The Sacrifices in Hebrews 10

Some claims rest on a date. This one argues from a picture, and a picture can be very persuasive.

“The law is only a shadow of the good things to come. Hebrews 10:1 says so. A shadow is not the real thing. Now the real thing, the Messiah, has come. Who needs a shadow when you have the substance?”

The picture is vivid, and part of it is true. Hebrews does use the word shadow, and the Messiah is indeed the substance. The question is what Hebrews means by “shadow” in this chapter, and we have no need to guess, because the writer tells us in the sentences that follow.

Read the Whole Paragraph

Hebrews 10:1-4 For the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) has but a shadow of the good things to come, not the true form of these realities, and it can never, by the same sacrifices that are offered continually every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The word for shadow is skia σκιά skee'-ah. The paragraph shows plainly what it is speaking of while it uses that word: “by the same sacrifices that are offered continually every year,” “would they not have ceased to be offered,” “in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year,” and “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

Count the things named in these four verses. There are sacrifices offered every year, worshipers being cleansed, consciousness of sins, a reminder of sins, and the blood of bulls and goats. Every one of them belongs to the sacrifices for sin. The paragraph does not mention the Sabbath. It does not mention honoring one’s parents, or not stealing, or what may be eaten. It speaks of one thing only, the sacrifices that were offered over and over for sin.

The sacrifices for sin were the shadow of the Messiah’s sacrifice, and we hold to that exactly as it stands. Year after year those offerings could not take away sins. They pointed to the one offering that could.

“The First” and “The Second”

A few verses later the writer spells out what was taken away.

Hebrews 10:8-10 When He said above, "Sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire nor were you pleased with them" — these are offered according to the nomos(law) — then He added, "Behold, I have come to do your thelema θέλημα thel'-ay-mah(will), O God"; He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that thelema(will) we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Yeshua Messiah once for all.

“He does away with the first in order to establish the second.” Quoted by itself, this sentence can sound as if “the first” were the Torah and “the second” were grace. Yet the sentence itself says what the first is. Its opening names “Sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings,” and the writer adds, so that no one can miss it, “these are offered according to the nomos(law).”

The first is the sacrifices. The second is the will of God carried out by the Messiah: “Behold, I have come to do your thelema(will), O God.” And by that will “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Yeshua Messiah once for all.”

The word thysia θυσία thoo-see'-ah, sacrifice, runs through the whole chapter, and it is the chapter’s subject. When the one sacrifice was offered, the many sacrifices that pointed to it had done their work. In Book 2 we saw the same thing in Hebrews 8:13: what grows old and disappears is the priesthood, the sanctuary, and the sacrifices.

A Stand-In at the Rehearsal

Picture the evening before a wedding. The rehearsal is held in the empty hall, and since the bride is busy elsewhere, a friend stands where she will stand. Everyone practices around the stand-in. They walk the aisle toward her, and they turn to face her. The stand-in is a shadow of the bride.

The next day the bride arrives, and the stand-in steps aside. She is no longer needed in that place, and that is as it should be. Yet the wedding itself does not disappear. The vows are not torn up, the music is not canceled, and the guests are not sent home. The stand-in stepped aside, and the wedding took place.

That is the difference between what Hebrews 10 says and what the claim says. Hebrews says that the sacrifices, which stood in the place of the coming sacrifice, stepped aside when the real offering was made. The claim says that the whole Torah stepped aside with them.

In the Same Chapter

The strongest evidence comes from this same chapter. After saying that the shadow has passed, Hebrews writes out the content of the new covenant once more.

Hebrews 10:16 "This is the diatheke διαθήκη dee-ath-ay'-kay(covenant) that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my nomoi νόμοι nom'-os(laws) on their kardiai(hearts, soul-domains), and write them on their dianoiai(thoughts),"

The chapter that calls the sacrifices a shadow, and says that the first has been done away with, also says that God’s laws are written on the heart.

If the shadow meant the whole Torah, the writer would be erasing the laws in verse 9 and writing them on the heart in verse 16. He is not doing that. He is drawing a line between two things. The sacrifices for sin were the shadow, and they have given way to the one offering of the Messiah. The commandments are what God writes on the heart under the new covenant.

Shadow and Body

Another verse uses the same word.

Colossians 2:17 things which are a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Messiah.

Only one thing needs to be said about it here. The word for “substance” is soma σῶμα so'-mah, body, as we saw in Book 1, and a shadow does not exist without a body. A shadow on the ground tells you that something real is standing in the light, so the shadow is evidence that there is a body. It is not a command to do away with the shadow.

The phrase “a shadow of the good things to come” is true, and it is beautiful. Year after year the sacrifices of the old order looked forward to the one sacrifice that would truly take away sins, and that sacrifice has been offered once for all. But the same chapter that tells us so also tells us where God’s laws now live: on our hearts and in our thoughts.

Another claim hears two ages in a single sentence of John: law through Moses, and grace through Yeshua.