Commentary on Hebrews 10:5-10

Some of the people who will worship on the fourth Sunday of Advent in my context will be stressed by expectations that their homes must be clean and festive for the arrival of holiday guests. Exhortations during Advent to prepare our hearts for the arrival of Jesus can raise analogous spiritual anxieties. A sense that we are not meeting God’s high expectations can cool our welcome for Jesus to the point that our celebrations of his birth become superficial distractions from its deeper meaning. 

Hebrews 10:5–10 offers good news for the spiritually anxious and for everyone who needs reconciliation with God. Worshippers could hear it in response to a prayer of confession, or it could be the basis for a sermon on the sufficiency of the forgiveness and cleansing that Jesus provides.

An anonymous author wrote Hebrews during the second half of the first century CE for an audience that needed encouragement to be steadfast in following Jesus despite persecution. The author’s rhetorical strategy includes a series of comparisons highlighting the greatness of Jesus: He is superior to angels, Abraham, Moses, and the other prophets who preceded him. As a heavenly high priest, he is superior to the Levitical priesthood, and his once-for-all-time death on the cross is superior to the sacrifices they offer repeatedly. Hebrews 10:1–18 completes this series of comparisons with its claim that Christ’s perfect self-offering makes Levitical sacrifices unnecessary.

Sermons on this text should not contribute to antisemitism by giving the impression that Christianity has superseded Judaism. Christians have received an astounding gift of reconciliation with God through Jesus. Our Jewish neighbors have also experienced God’s grace, forgiveness, and steadfast love as they respond prayerfully to God’s word in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jews and Christians agree that animal sacrifices are unnecessary for forgiveness.

The text begins with a quotation of Psalm 40:6–8, which Hebrews interprets as a speech by the incarnate Christ upon entering the world (Hebrews 10:5–7). There is a significant difference between the Greek text of Hebrews 10:5 and surviving manuscripts of Psalm 40:6 in both the original Hebrew and the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation used by the author of Hebrews). The psalm reads literally, “An ear you have dug [opened] for me.” Hebrews 10:5 reads, “A body you have prepared for me.” 

The psalmist’s gratitude for open ears fits the emphasis on obedience in both the psalm and its interpretation in Hebrews. Many prophets with ears open to God have heard, like the psalmist, that repentance and justice are more important than sacrifices (for example, 1 Samuel 15:22; Isaiah 1:10–17: Jeremiah 7:21–26; Hosea 6:6). In Hebrews, the reference to Jesus’ body affirms the incarnation and prepares for “the offering of the body of Jesus Christ” on the cross (10:10). 

Hebrews also reinterprets the enigmatic sentence “In the roll of the scroll it is written of me” (Psalm 40:9; Hebrews 10:7). The psalmist probably meant that scripture applied to his or her situation. The author of Hebrews heard Jesus affirming the interpretive approach used throughout the letter: The Scriptures are about Jesus.

Hebrews 10:8–9 next provides an explicit commentary on the quotation. God’s lack of desire for Levitical sacrifices means they are no longer required despite their prominence in the Torah. Whereas the goal of sacrifices was to please God, Jesus affirms and models another way: “See, I have come to do your will” (10:9). This affirmation comes after the statement that God does not desire sacrifices, suggesting to the author of Hebrews that Jesus’ obedience has taken the place of the sacrifices that Leviticus prescribes. 

Hebrews 10:9 refers in a general way to doing God’s will, but the argument in chapters 8−10 makes clear that Hebrews is contrasting two kinds of sacrifices. Much as the earthly tabernacle was a shadow of the perfect heavenly one, the use of animal blood for purification foreshadowed the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice that Jesus offered on the cross (Hebrews 8:5; 9:13–14; see also Leviticus 4). The author understood that this self-sacrifice by Jesus was God’s will. 

Although Jesus’ death is central to the text, the general reference to doing God’s will in 10:9 invites a broader focus on Jesus’ life and ministry. It was God’s will for Jesus to proclaim in word and deed that God’s end-time reign of justice and peace was at hand. Jesus fulfilled God’s will by eating with tax collectors and other sinners and offering salvation in every dimension of life: spiritual, physical, and social. Jesus demonstrated divine grace as a host as well as a guest, extending a wide welcome to God’s banquet. He repeatedly reminded those who would pass judgment that God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6, quoted in Matthew 9:13; 12:7). All these events and more are in view as Jesus volunteers, “See, I have come to do your will.” 

Hebrews also emphasizes that Jesus endured testing without sin, making him uniquely able to empathize with our struggles and to offer a perfect sacrifice on our behalf (4:15). The meaning of his death is inseparable from his obedient life.

Hebrews 10:10 sums up the good news I see in the passage: “And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” This gracious sanctification means we are ready to worship the Holy One without guilt or shame. Unlike some literal house-cleaning, sanctification is not something we must do on our own power. Jesus embraces us with infinite love, just as we are. Then Jesus leads us on a journey toward holiness so we can participate even more fully in God’s reign. Whether or not we have begun that journey, we can release Advent anxieties and welcome Jesus with hearts full of joy.

Works consulted

Attridge, Herald W. The Epistle to the Hebrews. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989.

Bucher, Debra J., and Estella Boggs Horning. Hebrews. Believes Church Bible Commentary. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2024.

Eisenbaum, Pamela. “The Letter to the Hebrews.” In The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed., pp. 460–88. Edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. 0xford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2017. 

Meshel, Naphtali. “Sacrifice and the Temple.” In The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed., pp. 658–62. Edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. 0xford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Pierce Madison N. Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: The Recontextualization of Spoken Quotations of Scripture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Ribbens, Benjamin J. “The Sacrifice God Desired: Psalm 40:7–8 in Hebrews 10.” New Testament Studies 67 (2021): 284–304.