Hebrews 10

CHAPTER X

The Two Sacrifices Compared, v. 1–10.

Hebrews 10:1

1 This section might have begun at 9:23. Moreover, the comparison of the blood and the comparison of the sacrifice are closely allied; “blood” occurs in verse 4 of this chapter. The main terms of this paragraph speak of sacrifices; that is why we combine these verses into one section. “For” = in order to explain the matter further. The writer reverts to 8:5: “sketch and shadow of the heavenly things” and develops the sacrifice of Christ in contrast with this shadow. For the law, having (only) a shadow of the good things about to come, not the image itself of the things, year by year with the same sacrifices which they are offering in perpetuity is never able to bring to completion those who draw near. Repeat year by year what is only a shadow, as many years as you will, this will bring no one to the τέλος, the goal, to the τελείωσις (7:11), the completeness that God intends for all of us.

We prefer the singular δύναται as does the A. V.: “the law … is never able,” and not the plural δύνανται which the R. V. has translated. Although the plural has the greater textual support, it is easy to see that the singular was made a plural because the preceding relative clause has the plural προσφέρουσιν. It has been well observed that the plural of this minor clause is merely an indefinite plural: “which they are offering.” There is no need to specify who “they” are; everybody understands that the high priests are referred to. Besides, the writer never thinks of saying that the high priests bring to completeness; he always speaks of sacrifices doing or not doing such a thing. The writer here speaks of the law not doing this, of its inability to do it “with the sacrifices” which this law prescribes.

The reason the law is “never able” to effect completeness for those who draw near lies in the fact that it has only a “shadow” and not the real thing itself. “Shadow” recalls 8:2; also Col. 2:17, where, however, the reference is broader. “A shadow (and no more) of the good things about to come” makes these coming things the great realities, which are so near as to cast their shadow by means of what the law about the Jewish sacrifices contains. A shadow is not valueless, for it is cast by a substance. Where the shadow falls, the substance itself will presently appear. A shadow thus promises the substance. It would be wrong to hold only to the shadow as if it were the substance when the shadow bids everyone to look to the substance so that he may attain that.

“The good things about to come” are the same as those mentioned in 9:11. The view that they are not the eternal good things of the completed salvation but only the cleansing, sanctification, and completion bestowed by Christ in our present life has been answered in 9:11. Even the copies mentioned in 9:23 are copies of the “the things in the heavens” and are called “the heavenly things.” Only so much is true: the heavenly good things to come, which have their significant shadow in the law and in what it prescribed for Israel, reach down to us in Christ during this life so that we now taste the powers of the world to come (6:5). But full salvation in final completeness is, after all, to be realized only in heaven.

“Not the image itself of the (actual) things πράγματα)” does the law possess. The word εἰκών is “image,” not, however, the reflected image, the Abbild which is taken from the Vorbild, the copy made from the original, the image which actual things bear. The genitive is possessive and not appositional. The πράγματα are the same in substance as “the good things to come,” the shadow of which alone is seen in what the law possesses. Having no more than the shadow, the law cannot bring us to the eventual goal, it can only point us to that goal, to a better sacrifice than the typical ones it possesses (9:23).

The phrase “year by year” cannot be transferred beyond the dative “with the same sacrifices” and connected with the relative clause although our versions do this. What the writer says is that the law “by means of the same sacrifices” which are the same “year by year,” which they, the high priests, offer in perpetuity is never able to effect completion. Year by year the same sacrifices are offered perpetually on the great Day of Atonement. This ceaseless repetition, which is prescribed by the law itself, is the plainest sort of evidence for the fact that the goal is never reached thereby. “Year by year,” which is repeated from v. 25, shows that the writer is speaking of the sacrifices which the high priests brought on the Day of Atonement and not of all the sacrifices that were offered throughout one year after another as some have thought. A far different and a vastly superior sacrifice is needed in order to achieve the completeness which we need to attain the good things about to come.

Hebrews 10:2

2 A pertinent question establishes this inability of the law and its sacrifices: Else would they not have ceased being offered because the worshippers, once having been cleansed, have no more conscience in regard to sins?

Let the readers themselves answer this question. Οὐ is merely the interrogatory particle which indicates that the only proper answer is “yes.” Ἐπεί is the abbreviated protasis as it was in 9:26: “else,” “otherwise.” It is here followed by an apodosis of past unreality (aorist with ἄν): “would they not have ceased being offered,” and done that for the reason (διά) that in some year these sacrifices had finally achieved the goal? The verb “to cease” is construed with the participle “being offered.” The legal sacrifices would then most certainly have ceased. Once cleansed with enduring permanence (perfect participle), the worshippers have literally “not a single conscience any longer of sins,” objective genitive, “in regard to sins.” All of the sins would be cleansed away, the goal of a sacrifice that possessed finality for all sinners been attained as we see that it is now attained by the sacrifice of Christ.

To have no more conscience of sin is to be understood objectively: no more sins would disturb and harass conscience. Subjectively, if any person should sin and be disturbed in conscience, all he would need to do would be to return in repentance to that final sacrifice as we now return to Christ’s sacrifice. A final sacrifice would not need to be repeated for any person’s sin. But all these annual Jewish sacrifices are “the same,” the one offered in any particular year never gets any farther than all the others that were offered in all the other years; completeness and finality are not in them, cannot be; they are never found in a mere shadow.

Hebrews 10:3

3 Ἀλλά is in contrast with the whole of v. 1, 2: But in connection with them (these annual sacrifices, there is) a remembrance of sins year by year, for (it is) impossible for blood of bulls and goats to be taking away sins.

Ἐν states what is connected with these solemn annual sacrifices when the Jewish high priest goes into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the whole people. The whole institution of this sacrifice is a grand reminder of sins, which in the most serious way brings them to the conscience and always does that in the same way “year by year.”

Hebrews 10:4

4 For most certainly—need the writer still argue?—none of his readers will believe that such a thing as “blood of bulls and goats” is ever able, no matter when it is sacrificed, to take away as serious and deadly a thing as sins. The writer needs only to say that such a thing is “impossible.” The nouns have no articles, which brings out their qualitative force. The infinitive is durative: “ever to take away.” This verb is most expressive: the sins are taken away from the sinner, this frees him from their hold of guilt and punishment, the sacrifice and its blood pick them up and take them away completely. Animal blood cannot do this. All it can do is to act as a shadow of this taking away by means of better blood and in this way connect the worshipper with the Messiah’s blood through faith in him. Compare 8:12: “their sins I will not remember any more” in the new testament. These legal sacrifices keep up “remembrance of sins.”

Hebrews 10:5

5 After the inability of the animal sacrifices that were ordered by the law has been thus pointed out, the writer turns to Christ and to what the sacrifice of his body was able to effect and uses Ps. 40:6–8 in its Messianic sense. Therefore, coming into the world, he says:

Sacrifice and offering thou dost not want,

But a body didst thou fit for me;

Whole burnt offerings and sin offerings thou didst no approve.

Then I said: Lo, I am here;

In the bookroll it has been written concerning me—

To do, God, thy will.

The writer puts the words of the psalmist into Christ’s mouth when the latter comes into the world. Some deny the Davidic authorship of this psalm, but David’s authorship needs little defense. The remarkable fact is that a passage like this should occur in any psalm. Delitzsch is right: “It is not as if Christ and not David speaks; but Christ, whose spirit already dwells and works in David, and who will hereafter receive from David his human nature, now already speaks in him.”

The discussion regarding “coming into the world” is unnecessary. This expression is used in various connections, and these connections indicate whether an entrance into the world by birth or by office in the world of men is meant. In rabbinic language this expression is common for being born (Schlatter). The expression has that sense here, but, as Riggenbach rightly adds, not as though it were spoken at Christ’s birth but as being the motto and mind of Christ from the time of his birth; David, the type, speaks in words that may be placed into the mouth of Christ, the antitype. The writer reads this passage from the psalm in the light that is shed upon it by the New Testament and thus hears in these lines of David the voice of Christ himself.

This is a clear statement that says frankly that all the animal sacrifices (θυσίαι) and the offerings (προσφοραί, meat and drink offerings in the narrow sense, minchah in the Hebrew) are not what God wants. It repeats Samuel’s word to Saul in a new way: “Hath the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken better than the fat of rams,” 1 Sam. 15:22. God appointed all these different sacrifices, and they all had their purpose, but the thought was never that God wanted such things from us for their own sake; what he wants is ourselves in the whole obedience of our being. The sacrifices had their typical importance. They pointed to the Messiah’s sacrifice, and Israel rendered them in true obedience. When the Messiah came, his obedience was everything.

The Hebrew: “Mine ears hast thou opened for me,” literally, “digged” so as to open a free channel into them, is rendered as follows by the LXX, which our writer follows: “But a body didst thou fit (or shape) for me,” κατηρτίσω, first aorist middle, second person, a translation ad sensum. The explanation that the LXX’s σῶμα is somehow a fault in transcribing ὠτία (“body” in place of “ears”) is untenable, likewise the view that the writer of Hebrews changed the LXX to suit his present purpose. “To do, God, thy will” in holy obedience (v. 7) remains the contrast to the earthly sacrifices, whether we have the Hebrew’s “ears” opened to hear God’s will or the LXX’s “body” to respond to that will. Delitzsch is probably right: the LXX sought to make “digged my ears for me” more intelligible to their Greek readers by translating “shaped a body for me” by which to obey.

Hebrews 10:6

6 What the two lines quoted from the psalm say is repeated in a different form by the next four synonymous lines. “Sacrifice and offering thou dost not want” is repeated by: “Whole burnt offerings and sin offerings thou didst not approve,” εὐδόκησας, billigen, B.-P. 498. Here and in v. 8 περὶἁμαρτίας is used as a noun; it = τὸπερὶτῆςἁμαρτίαςπροσφερόμενον: “sin offering.”

Hebrews 10:7

7 “But a body didst thou fit for me” receives a fuller elaboration in three lines: “Then I said: ‘Lo, I am here (ἥκω, have come, am here); in the bookroll it has been written concerning me—to do, God, thy will.’” What the bookroll of the sacred record has recorded regarding David, what he should do as God’s will, that he is present to do and will do implicitly. He offers himself in voluntary obedience. In this regard he is the type of Christ. The sacred Old Testament bookroll contains much more concerning him than it does concerning David, and he is here to do God’s will concerning him in a more exalted way.

Κεφαλίς, “little head,” is the knob (often very ornamental) of the round rod on which the parchment was rolled and is thus used as a designation for the roll itself; the word does not mean “head chapter” of a book (Liddell and Scott). The writer abbreviates the LXX; he adds “to do thy will” to what precedes but does not quote the whole sentence from the LXX. So he also writes only “God” instead of “my God,” and the nominative ὁΘεός is used as vocative. A few other very minor changes in the quotation call for no special attention in our interpretation.

Hebrews 10:8

8 The writer brings out the main point which he wants his readers to see in this significant quotation. Saying up at the head (in the quoted lines): Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin offerings thou didst not want nor didst approve, such as are offered according to law, he then has said: Lo, I am here to do thy will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

The writer shows how the lines of the psalm are to be understood. Lines 1 and 3 go together, being synonymous. These two lines say the same thing and are thus placed ἀνώτερον in the quotation, “higher up” than the other lines. The adverb does not mean “above” as we refer to something we have written “above” what we are now writing (our versions), for in this sense the whole quotation is written above while the adverb refers only to lines 1 and 3 and presents David and the Messiah as saying them “in front of” the other lines. In the psalm these two lines say the first thing which is also negative, the thing that God does not want and does not approve. The writer is analyzing the six lines according to their content.

The qualitative relative clause introduced by αἵτινες is concessive: “although such as are offered according to law,” i. e., in a legal way; nevertheless, God does not really want and approve sacrifices of this kind. The antecedents of “such as” are of two genders, feminine and neuter; in such cases the pronoun has the superior, here the feminine, gender. We have already explained how it happened that God, although he had by law ordered these sacrifices for Israel, did not do so as the final thing and in this sense could not be satisfied with them. They were a shadow, God must have the substance as the shadow itself shows.

Hebrews 10:9

9 After saying this “higher up” in his statement David (the Messiah) “then has said” as the second thing, the positive one, in lines 2, 4, 5, and 6: “Lo,” etc. The author then summarizes these lines briefly as to the main thought which they contain, namely that the Messiah, without being ordered to do so by a law, of his own volition presents himself to God to do (aorist, with finality) the thing that God has willed, his θέλημα. The perfect tense “has said” is punctiliar-du-rative: →‚ i. e., once said, the statement is to stand. The participle λέγων makes lines 1 and 3 subsidiary, the finite verb makes the sum of the other lines the main thought. What God does not want, etc., is wholly secondary to what he does want and what the Messiah, therefore, says he will do completely (aorist). Both the present participle and the main verb in the perfect intend only to analyze the quotation and no more.

Without a connective the analysis is completed with the succinct statement: “He takes away (annuls) the first thing in order to establish (aorist, effective) the second thing.” The neuters put the two things abstractly, each in unit form: “the first thing,” this entire offering of animal and vegetable sacrifices; “the second,” this voluntary doing of God’s will. The great force which these lines of the psalm and this true analysis of what they say have for the readers lies in the fact that David has written these lines in his psalm; they are in the Holy Scriptures, are a part of all that David, the type, says for the antitype, the Messiah. The lines are the voice of the Messiah himself speaking to God hundreds of years before this Messiah “appeared” (v. 26) and did God’s will. The writer treats this passage cited from the psalm in the same simple and lucid way in which he treats the passage quoted from Jeremiah in 8:8–14. The first testament yields to the second, God himself has said so (8:14); the old sacrifices disappear before what God has willed as the final thing, which the Messiah comes to do.

Hebrews 10:10

10 In connection with which will we have been sanctified by means of the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. The relative has demonstrative force so that we may translate “in connection with this will.” The preposition ἐν = “in connection with”; this is its first meaning; the context always indicates what the connection is. This is not “instrumental ἐν” and should not be translated “by” or “in.” The statement is concentrated and masterly indeed. It proceeds at once to state the fulness of God’s will and refers to both Christ’s supreme act in doing this will as the Messiah by making himself the all-effective sacrifice and the application of this sacrifice to us in our sanctification once for all. Much is stated by these few words, but so much can be stated because of all that the writer has said in this epistle.

The periphrastic perfect “we have been sanctified” is modified by the adverb “once for all,” which is placed emphatically at the end. The strong form ἐφάπαξ is applied to Christ’s offering up himself “once for all” in 7:27, and its common form ἅπαζ is used in 9:28: Christ offered “once.” It is now applied to us: “we have been sanctified once for all.” The act of Christ was done “once for all” and needed no repetition or addition because of its finality and absolute completeness, and it produces an effect “once for all” and also needs no repetition or addition because of this finality and completeness. We see at once that this sanctification = our permanent justification which “once for all” sets us apart for God.

We are the ἅγιοι, “the saints,” who are named so in scores of places, the ἡγιασμένοι, “those who have been sanctified” and remain so. The two terms are combined in Col. 3:12. Add such passages as 2:11; 10:14; 13:12; also Acts 20:32; 26:18, our inheritance and lot among “those who have been sanctified.” It is a reduction in their meaning when G. K. regards these expressions as “cultus terms.” It is a matter of course that, “having been sanctified,” we also live a holy life. All that we still need to keep us free from the stain of sins that are still committed day by day Jesus himself states in John 13:10; his “clean every whit” = “once for all.”

Διά states the objective means: “by means of the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.” The writer now names Jesus as the Messiah who is indicated as speaking in the psalm (v. 5–7). As God willed the end, our sanctification once for all, so he also willed the means to this end, the offering of Jesus’ body on the altar of the cross. In previous connections the writer has said that Christ offered up “himself,” even that “Christ was offered” (9:28), and has repeatedly named his “blood” as the sacrifice. When he now writes “the body of Jesus Christ” he has the same thought in mind. Those who would make a distinction that is analogous to the Jewish sacrifices: blood = expiation; “body” = communion, parts of the animal sacrifices to be eaten, overlook the Lord’s Supper where Christ gives us both his body and his blood to eat and to drink. The body became an offering by the shedding of its blood, both body and blood thus became the expiating sacrifice.

“The body” is mentioned in conformity with v. 5: “a body didst thou fit for me.” The psalm does not have this word in the Hebrew, it is found only in the translation of the LXX; but that is not a reason the writer should not use the LXX’s translation or that he should not again refer to the body as he now does when we know that he has used “Christ,” “himself,” “his blood,” “his death,” as equivalents and varied the terms only according to the context. More important is the relation between the type David and the antitype Jesus Christ as this is indicated in the words of the psalm. “To do, God, thy will” includes both of them. When David as the type was to do the will of God he volunteered to offer himself with all his bodily life to live as God willed; in this regard he foreshadowed the Messiah who bowed to God’s will even unto death and gave his body in voluntary obedience even to the death on the cross (Phil. 2:8). Need we yet say that the type, because it is only a type, ever falls far short of the antitype, which rises to absolute fulness and perfection? David could not become an expiatory offering to God, which is saying only that the type cannot be its own antitype.

The Final Comparison regarding the Removal of Sins, v. 11–18.

Hebrews 10:11

11 This is the climax. The whole will of God, the whole sacrifice of death center in the removal of our sins. Freed of these, heaven is ours. Without Christ’s expiation there are no remission and deliverance from sin. This is the heart of all Scripture. Those who remove this heart because they regard it as “the old blood theology” have left only a hopeless corpse. Καί adds the final elaboration.

And every priest stands day by day doing official service and offering many times the same sacrifices, such as are never able all around to remove sins; this One, however, having offered a single sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity at the right (hand) of God, henceforth waiting until his enemies be placed as a footstool for his feet. For by means of a single offering he has brought to completion in perpetuity those who are being sanctified.

The reading “every high priest” is a faulty correction which does not accord with the obvious meaning. While the common priests stand on a lower level than the high priest, the mention of the common priests at this point intensifies the climax which is reached in Christ.

To be sure, not every priest stood ready to do his official service day by day. These priests were divided into twenty-four courses which served in turns, and in each course each priest had his particular service assigned to him by lot. The fact that each priest stands day by day doing official service when his group has its turn of duty is precisely what the writer wishes to state and puts in brief form because the point of the statement is found in the next participle: stands serving “and offering many times the same sacrifices.”

This is significant, indeed. The sacrifice of the high priest on the Great Day of Atonement did not keep the people in a sanctified state until even the next year when that day returned. “Day by day” the common priests had to serve; “often,” many, many times they had to offer the same sacrifices, which means not only the same daily morning and evening sacrifices over and over again, but also the same sacrifice for each type of sin over and over again for the stream of endless individual cases day after day. Always and always the same sacrifices, these never reached an end. Λειτουργέω = to do any official, public service, and is here thus applied to priests; the word itself does not contain the idea of priestly service.

The qualitative relative brings out the point of this endless repetition of the same sacrifices: “such as are never able to remove all around, i. e., in a complete all-around way (περί with αἱρέω perfective, R. 617), sins.” Each of these same, repeated sacrifices offered day after day takes away only the single sin for which it is offered, every new sin requires another offering; in fact, as we have already seen in connection with the annual sacrifice of the high priest, these daily sacrifices, like the high priest’s sacrifice, never expiated and thus removed sins; they merely pointed to Christ’s expiating sacrifice which the sinner was to embrace by faith and by that have his soul and conscience freed. For that reason these many same sacrifices had to be constantly repeated, ever and ever anew and in the same way pointing to the final, all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ. The daily, many repetitions by the common priests only magnify what we have already been shown regarding the annual repetitions performed by the high priests.

Hebrews 10:12

12 The Greek has its μέν … δέ to balance the two statements; we cannot duplicate this but can only put “however” into the second: “this One, however, after having offered a single sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity (the same phrase that occurs in 7:3 and 10:1) at the right hand of God,” etc. What this single sacrifice was has been said a number of times, last of all in v. 10 where we are told that it was offered “once for all.” Only this single sacrifice he brought; it did the work, it is all-sufficient “for sins,” for all sins, any and every one, past, present, future. To this single, final, complete sacrifice all the Jewish ritual sacrifices pointed; this they foreshadowed, from this they drew their virtue until the day when “this One” offered it on the altar of the cross.

Then, having offered it, this One had concluded his sacrificing, “having obtained an eternal ransoming” (9:12). He did not then cease to be our Great High Priest (4:14); he remains our High Priest by virtue of this his single sacrifice. What ceased was the need of a further sacrifice on his part, what remains is his High-priestly intercession for us (7:25), his High-priestly help for us (2:18; 4:16), which is now extended to us from his seat at the right hand of God, where he is now enthroned in perpetuity, “crowned with glory and honor.”

The writer reverts to the beginning of his great discussion in 1:3 (compare 8:1; also 12:2), namely to Christ’s exaltation at God’s right hand (see 1:3, which takes up Ps. 110:1). Some point to the wording which states that every priest “stands” while of Christ it is said that he “sat down.” But standing was the natural way in which the priests performed their service; they could not perform it while sitting down. Christ sat down when he had completed his sacrifice, when he was about to render his further priestly service for us, which was the outflow of his single sacrifice.

Hebrews 10:13

13 Yet the writer does not repeat what he has said about this heavenly priesthood of Christ; he repeats what he has said in 1:13 regarding the supreme exaltation of Christ: “henceforth (τὸλοιπόν is temporal) waiting until his enemies be placed as a footstool for his feet,” see the exposition in 1:13. These enemies are the devil, his power of death (2:14), and all those who reject Christ. By the power of Christ’s single sacrifice all believers of all time are rescued from these enemies who will lie powerless under his feet. That will occur at the end of the world, in the final judgment (1 Cor. 15:24–26). This “until” clause indicates how far the single sacrifice of Christ reaches.

The contrast between the sacrifices of all Jewish priests and the single sacrifice of Christ is shown in an overwhelming way. It climaxes all that precedes. How can any of the readers possibly think of turning away from this sacrifice of Christ to the endless, ineffective sacrifices of the Jewish priests? For myself let me say that this entire stunning presentation makes me think of just one man as being the writer of this epistle, he of whom Luke writes: “He mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ,” Acts 18:28.

Hebrews 10:14

14 A simple explanatory clause is added: “For by means of a single sacrifice he has brought to completion in perpetuity those being sanctified.” This connects with all that has been said regarding the τελείωσις which the whole Jewish system lacked and could never achieve but which Christ’s single sacrifice did achieve at one stroke. To see to what extent the writer uses the idea of completeness, of reaching the τέλος or goal, follow this verb as it runs through this epistle in 2:10; 5:9; 7:19, 28; 10:14; 11:40; 12:23; then the three nouns in 6:1; 7:11; 12:2, and the comparative adjective in 9:11. It is God who sets the goal; this goal is our complete restoration. All that is contained in the law-testament that was given through Moses is preliminary to that goal, could not be any more. Christ brings completely to the goal yet is himself made complete by suffering in order to do this. His complete sacrifice attains the goal.

By his sacrifice we become complete, are at the goal which God set for us. This is one of the golden threads that is woven into the wonderful pattern of this epistle. It combines with all the others.

This is what Christ has done “by means of one offering”: “he has brought to completion those being sanctified.” The completeness has been achieved and thus stands “in perpetuity” and affects “those being sanctified” (the same designation of them that was used in 2:11). The best grammatical note on this present participle is that found in Moulton, Einleitung 206, which places the tense of τοὺςἁγιαζομένους in relation to the tense of τετελείωκεν (we have the same construction in 2:11): what is a completed fact for Christ in regard to us is in progressing relation to us, the objects concerned. If no relation of tense is intended, why did the writer not use a noun, say τοὺςἁγίους or some other? We also note that the perfect used in v. 10, “we have been sanctified,” is now repeated, but it is not restricted to “we” (writer and readers) but includes all who at any time experience the sanctifying power of Christ’s completed offering and its completed effect on them.

The participle might be timeless: “the objects of sanctification,” which is the view of R. 1111; others call it the equivalent of a noun, which is a solution that does not explain the tense involved; or the tense form might be iterative: “those from time to time receiving sanctification,” which may then be descriptive of these persons, which is probably meant by R. 891: “descriptive durative.” While the saints of all ages are referred to, we believe that in οἱἁγιαζόμενοι, “the ones being sanctified,” we have the idea of the entire course of their sainthood; from its beginning to its consummation it appropriates the one offering of Christ as the means by which he has brought them to completeness, to the great goal set by God. All Jewish sacrifices are not a means that achieves this. The main point is that we should not think merely of being sanctified in the narrow sense of the term, sanctified in holy living, but in the wide sense, namely being cleansed from sin by justification through Christ’s sacrifice, a justification that is entirely complete and abides forever, of which holy living is only the fruit.

Hebrews 10:15

15 Moreover, also the Holy Spirit bears witness for us. We have his own testimony to what has just been said, namely that Christ has achieved total completeness by his one offering, has brought those being sanctified to full completeness. The Holy Spirit is called the witness to this fact because he has left this testimony for us in the Sacred Scriptures, where it ever continues to testify.

Hebrews 10:16

16 For after having said:

This (is) the testament which I will draw up in regard to them

After those days—

the Lord says:

I will give my laws upon their heart,

And on their mind will I inscribe them;

And their sins and their lawlessnesses I will not remember any longer.

This is the Spirit’s testimony as he has recorded it for us through Jeremiah (31:33, 34) and preserved this testimony just as the Lord (Yahweh) uttered it. In 8:8–12 the writer has used the whole of this testimony, Jer. 31:31–34, for establishing another point, namely that God intended to abrogate the Mosaic law-testament by substituting an entirely different testament for it. The writer uses only a part of the full quotation here, the part that establishes what he says in v. 12–14. He is not pedantic or mechanical in the way in which he quotes but modifies the wording so as to bring out the main point of proof the more clearly for his readers.

It is unfair to the writer to say that he now quotes only from memory and thus does not get the wording as exact as he did in 8:8–12 where he consulted the LXX. The writer is just as free as we are when we are quoting for a purpose; the fact is that we often go beyond this and state only the gist of the statement made by some other writer. Our procedure is determined by the extent to which we wish to use the ipsissima verba of the other writer. Sometimes just the general sense is enough, sometimes certain words or phrases, sometimes more of the original wording, sometimes insertions or clarifying, interpretative paraphrasing. We should not expect the writers of Scripture to quote verbatim while we allow ourselves and others freedom according to the purpose in hand.

The writer divides the quotation because the second half of it is the essential part in this connection where he speaks of the completeness of “those being sanctified.” So he writes: “After he (Yahweh) has said: ‘This is the testament which I will draw up in regard to them after those days.’” He uses this part to show the connection in which God spoke the following: it was when God spoke about the wonderful coming testament (see 8:10). “In regard to them” will suffice here whereas “for the house of Israel” is the original as his readers know.

While “the Lord says” is a part of the original, the writer adopts it as his own statement in order to divide the quotation and to introduce the three essential lines that follow. The R. V. and others think that the division is to occur before the very last line and thus insert at the end of v. 16: “then saith he.” They think that the readers could surmise this because the writer leaves out the six lines which Jeremiah has written between v. 16 and 17. We do not think so. The division occurs at “the Lord says.” The fact that the three lines belong together agrees with this division, namely God’s giving his laws into the mind and heart and not remembering sins and transgressions of law, for both acts form a unit and together constitute what the writer states in v. 14: “Christ with a single offering has brought to completion in perpetuity those who are being sanctified.” We see here what it means to be sanctified, namely that God no longer remembers our sins (justification) and that he puts his laws into our hearts (so that we live a holy life, sanctification in the narrow sense), and both acts of God rest on Christ’s one sacrifice.

The verbal changes from 8:10b and 12 are freely made by the writer and are not faults of memory. He thus places “heart” before “mind” because he wants to mention the organ of the inner personality first. On the participle διδούς see the explanation given in 8:10; see also the details of the exposition in 8:10, 12.

Hebrews 10:17

17 The two poetic lines quoted in 8:12 the writer welds into one and omits “I will be merciful.” He does this in order the more to concentrate on “I will not remember any longer,” the act of justification. For the volitive passive aorist subjunctive μνησθῶ he substitutes the volitive passive future μνησθήσομαι, but the meaning of both remains the same. He places “sins” first, and for “unrighteousness” he substitutes “lawlessnesses” (law violations) as an interpretative synonym.

Hebrews 10:18

18 Now where (there is) remission of these (there is) no longer offering for sin, i. e., there is no longer room for any such thing. That is the point here. It is vital for the readers who have been thinking of going back to Judaism and all its sacrifices. Since the sacrifice of Christ has been made for sin, all other sacrifice for sin is utterly without function or meaning. The statement is entirely general; while it is intended to apply to the Mosaic sacrifices for sin, any other such sacrifices are included. Like 9:22, this passage also excludes the Romish sacrifice of the Mass, the supposed unbloody recrucifixion of Christ by the priest.

On the great word ἄφεσις see 9:22. When God sends away “these,” namely our sins and our violations of his law, so that even his memory does not recall them, they are gone indeed. But the Spirit himself testifies that God actually does this. We know what enables him to do so: Christ’s full expiation of all sins. Ergo, drawing the conclusion from these premises: all sacrificing for sin is forever done with. Have you sin, no matter of what kind, here is its expiation, on the cross, in Christ’s blood and sacrifice, and here is its remission on the basis of that sacrifice.

THE SIXTH MAIN PART

The Hortations to Faith and Faithfulness, 10:19–13:17

Hortations have been appended to several expositions in earlier sections of the epistle; from chapter 7 onward we have a grand series of uninterrupted exposition, and now there follows an equally grand series of hortations. This arrangement is obvious, also highly effective.

The Call to Draw Near, v. 19–25.

Hebrews 10:19

19 This first hortatory section is comprehensive, one grand sentence with three hortative subjunctives: “let us draw near—let us hold fast—and let us consider each other.” These hortations are preceded by a participial statement that summarizes the preceding chapters by showing what we have to induce us to heed these hortations.

Having, then, brethren, assurance in regard to the entrance of the Sanctuary in connection with the blood of Jesus, which (entrance) he inaugurated for us as a way newly made and living by means of the veil, that is, of his flesh; and (having) a great Priest over the house of God, let us draw near, etc.

Οὖν is not merely transitional in this connection, for it indicates that ἐχοντες intends to state what the preceding chapters have set forth so fully. The whole high priesthood of Christ, the sacrifice of himself which achieved the final completeness, puts us into personal possession of assurance regarding entering the Sanctuary and into possession of a Priest who is great indeed, on whom this assurance rests. The address “brethren” marks the beginning of the new section of the epistle and at the same time intensifies the personal appeal of this threefold hortation.

Παρρησία, etymologically “openness and boldness in speech,” readily passes into the meaning “confidence” (M.-M. 497), die unverzagte, furcht-und zweifellose Zuversicht des Glaubens (C.-K. 551). We have such assurance as a most valuable gift from Christ who obtained it for us by his blood. For this is “an assurance in regard to (εἰς) the entrance of the Sanctuary in connection with (ἐν) the blood of Jesus.” The phrase εἰςτὴνεἴσοδον should not be stressed to mean an action: “to enter into the Sanctuary” (our versions). The action of entering in is not mentioned until v. 22: “let us draw near.” When one is asked to draw near, he must first be confident in regard to the entrance he is to make, in regard to the “way” (ὁδός). Is the entrance open, open for him? It is indeed, right into the heavenly Sanctuary (τὰἅγια); we are freed from all hesitation, need not hold back for any reason.

This is “the entrance of the Sanctuary in connection with the blood of Jesus”; the phrase modifies “the entrance of the Sanctuary” and needs no article because only this one entrance exists. There is not an entrance connected with Jesus’ blood and one or more others apart from his blood. The thought is changed when the expression is regarded as referring to the action of entering; or when it is thought that we, like high priests, may now enter with Jesus’ blood. This sets aside all that the writer has said about Jesus when he stated that he entered the heavenly Sanctuary with his blood “once for all.” What the writer says is that the entrance is open for us in connection with Jesus’ blood; his blood has opened it for us so that it shall never be closed. Any uncertainty, doubt, or hesitation on our part on that score are removed.

Hebrews 10:20

20 The relative clause justifies such confident assurance on our part regarding this entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary, for this entrance Jesus “inaugurated for us as a way newly made and living by means of the veil, that is, of his flesh.” The relative ἥν does not refer to παρρησίαν because the predicative ὁδόν takes up εἴσοδον; nor can one say that “assurance was inaugurated,” the verb and the object would not fit each other as little as they would if one should call “assurance” “a way or road.” No; this entrance into the Sanctuary is “a way newly made and living.” This way Jesus “inaugurated for us as a way new and living.” The aorist states the historical fact, an act done “once for all.” On “inaugurate” see 9:10, literally, “to bring in as new” (the word does not here mean “dedicate,” which meaning would leave a wrong impression). Jesus opened or inaugurated this entrance as a way for us when as our High Priest he entered the heavenly Sanctuary as the writer has so fully explained. Thus it is rightly termed “the entrance of the Sanctuary in connection with the blood of Jesus” and is now elucidated as “a way newly made and living,” inaugurated “by means of the veil, that is, of his flesh.”

The language is exceedingly rich. This entrance or way is “for us”; we are to use it when we are confidently approaching God. πρόσφατος, literally, “freshly killed,” has lost its etymological meaning and is used in the sense of “recent,” “fresh,” “new.” But a few years had passed since Jesus opened the way by means of his sacrificial death. More striking is the word “living.” This does not = “a way of life,” i.e., leading to life, ὁδὸςτῆςζωῆς (Jer. 21:8); the participle is not an objective genitive noun. “Living way” is also not “life-giving way”; nor does “living”=“abiding” or permanent way. All ways or roads that we know are lifeless; this way is “living” because it consists of Christ himself who is “the Way and the Life” (John 14:6), a way that is itself active and bears those who step upon it. We go farther than to say that it is “living” because of its connection with the living Christ; the living Christ is himself the living way.

Still more striking is the statement that Jesus “inaugurated” the entrance of the Sanctuary for us, opened it for the first time for our use as a new and living way, “by means of the veil, that is, of his flesh.” On the Greek word for veil or curtain see 9:3. The meaning is simple. The means for entrance into the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle was the great curtain that hung before it; the means for entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary is Jesus’ flesh. Thus the writer says that the entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary was inaugurated or opened for us as a new and living way “by means of his flesh.” As the veil in the Tabernacle was the only means of entrance to the inner sanctuary, so Jesus’ flesh is the only means of entrance to the Sanctuary of heaven. In other words, without Jesus’ flesh, apart from that, there exists no means by which we may go into the heavenly Sanctuary, may get into saving communion with God.

Note well “for us.” In the case of the Tabernacle only the high priest dared to use the veil as a means of entry. This new way is for all of us; all of us are to use Jesus’ flesh as the great means of entry. Yet we should not extend into an allegory the simple metaphor here used by going beyond its tertium comparationis of a means of entry: making ourselves high priests who, like the Jewish high priests, had to come with blood, who officiated for others, etc. There is no longer an offering for sins, no longer blood to offer (v. 18).

Note again that “his flesh” follows the designation the entrance of the Sanctuary “in connection with the blood of Jesus.” “Flesh” and “blood” go together as far as this entrance is concerned. It is the slain flesh or body of Jesus that, like a veil, hangs before the heavenly Sanctuary and is the one means of entry. All that the writer has said on the suffering, the death, the blood, the offering of himself, the sacrifice of himself, is here brought to mind. The crucified Christ is the entrance, the entrance veil. “No man cometh to the Father but by me,” John 14:6, by my blood, by my flesh, by this veil. This veil shuts out and forever hides the Father from all those who spurn it as the means of entry.

The διά is here not local: “through the veil,” etc., (our versions, commentators). An entrance is not “inaugurated” (not even “dedicated” as our versions have it) “through” anything in a local sense but only “by means” of something. An incongruity results when we combine “new and living through (locally) the veil.” It is eisegesis to insert the participle ἄγουσαν or some other participle: “leading through the veil.” “His flesh” is also not “his human nature,” for what about “the blood”? “His flesh” denotes the body of Jesus as it was sacrificed for us.

This whole statement aims to strike the readers squarely. No Jew, except the high priest, ever got to enter the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle; the people had no way to the actual mercy seat. But these readers now have the actual entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary; they may pass in with joyful confidence. Yet they are thinking of turning from this entrance, turning back to Judaism, where even the earthly Holy of Holies is closed to them. How can they think of doing such a thing? Is it because Jesus was crucified, because this is an offense to them?

But the very connection with Jesus’ blood opens this entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary for them; his blood-stained flesh constitutes the very veil, the means of entrance, for them; to despise it means never to enter at all. The convincing force of this is tremendous, indeed. To this day it strikes all who spurn “the blood theology.” This theology fills our epistle.

Some find an allusion to the rent veil in these words (Matt. 27:51). The writer, however, as not a few have observed, never goes beyond the original Tabernacle, never refers to Solomon’s Temple, and certainly not to Herod’s. The thought of the rent veil may occur to us, yet the writer makes no use of it.

Hebrews 10:21

21 Besides such “assurance” regarding this wonderful entrance we also possess “a great Priest over the house of God.” The assurance is God’s gift for our own hearts; this great Priest is placed over us as being the house in which God dwells. “Great Priest” recalls “great High Priest” used in 4:14 and all that has been said about his exaltation at God’s right hand (last in v. 12). “Priest” is the proper word here instead of “High Priest” when we recall 7:1–25, Christ’s likeness to Melchizedek, the king-priest. Jesus is still our Priest who is “able to save to the utmost those who come to God through him, ever living to intercede for them” (7:25). Has Judaism a priest like this? The writer does not say “over the house of Israel” (8:8) but “over the house of God,” “whose house we ourselves are if we hold fast as firm to the end the assurance and the boast of the hope” (3:6).

Hebrews 10:22

22 So, then, let us continue to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having been sprinkled as to our hearts (to free them) from a wicked conscience, and having been washed as to body with pure water; etc.

The present tense means “let us continue to draw near, let us not cease for any reason.” It is the same admonition that was given in 4:16: “Let us draw near with assurance to the throne of the grace in order that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help.” The Sanctuary (τὰἅγια) referred to in v. 19 is heaven itself, the eternal abode of God (not some inner place in heaven to which God has retired). Christ, by means of his flesh, is the entrance, our living way to this Sanctuary, our great Priest, by whom we have access to this Sanctuary, its throne of grace, and God himself. We now draw near in worship, in prayer, and receive all the grace. At death the soul draws near, at the time of the resurrection also the body.

προσερχώμεθα is a ritual or liturgical term that harmonizes with ἐρραντισμένοι and λελουμένοι as also with “the Sanctuary” and “the veil.” “Let us draw near” or “go to” means actual entrance into this Sanctuary although in this life it is as yet only in spirit (John 4:24) or with our hearts. Endless blessings are thus to be ours. The call is given to those who are “brethren,” who have already been going to this Sanctuary and need only to be urged never to cease going; it is not intended to exclude others who are not yet brethren; they, too, are still bidden to come, i.e., to become “brethren” with us and thus to come.

God always looks at the heart, our inner self, the seat of the mind and the will; his eyes penetrate through and through it. Hence we have the admonition to come “with a true heart,” one that is ἀληθινή, not false, hypocritical, merely pretending and making a profession that is not warranted by sincere intentions. “A true heart” goes “in full assurance of faith,” πληροφορία as in 6:3, which means more than “fulness” (R. V.), it is rather “full assurance” (A. V.), i.e., full certainty and that in full measure, and thus matches παρρησία that was used in v. 19. So great and glorious is what we have that nothing less than full assurance of faith should move us to draw near, a faith that is fully certain of its ground, not ignorant, doubting, or moved by human argument or objection. Many a heart needs the admonition voiced in this phrase. James 1:6, etc.

The subjective conditions for drawing near, namely a true heart and full assurance of faith, are the more to be expected because of the objective blessings the readers have received, the continuous effects of which are indicated by the perfect tenses of the participles and the divine agency in the passive voice. We do not separate these participles and begin the second admonition “and having been washed as to the body with pure water, let us hold fast,” etc., (R. V. margin and others). This destroys the symmetry of the sentence. How are we to draw near? First μετά … ἐν, two prepositions with their objects, and each object with one modifier; secondly, two perfect passive participles, each with its accusative after a passive, each with one additional modifier.

This symmetry should not be marred by cutting off the last participle. Moreover, the two participles denote lustrations and are thus tied together also in meaning.

“Heart” and “body” correspond. The “heart” is properly mentioned where the “conscience” is concerned. The thought is not, however, that either “heart” or “body” is cleansed without the other; cleansing affects the whole man. The “body” is properly mentioned where the sacramental washing of baptism is concerned since the baptismal water touches the body. In adults the cleansing of the heart precedes the cleansing by baptism although baptism soon follows, must follow if the heart is, indeed, cleansed; in infants both occur together in baptism.

Both ῥαντίζω and λούω recall the Old Testament cleansing of the high priest before performing his great duty: he was sprinkled with blood, Exod. 29:21; Lev. 8:30; and was to wash with water, Exod. 40:12; 30:19; Lev. 8:6; 16:4, 24. The implication is not that we are high priests who are to be similarly cleansed, for we serve no high-priestly function in drawing near to God. The implication goes no farther than the fact that, like those Jewish high priests, we must be completely cleansed before we draw near to God and his heavenly Sanctuary. The fluid for sprinkling the hearts, which is not named here, is named in 12:24: “the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel”; also in 1 Pet. 1:2: “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”; also in 1 John 1:7. Christ shed his blood for all men, but now every individual has this blood applied to his inner personality, the heart, the seat of the ἐγώ. This inward sprinkling = justification through the ransoming that is in Christ Jesus, Rom. 3:24.

“To sprinkle from a wicked conscience” is a pregnant expression and equals to sprinkle and thus to free from a wicked conscience. A wicked conscience is one that has wickedness lying upon it. Even if such a conscience is lulled asleep, even if it is actually seared, it will in the end fill the sinner with utter condemnation. Only one thing can free us from the charges of such a conscience, can restore us to a “good conscience” that is able to approach God uncondemned, and that is Christ’s blood. 1 John 1:7. How can one think of drawing near to the holy God in his holy Sanctuary with a wicked conscience? That will drive him into outer darkness.

The New Testament knows of only one washing, namely baptism. In Eph. 5:25–27 it is called “the washing of water in connection with uttered Word”; in Titus 3:5, “a washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”; in Acts 22:16 Paul is bidden: “Be baptized and wash away thy sins.” Because baptism cleanses, the writer says washed by means of “clean” water, which certainly does not mean only physically clean as opposed to dirty water. Baptism is always applied to the body, but as the sprinkling of the heart affects the whole person, so also does this sacred washing of the body.

This is not a strong allusion to Jewish lustrations, for all these required repetition while no true baptism can be repeated, its effect is permanent. Baptism is the sacrament for all who are children of “God’s house,” even for infants and children who cannot as yet be reached by the Word that is preached and taught and by the Lord’s Supper. “All you are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus; for as many as were baptized in connection with Christ (εἰς = ἐν) did put on Christ.”

Hebrews 10:23

23 Since the writer uses three subjunctives, the second needs no connective: let us continue to hold fast the confession of the hope unbent, for faithful (is) the One who made the promise.

In 4:15 we have the same admonition to hold fast the confession, but the word used in that passage is κρατέω, to use our strength in holding it; the word used here is κατέχω, simply to hold fast. The full assurance of faith (v. 24) is bound to confess aloud before the church and the world. See how faith and confession are welded together in Rom. 10:9, 10. As fire has heat and light, so faith has confession. But this “confession” is not merely subjective so that the writer says only: “Keep on confessing that you are hoping!” One holds fast something objective, here the words which form the confession of the church, which embody what we hope for, and not only the admission that we are hoping. The subjective feature lies in the holding fast.

Seeberg is nearer to the facts than those who find fault with him when he thinks that the church had a kind of fixed catechism as its confession. There may not have been a regular catechism, but there were surely acknowledged ways of confessing both in what Christians believed and for what they hoped.

The predicate adjective has the emphasis: ἀκλινῆ: Keep holding fast the confession “unbent,” i.e., never letting it be bent so as to droop, to lose its contents. Hold the confession firmly like a banner that is flying high and never drooping to the ground. Ever confess all your Christian hope fearlessly, courageously; never grow silent, never deny. In 4:15 and here the implication is that assaults will have to be faced; v. 32–38 speak of “a great conflict of sufferings,” of being made “a gazingstock both by reproaches and affliction,” of “spoiling the confessors of their possessions,” etc. “Cast not away your assurance, which has great recompense of reward” (v. 35).

The present results of confession are often painful to bear. That is why the writer says “the confession of the hope”: “knowing that you yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one” (v. 34). Whatever pain and distress our confession brings upon us must not darken the vision of the great hope that is awaiting us in the end. “For faithful (trustworthy, reliable) is the One who made the promise,” who promised all that we hope for in the end. This faithfulness of God is expressed in 1 Cor. 1:9: “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord”; 1 Thess. 5:24: “Faithful is that calleth you, who will also do it”; 1 Cor. 10:13 faithful also in not letting you be tried beyond strength. We may let go, he is unwavering and does not let go. If any confessor denies, loses the heavenly hope, the fault is his own and not God’s. Here, however, God’s faithfulness and sure promise are used as the great motive that should stir us ever to hold fast the confession of the hope; he will fulfill every promise, bestow help in our trials and the crown of glory at the end.

24, 25) The first admonition deals with the heart, the second with the mouth (confession), the third with conduct. The first with God, the second with the world, the third with the church: and let us continue to consider each other as regards provocation to love and good works, not abandoning the assembly of ourselves as some have a custom (of doing), but offering encouragement, and by so much the more by how much you see the day drawing near.

Let us put our mind down on each other. Each is to continue to think of what his own attitude and conduct mean in their effect upon his brethren. Remissness causes double damage, to ourselves and to all the rest; our faithfulness produces double fruit, our own good deeds and a stimulation of others to like good deeds.

Παροξυσμός, when it is used in a bad sense, means excitation to anger, bitterness, an inflammation; it is here used in the good sense and means “an incitement to love and good works” (objective genitives). Ἀγάπη is the love of intelligent comprehension coupled with corresponding purpose, the root of good works, the love itself being the fruit of faith.

Luther writes on this faith that is active in love: “Oh, it is a living, busy, active, powerful thing that we have in faith so that it is impossible for it not to do good without ceasing. Nor does it ask whether good works are to be done; but before the question is asked, it has wrought them and is always engaged in doing them.” C. Tr 941, 10. Love and good works always go together; it is love that makes the works good in God’s sight, who ever looks beyond what is outward to the inner motive of every deed.

Essential to such incitement to love and good works is the fact that we do not keep abandoning the assembly of our own selves. True, we need to have the Word preached and taught so as to keep our faith, confession, and love active and strong, and some have thought that this is the point; yet the writer thinks rather of the fellowship in the ἐπισυναγωγή, the gathering together of the church members, ἐπί adding only the idea of assembling together at a certain place.

“The assembly of your own selves” seems to imply a contrast with the gatherings of others who are hostile to the Christians, whether secret or open. So the Sanhedrin gathered to plot against Jesus. The verb means “to abandon,” “to desert,” as in Matt. 27:41: “My God, my God, why didst thou abandon me?” Acts 2:27: “Thou wilt not abandon my soul unto hell.” 2 Tim. 4:10, 16; 2 Cor. 4:9. Zahn, Introduction II, 348, thinks that some of the readers merely attended other church meetings. The dative with the copula (which is omitted) is a common idiom for “have”: “as some have a custom (of doing),” i.e., as some are doing. This is more than just carelessness; it is the beginning of apostasy.

The aim of the whole epistle is to counteract the defection from Christianity which had set in among the Jewish Christian readers. They had begun to revert to Judaism, to think the Jewish priesthood, Temple, sacrifices, etc., the real thing, to turn from this crucified Christ, etc. We see here that “some” were giving up their fellowship with the church. We conclude that they were going back to the Jewish synagogues in Rome. See the introduction, also v. 32, etc., for the reason of this defection: the burning of Rome, the horrible persecution which Nero visited upon the old congregation in Rome to avert suspicion from himself as having set fire to the city, the execution of Paul, the Christian religion being now treated by the authorities as a religio illicita. These Jewish Christians had not joined the old congregation, had kept to themselves in their synagogue houses of worship, had thus not been wholly identified with the Christians of the old congregations, and had suffered to a far less extent. Thus some were abandoning the meetings, were afraid to be seen attending them, were just remaining away, or, as is more probable judging from the aim of the whole epistle, were going back to the synagogues of the Jews in Rome to be Jews again.

What a dangerous example (see v. 26, etc.)! Instead of following it, let the readers keep “encouraging.” Παρακαλεῖν always gets its meaning from the context; it may mean to admonish, comfort, encourage. The last meaning is best here, and certainly better than “to exhort” which is used in our versions. No object is needed in the Greek, the context shows what encouragement is referred to, namely the same that the writer is offering here. “And by so much the more by how much you see the day drawing near”; all these persecutions are signs of the end. Instead of letting such things move you to turn away from Christ they should move you to do the very opposite, for the great Day is near.

There is no question that ἡἡμέρα is the day of final judgment which is also called “that day.” It needs no further modifier in the New Testament. To say that any day of judgment is referred to is an effort to evade a difficulty, namely that the writer thought that the end of the world would come in a very short time, that thus, since it did not come and has not come to this day, he was mistaken; all of which disappears when we interpret “the day drawing near” as a reference to some preliminary judgment day. This fear is groundless as is every charge that the New Testament writers were mistaken as to the day of judgment. Jesus told the apostles that no man is to know even “times or periods” (Acts 1:7) to say nothing of the exact day; that he himself (in his state of humiliation) did not know the day; but that we must ever see the signs of its approach, ever be ready for its arrival, in constant expectation of it. All the New Testament writers speak accordingly; we do the same today.

The correlative datives express degree: the readers will the more encourage each other the more they see the day drawing near, i.e., see these plain signs of its approach as foretold by Jesus. This is itself an encouragement, for on that day all our hope will be realized and crowned. Rom. 8:18.

The Warning against Apostasy, v. 26–31.

Hebrews 10:26

26 Hortation merges into sharpest warning, yet it does so in a natural way. Some are abandoning the Christian Church (v. 25). There is danger of apostasy and of what has been called “the sin against the Holy Ghost” or “the unpardonable sin.” It is the second time that the writer issues this warning; we should combine 6:4–8 with 10:26–31. The purpose of both passages is the same: to warn the readers by showing them what this sin is into which they are inclined to fall and by revealing to them that this sin is absolutely fatal. Riggenbach has understood the difference between these two passages correctly: the one is psychological, it stresses the fact that repentance and renewal are impossible; the other is soteriological, it points out that there is no sacrifice to wipe out this sin. In 6:4–8 the writer stirs up his readers to heed aright what he is about to tell them about the great High Priesthood of Christ; here he confronts his readers with the full consequence that must descend on them if they nullify the experience they have had of the High Priesthood of Christ.

For when willingly we go on sinning after receiving the realization of the truth, no longer is there left a sacrifice for sins but (only) some frightful expectation of judgment and an eagerness of fire about to eat those hostile.

“For” is not begruendend; it does not offer proof or reasons. “For” = so that you may understand this matter about withdrawing from the Christian assembly and the reference to the last day in regard to such as withdraw; understand what this really means. The genitive absolute and its modifier define the act; the main clause states the consequence.

“We” means any of us; “willingly” has the emphasis. We construe: “Willingly we sinning after receiving (aorist, actually having received) the realization of the truth.” Sinning in ignorance or in weakness is not referred to but the deliberate, voluntary sinning of one who has really received the knowledge which is realization (ἐπίγνωσις, not mere Kenntnis but Erkenntnis) of the divine, saving truth, the actual reality of the gospel contents. In v. 27 such are called the ὑπεναντίοι, “the antagonists,” those who have turned opposite, hostile. Add v. 29 with its further description. Compare what we have said regarding this sin in connection with 6:4.

It is, of course, not merely one deed but a continuous sinning, a habitus. 6:4 has stated that there is no halting of it by repentance. Its deliberateness, its being done against better knowledge, are added here. When some think that “willing” means without inducement or pressure from outside they might note that the devil operates with both, and that bringing us into this sin is not an exception. No man can explain how anyone can fall in this way unless he can offer reasonable explanations for the climax of unreason.

It is after the whole exposition about Christ’s sacrifice that the writer can now say of this sin: “no longer is there left a sacrifice for sins,” i.e., any sacrifice for sins that would have any effect on sinners of this kind. Since they permanently repudiate the one, final, supreme sacrifice of Christ, what is there left that might be brought to bear on these sinners? The thought is not that we must necessarily say that Christ did not expiate also their sin, but that repudiation of him and his sacrifice leaves them nothing. Since the readers are Jewish Christians, such a sinner may think that by his repudiation of Christ he will find safety in the sacrifices of Judaism when he again becomes a Jew. The writer has shown the vanity of such an escape, for all Jewish sacrifices helped sinners only by adumbrating Christ’s final sacrifice.

Hebrews 10:27

27 What remains for such sinners is only “some frightful expectation of judgment,” etc. Τις is rhetorical and belongs to the adjective (R. 743) and not to the noun or to its genitive. Such a τις sometimes minimizes, but sometimes, as here, by minimizing it intensifies the adjective: “some frightful” = a very frightful. Φοβερά may be subjective or objective: the judgment that is frightful in itself, which meaning it has here; or the frightfulness of it that is felt by the sinner. This sinner may scoff at and blaspheme the judgment that is awaiting him, its frightful character remains the same.

Ἐκδοχή is found only here in the New Testament and is used in a sense that is not found elsewhere, not even in the papyri. It has the meaning “expectation,” which corresponds to the verb used in 10:11 and is one of the interesting New Testament words on which more light is sought. The writer does not say “some frightful judgment” remains for such sinners but more impressively “some frightful expectation (looking for, A. V.) of judgment,” i.e., all that is left is so frightful a wait although the sinners themselves do not realize it.

Explicative καί brings out what is meant: “and an eagerness or zeal of fire about to eat those hostile,” those contrary or opposed. He again does not say merely “and a fire” but “a zeal of fire” as if the judgment fire were a living thing, its flames seething to devour these adversaries of Christ (B.-P. 527). Nothing can be more “frightful.”

Hebrews 10:28

28 In 6:7, 8 an illustration follows; an illustration is introduced also here but one that also draws a comparison. In 6:7, 8 nature is used as an illustration; here it is history. One having defied Moses’ law dies without compassion before two or three witnesses. The participle means “to set at naught, to act as if it were not there,” thus “to defy.” The readers are former Jews and are acquainted with Deut. 17:2–7 and the rest of the crimes for which the Mosaic code decreed death. Is there any “compassion” (idiomatic plural in the Greek) for such defiance of law? No; the person dies “before two or three witnesses.” R. 604 is right: ἐπί = “before,” “in the presence of.” Deut. 17:7 says that the witnesses are to start the stoning (cf., also Acts 7:58).

This is the juridical ἐπί. There is no thought of the trial but of the execution when the criminal dies, with nothing, absolutely nothing to remove the penalty.

Hebrews 10:29

29 We now have the comparison with an argument from the less to the greater in the form of a question which lets the readers themselves supply the inevitable answer. If this happens to a defier of Moses’ law, what must then happen to a renegade who outrages the Son of God? Of how much worse punishment do you think he will be counted worthy who trampled under foot the Son of God and counted as common the blood of the testament in connection with which he was (once) sanctified and insulted the Spirit of the (divine) grace?

The comparison is drawn, not between a sin against Moses and this one against God’s Son and the Holy Spirit, but between a sin against the divine law, the agent for the transmission of which needed to be only a man (Moses), and this sin against the supreme institution of grace, the agents of which are the two divine persons themselves. So the one sin is a setting aside of some portion of the divine law as if it were nothing, but this sin is the ultimate insult against these divine persons and what they have done for and in this unspeakably heinous sinner. Crime suffices to designate the one sin; but what word is there to designate the other? One participial designation is enough to describe the one sin; three are required to set forth the other.

“To count worthy of” is used when honor is the object; to use it with the opposite, with τιμωρία or “punishment” in the sense of vindication, makes the verb more striking. “To trample under foot” is illustrated by Matt. 7:6 where the hogs trample pearls into the mire. To do this to “the Son of God” brings to mind all that this epistle has said of his infinite exaltation from 1:2 onward. The writer does not say trample down some gift the Son of God brought as he says “Moses’ law” but trample down this infinitely exalted Son who is very God himself.

More must be said about him: “and counted as common the blood of the testament in connection with which (ἐν) he was (once) sanctified.” It is the holy blood of the incarnate Son, and the readers will be compelled to think of all that this epistle has said about this blood of the new testament which it established. See διαθήκη in 7:22; and fail not to remember Matt. 26:28. To former Jews κοινόν means “without sacredness,” like any common blood, and in this case, since Christ was crucified and executed, no better than the blood of the two malefactors who were crucified with him. And yet at one time this man had his heart sprinkled with this blood from a wicked conscience (v. 22), had experienced its sacred, sanctifying power, “had been sanctified in connection with it.” The blood that once sanctified him so that he experienced its sanctifying power fully he finally counts as common, as not even being sacred. The enormity of sacrilege can go no farther.

It should, however, be added that this sinner “insulted the Spirit of the (divine) grace,” for his is all the sanctifying work in our hearts, his the entire application of the divine grace to us, χάρις, the unmerited favor Dei extended to the guilty who deserve the damnation of justice (while ἔλεος is the “mercy” that is extended to the wretched). It is on the basis of this mention of the Spirit, to which are added Matt. 12:31, 32; Mark 3:28, 29; Luke 12:10, that this sin is called the sin against the Holy Ghost and the unpardonable sin. As there is no more “sacrifice for sins” (v. 26) that could reach this sinner, so after all his grace is insulted the Spirit cannot longer reach him.

Hebrews 10:30

30 What the writer says about the judgment that is awaiting such a sinner is not an empty threat on his part. For we know (you as well as I) him who said: To me (belongs) vengeance (the act of exacting justice)! I, I will give back due return! Deut. 32:35 (Rom. 12:19). God will certainly carry out his threat. In ἀνταποδώσω, ἀπό has the force of “due” as it has also in various other compounds: what is due “from” me to give. This sinner will get full justice, all that is due him from God. The Hebrew has: “To me vengeance and recompense”; the LXX: “In the day of vengeance I will give due return.” The writer quotes neither passage exactly but rather combines the two just as Paul does in Rom. 12:19. It seems that this Greek rendering was current in the early church.

The writer adds a second testimony (Deut. 32:36; Ps. 135:14): and again: The Lord will judge his people. Let no reader imagine that, because he is of Jewish extraction when he turns from Christ to Judaism, he will escape. Scripture names “his people” as the very ones on whom the Lord will pass judgment. The verb has the emphasis, and while κρίνειν is a vox media and means favorable as well as adverse judging, it is the latter in regard to which the writer warns the readers.

Hebrews 10:31

31 All he adds is: Frightful to fall into the hands of the living God! Φοβερόν repeats this adjective from v. 27. “To fall into someone’s hands” (aorist, effective) is used with reference to an enemy or a criminal who at last drops helplessly into the power that finally settles with him. Four times the writer uses Θεὸςζῶν, twice when warning, here and in 3:12, “to apostatize from the living God”; twice when inviting, in 9:14, “to serve the living God,” and in 12:22, “the city of the living God.” As One who is “living” and not a dead idol, not a fictitious god who is merely imagined God keeps his promises and executes his threats. Blessed are they who trust and obey him; frightful the fate of those who scorn his Son and insult his Spirit.

So much preaching is weak and flabby because it fails to sound the stern warning which the writer, like Jesus and the rest of Scripture, uses again and again. Preachers think it wise not to appeal to the motive of fear. But by not frightening men into heaven they fail to frighten them away from hell. The ζῆλοςπυρός, “the seething zeal of fire” ready to devour, is frightful; to fall into the hands of the living God whom one has outraged is frightful. It is folly to hush this fact. So perverse are men’s hearts, so dull their consciences, that when one is drawing them to the grace of the living God there is need, because of their perversity, that the fear of God be aroused in them lest they after all fall into the hands of the living God for judgment.

The Remembrance of the Former Days, v. 32–34.

Hebrews 10:32

32 As the writer turns from loving hortation (v. 19–25) to sternest warning (v. 26–31), so he now turns to remembrance of the noblest deeds of the readers which occurred in their recent past. Shall all that they have suffered be in vain? Now call to remembrance the former days in which, after having been enlightened, you endured a great contest of sufferings, partly being made a theatrical show by means of reproaches and afflictions, partly by having gotten to be in the fellowship of those faring thus. For you both sympathized with the prisoners and accepted with joy the snatching of your properties, knowing that you yourselves have property better and abiding.

This glimpse of “the former days” of the persons to whom this epistle is addressed is of the greatest value for identifying and locating them as we have pointed out in the introduction. They are a unit group of Jewish Christians who are unmixed with Gentile Christians. They underwent a period of persecution not long after their enlightenment. Yet none of their number lost his life by martyrdom, and none fled for his life. They suffered only public disgrace and afflictions and snatching of property. None of them were thrown into prison.

But there were others, not of their number, not members of this purely Jewish group of Christians, who were imprisoned; the readers sympathized with these and thus brought upon themselves the measure of persecution that is described here. These are the data that are provided. Where do these data place the readers?

Only two places deserve consideration: Palestine and the city of Rome. In only these two places were there compact, purely Jewish bodies who were involved in persecution. Palestine does not fit. The Palestinian persecutions lie too far in the past; they occurred before the year 35, thus at least thirty years before the writing of this epistle. During that persecution the Jewish Christians involved were haled to prison, some were executed, and the great body of them fled the country. The picture drawn in our text is not one that fits Palestine.

Every item fits Rome. Between the years 61–63, during Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome, this apostle converted a host of Jews in Rome. By his first day’s work he converted some fifty per cent of all the leading rabbis and chief men of the seven Roman synagogues (Acts 28:24), the most successful single day’s work Paul ever had. We scarcely need to say what this meant for those seven synagogues. Paul continued this work for two years. To get this story see the writer’s Interpretation of Acts, 28:17–31.

Some think that all these converted Jews joined the original Christian congregation in Rome. They did not. This congregation, which was then some twenty years old, had never had contact with the Jews in Rome. No hostility had ever been aroused. That is why all those Jewish rabbis and chief men came to Paul so freely on his invitation (Acts 28:17, 22, 23), is why Paul’s success with regard to them proved so great on even the first day. This great body of Jewish converts remained intact in some of their own seven synagogues which now became their places of Christian worship.

In 64 Rome was burned, Peter was executed. In October, 64, the Christians were blamed for the fire and were imprisoned and brought to horrible death. These were the Christians of the old, original congregations, who were long known to all Romans as Christians, many of whom belonged to Nero’s household (see the author on Rom. 16:10, 11, also on v. 3–16, which reveal the entire membership of the old congregation). Paul’s great body of newly converted Jews, who had kept to synagogues of their own, escaped the horrible onslaught. Many of these recent Jewish converts became involved only because of their sympathy with the members of the old congregation who were imprisoned and then made martyrs. Of these days and of this measure of persecution that had been joyfully undergone by the readers our writer speaks.

This epistle was written some time between the year 65 and 70, thus two, three, or four years after the events recorded in the verses before us. Every word fits the place, the time, and the events in Rome as described.

We take it that also Paul had most likely been executed in Rome before this epistle was written. This would make the date of the epistle the year 66 or somewhat later and would add to the situation of the readers the grave fact that at the time of the writing of this epistle they were adherents of a religio illicita, which was a serious crime. On this point, the martyrdom of Peter and of Paul, compare the remarks in connection with 13:7.

“The former days” are as recent as two to four years ago and are luridly vivid in the memory of all the readers. “After having been enlightened” means by Paul’s work, who began this enlightenment (Acts 28:23) and continued it for two years, and the converted rabbis and leaders themselves won more and more converts. Yes, then the readers “were enlightened” (2 Cor. 4:6); it is the proper word, and there is no reason to take it in the late sense of having been baptized (see 6:4). Only a short time after their conversion the readers “endured a great contest of sufferings,” ἄθλησις, athlete’s struggle. Still young in their faith, their spiritual muscles not hardened by long training, the readers successfully endured (aorist) this severe test of suffering. This is the summary statement; the specifications follow.

Hebrews 10:33

33 Τοῦτομέν … τοῦτοδέ, “partly … partly” is elegant Greek. “Partly being made a theatrical show or spectacle by means of reproaches and afflictions” is a significant wording, indeed. The Christians of the old congregation were made a theatrical show by being sent into the arena to be torn to pieces by lions, wild dogs, etc., while Nero and all Rome enjoyed the spectacle, and by being tied to stakes, being smeared with inflammable material, made living torches in Nero’s gardens so that he and his court might ride through and view the spectacle. All these perished horribly. The readers shared this show business to the extent of “reproaches and afflictions,” the populace of Rome hooted and reviled them and inflicted all manner of indignity upon them.

The second “partly” completes this picture by adding how the readers became involved, namely “by having gotten to be (aorist ingressive participle while the first verb is a descriptive present) in the fellowship (adjective in the Greek) of those faring thus,” the Christians of the old congregation, who were reviled and abused when they were hunted, caught, imprisoned, and then sent to death.

Hebrews 10:34

34 This still leaves the picture incomplete. How was this fellowship manifested? “For” explains and at the same time adds the limit of what the readers suffered during those days. “You sympathized with the prisoners”; that was a crime in the eyes of the populace. The readers might have played safe. Having kept their own organization in their synagogues separate from the old congregation, they might have kept entirely aloof when the storm broke, might have suppressed all feeling as if they had no connection whatever with the poor prisoners who were led away to the dungeons and to death. They, however, showed their sympathy with the consequence that in addition to suffering “reproaches” they had their homes invaded and plundered by rowdies. Καί … καί connect these two statements but do so in a way that is different from “partly … partly” in v. 3. “You both sympathized, etc., and accepted with joy the snatching of your properties,” suffered your homes to be looted by the rabble. This is what Christian sympathy cost the readers.

They took it “with joy,” gladly, “knowing that you yourselves have property better and abiding,” ὕπαρξις, the singular to designate the spiritual and heavenly property in order to match ὑπάρχοντα, the neuter plural which designates the earthly items of property that were snatched away by the hoodlums. It was God’s mercy that the readers did not have to suffer more. The writer does not say that any of them were imprisoned, still less that any suffered bloody martyrdom. If this had been the case, the writer would certainly have added these facts. Γινώσκειν is regularly construed with ὅτι and is in the classics followed by the accusative with the infinitive only when it means ein Urteil faellen, “to pronounce sentence” (B.-D. 397, 1), which is suitable here and accords with the writer’s Greek: “you as judges pronouncing the sentence that you for yourselves have property better and abiding,” better because it is abiding, which no one is able to snatch from you. The participle is iterative: making this judicial pronouncement every time any of your homes were looted.

The correct reading is τοῖςδεσμίοις, “the prisoners,” and not τοῖςδεσμοῖς, “the prisons” (a meaningless variant), nor τοῖςδεσμοῖςμου, “my imprisonment,” which the A. V. translates “me in my bonds.” Although the latter is wholly untenable, it has caused some to think of Paul and to make him the writer of this epistle. Some copyist left out the iota in the word δεσμίοῖς and thus made it δεσμοῖς, and then in order to make sense some other copyist, who regarded Paul as the writer, added “my.” Incidentally it is well to note that both the neuter plural δεσμά and the masculine δεσμοί are regularly used in the sense of “imprisonment” and not of “bonds” in the sense of fetters or chains.

The writer accords his readers the highest praise. Will they now, after all, prove false? The tribulations which now trouble them are not as bad as were those of a few years ago. Will they break under a strain that is less?

The Appeal not to Shrink Back, v. 35–39.

Hebrews 10:35

35 The readers did not shrink back during that severe trial of “former days”; they will surely not do so now. Οὖν rests this appeal on their former steadfastness. Do not, then, throw away your assurance, (it being) such as has a pay-gift due (you)! Παρρησία is used in the same sense as it was in v. 19, “assurance”; it is almost objective, the assurance given to us, which we must not despise and throw away. The litotes means: “By all means hold fast your assurance no matter what comes!” The relative is at once qualitative and causal and thus adds the great reason for not casting away our assurance: “it is of a kind that has a great μισθαποδοσία,” pay-gift due you (μισθός = pay + δίδωμι = to give + ἀπό in the sense of “due” or “in full”); our versions’ “recompense of reward” is less clear. To throw away our assurance is to throw away the great, heavenly gift of pay in full which God intends presently duly to give us; the same word is used in 2:2 and 12:26.

Hebrews 10:36

36 For of perseverance you have need so that, by having done the will of God, you may carry off the promise.

Ὑπομονή is bravely remaining under a load and holding out. That is exactly what the readers need; having this virtue, they will not let continued affliction induce them to throw away their assurance and to think of turning from Christ because of persecution in order to seek ease and safety in the old Judaism. They need this perseverance “so that (ἵνα, contemplated result), by having done (effective aorist) the will of God (his good and gracious, saving will, John 6:40), you may carry off the promise,” objective, what God has promised, namely everlasting life. This promise is the great pay-gift referred to in v. 35; κομίζεσθαι, middle voice, means to bring or carry away something as one’s own and thus to have and enjoy it.

Hebrews 10:37

37 The writer continues with language that is taken from Scripture and uses it to express his own thought. He has no formula of quotation; he merely adapts Hab. 2:3, 4, transposes the clauses he wants, and uses them in a free way. The “for” does not offer proof, it merely advances the thought and lets the advanced thought elucidate the preceding thought. We ought to hold fast our confidence, it would be folly to throw it away; all we need is perseverance so that, having done God’s will, his great promise will fall into our lap (v. 35, 36); for Christ is on the way without delay, but only faith will obtain life; God’s soul rejects him who shrinks back in cowardice. The writer could have expressed this in his own words just as he does the thought of v. 35, 36; saturated as he is with Scripture, he adopts Scripture, which his readers who are also versed in Scripture will note. We often do the same today. We thus pass by the discussion about the Hebrew and the LXX original and the minute comparisons which are made since the writer is only adopting and adapting the thought and the wording as he as well as you and I have a perfect right to do.

For yet a little, how very, very (little) ! The One coming will (indeed) come and will not delay. But the righteous one shall live as a result of faith; and if he shall shrink back, my soul takes no pleasure in him. The advance of the thought is clear. Only a little while—then Christ comes to bestow the promised gift—but only on faith and not on him who shrinks back.

Ἔτι is found in Habakkuk, and μικρὸνὅσονὅσον is an expression that is found in Isa. 26:20. When R. 733 calls ὅσονὅσον a LXX imitation of the Hebrew and in 978 a duplication that is found also in the papyri (it occurs also elsewhere), the two statements do not agree; for the papyri and other secular Greek writings have no imitations of the Hebrew. So it is doubtful whether the writer thought of Isa. 26:20 when he used this little preamble. We supply the copula: “There is as yet a little (μικρόν, sc. χρόνον) time, how very, how very (little) !” This, too, is an independent statement. What a little time is this in which we are called upon to persevere, to hold out under affliction! Why grow cowardly about it?

“The coming One will (indeed) come and will not delay,” Christ will appear soon in order to bestow the promised glory. This repeats Hab. 2:3 with a personal subject and thus only adopts some of the prophet’s language to express the writer’s great New Testament thought, namely our certainty of Christ’s second coming. He will most certainly come; his very name is still “the coming One.” He has received that name because of his first coining but also because of his second coming. The thought is put positively and secondly negatively: “he will not spend time,” χρονιεῖ (Attic future), i.e., will not linger or delay; the double statement is emphatic.

Hebrews 10:38

38 Since the time is short and Christ is coming without delay, the thing for us to do is to have faith and not to cast it away and to shrink back. This is the simple sense which should not be confused by the exegetical discussion about the LXX’s rendering of Hab. 2:4 which is used also by Paul in Rom. 1:17 and Gal. 3:11. On the details see Rom. 1:17; these need not be repeated here. It is enough to say that the LXX misunderstood Hab. 2:4 on only one point: they inserted μου because they thought that the prophet meant “my” (God’s) πίστις, “faith” or “faithfulness,” Treue. The Hebrew has “his (the righteous one’s) faith,” fiducia. Like Paul, our writer leaves out “my” and the Hebrew “his”; like Paul, he deems the latter unnecessary.

Some texts have “my” in our passage, and some commentators support it on the basis of the claim that its cancellation aimed at conformity with the reading found in Rom. 1:17 and Gal. 3:11. But “my” plainly bears the mark of being an insertion; those texts that have “my” are uncertain as to where it should be placed and apparently attempt to harmonize the reading with the LXX’s rendering of Hab. 2:4.

In Rom. 1:17 and Gal. 3:11 this word of the prophet is quoted in the interest of justifying faith; our writer uses it as stating the necessity of faith for spiritual life. All three, Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, construe alike: “The righteous—from faith shall he live,” i.e., his spiritual life has gone if faith is gone. Woe to us if Christ finds us so at his coming! The future tense is not to be referred to a future life that is yet to be received but to the spiritual life that is now rooted in faith, that springs from faith and will continue throughout the future. Here, as always, ὁδίκαιος has the forensic sense: “the righteous one” who has this quality by virtue of God’s forensic verdict, “the one declared righteous by God.”

“And if he shall shrink back, my soul takes no pleasure in him” is the negative side. The verb means to turn oneself back secretly or in cowardly fashion, i.e., to give up one’s faith, the very thing some of the readers are inclined to do. It is a mild expression to say “my soul has no pleasure in him,” yet it is the more ominous for that very reason. The renegade shall not carry off the promise and pay-gift.

Hebrews 10:39

39 As he did in 6:9 but only stronger the writer inspires his readers to join him in the declaration when he says: But to us on our part does not belong turning back to perdition; on the contrary, faith for soul preservation!

The two genitives found with ἐσμέν are predicative (R. 497), in our idiom they mean “to us does not belong,” i.e., “we are not of such a character but of the opposite character.” The negative and the positive again emphasize. “Turning back” repeats the idea of the verb in the form of a noun, and “faith” is the opposite. But two phrases now bring out fully what is involved: any cowardly turning back leads “to perdition,” ἀπώλεια, utter and eternal perishing (the word is regularly used in this awful sense); faith, on the other hand, is “for preservation of soul,” περιποίησις is used in this sense also in the papyri. The two alternatives are presented plainly to the readers, and the writer has full confidence that they will recoil from the one and embrace the other. This use of ψυχή recalls Matt. 10:39; 16:25, 26.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, 4th ed.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

C. Tr Concordia Triglotta. The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, German-Latin-English. St. Louis, Mo., Concordia Publishing House.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner.