Why is it not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4)?

Verse 2. "For would they not have ceased to be offered?" etc. The doctrine involved in this question is as important as it is obvious. The purging of the worshipper is the removal of his sins. It is his person and his conscience which have become defiled by sin. Number is not here of any account. What is met by sacrifice is the personal need of the sinner. What is atoned for by blood is the soul itself (Lev. 17:11). Such is the manner of God's estimate. Accordingly, the inefficacy of Levitical sacrifice is demonstrated in the present verse by the circumstance of its annual repetition. For a genuine atonement would have been commensurate in its effect with the utmost limit of the worshipper's need as a sinner. "The worshipper, purged once for all, would have no more conscience of sins." It is well for the Christian to attend to this statement of God's law of sacrifice. Atonement once effected respects the person, and cancels the entire multitude of all his sins.

So far was the shadowy atonement from setting the conscience permanently free, that it was in itself an annual remembrancer of unforgiven sins (verse 3). The assembling of Israel on the tenth day of the seventh month was a yearly recognition of defilement, and personal unfitness for Jehovah's presence. While, therefore, the Law exhibited a shadow of good things to come, it bore witness of a substantial and never-ceasing reality of unpurged and ever-growing sin. The necessary reason of this is stated in the following verse.

Verse 4. "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." The impossibility of the benefit results from the inadequacy of the work. Animal sacrifice, as an atonement for human sin, is both unequal and untrue. There was nothing acceptable to the God of judgment in the blood of beasts. The human obedience of which He had been defrauded could not be compensated in the life of a creature by nature incapable of knowing His will. The pouring out in death of such a life was therefore of no power to redeem from sin. God had no controversy with the beasts that perish. The law of His commandments had been enjoined upon His people. Its curse could never fall, in their stead, on an unconscious animal that never knew the voice of truth.

It is not that the law sacrifices did not perfect anyone as to the conscience, but that they could not. Their very repetition showed this. Could they have availed to cleanse the conscience, so that the offerer got complete relief as to the whole question of sin, they would have ceased to be offered; inasmuch as we never go on doing what is done. In point of fact their effect was in just the opposite direction. Instead of removing sins from the conscience as no longer to be remembered, they were formally brought to remembrance at least once every year. The blood of sacrificial animals had no efficacy to take away sins. The thing was impossible, as verse 4 says.

Inefficacy of Sacrifices. — "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many," we have read (9:28). "For," adds the sacred writer, "the law having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offer [rather than, offered] year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins" (10:1-2). To make perfect those that draw nigh, to remove from them all conscience of sins, is plainly stated here to be at once the purpose of our God, as well as the need of the offerer. Under the law, however careful they might be in carrying out the prescribed ceremonial, the perfecting of the one who approached the altar, his cleansing so urgently needed, could never really take place. And this, as the sacred writer points out, was manifest. The man, or the woman, possessed of the feeblest intellect, might grasp this solemn fact; for the repetition of a sacrifice proclaims in the clearest manner possible that it has not done what was wanted in the past, nor can do it by any repetition in the future. There must be of necessity in all such sacrifices an inherent want. Well is it to remember this. For whatever be the nature of the sacrifice, whether bloody, or unbloody as men speak, its repetition proclaims its inefficacy in the past, and also its inability for the future. It cannot deal with or settle the question of the offerer's guilt. It cannot ensure him acceptance before God. This is a cardinal truth in connection with sacrifice. To repeat a sacrifice is labour thrown away. But more, it is to despise the one perfect sacrifice that God has provided.

On the other hand, a sacrifice once offered up for sins, which needs no repetition, speaks as loudly of the sinner's want having been met. Under Judaism then that never could be; "for it is not possible," adds the Apostle, "that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." And no other sacrifices were enjoined on the Day of Atonement. What then did those sacrifices effect? They recalled to the people's remembrance their sins each year. They taught that only by sacrifice could those sins be rightly dealt with. They typified in measure the sacrifice that could deal with them; but proclaimed by their repetition, as long as that was done by Divine consent, that the true sacrifice was still to be provided, and still to be offered up. We have said in measure, because animal sacrifices could never really avail, nor fully foreshadow the sacrifice of Christ.

"But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." The repetition of the offering only proved that the question of sins was not yet settled. Like a great debt owed, it was never reduced by the paying of the interest year by year. Each year thus only brought to remembrance the fact that sins had not yet actually been taken away. The blood of animals could not possibly accomplish such a result.

It is summed up in verse 4 in the words, "take away sins". The blood of bulls and goats could not do this, but the work of Christ has. So we read in verse 5, "Wherefore (or, seeing that is so) when He cometh into the world He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me". He came to do what other sacrifices could not do, and took a body that the question of sins might be settled for ever.

Nevertheless, though God will never bring the believer into judgment for his sins, as a Father He may have to deal in chastening if, as children, we sin (Hebrews 12:5-11). A purged conscience does not therefore imply that we never sin, or that we never have the consciousness of failure, either past or present, but it does imply that all dread of a future judgment on account of our sins is entirely removed. Thus a purged conscience is not to be confounded with what we speak of as a good conscience. If, by reason of careless walk, a true believer fails, his conscience will be surely troubled, and only by confession to God will he regain a good conscience. This, however, does not touch the question of the eternal forgiveness of his sins which gives him a purged conscience.

Under the law it was impossible to obtain a “perfect” or “purged” conscience. At most the sacrifices could only give temporary relief. Each fresh sin called for a fresh sacrifice. Had the sacrifices given a purged conscience they would not have been repeated. The law showed, indeed, that a sacrifice was needed to take away sins, but it was only a shadow of good things to come; it was not the substance. The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins.

First, then, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. It is evident, if you trace down the argument of the apostle, that the blood of Jesus is brought in as a contrast with "the blood of bulls and goats" (v. 4). Indeed, the whole point of the first part of the chapter is the efficacy of the former in contrast with the impotency of the latter. The fact that the sacrifices under the old dispensation were offered year by year continually, is adduced to prove that the worshippers were never really purged, so as to have no more conscience of sins; for in the repetition of the sacrifices there was a remembrance again made of sins every year (vv. 1-3). And the reason of this was that "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin" (v. 4). Thus the multitude of sacrifices of all kinds did but demonstrate their utter powerlessness, though appointed by God in view of the One Sacrifice which was thereby foreshadowed.

Now when we examine the testimony that the Holy Ghost bears to the work of the Son of God, we find three great points in it. First, it satisfies God as the blood of bulls and goats never could; secondly, it leaves us no more conscience of sins; and thirdly, we have boldness of access into the holiest — the immediate presence of God, the veil being rent. Without the second we could not have the third, and both rest upon the infinite perfection of the work in itself satisfying God perfectly. As to the second point, you will find it is in direct contrast with the blood of bulls and goats that needed to be constantly applied, bringing sins constantly to remembrance in being so applied, because their blood never could put away sins. There was nothing in the blood of a bull or of a goat adequate to the enormity of our sins; there is in the blood of the Son of God. The whole glory of God has been made good as to sin in His blood-shedding, so that the moment we believe God's testimony to the infinite value He finds in it, we have no more conscience of sins for blood to be applied to. And in contrast to the priests standing daily (ver. 11), we have the Lord Jesus sat down continuously or uninterruptedly (it is not the ordinary word for "for ever," but that translated "continually" in ver. 1) "for by one offering he hath perfected uninterruptedly" (same word) "them that are sanctified."

Yet in those countless altars and sacrifices God had no pleasure. He had no pleasure in Israel 's offerings because of the character of those that brought them. “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks.” There was only wickedness and no sincerity in the hearts of those who brought them and the blood of their sacrifices could not change this; but the great, the fundamental reason was that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. Hebrews 10 is the great chapter which shows us the futility of these offerings, there we learn that they called sin to remembrance every year, for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin, and nobody could suppose that they could please God Then why were they offered? They were a shadow of good things to come, and they filled up the period of waiting until the Substance appeared. The substance is Christ; it was to Him that all those ancient sacrifices pointed and of His coming they spoke with tongues that were eloquent to the ear of faith. Theories are wearisome and doctrines are of no value unless they centre in Christ. IT IS HE whom God hath set forth, a propitiation through faith in His blood (Rom. 3:25). He is the Propitiation for our sins, but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world (1 John 2:2).

The One Offering. — New indeed might be the thought to many that one sacrifice was enough instead of many. Solomon on the altar at Gibeon had offered a thousand burnt offerings. Before the ark, as it made its way into the Temple, they sacrificed sheep and oxen that could not be told nor numbered for multitude. At the dedication of the Temple he offered peace offerings to the number of two and twenty thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. Our author, however, directs attention in the Epistle to but one sacrifice, which far outweighed in value all that had ever been offered on Bezaleel's altar, or on that made by Solomon for the Temple. Daily might there be seen by any one visiting the Temple courts how the Levitical service was being carried on. Each day the priest was found at his post at the altar ministering there, but only to repeat the same service at the altar on the next day, or on the next recurring occasion for which that sacrifice was enjoined. But all was in vain as regards the taking away of sins. Daily offering. Then there was no cessation of devotedness of service at the altar. The same sacrifices. Then they failed not from any non-observance of the ritual. Wherein then was their inefficacy? It was inherent in them. For the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sins (10:4). How this is kept before the reader! Gifts and sacrifices, we read, were being offered, which could never make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the conscience (9:9). Again: "They can never with those sacrifices, which they offer year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect" (10:1). And again: "Offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins" (10:11).