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.
But where there [is] remission of these, [there is] no longer a sacrifice for sin.
This verse closes the letter's long argument about sacrifice. Its conclusion is simple: once God forgives sins, a sacrifice has nothing left to do. That leaves every reader one question. Do we treat the work as finished, or do we keep bringing God something more for sin?
The verse is a full stop. Everything from the priesthood onward has been building toward it.
Here the teaching about the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus comes to an end. Hebrews 2:17-18 touched briefly on His two lines of service, and both have now been opened out. His present high priestly service of intercession fills Hebrews 4:14 — 7:25. His sacrificial service fills Hebrews 7:26 — 10:18. As the writer usually does, he now turns to exhortation for the rest of the letter.
The verse turns on one word. It does not mean God simply hid sins from sight.
The word used so often in the Old Testament is "atonement," which literally means "covering." ... We read in Hebrews 10:18, "Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin." The word translated "forgiveness" (older versions say "remission") means "a sending away," not just a covering. So in the Old Testament we find a temporary covering of sin while God held back His judgment. It was waiting for the full sending away of sin. Only the death and resurrection of Christ accomplished that.
The same reasoning that once demanded endless repetition now rules it out.
Then comes the conclusion that must follow (verse 18): "Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin." The very principle that made repetition necessary in the first sacrifice rules it out in the second. Forgiveness follows the shedding of blood that God accepts. The worshippers have been purged once for all, so they have no more conscience of their sins (Hebrews 9:22; 10:2).
This does not end all remembering of the sacrifice. It removes one thing only.
There may indeed be a remembrance of this one sacrifice, whatever form it takes. But there cannot be a sacrifice to take away sins that are already taken away. So we stand on completely new ground: by the sacrifice of Christ our sins are entirely put away.
The verse follows God's own words quoted just before it. The exact wording matters.
God does not say, "I will not remember their sins and their lawless deeds." He says, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." Simply saying He would not remember our sins might suggest He passed them over. But "no more" means He has already remembered them all, and they have been confessed, borne and dealt with in judgment. Because they have been dealt with, God can justly say He will remember them no more.
These words were written while sacrifices were still going on at Jerusalem. One writer presses their force well beyond that one system.
When these words were written, Jewish sacrifices were still going on at Jerusalem. But they were worthless as offerings for sin, and soon they were all swept away... And yet a very large part of the Christian world still bows down before what they call "the sacrifice of the mass." What a great sin this is! It is worse than keeping up the Jewish sacrifices would have been, if that had been possible.
Commentators differ on one application. Some hold that the verse settles the matter for Christians. On this view Israel will still have sacrifices, but of a different kind:
The Jews will have the forgiveness of their sins, but they will also have sacrifices appointed as reminders of the one effective sacrifice of Christ, offered and accepted once for all.
This is not just doctrine. It changes what a believer can expect from God day by day.
Do you ask, Does that mean I will never again be aware of failure and sin? No, not at all. The nearer we are to God, the more aware we are of failure. It means this: all your sins were laid on Jesus and purged by His atoning death, so God never charges one of them to you again... There is no question of repeated offerings, repeated sprinklings, or fresh applications. All that is Jewish, and has now vanished away.
- Sent away, not covered. Forgiveness here means a sending away. The old system covered sin while God waited; the cross removed it.
- Remembered, then no more. God says He will remember sins "no more" because He has already remembered and judged them in Christ.
- No more offering. The very rule that once required sacrifice after sacrifice now forbids even one more.
- Remembrance, yes; repetition, no. We may remember the one sacrifice, but no sacrifice can take away sins already taken away.
- Never charged again. You will still feel failure — but God never puts one of those sins back on your account.