Wherefore coming into the world he says, Sacrifice and offering thou willedst not; but thou hast prepared me a body.
The letter has just said that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins, and now it answers the obvious question: what can? Christ speaks the words of Psalm 40 as He enters the world, and one Person in one prepared body takes the place of the whole sacrificial system.
Christ is not setting aside one ritual. He looks at the whole range of offerings He is about to end.
This is a quotation (an adaptation) from the fortieth psalm — the burnt-offering psalm, as the twenty-second is the sin-offering one. In this we see our blessed Lord looking at the whole array of sacrifices provided under the legal covenant. There are the peace-offerings, the meat-offerings, the burnt-offerings, and the sin-offerings. He looks at them all, and, "when He comes into the world, He says, Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired."
The Old Testament had already admitted this about itself, long before the letter to the Hebrews was written.
The Old Testament itself bore clearest witness to the fact that animal sacrifices were of no real value in the eyes of God, and this Psalm is like the light breaking through the mist, declaring that at least Someone would take the place of all such offerings.
Psalm 40 does not read as Hebrews reads. There the words speak of ears opened, or dug out.
This shows the freedom with which the Spirit of God enlarges on the thought He first gave under His inspiration. The psalm is prophetic, so it speaks of the opening or forming of the ears. That suggests the obedience of our Lord, since the ear receives the instruction to be obeyed. But the New Testament passage comes after His holy person is fully revealed. There the Spirit teaches us that His body was one specially prepared for this obedience.
One writer sets three passages side by side: the psalm, the prophet's Messiah who listens each morning, and the law's servant who gives up his freedom to serve for life.
Other ears were deaf through sin. His ears alone God dug open, since He alone ever heard and obeyed... Then comes the prophet who speaks of the Messiah wakened morning by morning to hear... It is not only holy humanity given Him at the start, but His habit of daily dependence as "the Servant." The picture given in the law completes the case. At the end of faithful service, when He might have gone out free, He submits to have His ear bored through with an awl, as the sign of serving for ever. It is His death for the glory of God, and the life and blessing of all who believe.
God did not simply give Him a body like everyone else's.
This exactly suits what is revealed about His coming as man. He was to be born of a woman, and in this way He was more fully man than Adam. Yet He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, as neither Adam nor anyone else was. God fitted a body for the Son so truly that even in human nature He alone should be the Holy One of God.
Someone had to be there to receive that body.
But who was He, this One for whom the body was prepared? Before He came into the world — before there was a world to come into — He bound Himself by a solemn oath to do the will of God. Who in the wide universe could take up that will and complete it? Surely only the uncreated Son, whose eternal home is at the Father's side.
A body fit for obedience was still not enough by itself. The obedience had to run all the way to death.
In Him we have one fit to be the sacrifice. He took on Himself the form of a servant, and became obedient to the commands of Jehovah. It was His will to do it, and He was able to do it... To bring sinners into God's presence, He must not only keep the law Himself, but become obedient to death, even the death of the cross. He might preach righteousness in the congregation, but men hated it. He might do every work of blessing, but they envied Him and mocked Him. All the expressions of righteousness in Him were of no use alone. He must also become a sacrifice; He must shed His blood.
The quotation is repeated a few verses later, and the repetition has a purpose.
The apostle repeats this quotation in verses 8 and 9 to show that "the first" must be taken away, so that "the second" may be established. The law itself bore witness that its own terms were unsatisfactory. So it had to give way to One who would do the will of God.
- Need. God did not desire the old offerings, and Scripture itself said so before Christ came.
- Gift. In place of them God prepared a body for His Son — a real human body, holy as no other, fitted for obedience.
- Ear. The psalm's opened ears and the letter's prepared body say the same thing: He took the place of the Servant who only ever hears and obeys.
- Cross. A perfect life of obedience alone could not bring sinners to God; the prepared body had to become the sacrifice.
- Result. The One who spoke before He had a body takes the first system away, so the second may stand.
Thou tookest no pleasure in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin.
God is speaking here about offerings He Himself had commanded. That raises a hard question. How can God turn down the very system He set up? And what did He want instead?
The wording here follows the Septuagint, the old Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is stronger than the Hebrew:
"In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you took no pleasure." The last words are still the forceful wording of the Septuagint. They do not exactly reflect the Hebrew, which reads, "You did not ask." Men easily satisfied themselves. When they prospered, and no obvious evil called for sacrifices for sin, they trusted that God was satisfied with freewill offerings. But God was always looking for His will to be done.
The rejection falls on the offering, not on the person carrying it to the altar:
When an Israelite brought an offering, God was pleased with the offerer; it was a movement of heart toward God. But He could not take pleasure in the offering. It could not do for the offerer what God wanted to do for him. This is why the wording is "did not desire." Many Scriptures show us that the pleasure of God is bound up with the doing of His will. Nothing could secure the pleasure of God until Christ came. The offerings were imperfect; how could God take pleasure in them?
God's refusal is not coldness. He will not settle for anything that leaves the worshipper's conscience untouched:
The worshipper once cleansed has no more conscience of sins. The blood of bulls and goats clearly could not put away sins in this way. Everyone grants that this is impossible. So — and this is very precious to our souls — God had no pleasure in sacrifices that could not put away our sins. What a God we have to deal with! He says, as it were, "My love to you is eternal. So I cannot have pleasure in sacrifices that fail to present you in holiness, free from any conscience of sins." He took away completely what could not take away our sins.
Notice when God said this — while the sacrifices were still going on:
Those animal sacrifices had no lasting value in themselves, and they never could have. Far from cleansing guilt, they had to be repeated again and again. That very repetition showed that the sins were still there, always coming back into remembrance before God. But God had in His purpose a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than these. Yes, in the middle of the whole system of sacrifices He had already voiced His dissatisfaction with what fell so far short of His own nature and of His people's need.
The verse names two specific classes of offering, and God's answer to their failure was not a better animal but a Person:
Going into more detail, He names burnt offerings and offerings for sin. These sacrifices had less of the character of communion, and so had a deeper meaning. But God had no pleasure in them. In a word, the Spirit had already declared the Jewish service unacceptable to God... In their place He had prepared a body for His Son — a vast and important truth! For the place of man is obedience. So, in taking this place, the Son of God put Himself into the position to obey perfectly.
The psalm quoted here says, "I delight to do your will." Hebrews leaves those words out. One writer explains why:
Our Lord always found delight in doing the will of the Father along His path. But He found no delight in being made sin. We would gather that is why the Spirit leaves out "I delight" here.
If God set aside the shadows He Himself gave, returning to religious ceremony is a step backward:
Ritual religion today slavishly copies the shadows. That copying marks its poverty and blindness. The more elaborate the ritual, the feebler the spiritual life. How can anyone who truly knows the glorious reality go back to "the weak and worthless elementary principles" (Gal. 4:9)? God Himself declared that He "had no pleasure" in them.
- No pleasure. The worshipper who came pleased God. The offering never did, because it could not do for him what God wanted done.
- No power. Love drives the refusal. God would not settle for sacrifices that left the conscience still burdened with sins.
- No secret. He said this while the sacrifices were still going on. His dissatisfaction stood on record inside the very system He had given.
- No substitute but a body. In place of burnt offerings and sin offerings, God prepared a body for His Son, because the place of man is obedience.
- No delight. Hebrews leaves out the words "I delight," for Christ found no delight in being made sin. And no one who knows the reality should go back to the shadows.
Then I said, Lo, I come (in [the] roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will.
When the Son steps into the world, He speaks. His words come from Psalm 40, written down long before He arrived. His answer to a whole system of sacrifices God had no pleasure in is one sentence about a will, a book, and a person who has come.
These verses let us listen in on what passed between the Father and the Son:
This is what the Son of God says in this most solemn passage (v. 5-9). By the grace of God we are allowed to know what passed between God the Father and Himself when He undertook to fulfil the will of God. We hear what He said, and the eternal purposes of God which He carried out. He takes the place of submission and obedience, of performing the will of another. God would no longer accept the sacrifices offered under the law — the passage points out four kinds of them. He had no pleasure in them. In their place He had prepared a body for His Son — a vast and important truth, for the place of man is obedience. So, in taking this place, the Son of God put Himself in the position to obey perfectly... Notice that before He was in the place of obedience, He offers Himself to accomplish the will of God. He does this out of free love, for the glory of God, as One who had the power. He must be God to do it, and to undertake all that God could will.
Books then were scrolls, and every scroll carried a label:
"In the scroll of the book it is written of me." Books at that time were rolls of parchment. A label on the outside showed the contents. That helped you find the roll when it stood on the shelf with others. So the spiritual label of the sacred roll — the summary of the Scriptures — is that Jesus Christ would come to do the will of God.
Commentators differ over which book is meant:
Here again some have suggested it is the book of God's eternal purposes, the records of heaven, as you might say. That is a very precious thought, and I would not rule it out. But is it not rather the volume of the Old Testament — the book of Leviticus, for instance, the book of all those rules for sacrifice? Once you have this thought, you can go back to Leviticus. You read there of the burnt offering and the sin offering, and you say: in the scroll of the book it is written, not of the offering, but of Christ Himself.
Psalm 40 says "I delight to do your will"; Hebrews 10 quotes the verse without the delight. One writer traces the missing words to the offering each passage has in view:
Notice how Psalm 40 includes the words "I delight," while the quotation in Hebrews 10 leaves them out. The reason is that Psalm 40 has mainly the burnt offering in view, while Hebrews 10 also has the sin offering in view. The Son always delighted to do the Father's will as the burnt offering. But it was no delight to Him to be made sin as the sin offering. So the words "I delight" do not appear when sin is in view.
Coming to do God's will took Him down a road that grew darker at every step:
He had to endure the cross, in all its terrible depths of sorrow and suffering, if God's will was to be done. His love for His God and Father carried Him into those unfathomed depths. To the natural eye His path looked all wrong, but in devotion to God's will He went on. He looked into the dark cup He had to drink. Sweat like blood fell from Him, yet He took the cup and drank it. "Your will be done," He said.
Because salvation begins in God's will and not ours, it rests on something that does not shift:
Here is the source of all blessing: it comes from the divine will. "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God." It comes from the will of God, not from the will of man: that is only sin... God's will was His; and that will alone brought salvation and life where man's will had brought only sin and death. This gives stability and perfection to everything — to find its source and origin in the will of God. If it had been the result of my will, everything would be as unsteady and changeable as man's will is.
- Written — the label on the scroll, the summary of Scripture, is that Christ would come to do God's will.
- Prepared — God set aside sacrifices He had no pleasure in and prepared a body for His Son, putting Him in the position to obey perfectly.
- Delighted — Psalm 40 says He delighted in that will; Hebrews drops the word, because He found no delight in being made sin.
- Endured — the will He came to do led into the dark cup, and He drank it rather than turn back.
- Established — blessing that starts in God's will, not ours, cannot shift. Our own will brought only sin and death.