(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
The Anointed’s Sacrifice
- For the law – having a shadow of the good things coming but not the form of those same matters – is never able to perfect the men approaching every year with the same sacrifices that they offer continuously.
- Otherwise wouldn’t they have ceased being offered? Because then the men ministering wouldn’t still have sins on their conscience once they have been cleansed.
- But in them there’s a reminder of sins every year.
- For it’s impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
- Therefore, entering into the world He says: “You didn’t desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for Me.
- “You weren’t pleased by burnt offerings and offerings concerning sin.
- “Then I said: “Behold I come–” in the scroll of the book it is *written about Me: “–to do your will O God.” 1quotation/allusion to Psalm 40:6-8
- Saying above “Sacrifices, and offerings, and burnt offerings, and offerings concerning sin you didn’t desire nor were pleased“2quotation/allusion to Psalm 40:6 which are offered according to the law.
- Then He *says: “Behold, I come to do your will.”3quotation/allusion to Psalm 40:7-8 He takes away the first so He might establish the second.
- By that will, we are *made holy once for all through the offering of the body of Jesus the Anointed.
- And indeed, every priest *stands ministering every day and frequently offering the same sacrifices which are never able to take away sins.
- But this One, having offered one sacrifice for sins into perpetuity, sat down at the right hand of God,
- from then on waiting until His enemies are placed as a footstool for His feet.4quotation/allusion to Psalm 110:1
- For by one offering, He has perfected into perpetuity the men being made holy.
- And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for afterward He has said:
- “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord; putting My laws into their hearts and I will write them on their mind.”5quotation/allusion to Jeremiah 31:33
- “And their sins and their disregard for My commands6“disregard for My commands” is one word in Greek, and is more literally “disregard for God’s law”. It’s a noun, and literally means “those who are without law”; i.e. those who – either by ignorance or by rebellion – don’t obey God’s (moral) law. I definitely won’t remember any longer.”7quotation/allusion to Jeremiah 31:34
- And where there’s forgiveness of these, there’s no longer an offering concerning sin.
Approach with a sincere heart
- Therefore brothers, having confidence for entrance into the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus,
- by which He inaugurated a new and living way for us through the veil (that is, His flesh)
- and having a great priest over the house of God,
- we should approach with a sincere heart in the full assurance of faith; having been *sprinkled clean in our hearts from an evil conscience, and having been *washed in body with pure water.
- We should hold fast to the confession of our hope firmly, for the One who promised is faithful.
- And we should consider one another as a provocation for ^love and good works,
- not abandoning the assembling of ourselves together – as is the habit of some – but admonishing one another, and so much more as you see the day drawing near.
- For if we are voluntarily sinning after we’ve received the full knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice concerning sins remains,
- but some terrifying expectation of judgement and the zeal of a fire that’s about to consume the adversaries.8quotation/allusion to Isaiah 26:11
- Anyone who broke the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
- How much worse a punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who trampled the Son of God underfoot, and considered the blood of the covenant by which he was made holy contemptibly mundane,9“contemptibly mundane” is one word in Greek. It properly refers to something which had been stripped of its value because it’s been treated as ordinary or common. This can also contain the idea of profaning or being unclean because common (i.e. not holy/set apart) and insulted the Spirit of grace?
- For we *know the One who said: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay.”10quotation/allusion to Deuteronomy 32:35 And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”11quotation/allusion to Deuteronomy 32:36
- It’s terrifying to fall into the hands of the living God.
Remember and be bold
- But remember the former days, in which you endured the sufferings of a great conflict after having been enlightened,
- being truly made a spectacle in this by both slanders and tribulations. But in this, you became comrades with the other men being treated this way,
- for you both sympathized with the prisoners and welcomed the plundering of the things you possessed with joy, knowing yourselves to have a better possession and a lasting one.
- Therefore you shouldn’t cast aside your boldness, which has a great reward.
- For you have need of endurance, so that after having done the will of God, you might obtain the promise.
- “For yet in a very little while, the One coming will come and will not delay.”
- “But My righteous will live by faith“12quotation/allusion to Habakkuk 2:3-4 and if he shrinks back, My soul takes no pleasure in him.
- But we aren’t shrinking back into ruin, but have faith for the preservation of the soul.
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