NOTES for Heb 10:11-18

Speaking about Christian life, the author of the letter recalls ancient prophecies whose meaning comes down to the fact that the messianic age is the age of universal redemption and forgiveness of sins. He understands perfectly well that nothing of the kind can be achieved by the partial purification that traditional Yahwist purifying sacrifices could provide. Something must happen that will qualitatively change the situation with purification. And this something must undoubtedly be connected with the Person of the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. Thus the image takes shape of what is usually called the redemptive sacrifice of Christ.

The issue, of course, is not ransom in the sense in which we usually understand that word today, not that God buys someone back from the devil, paying for the redeemed with the life of His Son. The issue is redemption in the sense in which purifying sacrifices in the Old Testament books are sometimes called redemptive: they free a person from the power of sin, partially and for a time, at the cost of God's intervention and the death of the animal offered in sacrifice, which, of course, is in no way guilty of the sins of those who are freed from them through the sacrifice being offered. So Christ too takes upon Himself the consequences of the sins we have committed, and for this He comes into the fallen world, which in the end kills Him. And He consents to being killed, although He is, of course, in no way guilty of the sins whose consequences He takes upon Himself, and indeed has no part in any sin at all.

Yet without such cleansing intervention, the fullness of sanctification will remain inaccessible to fallen humanity, just as the Kingdom will remain inaccessible. Christ voluntarily gives up His life, goes to death, sacrifices Himself in order to intervene in the situation connected with our sins, in order to deal in our place with the consequences of what we have done, because we ourselves will never be able to deal with those consequences. This is the sense in which both Paul and his disciple, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, speak of redemptive sacrifice.

Once again recalling Jeremiah's words about the new, messianic union-covenant (vv. 15-17; cf. Jer. 31:31-33), the author of the letter thereby moves from the concept of the external Torah to the concept of the inner Torah, and also to the image of the living Torah, which was well known not only to Jewish tradition but also to early Christian tradition. These concepts and images were foundational for the Christian worldview of his teacher as well: Paul in his letters also turned more than once to the theme of the inner Torah and to the image of the living Torah, seeing them as the basis for understanding what Christianity and life in the Kingdom are.

The main distinguishing feature of life in the Kingdom, the author of the letter, following the apostle, considers to be freedom from sin, which makes the former priestly Torah no longer relevant: in its former quality it was directed precisely toward resisting sin, which cannot exist in the Kingdom (v. 18). Yet its meaning and significance remain the same: the main purpose of the priestly Torah was the sanctification of the people, and this task remains relevant. Life in the Kingdom is sanctified life, so that the residents of the Kingdom need sanctification no less, and even more, than those who sought and awaited the Kingdom in our still-untransformed world in pre-Christian times. Moreover, they need sanctification in all its fullness, which the former priesthood cannot give, but whose possibility is opened to them with the coming of the Savior (vv. 11-14). And this sanctification had to be not external, touching first of all the body of the one being sanctified, but internal, beginning in the heart and eventually taking hold of the whole person.

Of course, such sanctification cannot be instantaneous, since it presupposes a person's final liberation from sin and the transformation of his nature; but by definition it does not allow repetition. If, for any reason, this spiritual process is interrupted, a falling back is inevitable, and then everything has to begin again from the start. In the Kingdom there is not and cannot be repeated cleansing and repeated sanctification: repeated cleansing would mean that a resident of the Kingdom at some moment ceased to be one, cutting himself off from the life he had lived before, and now he needs to return, in a certain sense beginning everything from zero. That is why the author of the letter speaks of the perfection of those being sanctified: they have already become residents of the Kingdom, now awaiting its final triumph and Christ's return in glory (vv. 12-14).

Today's reading from Hebrews is, as it were, two-layered. There is a first layer: what has already been said many times, that Old Testament sacrifices could not cleanse from sin. True cleansing is given only by Christ's death on the cross. This is the direct meaning of the words, "Sacrifices and offerings You did not desire... behold, I have come to do Your will, O God." Paul places these words on the lips of Jesus. Yet one can also look at it somewhat differently. Of course, this is only the second layer, and nevertheless. Here sacrifice is contrasted with doing the will of God. Our offerings, our attempts to do something for God, are not what He needs. He needs the doing of His will. As one priest said, "Stop doing things for God and start doing the works of God."

Today, in a passage from the Letter to the Hebrews, the apostle Paul speaks of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. Paul emphasizes that the sacrifice is offered in the Body of Jesus Christ only once and never needs to be repeated, because forgiveness of sins is granted through Christ. This is why Christ’s words in the passage from the Gospel according to Mark are so important: “...whoever wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” It is precisely the way of cruciform love that makes us the people whom Christ redeemed, those for whom he offered himself in sacrifice.