1 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
Commentary
Vs. 1 "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect."
The law then was just a shadow, a faint portrayal (LN 58.65; also see Col. 2:13-17; Heb 8:3-5), and thus was not the very image of all the good things that everyone who believes receives from the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore those sacrifices which God through the law commanded the Israelite's too observe were not the solution for their sins, or anybody else's, they were only in effect until the fulfillment of those offerings came in the Person and Sacrifice of Christ Himself. And so those sacrifices really were insufficient in every sense, since they could neither remove sins, nor undo the damage done by them, they could only provide a temporal covering for the worshipers who observed them, and thus they did not provide the everlasting remission of them. And so unlike Christ and His Sacrifice which has dealt with sin once and for all time, they needed to be repeated year after year, therefore they made no one perfect, that is perfect in the sight of Almighty God, for that is something only the Lord Jesus Christ and His Sacrifice does (see Heb. 10:14).
Vs. 2 "For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins."
Now if they could have made anyone perfect the next logical step would have been that they would've stopped being offered. "For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins." However with those sacrifices no one is purified in the sight of God, they're sins are only temporarily covered, not permanently atoned for.
Vs. 3 "But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year."
Therefore those sacrifices not only failed to permanently purify the worshipers in the sight of God, but the worshipers own consciences were never cleared from their own guilt and sins. "For in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year." The power of the Cross, of the Lord Jesus Christ Crucified and Risen from the dead for the permanent remission of sins cannot be overstated, for it's by Jesus and Jesus alone that we have remission of all our sins and everlasting life (Acts 4:12).
Vs. 4 "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins."
The finial refute then of those who were still holding too the Old Covenant sacrifices is that those sacrifices, that is the blood of bulls and goats etc. could never take away sins. For it simply isn't possible that any animal's shed blood could ever provide permanent atonement for sinful humanity, (whether individually or collectively) for sin entered the world through man, therefore only through the Sinless Son of Man and His sacrifice of Himself on the cross could our sins be taken away. Therefore I urge you to be reconciled to God by faith in the Lord Jesus so that you may have remission/forgiveness of all your sins and everlasting life, which begins the moment you repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ through the Gospel. For then God by His Spirit will give you not only a new heart and a new mind (Heb. 10:16), but also a new life. For having dwelt with your past, (and thus liberated you from it, Rom 6:17-23) He is free to make you into a new and so much better person (2 Cor 5:17)! Therefore don't delay be reconciled to God today!
Scripture Quotations
The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
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