Hebrews 10:1-4: The Blood of Bulls and of Goats
2023-04-01
Hebrews 10:1
We see again a comparison between the “shadow of good things to come” and the “the very image of the things.” The Law is not the same as Christ, and the tabernacle is not the same as the throne room of God in heaven.
When you see a shadow of any object, is it the same as the object itself? The shadow reflects some of the reality of the object itself, but there is an obscuring. The shadow puppet looks like any manner of crazy things, but it really only a pair of hands.
What makes a shadow, but a light that shines on an object, and the object blocks some of that light? Metaphorically, the light from God shone from His throne down on earth and cast this shadow of the Law and the Tabernacle. That which has obscured the light has been removed in Christ.
What if you had a pen that you needed to write with, but then you decided you were going to use its shadow instead? It does not help; in fact, it does nothing. Likewise, the sacrifices described in the Law done in the tabernacle or the temple do not make the sinner clean. They are never made “perfect,” or whole or complete.
Hebrews 10:2-3
If the Law, the shadow of a heavenly reality, would have made us perfect, whole, and complete, they would have stopped offering them. If we vacuumed the rug, cleaned the bathroom, and painted the walls, and these things permanently made our house clean and looking new, would we vacuum, clean, and paint again? What would be the point? The house was permanently cleaned to never be dirtied again. This is exactly what the Scripture says here. If Old Testament sacrifices saved people from sin, they would not do them anymore. However, Christ did what the bull and the goat could not. He placed us in a right standing before God forever.
All those people who brought sacrifices for sins for generations to the tabernacle or temple could have stopped if there came a sacrifice that would purge them from sin. If they were “once purged,” their consciences would be clean. They would have stopped coming. However, even those people knew they had to keep coming. Their consciences were not clean.
Every time they made a sacrifice, they remembered their sins again. But what was the purpose of Christ’s death for us? We see this in the purpose of the Lord’s Supper: “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:19-20).
Jesus’ body was broken for us; we need to remember that. He died once and rose again, never to die again. “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him” (Romans 6:9). Keeping Christ in remembrance is key to a clean conscience. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).
Hebrews 10:4
Those sacrifices of bulls and goats do not take away sin. Sin is more than sins; there is a sin condition in the old man born of a woman, born in Adam’s family tree, that is the source of the actions we call sins. Why are animals not a way to remove sin? While animals did not sin, they are neither in the image of God nor on the level of human beings. They are subordinate beings. They were placed under the care and authority of humanity. To people, God said, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
Another man from Adam’s line could never cover our sin because none of them are without blemish, as required by God.
The Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, the federal head of a new human race, came and did what none of them could do.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
-Robert Lowry, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus