt this angst is reflected in several later MSS where various glosses replace the καί beginning v. 17 (see Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 256). Modern translations generally assume an understood introduction in the same place, prior to v. 17: e.g., “He adds” (HCSB), “he then says” (NASB) or “then he adds” (NIV, ESV). Most modern commentaries argue for a similar break. As Westcott argues, “the point of the apodosis lies in the declaration of the forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews, 318), presumably because this is the focus on v. 18.
However, it is interesting that such emendations are not found in the early MS tradition. A number of commentators argue instead that the author intends the break prior to the pronouncement of the promise to put the laws on the heart. Thus, the author employs λέγει κύριος in the quotation to serve as the introduction to the second half: “For after saying, ‘This is the covenant . . . .’ the Lord says, ‘I will put my laws on their hearts . . . . and their lawless deed I will remember no more.’” So Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1871), 2:164-65; Michel, Hebräer, 341; Herbert Braun, An die Hebräer (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1984), 304; Attridge, Hebrews, 281; deSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude, 326; Johnson, Hebrews, 254. This latter option seems more likely, since it does not require introducing an “understood” phrase to the passage. Furthermore, while v. 18 declares the fulfillment of sins forgiven as promised in v. 17, the passage follows the declaration of believers’
perfection (v. 14) which fulfills the promise of heart renewal (v. 16). So both promises seem to be integral to the author’s argument. As already noted, these two promises are the focus of the author’s exposition in chaps. 9-10. “[I]t would be disturbing to the sense to divide the promise of forgiveness of past
transgressions . . . from its necessary condition—the writing of the law upon the heart” (Delitzsch, Hebrews, 2:165).
210Several interpreters state explicitly that the perfection of believers involves the fulfillment of the promise to write God’s laws on the heart. See, e.g., Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 149, 151; Albert Vanhoye, Old Testament Priests and the New Priest (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s 1986), 220-21; Attridge, Hebrews, 281; Koester, Hebrews, 123; O’Brien, Hebrews, 359. Cf. Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 268, 71; Steven K. Stanley, “A New Covenant Hermeneutic: The Use of Scripture in Hebrews 8-10” (Ph.D. diss., University of Sheffield, 1994), 98.
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followed the first quotation, was to illumine the promises and explain their fulfillment.211 The author concludes the section with a further explicit pronouncement of fulfillment:
“where there is forgiveness of these there is no longer any offering for sin” (10:18).
Christ’s sacrifice is definitive because it abolished sin, which the old covenant sacrifices could not take away, and made complete forgiveness a reality. It forever perfected believers by dealing with the perennial problem of the evil and unbelieving heart, which stood in the way of covenant fidelity and about which the old covenant could do nothing.
The writer “envisages that the forgiveness and cleansing available through the death of Christ will lead to that immediate and spontaneous fidelity to God that was foretold by Jeremiah.”212
That the perfection of believers fulfills the new covenant promise of heart transformation is further evidenced by the author’s comments in 10:22. In light of the work of this great high priest, whose blood has granted believers confidence to enter God’s presence through the “new and living way” that he has inaugurated (10:19-21), the author exhorts his readers to “draw near with a true heart [avlhqinh/j kardi,aj] in full assurance of faith.” Such approach to God is possible “since213 our hearts have been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water”
(ῥεραντισµένοι τὰς καρδίας ἀπὸ συνειδήσεως πονηρᾶς καὶ λελουσµένοι τὸ σῶµα ὕδατι καθαρῷ).214 Having just cited Jeremiah’s oracle, it is hard to see how the author’s
211See Malone, “Critical Evaluation,” 192; Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 268; Attridge, Hebrews, 281.
DeSilva writes, “This reprise serves as a sort of scriptural ‘Q.E.D.’” [“which was the thing to be proven”]
(Perseverance in Gratitude, 325 n. 51).
212Peterson, “The Prophecy of the New Covenant,” 79 (emphasis in original).
213Thus taking the two participles as causal, modifying προσερχώµεθα. Alternatively, they may be expressing means (so Guthrie, Hebrews, 341, 343-44).
214Whether the author’s expression about believer’s “bodies being washed with pure water,” is to be seen as a reference to Christian baptism, Old Testament washings, or prophetic imagery—particularly Ezek 36:25-27, is a question that cannot be taken up here and does not seem significantly to impact the above discussion. For consideration of these issues, see, e.g., Peterson, “The Prophecy of the New
Covenant,” 78, also n. 19; Lane Hebrews 9-13, 287-88; and Ellingworth, Hebrews, 523-24. If the author is alluding to the Ezekiel passage, it is interesting to note that God’s promise in Ezekiel to “sprinkle clean
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description of their hearts could imply anything other than the fulfillment and realization of the prophet’s promise of heart renewal.215 While the wilderness generation had evil, unbelieving hearts that were hardened and went astray (3:8, 10, 12), the recipients have
“true” hearts216 and can draw near to God in full assurance of faith. This is because their hearts have been “sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (as noted earlier, “heart” and
“conscience” are explicitly brought together here), recalling the forgiven, sin-cleansed conscience that is achieved through Christ’s sacrifice (9:14). Thus, the fulfillment of the promise of forgiveness in LXX Jeremiah 38:34 makes possible the fulfillment of the promise of heart renewal of LXX Jeremiah 38:33.217 Peterson’s comments are helpful:
The promise of forgiveness “is the basis of a new relationship of heart-obedience towards God on the part of his people . . . . Such forgiveness or cleaning from sin enables men to draw near to God.”218 Cleansed hearts result in true, believing hearts—that is, hearts with God’s laws upon them. This is the essence of a believer’s perfection. “Man is perfected in
water” on his people, give them a “new heart,” and put his Spirit within them is in close proximity to his declaration in Ezek 37:26 to make with them an “eternal covenant” (διαθήκης αἰωνίου), a phrase found in the NT only in Heb 13:20 (see discussion of this text below).
215See Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 135, 155; Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 286; Johnson, Hebrews, 257-58; Thompson, Hebrews, 204. Contra Morrison who writes concerning Jeremiah’s promise,
“The author does not do anything with the details of Jer 31—he says nothing about law in the heart” (Who Needs a New Covenant?, 60).
216While some translations render avlhqinh/j kardi,aj as “sincere heart” (e.g., NIV, NASB) the emphasis seems less on the sincerity of the heart than on its genuineness—that is, a heart as God intends it to be. “A heart which fulfills the ideal office of the heart,” writes Westcott, “the seat of the individual character, towards God—a heart which expresses completely the devotion of the whole person to God”
(Hebrews, 324). Thus, while sincerity of heart would certainly result, the author is not telling the recipients to make sure their hearts are sincere before they approach God. He is urging them to approach because, through Christ, God has kept his promise to change their hearts and make their approach a reality.
217Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 135.
218Ibid., 149. “Our writer’s argument suggests that only when the heart is set free from the burden of unforgiven sins can it be renewed in faith and sincerity towards God” (Peterson, “The Prophecy of the New Covenant,” 78).