For by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified.
This verse ends a long argument. Israel's priests offered the same sacrifices again and again. Christ offered one. Two words then carry the weight: "perfected" and "for all time." In what sense is a believer already complete?
The verse explains why Christ sat down. The old system repeated everything; this offering left nothing to finish.
Whenever the Holy Spirit teaches this subject fully, His special theme is "once," "once for all." That rules out a sacrifice that continues, as well as one that is repeated… He was not standing and offering repeatedly, like the Jewish priests. When He had offered one sacrifice, He sat down for ever. That is, He did not have to get up and offer anything more. The reason was that by that one offering He had perfected the sanctified for ever.
The phrase is not only about length of time. It describes a condition that has no gaps in it, matching the unbroken position of Christ Himself.
I am perfected for ever (the words "for ever" meaning not merely for eternity, but what is uninterrupted). As Christ is always at the right hand of God, so we are uninterruptedly before God. There is never a moment when the believer is not the righteousness of God, as standing in Christ… He is my witness that I am perfect — a perfection that never changes.
"Perfected" here is not a claim about the believer's character. It is about the settled question of guilt.
The precious blood of Christ has settled the whole question of guilt, and settled it for ever. So the believer is perfect as to his conscience (9:9). He could never reach that under Judaism. He knows that all his sins are forgiven (10:14, 17). He has reached the goal that was in view. In this sense he is perfected, though he still has sin in him and, if he is careless, may fall into it. He is not yet perfected as to his person. But he is perfected as to his condition before God — pardoned, and pardoned for ever, by the offering of God's Son.
Older translations say the purged worshipper has "no more conscience of sins." That wording is easy to misread.
Those sanctified by His blood are "perfected in perpetuity" by it. Once purged, they have "no more conscience of sins." But this does not mean "no more consciousness of sins" — that is, of committing them. It means we are conscious of the power of that work, which stays before God for us always. There is never a moment's break in this.
The word does not always carry the same sense in Scripture.
Scripture looks at sanctification in two ways. It can be something still going on (1 Thessalonians 5:23). It can also be a settled condition (1 Corinthians 6:11). In Hebrews, apart from one verse, it means a settled condition (2:11; 10:10, 14).
Some readers still wonder whether they qualify. The answer turns on what the word means here.
"Sanctified," in the letter to the Hebrews, never means inward sanctification by the Spirit of God… "Sanctify" means "to set apart." When a person believes, God sets him apart from the rest of the world. He puts all the value of the precious blood of Christ upon him… So everyone who believes is sanctified in this sense, and is therefore "perfected forever" by the one offering (v. 14).
Because the standing rests on the offering, it does not rise and fall with the believer's performance.
The one glorious sacrifice of Christ is of infinite value to God. In righteousness it lets Him bring even the weakest believer into His presence as PERFECTED FOREVER. God says you are perfected forever. It is not because of the amount of your faith or service or walk. It is only because of the infinite value to Him of the one offering of Christ for your sins.
The verse rules out any repeated application of the blood. It still leaves room for repentance over daily failure.
He may be conscious of sin and failure, and there will surely be repentance and confession. This is God's way of restoring the soul when communion has been interrupted… But as to the conscience, Jesus has judged and borne all sins. He has put them away, so that they can be remembered no more… No one who understands this can speak of fresh applications of the blood of Christ, or of repeated or continued sacrifices for sins.
- One — one offering, never repeated, never continued. The seated Priest proves nothing is left to do.
- For ever — not just long, but unbroken. Christ is always at God's right hand, so the believer is always accepted.
- Perfected — perfect in conscience and standing, not yet perfect in person. Sin may still be in us, but God has settled the guilt.
- Sanctified — set apart by the blood, not by achievement. It covers every believer, the weakest as fully as the strongest.
- Therefore — no fresh sprinkling, no repeated sacrifice. Repentance restores broken fellowship; nothing at the cross needs redoing.
And the Holy Spirit also bears us witness [of it]; for after what was said
The chapter has just said that a single offering has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, and now a third witness takes the stand. The question is not whether Christ's work is enough, but how anyone can know it is — and where that knowledge is found.
This verse completes a sequence that runs through the chapter. It adds nothing to redemption. It says something about it.
Verses 15-18 give the testimony of the Holy Spirit. It confirms the standing that the sanctified have through the offering of Jesus Christ. The point here is not the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. It is the testimony He gives to the work of Christ, finished down here. Three things about grace stand out in what comes before. First, the will of God decided on the work to be done for us. Second, the sacrifice of Christ carried out this divine will. Third, the Holy Spirit gave His testimony to this will of God, accomplished by Christ.
Why bring in a witness at all, when the work is already finished?
Now the Apostle presents the witness of the Spirit as the One who brings us the knowledge of the truth with divine authority, so that we may hold it with divine certainty.
The small preposition carries the weight. Elsewhere the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. Here He testifies from outside us, and He does it on the written page.
But the Holy Spirit stoops to take the place of Witness, and He is completely reliable. It is not here His witness in us as in Romans 8:16. In our passage He is seen as testifying to us from outside, and at once we are pointed to what is written in Jeremiah 31. The words of Jeremiah were the words of the Spirit; his writings the writings of the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit to us is found in the written Word of God.
The verse points backward — "after saying" — to words spoken through the prophet Jeremiah centuries earlier. For readers raised on those Scriptures, that was not a weak argument but the strongest one available.
Here in Hebrews 10 the witness of the Spirit is the Old Testament Scripture, Jeremiah 31. The Spirit of God had dictated those words long before. To a Jewish reader they were therefore a conclusive witness. Under the terms of this covenant, the Spirit of God had promised the whole inward work in people's hearts and minds — the new birth. He had also promised complete forgiveness of sins. This being so, then the Old Testament itself indicated that offerings for sin would cease. This is inescapable. Had the Jews ever considered so plain a fact, set down in their own Scriptures?
The words of the testimony follow in the next two verses. One writer weighs their exact order.
God does not say, "I will not remember their sins and their lawless deeds," but "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." The simple statement that God would not remember our sins might imply that He passed them over. But when God says He will remember them "no more", it implies that they have all been remembered, confessed, borne and dealt with in judgment. Because they have been dealt with, God can justly say He will remember them "no more".
What, then, of a believer who still fears that God keeps a record of his sins?
And here is the secret of settled peace. If I think that God will ever remember sin, I am denying the will, the work, and the testimony of God. In short, if a believer in Jesus, it comes to being a sin to have the least thought of God's ever imputing a sin to me. It is just as much a work of the flesh as to commit the sin.
Many search their feelings for confirmation before they have accepted what is written. The order runs the other way.
We have the witness in us when we believe the witness to us. We have then received the Word into our hearts — and, remember, the Word is the witness.
The same warning is put in terms of where our attention lands:
People often look for the witness of the Holy Spirit in them while they have not believed the witness of the Holy Spirit to them.
- Willed. The chapter moves in three steps. God's will plans the work, Christ's sacrifice accomplishes it, and the Spirit testifies that it is done.
- Worked. The Spirit's subject is not His work inside the believer, but the finished work of Christ. He speaks to us from outside, not only in us.
- Written. His testimony sits in Scripture. The words of Jeremiah were the words of the Spirit, so an old promise answers a present fear.
- Wiped. The wording is exact. Sins are not overlooked. They were remembered, borne in judgment, and so remembered no more.
- Welcomed. Believe the witness to you and you gain the witness in you. To doubt God here is not modesty. It denies the will, the work and the testimony together.
This [is] the covenant which I will establish towards them after those days, saith [the] Lord Giving my laws into their hearts, I will write them also in their understandings;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more.
Hebrews 10:17 closes a quotation from Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant, and the writer presents it as the Holy Spirit's own testimony. Two things carry the weight of the verse: who is speaking, and why God says He will remember sins no more.
The argument of the chapter has already set out the will of God and the finished work of Christ. Now a third voice speaks. One writer marks it off from the Spirit's witness inside the believer.
But the Holy Spirit stoops to take the place of Witness, and He is completely reliable. This is not His witness in us, as in Romans 8:16. In our passage He is seen testifying to us from outside, and we are sent at once to what is written in Jeremiah 31. The words of Jeremiah were the words of the Spirit; his writings the writings of the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit to us is found in the written Word of God.
That distinction has a practical edge. A witness outside us cannot be shaken by how we happen to feel today.
The witness of the Holy Spirit is nothing vague, mysterious, or hard to explain. It is a spoken witness and a written witness. Thank God, it is not written in the uncertain, shifting script of moods and feelings, which take one shape today and another tomorrow. The witness of the Spirit is fixed and unchanging.
Everything turns on the exact wording. One writer sets what God said beside what He might have said.
God does not say, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will not remember." He says, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." A simple statement that God would not remember our sins might suggest He passed them over. But "no more" implies that they have all been remembered, confessed, borne and dealt with in judgment. Because they have been dealt with, God can rightly say He will remember them no more.
Another writer takes the same wording back to the cross, and then forward without end.
These words show that the question of sin had to be settled. God does not say, "I will not remember," but, "I will remember no more." He saw our sins and remembered them, for He decided on the death of Christ to do away with them. And now that they are done away with, He remembers them neither today, tomorrow, nor ever.
Does this mean God's memory has failed? One writer draws a line between forgetting and forgiving.
It is not that God forgot the things. He does not remember them — hold them in His mind — against them in any way. When I say I forget as well as forgive, that only speaks of how complete the forgiveness is. It does not mean that, if the matter is brought up, my memory no longer knows it as a fact. If I give an account of myself to God, I must do it fully, or I would lose something of the goodness of Him who has called and saved me.
This promise is not cold doctrine. It reaches the person who still feels the weight of what he has done.
Grace meets those who were once guilty but are now renewed. It comforts those who feel and admit their sinfulness with the assurance of divine forgiveness.
What then about a believer who keeps asking God to pardon sins Christ has already borne?
Suppose a believer comes to God today and says, "O God, pardon my sins." Might God not well ask, "What about the work of Christ?" Might He not well say, "I remembered your sins and lawless deeds when My beloved Son was bearing them on the cross, and they are to be remembered no more"?
- Three strands, one blessing. The will of God, the work of Christ, and the witness of the Spirit all stand behind this verse.
- Witness to us, not in us. The testimony is written in Scripture, not felt in our moods, so it does not rise and fall with us.
- "No more" is the key word. God remembered these sins once — at the cross — and that is why He remembers them no more.
- Forgiven, not overlooked. He does not hold them in His mind against us; this is a settled account, not a failure of memory.
- So rest. To ask again for pardon of sins Christ has already borne is to question His finished work.