Hebrews 10:5, commentary and pictures

When He came into the world God prepared for Christ a real human body so He could become incarnate and do God's will in flesh. The many animal sacrifices and offerings were not what God ultimately desired, for their blood in itself could not remove sin or save. That prepared body was given so He could offer Himself as the one great, perfect and infinite offering for the sin of the world, made once for all. He came in willing obedience, delighting to do God's will with God's law within His heart, magnifying and fulfilling it rather than abrogating it. As the guiltless suffering for the guilty He bore the penalty of transgression and the curse of the law, thereby upholding God's justice, bridging the gulf sin made, and opening the way to pardon, transformation and access to God.

Prepared Human Body

The verse means that when Christ came into the world God prepared for Him a real human body so that He could become incarnate and do God's will in flesh. Animal sacrifices and offerings could not remove sin or accomplish what God required, and God did not desire them as a substitute for Christ's coming; instead Christ came in the prepared body to offer Himself once for all, replacing the repeated sacrifices and sanctifying and making holy those who receive it. He is the one who left the heavenly courts and came into the cursed world in that body, with God's law in His heart, to do God's will and to serve as the one Mediator between God and humanity, and He alone is to be exalted. His coming in that body was part of His purpose to redeem humanity from the fall by bearing the penalty of transgression, a purpose hidden from eternal ages.

That prepared body is God manifest in the flesh, in which deity inhabited tried and tempted humanity and in whom all perfection dwells and the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. Divinity was clothed with humanity because only Christ, who had been in the presence of the Father from the beginning and was the express image of the invisible God, was able to represent Deity to the world. No verbal description or imagery could reveal God; God Himself had to be revealed through a life of purity, perfect trust and submission to the will of God, and humiliation such as even the highest seraph would have shrunk from. In that body type met antitype, for He occupied the place the types had prefigured as the only One who could redeem the world, take upon Him the sins of a fallen race, become sin for men that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him, and make a solemn oblation of Himself.

In coming He laid aside His kingly glory and laid off His royal robe and crown, and clothed His divinity with humanity to join Himself to the fallen human family and live and work among them. His coming was not accidental or by chance but part of a deliberate plan agreed upon with the Father, with the body prepared for Him enabling Him to share the condition of fallen humanity and carry out God's will. He came to give a living personation of God when the time had come to limit Satan's work, for the highest angel in heaven could not do this.

He veiled His divine glory in humanity and concealed His invisible glory in visible humanity, which was the hiding of His glory, so that people could behold Him without being destroyed by its brightness. Sinful man could not approach the brightness of heavenly light, for sin cannot live in the presence of a holy God. This humble veiling fulfilled the purpose already pictured when God's glory was veiled in the lowly burning bush and in the cloud and fire through which He revealed His will and grace to Israel. His divinity was to be veiled in humanity according to the plan of salvation established before the world was made, and He did not take human form until the appointed time when He came as a baby in Bethlehem.

His human life began to all outward appearance as a frail, helpless infant and helpless babe resembling other infants, born in a stable and cradled in a manger, with His divine glory and majesty veiled by humanity. His incarnation was God manifest in the flesh sharing the ordinary hardships of the poor and lowly. His advent at the fulfilled time was heralded by angels and borne with joy to the heavenly courts while the great men of earth knew it not, the people separated as God's peculiar treasure showed no eager waiting to receive the Redeemer, and in the temple hallowed by daily offerings prefiguring His coming no preparations were made to welcome Him. The proud Pharisees and scribes, spiritually blind leaders of the blind with hypocritical ceremonies and long meaningless prayers, knew nothing of the Babe of Bethlehem despite boasted learning, devising means for riches and worldly honor, and looked for a mighty prince to reign on David's throne while men of other nations dealt in fables and worshiped false gods, all alike ignorant of the advent of the Prince of Life come in humility to bless and save as prophecy foretold.

He humbled Himself to represent humanity in the heavenly courts, and He did not take the nature of angels. He veiled and concealed His divinity in human flesh, and His human body was the garment in which as Sin-bearer of the human race He suffered and died. Through His death He opened a new and living way and entered forever upon His priestly office as High Priest for the whole world.

Through that body He employed and used human faculties because only by adopting them could He be comprehended by humanity, and only humanity could reach humanity and touch humanity. In that way He made God's character known in a way humanity could understand, lived out the character of God and lived out in human flesh the life of God, blessing the world. He walked and talked with men not as an angel but as a Teacher sent from God, possessing all the attributes of the Godhead under the garb of humanity, revealing the love, sympathy, and compassion of God. In a body prepared by God and not by man He was fully able to unveil the perfection of Jehovah and reveal His paternal character as a God of infinite love, and by living the life of God in human flesh through purity, trust, and submission He showed that humanity can be united to divinity.

Heavenly Voice and Plan

Nearly two thousand years ago, as He was to come into this world and become incarnate, a voice of strange and mysterious import was heard from the throne of God in heaven, the throne of the Infinite. It was the voice of Christ Himself speaking to God, the voice of One far above the angels and surpassing all imagined heavenly visitors, coming from heaven to this guilty world as the Light of the world. In those words He declared that sacrifice and offering God would not, but a body God had prepared for Him, and that He comes, as written of Him in the volume of the book, to do God's will. In that speech He offered Himself to come in the prepared human body and do the will of God, humbling Himself to take part of flesh and blood on this earth, which was the hiding of His glory.

Those same words were spoken in heaven before the foundation of the world was laid, when the plan of redemption was devised. There He declared His willingness to come into the world in a prepared body to do God's will, delighting to do that will with God's law within His heart, accepting the incarnation as the means of carrying out that plan. His coming was not accidental or by chance, but part of a deliberate purpose agreed upon with the Father and hidden from eternal ages. That purpose was to redeem humanity from the fall by bearing the penalty of transgression, leaving heaven in humility and suffering and living in obedience for the sinful race even to death on the cross.

He did not take human form until the appointed, fulfilled time, when He came as a baby in Bethlehem, His divinity appointed from creation to be veiled in humanity as Mediator, substitute and surety. To all outward appearance He was a frail, helpless babe resembling other infants, born in a stable and cradled in a manger with His divine glory and majesty veiled. His advent was heralded by angels and borne with joy to the heavenly courts, while the great men of the earth knew it not. The people separated as God's peculiar treasure showed no especial interest and no eager waiting and watching to receive the Redeemer, and in the temple hallowed by daily offerings prefiguring His coming and symbolizing His death no preparations were made to welcome the Saviour of the world. The proud Pharisees and scribes, with hypocritical ceremonies and apparent devotion to the law, knew nothing of the Babe of Bethlehem, being ignorant of the manner of His appearing despite boasted learning in expounding the law and the prophecies, devising means for riches and worldly honor, repeating long meaningless prayers in the streets to be heard of men, spiritually blind leaders of the blind, while men of other nations dealt in fables and worshiped false gods, all alike ignorant of the advent foretold by prophecy of the Prince of Life come to bless and save.

He came exactly as prophecy foretold, in humiliation with a body prepared for suffering and death, foreshadowed for hundreds of years by the sacrifices of the Jewish nation of which He is the antitype. The prophets foretold His life of humiliation and sorrow as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and the manner of His death. Yet the leaders looked for a mighty prince to reign upon David's throne whose kingdom should endure forever, holding proud and lofty ideas of the Messiah not in accordance with the prophecies of His first advent in humility, expecting only a victorious conqueror and temporal prince to break the Roman yoke and reign, so the thought that the Messiah should die was too humbling and they turned from Him with contempt and rejected Him. His delight to do God's will belongs with this coming in the prepared body, and is the foundation on which believers can stand in unity with one another by bringing themselves into unity with Him.

Sacrifices Replaced by Christ

Sacrifice and offering in themselves were not what God ultimately desired. The many bleeding victims and the blood of animals could not remove sin, could not save, and could not accomplish what God required. God did not desire sacrifice and offering as a substitute for Christ's coming, but prepared a human body for Christ when He came into the world. Christ came in that prepared body to do God's will and offered His body once for all, replacing the repeated sacrifices and sanctifying and making holy those who receive it.

Every bleeding animal offered under the sacrifices God appointed was meant to teach that disobedience brings death. Those offerings were meant to teach humility and repentance and to lead fallen people to trust in God alone for pardon through the promised Redeemer. They were explicitly planned as symbols and types of Christ to rivet in mind and heart that He is the spotless Lamb offered for the world. His shed blood alone cleanses from all sin and alone brings forgiveness, for without shedding of blood there is no remission. The priestly work of offering sacrifices was therefore sacred and to be treated with reverence because it prefigured His sinless sacrifice, and their blood prefigured the blood He would shed for the sins of the world.

Christ Himself gave, originated, and instituted the sacrificial system and understood its symbolic value. Every part of the ritual service symbolized Him, and the service was not an end to be trusted in itself. The cloud of incense ascending with prayer represents His righteousness that alone can make the sinner's prayer acceptable, the bleeding victim on the altar testified of a Redeemer to come, and from the holy of holies the visible token of the divine presence shone forth. Thus through age after age of darkness and apostasy these grand truths kept faith alive in human hearts until the time came for the advent of the promised Messiah.

God prepared Christ's body so He could bring type to antitype in His own greater and wholly perfect sacrifice as the Lamb without blemish. He willingly took a human body to give Himself as the true, spotless, one great offering for the sin of the world. That sacrifice was infinite and priceless and complete for the sins of the world. Made once for all, it sanctifies and makes holy those who are made holy through it.

His whole life led toward the cross and was to end in that solemn sacrifice. He lived in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law binding upon Jews to the hour of His death upon the cross. Then in His death on Calvary type met antitype and the great fulfillment was reached. All the sacrificial offerings had only prefigured the death of the Son of God, and in Him the temporary types, shadows, and symbols met their reality and all the typical offerings were fulfilled.

At His death the divinely appointed Jewish sacrificial services therefore ceased, were abolished and terminated, and were rendered valueless, useless, and no longer acceptable to God or binding and spiritually effective. The laws of sacrificial offerings were typical and in force only until that perfect offering, and with Christ's offering the temple sacrifices and services ceased. The sacrifices became useless because the Messiah they looked forward to had already come, yet unbelieving Jews rejected Him and continued to perform them. By that fulfillment Christianity was not to be joined to Jewish laws and ceremonies, and the restrictions and ceremonies of the Jewish law were not to be made obligatory upon Gentiles who accepted faith in Christ. That ending did not abolish the Ten Commandments or the original law engraved on tables of stone, which stands immutable and holds its claims upon man in all ages.

Doing God's Will Obediently

Hebrews 10:5 is Christ Himself speaking as He comes into the world, declaring His willingness to enter a prepared human body to do God's will, delighting to do that will with God's law within His heart in willing obedience. That speech was heard from the throne of God in heaven, a voice of strange and mysterious import because it came from the throne of the Infinite nearly two thousand years ago when He came as the Light of the world to a guilty and cursed world. It was also spoken before the foundation of the world was laid when the plan of redemption was devised, when He accepted the incarnation as the means of carrying out that deliberate plan and declared, as written of Him in the volume of the book, that He would come in the prepared body rather than relying on animal sacrifices and offerings. In that coming He left the heavenly courts, took the sinner's place as ransom with the guiltless suffering for the guilty, and by giving His life bridged the gulf sin had made between earth and heaven, and He alone is to be exalted.

His whole life led toward the cross and was to end in that solemn sacrifice in which He offered Himself and type reached its fulfillment. He lived in strict accordance with both the moral and the ceremonial law, observing as a Jew the law binding upon the Jews to the hour of His death upon the cross, showing the law lived out in human life in perfect obedience to God's commandments. By that obedience He redeemed Adam's failure and fall. At His death, when He gave His own life as the one great offering foreshadowed by all former offerings, type met antitype and the offering of the blood of beasts became valueless, terminating the value of all the sacrificial offerings of the Jewish law.

The crucifixion belongs to the plan of salvation, and the laws regulating Jewish sacrifices and offerings ceased at Christ's death, but this does not mean the law of the Ten Commandments died with Him. God's holy law cannot be changed or abolished, for the law of Jehovah is immutable and could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, and Jesus and all heaven know its nature. The hopeless condition of man after the fall moved Him to offer to die for transgressors of that holy law, and if the law could have been abolished man could have been saved without His death. Therefore He came into the world for the express purpose of vindicating His Father's law, not to abrogate the law given on Sinai or to make of none effect the law of God or lessen the duty of perfect obedience, but to enforce it, magnify and honor it, fulfill what God had foretold and what was prophesied, and vindicate the truth. As Author and foundation of all the religion of God's chosen people from Adam's day, originator and foundation of the entire Jewish system of sacrifices, foundation of the whole Jewish economy, and Finisher of the faith, what He spoke from Sinai is the foundation of the government of heaven as enduring as eternity, and because the law could not be altered He clothed His divinity with humanity, hiding His divine glory beneath human garb in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily so He could approach men, take upon Him the sins of a fallen race and become sin for men that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him, make a solemn oblation of Himself, occupy in Himself the place the types had prefigured as the only One who could redeem the world, and reveal truth by presenting God in His true character and the law of God in its original dignity and purity.

His coming as a human being made plain the immutable character of the law and declares that disobedience and transgression can never be rewarded with eternal life. He did not come to free people from the law but opened a way by which men may obey the law in perfect obedience and teach others to do so instead of being set free from it.

Redemption Through Sin-Bearing Sacrifice

The prepared body made it possible for the incarnate God to draw near to sorrowful and tempted people, veiling divine glory in humanity so He could be beheld without destroying beholders. He came to bring knowledge of God and of heaven, and His coming reveals a love for the human race that is seen at Calvary.

He took the sinner's place as ransom, the guiltless suffering for the guilty. He bore the penalty of transgression and the world's sin and the curse of the law, accepting separation from His Father as sin's punishment. By giving His life He bridged the gulf that sin had made between earth and heaven. He lived in obedience for the sinful human race and then bore the penalty through death on the cross.

That death made escape from the penalty possible while preserving the honor of God's law. His sacrifice upheld God's justice and showed that God's law does not change, settling the controversy over the character of the law.

His coming as God's gift recovers lost man, pardons sin and saves the sinner. It transforms character after the divine likeness, rebuilds the whole structure of human character anew in Christ, and makes the sinner a co-worker with God. Through it treasures of wisdom long hidden in Christ are brought forth, and all heaven is laid open to supply fallen man with every spiritual blessing so he can perfect a character after the divine similitude.

He came as the one Mediator between God and humanity, appointed from creation to be substitute and surety with divinity to be veiled in humanity. The sacrificial system and its priesthood were only symbols pointing to Him and had no power to save apart from Him, keeping before people the separation sin caused and the need for a mediator. Through Christ access to God is opened for guilty sinners, and His mediatorial work surpasses the earthly priesthood. Through His atoning sacrifice those who break God's law may receive peace and pardon.

Through His death as Sin-bearer He opened a new and living way and entered forever upon His priestly office as High Priest for the whole world in the heavenly sanctuary, having humbled Himself to represent humanity in the heavenly courts. His life of obedience for the sinful race reveals the character God requires and shows what human nature may become by receiving Him as Saviour.

Failure to Discern Fulfillment

The sacrifices and ordinances were only symbols and shadows pointing to Christ as the only perfect sacrifice and true offering for sin, instituted by Christ Himself with every part symbolizing Him and His coming in human flesh to offer Himself, so that to trust the forms instead of Him was to lose their spiritual life and beauty. Israel made those outward forms all-important and central, lost the spirit of true worship, corrupted the service with heathen traditions, and failed to look beyond the shadow to the substance and discern Christ. Numerous ceremonies were enjoined without proper instruction as to their meaning, so the offerings were perverted and misunderstood and offered without understanding their import. Because spiritual worship was fast disappearing, Christ's work was to establish an altogether different worship.

The blood of the innocent animals prefigured Christ's blood to be shed for the sins of the world and was meant to direct people to Him as the Lamb of God and His great atonement, but the priests' disregard for the animals' blood showed how little they would value Christ's blood. At the feast He stood among the worshipers unrecognized and unhonored though He was the One symbolized by all their service. When He came at His first advent to limit Satan's power and set free Satan's captives, the Messiah they looked forward to had already come and the sacrifices and offerings had already pointed to Him, yet the Jewish nation, blinded and deceived, rejected Him as an impostor, refused to be taught by Him and to receive Him, and led Him to death while continuing those now useless sacrifices. That rejection fulfilled prophecy that the Messiah foreshadowed by the religious services would come in humility and poverty to be rejected, despised and slain, and apart from Him the sacrifices and ceremonies were valueless.

God therefore brought Israel into captivity, destroyed the temple and suspended its service so outward ceremonies would not become the sum-total and whole of religion. He did this to purge principles and practices from heathenism, to cause ritual service to cease so heart service might be revived, and to remove outward glory so the spiritual reality could be revealed. It was when Israel was in that captivity with the temple destroyed and its service suspended that the prophecies of Daniel were given, and in captivity He gave to those who turned to Him in repentance visions of the coming Redeemer and the everlasting kingdom. After Christ's coming and the offering of His body made the Jewish sacrificial offerings no longer effective, the disciples' teaching about the risen Christ therefore undermined reliance on those ceremonies.

Life Application for Believers

What God does not want is burnt offerings and sacrifices as outward ritual, and He is not pleased with Pharisaical pretense. What He wants is inward change that begins in the heart and works outwardly, faith that works by love and purifies the soul. What He wants is belief of the heart unto righteousness with confession of the mouth unto salvation, and the broken spirit that is the true sacrifice to God.

The animal sacrifices and offerings were only types pointing to Christ as the only perfect sacrifice, which He Himself gave directions for and understood in their symbolic value as pointing to His own coming into the world in human flesh to offer Himself. At the feast He stood among the worshipers unrecognized and unhonored though He was the One symbolized by all their service, while they offered sacrifices without understanding their import because numerous ceremonies were enjoined without proper instruction as to their meaning and the offerings were perverted and misunderstood. Because spiritual worship was fast disappearing and no link bound the priests and rulers to God, His work was to establish an altogether different worship. His coming into the world as a human being was part of a deliberate plan agreed upon with the Father, not a chance event, and the body prepared for Him enabled Him to share the condition of fallen humanity and carry out God's will. His choice to lay aside heavenly glory and live in poverty teaches that poverty is not disgraceful and that the poor must not be treated with contempt.

He was the foundation of the Jewish economy, and when type met antitype in His death the need for sacrificial offerings ceased. Yet that which God set apart as sacred must ever be respected as sacred, and the lessons of practical obedience given from the Mount of Blessing are still binding on modern Israel, who have far greater light than ancient Israel. This includes the instruction given to Moses that the strict difference between the sacred and the common must be observed. The typical sacrifices ceased at His death, while the original law engraved in tables of stone stood immutable, holding its claims upon man in all ages. In the Christian age duty was not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed in loving God with all heart, soul, mind and strength and loving neighbor as self. The tithing system enjoined upon the Hebrews was not repealed or relaxed by the One who originated it, but was to be more fully carried out and more extended as salvation through Christ alone was more fully brought to light, requiring not less gifts but greater provisions to sustain the warfare since His death.

He is the one to whom the Jewish rites and ceremonies pointed, in whom their types met their fulfillment, and He is the only effective offering for the sins of the world. His coming made those rites no longer binding or spiritually effective, so that continuing them as essential would dishonor God. The teaching about His body as an offering is reflected in the ordinance He left His disciples, and in their daily receiving of the bread of life by accepting His Word and doing His will.