who has not day by day need, as the high priests, first to offer up sacrifices for his own sins, then [for] those of the people; for this he did once for all [in] having offered up himself.
Israel's high priests had to offer for their own sins first, and they had to keep offering, day after day. This verse breaks that pattern: it names a Priest with no sins of His own, and one offering that never needs repeating.
Under the law, a sacrifice lost its value when the day ended. So the priest returned to the altar the next morning.
Under the law, there was a daily need for sacrifice, and a daily offering of the same sacrifices. The priest of Israel offered up the daily sacrifice, and its blood was good only for that one day. It neither covered past sins nor future sins. Fresh sins called for fresh blood. The blood shed had no lasting value. The sins of each day needed the sacrifice of that day. But the person who came to God never had a settled conscience. He was always remembering sins, and always coming to God to have them put away.
So repetition was not a strength. It was proof that the need remained.
A priest who must sacrifice daily could never meet the need of our souls. The daily repetition only shows that the need remains.
The old priests offered "first for his own sins." One small word, "for," marks the whole distance between them and Christ.
They offered up daily sacrifices, not only for the sins of the people but for their own sins as well. He offered one sacrifice, and He offered it once for all. It was for the people truly, but it was not for Himself. It was "HIMSELF," instead of being for Himself. He was the Sacrifice as well as the Offerer!
The old sacrifices involved three parties: the person who brought the animal, the animal itself, and the priest who handled the blood. The cross gathers all three into one.
Here we read of the offerer, the offering, and the priest, all three separate. The offerer, for whom the sacrifice was brought, killed the animal himself. But the true sacrifice offered up Himself. In reality the offerer, the offering, and the priest are one and the same person seen in three different characters. Christ offered Himself, being the Lamb of God, and the high priest, who has entered into heaven by His own blood. So everything the sacrifice required, He has done, and done once for all. That leaves man the only part he can take in it: to identify with the sacrifice. He owns it as the offering made on his behalf, and so shares in the rich results that flow from it.
The word "daily" raises a real question.
Much question has arisen about what this refers to, when the writer mentions the high priests offering up sacrifice for sins daily. At the time of the letter, the high priest did not usually serve in that way each day. One of the other priests served at the altar morning and evening… And since the daily burnt offering was not a sin offering, the reference cannot be to that.
One suggestion is that the writer looks back to the week that set each new high priest in office.
We believe he had in mind the week of consecration that the law of Moses required of a high priest. In God's order, he could not take up the duties of that high and holy office until that week was complete… Each day a sin offering was offered up for him and for his sons… Sacrifice came before their full consecration. Sacrifice preceded His.
The word "once" does more than block repetition. It also shuts out any ongoing offering.
The passage speaks of the actual offering, as a sacrifice to God. He did this once for all. In contrast to the Jewish sacrifices, the apostle insists on this: one single act of sacrifice did the work effectively and finally. It was done once and completely, once and for all. That rules out a continual offering, a later offering, and a repeated offering.
One act covers everything because of the worth of the One who made it.
His sacrifice is fully complete: "He did this once for all when He offered up Himself." The eternity of His Person gives eternal value to His blessed work. In this the believer has rest… The law appointed high priests who had weakness of their own. A system in the hands of failing creatures must be a failing system. But "the Son" stands in beautiful contrast: raised from the dead, having made propitiation, He is perfected forever.
- Daily — repeating a sacrifice proves the need was never met. Blood that covered one day left the conscience unsettled.
- First for himself — every earlier high priest had to deal with his own sins before he could serve. This Priest had nothing of His own to answer for.
- Himself — He did not offer for Himself; He offered Himself. He is offerer, offering and priest in one Person.
- Once for all — one act, complete. It rules out repeating the offering and continuing it.
- Forever — the eternal worth of His Person gives eternal worth to His work, and in that the believer rests.
For the law constitutes men high priests, having infirmity; but the word of the swearing of the oath which [is] after the law, a Son perfected for ever.
This closing verse pulls the whole chapter into one sentence. On one side stand priests the law appointed. On the other stands a Son, appointed by God's oath. What is wrong with the first arrangement, and what does the word "perfected" mean when applied to the Son?
The law could only appoint priests who were weak like the people they served. One writer shows what that does to the whole system:
Here is more evidence of the weakness of the law: it appointed men who have weakness as high priests. A system in the hands of failing creatures must be a failing system. But "the Son" again stands in beautiful contrast. Having accomplished propitiation, He is perfected forever in resurrection. In His life on earth He proved Himself free from weakness. Now in resurrection He is above death — perfect in every way as High Priest forever.
The verse dates the oath: it came after the law. That order matters, because the later word settles what the earlier one left open:
God made His promise to Christ in Psalm 110 in the days of David. Even then God was showing that the law of Moses was giving way to a new system, with a new Priest. There was no divine oath when Aaron was consecrated, which left room for that priesthood to be set aside. The new system cannot be set aside, for God made David's Lord "a priest for ever," with an oath. When God swears, what He says can never be set aside.
The Greek here has no article. It reads not "the Son" but "a Son." One writer says this is deliberate: the wording points to a relationship, not to a particular person:
"Son" here describes what He is, and so it has no article. He is the Only-begotten, God's one and only Son, but here He is not pointed out as a particular person, so the wording is exactly right. Adding the article would put Himself in front, instead of His nearness to God. The verb form here, as in verse 26, is a perfect passive. It points to a permanent character He has gained, not to a bare fact, which the simple past tense would express. The same is true of His separation from sinners and of His completing all that His priestly place required: each is a finished act with a lasting result.
The word here is also translated "consecrated." Does it mean the Son was somehow incomplete before? One writer keeps the contrast where the verse puts it:
The contrast is between a Son completed and the human high priest who had shortcomings or weakness. The Son being made perfect ruled out any weakness and any need to offer a sacrifice for Himself. But the words do not suggest a contrast between the Son's completed state and His condition before the Cross.
Another writer traces the word back to the ceremony that installed a high priest under the law:
Verse 28 brings in the technical term for consecration, that is, "perfected." So it seems fitting to suppose that this points to the way high priests were consecrated under the law, set against the way the Lord entered His priesthood. Sacrifice preceded their full consecration. Sacrifice preceded His.
If our High Priest has no weakness, can He still feel with ours? The verse itself supplies the answer by placing weakness on the other side of the contrast:
You do not have to be in weakness to sympathize with those who are. What is needed is to be out of it, with a nature able to feel in itself the suffering it brings. The mother sympathizes with the baby in the pain she does not feel. Christ is contrasted in His priestly sympathies with men who have weakness. The high priest taken from among men had compassion because he himself was surrounded by weakness. That was merely man's way of sympathy, for he had to offer for his own sins.
His priesthood never ends. One writer applies that to the standing of Christians as priests:
The Christian priesthood is not a dead thing, nor a merely ritual one. It works by the power of a life that comes from Him — "the Son, who is consecrated for evermore." It all hangs on Him, and the eternal character of His priesthood guarantees that everything He supports stands firm for all eternity.
- Weakness — the law could only appoint men who shared the failings of those they served; a system in failing hands fails.
- Oath — God swore no oath over Aaron, so that priesthood could be removed. The oath of Psalm 110 came later, and it cannot be revoked.
- Son — the wording stresses a relationship, not a title: His nearness to God.
- Perfected — the word marks a lasting result. Sacrifice came first, then the priestly place. Nothing in Him needed repair.
- Forever — because the Priest never ends, everything He upholds stands as long as He does.