A Body You Have Prepared For Me
Hebrews 10:5-7
The high priest washed his body in water in preparation for
putting on his holy linen garments. It was the Day of Atonement and he would
enter the Most Holy Place, into the very presence of God to offer blood on
behalf of the people. Entering the tabernacle, he placed a censer with burning
coals and sweet incense behind the veil that separated the two rooms of the
tabernacle to create a cloud of incense before he entered the Holy of Holies
(Most Holy Place).
In the course of this annual ritual, a ram would be offered as a burnt offering
and the high priest would bring the blood of a bull and then a goat into the
Most Holy Place and sprinkle that blood on the mercy seat. He would also
sprinkle blood on the altar in the tabernacle courtyard. The bull was offered
for the sins of the high priest and his family to make atonement; the goat was
offered on behalf of the nation as a whole for their atonement (read Leviticus
16 for a more detailed description of this sacrificial ritual).
God commanded the people of Israel to observe this ritual and so, year after
year, the blood of bulls and goats was shed and sprinkled for the atonement of
sins. Yet, the Hebrews writer states quite clearly that "it is not possible that
the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins" (10:4). He argues that if
these sacrifices could have indeed purified the worshippers, there would have
been no further need to offer them again the next year! Why, then, did God
command that these sacrifices be made?
Although the Levitical sacrifices were intended to teach man about the
seriousness of sin and the cost of forgiveness, the contrast between the copy
and shadow of the heavenly things (Hebrews 8:5) and the heavenly things
themselves is striking. As High Priest of the good things to come, Jesus did not
come into a tabernacle made by men's hands, repeatedly with the blood of bulls
and goats like the high priests of old (Hebrews 9:11-12). Instead, He offered
Himself once at the end of the ages for the purpose of putting away sin and
entered into heaven itself to appear in the presence of God on our behalf
(Hebrews 9:24-26).
The ineffectual nature of animal sacrifices necessitated the incarnation of the
Son of God. This is the argument of the Hebrews writer in chapter 10 as he
ascribes the words of Psalm 40:6-8 to the Son of God.
David, the author of Psalm 40, began his psalm with a thanksgiving song for the
Lord's help (vs. 1-3), but he also noted, in the section of the psalm quoted in
Hebrews, the importance of obedience rather than ritual sacrifice. One is
reminded of Samuel's comments to king Saul on the occasion of his disobedience
to the Lord's command to utterly destroy the Amalekites. Saul claimed that the
animals were saved for sacrifice to the Lord. Samuel responded, "Has the LORD as
great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the
LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of
rams" (1 Samuel 15:22).
There is something interesting, however, about the quotation in Hebrews 10:5-7.
Compare the quotation as it appears in Hebrews 10 with the passage in Psalm 40
in our Old Testament.
"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me.
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said,
'Behold, I have come -- In the volume of the book it is written of Me -- To do
Your will, O God.' " (Hebrews 10:5-7)
Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt
offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, "Behold, I come; In
the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:6-8)
The second phrase in the quotation in Hebrews is different from the reading of
the Old Testament in our English Bibles because the Hebrews writer actually
quotes from the Septuagint (our English Bibles, by contrast, are translated from
Massoretic texts).
Lightfoot, in his commentary Jesus Christ Today, wrote, "The words, a body has
thou prepared for me, follow the Septuagint, in keeping with the usual
preference of the author. The Hebrew text, however, literally reads, 'ears hast
thou digged for me,' which apparently means that God has given man ears to hear
that he might obey Him. The Septuagint translators dealt freely with the text by
substituting the whole ('body') for the part ('ears'), resulting in the meaning
that instead of God equipping man with ears, He made or prepared for man a body"
(185).
Of course, the Hebrew text used by the Septuagint translators was actually
somewhat older than that used by the translators of our English Old Testament. A
possible explanation for the difference in quotations (besides the view that the
Septuagint translators "dealt freely with the text") is that the text used by
the Septuagint translators was not only older, but actually a more accurate
text.
Whether the Septuagint translators were "free" in their translation or simply
working from a different Hebrew text, Robert Milligan offers an intriguing
perspective on the difference in the two quotations. He wrote in his commentary,
"To the careless and superficial reader, there may at first seem to be no
connection between digging out, or thoroughly opening the ears of any one, and
providing a body for him. But the thoughtful reader will at once see that, in
the case of Christ, the two expressions are nearly equivalent, and that the
latter differs from the former chiefly in this: that it is rather more specific
and expressive. To dig out the ears of a person means simply to make him a
willing and obedient servant (Ex. xxi.6). But in order to so qualify Christ as
to make him a fit servant for the redemption of mankind, a body was absolutely
necessary. Without this, there could have been no adequate sacrifice for sin,
and without an adequate sacrifice, there could have no suitable atonement, and
without an atonement, the claims of Divine Justice could not have been
satisfied, and without this, the will of God could never have been accomplished
in the redemption of mankind" (269-270).
Milligan's comment seems to fit well with the context of Hebrews 10 as the
author notes that by the will of God "we have been sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (vs. 10).
Although God commanded animals sacrifices ("which are offered according to the
law" - vs. 8), the ultimate will of God was that a perfect life be offered to
replace the one forfeited by every sinner. It was therefore necessary for the
Son of God to take on human flesh, to have a human body, so that He could do the
will of the Father, i.e., offer Himself for our redemption.
In conclusion, the Hebrews writer took a passage from David which spoke about
the desire to do the will of God and applied it specifically to the case of
Jesus. In His case, doing the will of God required a body to be sacrificed!
By By Allen Dvorak
From Expository Files 14.12; December 2007
