Hebrews 10:8, commentary and pictures

The verse names the animal sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings and offerings for sin appointed by the Jewish law and offered in the temple service.
When it says God would not have them and had no pleasure in them, it means they were never what He ultimately desired in themselves and could never by themselves take away sin or save anyone.
God Himself planned and instituted them as symbols, types and shadows whose shed blood pointed to the Lamb of God and taught that forgiveness comes through His blood alone.
Against them stands Christ coming to do God's will, offering His own body and life once for all, through which believers are sanctified and gain pardon and access to God.
When He died on Calvary type met antitype, so the need and acceptableness of the offerings of beasts ended and the temporary ceremonial system was abolished.
The moral law and Ten Commandments were not ended by His death but were honored, magnified and upheld by His sacrifice, and religious services remain valueless when trusted as dead forms without humble repentance, obedience and resting on Christ.

Sacrifices the Verse Names

The verse names animal sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and offerings for sin prescribed by the law, including blood offerings commanded by the Jewish law and the sacrifices and services of the temple courts. They are the animal sacrifices and offerings required by the law, the blood of beasts offered under the Jewish system. They are typical of the only perfect sacrifice to come.

The phrase offered by the law identifies them as divinely appointed services of the Jewish economy, belonging to the ceremonial law given by Christ Himself. They were explicitly planned by God Himself and solemnly enjoined, explained by the priests in sacred ceremony, with Christ as foundation, author, originator and finisher of the whole system from Adam's day. Though no longer to be observed after Christ came, they keep their true position and value in the plan of redemption in relation to His work, as glorious and worthy of their divine Originator.

When the verse says God would not have them and had no pleasure therein, it means they were not what God ultimately desired or took pleasure in as ends in themselves, not the final offering He desired. The sacrifices and offerings commanded by the Jewish ceremonial law were not His ultimate desire and ceased to have their former role at Christ's death. Against them stands Christ's coming to do God's will, with God's law in His heart, His life leading to death on the cross in perfect obedience that redeemed Adam's failure and provided a pattern for humanity. They kept His coming sacrifice before the people as a temporary foreshadowing of His sinless sacrifice, to cease when He died.

By themselves those offerings could not remove sin, save anyone, or give lasting moral power. The Jewish sacrifices and priesthood had meaning only as signs pointing to Christ and His mediating work, ordained to keep before people the separation sin caused and the need for a mediator through whom guilty sinners who cannot approach on their own merit may have access to God. They served as types and shadows pointing to Christ, the one effective and infinitely valuable offering for the sins of the world, and after type met fulfillment in His death they had no moral efficacy. Eternal life comes through faith in Him who takes away the sin of the world, and through His once-for-all offering of His body believers are sanctified.

Types Pointing to Christ

The many sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and offerings for sin appointed in the Jewish economy were planned by God Himself, not as what He desired in themselves, but as symbols and types and shadows whose shed blood pointed to the Lamb of God. The whole ritual service was instituted by Christ Himself, who gave directions for the offerings and understood their symbolic value, and every part of the service symbolized Him and pointed to Him. Every dying victim given in solemn sacred ceremony was a type of Christ, to be explained by the priests to rivet in mind and heart the great truth that through the blood of Christ alone there is forgiveness of sins. The blood of Jesus Christ alone cleanses from all sin, for without shedding of blood there is no remission, and God ordained the sacrifices and priesthood to keep before people the separation sin caused and the need for a mediator, since guilty sinners cannot approach God on the strength of their own merit but gain access and peace and pardon through Christ's mediating and atoning work in the heavenly sanctuary.

The system requiring the death of beasts was added as additional precepts to meet man in his fallen condition, and was no part of the law of God whose principles existed before the fall and were unchanged by it. It was to keep before fallen man that the penalty of disobedience is death, to teach humility in view of his fallen condition, and to lead him to repentance and to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past transgression, while the honor of God's law is preserved. If the law had not been transgressed there never would have been death and there would have been no need of these additional requirements, but transgression made it necessary for Christ to die as a sacrifice to open a way of escape from the penalty. The sanctuary service typified grand truths to be revealed through successive generations, and thus through age after age of darkness and apostasy faith was kept alive in the hearts of men until the time came for the advent of the promised Messiah. The cloud of incense ascending with the prayers of Israel represents His righteousness that alone can make the sinner's prayer acceptable to God, the bleeding victim on the altar testified of a Redeemer to come and illustrated His great atonement, and the visible token of the divine presence shining from the holy of holies showed God among His people, all hallowed to prefigure Christ's coming and to symbolize His death as Saviour of the world and to prove and test professed faith and obedience.

Christ was the foundation and author and center of the whole Jewish system of worship, and the sacrifices pointed to Him as the one complete and infinitely valuable offering for the sins of the world. Their value depended wholly on Christ whom they represented, and He is the key to understanding the Old Testament and its ceremonies, fulfilling their meaning through His crucifixion and priesthood and ministry in the sanctuary and revealing their true meaning at the cross. The religious services and ceremonies were valueless if the people rejected the Saviour revealed through them, and Christ's perfect obedience lived out God's law in human life, redeeming Adam's failure and providing a pattern for humanity. The sacrificial offerings were prophecy that prefigured Christ and remained in force until prophecy became history, when in the death of the Son of God type met antitype.

Christ's Fulfilling Sacrifice

Against the sacrifices in which God took no pleasure stands Christ's coming to do God's will, with God's law in His heart, setting aside the former sacrificial order and establishing the new. Those repeated offerings under the law could not remove sin but kept His coming sacrifice before the people, while through His once-for-all offering of His own body and life believers are sanctified. His self-offering was the antitype to which those sacrifices pointed, and His life leading to death on the cross lived out God's law in human life.

That perfect obedience redeemed Adam's failure and provided a pattern for humanity. He kept both the moral and the ceremonial law to the hour of His death on the cross, and then by giving His own life made the one great offering. The Jewish sacrifices and priesthood could not save anyone by themselves but had meaning only as signs pointing to Him and His mediating work, ordained to keep before people the separation sin caused and the need for a mediator.

They were symbolic and continued only until Christ, the perfect and infinitely valuable offering, took the place of the figures. These Old Testament sacrifices centered in Him as mediator in the heavenly sanctuary, and through His atoning sacrifice people who have broken God's law can receive peace and pardon. In willing self-sacrifice their substance was fulfilled, for He bore the world's sin and the law's curse, and His separation from the Father vindicated God's justice and showed His law to be unchanging. Through His mediation access to God was opened for guilty sinners, who could not approach on the strength of their own merit.

The ceremonial system was a temporary foreshadowing of His sinless sacrifice and was to cease when He died. When He died on Calvary in A.D. 31, type met its reality and antitype in Him, and His offering of His own life ended the value, need, and moral efficacy of the Jewish sacrificial offerings of beasts. The divinely appointed services only prefigured the death of the Son of God and were abolished by His death, rendering the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Jewish religion valueless so that their restrictions and ceremonies are not obligatory upon those who accept faith in Christ. This fulfillment came through His crucifixion, priesthood, and ministry in the sanctuary, yet this ceremonial change did not abolish the Ten Commandments.

The cross reveals the true meaning of those earlier ceremonies and gives significance to the Jewish system. Though that ceremonial law given by Christ was no longer to be observed after He came, it keeps its true position and value in the plan of redemption and in relation to His work, and is glorious and worthy of its divine Originator. Its sanctuary service typified grand truths to be revealed through successive generations: the cloud of incense ascending with the prayers of Israel represents His righteousness that alone can make the sinner's prayer acceptable to God, the bleeding victim on the altar testified of a Redeemer to come, and the visible token of the divine presence shining from the holy of holies showed God among His people. Thus through age after age of darkness and apostasy faith was kept alive until the time came for the advent of the promised Messiah.

They were meant to point forward to Him as the Son of God and Saviour of the world, with sufficient prophetic evidence for unprejudiced minds. Continuing to perform them while looking forward for a Messiah who had already come showed unbelief, a self-chosen standard of virtue and purity of life, and refusal to be taught by the Just One. The teaching about the risen Christ made those offerings of no effect and undermined the Jewish ceremonies, for when He fulfilled what the types represented the old rites and ceremonies no longer had force. Continuing them would dishonor God.

Ceremonial and Moral Law

The sacrifices named are not part of the law of God but belong to additional precepts and ceremonial observances distinguished from the Decalogue. The principles of the law of God existed before the fall and were unchanged by it, while the system requiring the death of beasts was given to meet man in his fallen condition. If the law had not been transgressed there never would have been death and there would have been no need of these additional requirements, which were to keep before fallen man that the penalty of disobedience is death, to teach humility in view of his fallen condition, and to lead him to repentance and to trust in God alone through the promised Redeemer for pardon for past transgression while the honor of God's law is preserved. These ceremonial observances were founded upon Christ and were to pass away when type met antitype in the one great offering of Christ for the sins of the world.

The sacrifices and offerings offered by the law were divinely appointed services that only prefigured the death of the Son of God and were temporary signs whose true meaning pointed to Christ the Lamb of God. They were typical laws in force only until type reached antitype in the greater and wholly perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the Lamb without blemish. When Christ's death fulfilled what those offerings represented, type met its antitype in Him, the temple sacrifices and services were to cease, and the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Jewish religion were abolished at the cross and rendered valueless. This abolishing is the blotting out and taking away and nailing of the handwriting of ordinances to His cross, so the restrictions and ceremonies of the Jewish law are not obligatory upon those who accept faith in Christ, though God had given clear directions for them because Israel had confused their meaning by mixing them with heathen customs.

Their ending at Christ's death did not end the Ten Commandments, for the original law engraved in tables of stone stands immutable and holds its claims upon man in all ages. Christ's death was necessary because humanity had transgressed God's unchangeable and unalterable moral law, and it honored that law and upheld and enforced obedience to its precepts. Paul continued to keep the Ten Commandments after this ceremonial change. Christ did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil them. He came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it in perfect and entire obedience, magnifying the law and making it honorable, revealing its spiritual nature and immutable character, and declaring that disobedience and transgression can never be rewarded with eternal life. He came into the world for the express purpose of vindicating His Father's law, so that in its light a person sees himself a sinner, dies to sin, repents and has faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour, is baptized, and then preaches Jesus as earnestly as he once opposed Him.

This fulfillment does not destroy the validity of the Old Testament Scriptures or lessen human obligation to perfect obedience. Christ's perfect sacrifice fulfilled what God had predicted and revealed the law's unchanging character, and His death did not lessen the duty to obey the law or free people from it. He demonstrated that humanity allied by living faith to divinity can keep all God's commandments, and He opened a way by which men may obey the law and teach others to do the same. The sacrificial work was sacred and was entrusted to appointed priests because the offerings pointed forward to the sinless offering of His Son, so Saul's presumptuous act of offering sacrifice himself dishonored ordinances that pointed to Christ's sacrifice. When type met antitype in His death the need for sacrificial offerings ceased, yet the difference between the sacred and the common specified by God through Moses must still be strictly observed, what God has set apart as sacred must ever be respected as sacred, and modern Israel having both increased light and the instruction given to Moses with the lessons of practical obedience given by Christ from the Mount of Blessing remains bound to them.

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. In the Christian age duty was not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed, with the gospel widening and requiring greater provisions to sustain the warfare since the death of Christ. God requires not less gifts but greater than at any other period, with gifts and offerings in proportion to light and blessings enjoyed.

Formalism and True Worship

The ritual was never instituted to be trusted as an end in itself, for every part of it symbolized Christ and pointed to Him. Its value depended entirely on Him whom it represented, and He is the key to understanding the ceremonies of the Old Testament. Religious services and ceremonies become valueless when people cling to them as dead forms instead of resting on Christ and reject the Saviour revealed through them. The sacrifices required by the law belonged to a symbolic system that kept continually before Israel the one effective sacrifice they foreshadowed, and when worship sank into empty formalism the people lost sight of that greater sacrifice.

Multiplying animal sacrifices as heartless service without humble repentance and obedience cannot appease God. They were made necessary by sin and were meant to point to Christ and prefigure His blood, yet offering them without turning from sin did not honor God. The symbols were corrupted into a means of commercial gain, and dealings connected with them obscured their solemn purpose. That trafficking showed how little the leaders valued the blood of Jesus soon to be shed for the sins of the world.

The sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin offered by the law in the temple courts were typical of the only perfect Sacrifice, and offering them was a ceremonial plea for the Saviour to come. Christ Himself had given directions regarding the offerings and understood their symbolic value, for all the service symbolized Him, yet He stood among the worshipers unrecognized and unhonored. Worshipers offered their sacrifices without understanding their import, because numerous ceremonies were enjoined upon them without proper instruction, and the offerings were now perverted and misunderstood. The Jewish teachers and people performed this round of service with mouth and lips while the heart was far from God, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, and failed to recognize and receive Christ Himself standing among them as the One all the ceremonies represented. Spiritual worship was fast disappearing and no link bound priests and rulers to God, so that their worship was vain and Christ's work was to establish an altogether different worship.

When outward ceremony had become the sum-total of religion, God would not have and had no pleasure in the sacrifices and offerings offered by the law. The sacrificial system was only outward shadow and not the substance, and its rites were meant to point beyond themselves to Christ the true offering for the sins of men. Israel in the time of Daniel made outward forms all-important and lost the spirit of true worship, corrupting temple service with heathen traditions and failing to discern Christ in the rites and to look beyond the shadow to Him. God therefore brought the nation into Babylonian captivity, destroyed the temple, and suspended the temple service. He caused the ritual service to cease so that outward ceremony would not remain their religion, so principles and practice could be purged from heathenism, so heart service could be revived, and so that with outward glory removed the spiritual could be revealed. Without outward representation of His presence, He manifested Himself to the repentant captives, shining into minds and hearts and giving visions of the overthrow of oppressors, the coming Redeemer, and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom.

The sacrifices and offerings offered by the law in the temple were hallowed to prefigure Christ's coming to the world and to symbolize His death as Saviour of the world, and they should have prepared the people to expect and welcome Him when He came. For hundreds of years Israel offered sacrifices pointing forward to His death, with sufficient prophetic evidence for unprejudiced minds, and He is the antitype of those sacrifices. Our heavenly Father designed them to prove and test the professed faith and obedience of His people, since they were typical of the Lamb of God and illustrated His great atonement. When Christ came, whom those sacrifices had been prefiguring, the Jewish nation were so blinded and deceived by Satan that they would not receive Him, but led Him as a lamb to the slaughter. He came in humiliation as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and His life of sorrow and manner of death fulfilled prophecy, yet priests and rulers expected only a victorious conqueror, stumbled at the humbling thought that the Messiah should die, and turned with contempt from the One to whom their own sacrifices pointed. Continuing to perform them while looking forward for a Messiah who had already come showed unbelief, a self-chosen standard of virtue and purity of life, and refusal to be taught by the Just One, and after His first advent they became useless.

The typical service, in which sacrifices linked God and Israel and prefigured Christ's sacrifice, was meant to keep faith in the coming Redeemer alive. It did not replace the need for holiness of heart, purity of life, reverence for God, and obedience among those serving at the sanctuary.