The Divine Incarnation. Heb. 10:5-7 continues. (106)
God willed not those sacrifices for the ends which He ordained the Sacrifice of Christ to effect.
“But a body hast Thou prepared Me.” The body of Christ is placed over against, substituted in the stead of, replaces, the Levitical offerings. The Holy Spirit has shown the utter inadequacy of the blood of bulls and goats, the impossibility of its meeting the highest claims of God and the deepest need of sinners. From all eternity it was Christ, the “Lamb,” who had been “foreordained” to make satisfaction unto God for His people (1Pet. 1:20).
- “But a body hast Thou prepared Me.” “The term “a body” is an expression of the whole human nature of Christ, consisting of spirit and soul and body. First, to emphasize the fact that the offering of Christ was to be by death, and this the body alone was subject to. Second, because the new covenant was to be confirmed by the offering of Christ, and this was to be by blood, which is contained in the body alone. Third, to make more evident the conformity of the Head to His members who were “partakers of flesh and blood.” Fourth, to remind us that Christ’s whole human nature (that “holy thing,” Luke 1:35 was not a distinct person. The humanity of Christ was foreordained by the Father. 1Cor. 2:9; Rom. 9:23. The figure used in Ps. 40:6 may be discovered by a comparison with Ex. 21:6, where we learn of the provision made by the law to meet the case of a Hebrew servant, who chose to remain in voluntary servitude rather than accept his freedom, as he might do, at the seventh year of release. “Mine ears hast Thou digged” announced the Savior’s readiness to act as God’s “Servant:” Is. 42:1, 53:11. Only it is to be noted that in Exodus 21:6 it is “ear,” whereas in Ps. 40:6 it is “ears”—in all things Christ has the “pre-eminence!” Christ came here to be the substance of all the Old Testament shadows, Ex. 21:1–6 not excepted. In becoming Man, the Son took upon Him “the form of a servant” Phil. 2:7. “The origin of the salvation of the Church is in a peculiar manner ascribed unto the Father—His will, His grace, His wisdom, His good pleasure, His love, His sending of the Son, are everywhere proposed as the eternal springs of all acts of power, grace and goodness, tending unto the salvation of the Church. And therefore, doth the Lord Christ on all occasions declare that He came to do the Father’s will, seek His glory, make known His name, that the praise of His grace might be exalted” (John Owen). His body was “prepared” not by the ordinary laws of procreation, but by the supernatural power of the third person of the Trinity working upon and within Mary. This is the Virgin-birth of the Lord Jesus. He did not form Him a body out of the dust of the earth, as He did that of Adam, whereby He could not have been of the same race of mankind with us; nor merely out of nothing, as He created the angels whom He was not to save Heb. 2:14–16. He took our flesh and blood proceeding from the loins of Abraham. He prepared it, as that it should be no way subject to that depravation and pollution that came on our whole nature by sin.” Pink Arthur W
- “In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure” (v. 6). There we hear the Son, just prior to His incarnation saying to the Father, “Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not.” True, God never willed those sacrifices and offerings which our idolatrous fathers presented to their gods; even the Levitical offerings contented God not. “Thou hast had no pleasure.” had no pleasure.” God had required sacrifices at the hands of Israel: He had “imposed” them “until the time of reformation” Heb. 9:10. Lev. ch. 1; 4; 5; 6:1–7, Ps. 147:11, Mal. 1:10, Matt. 3:17, Ep. 5:2. These words “in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure” serve to bring out in more vivid relief the blessedness of “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” Matt. 3:17!
- “Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me), to do Thy will, O God” (v. 7). Those words express the readiness and willingness of the Son to do all that had been ordained unto the making of a full satisfaction to God and the salvation of His people. That “will” was not only to “take away sins” (v. 4), which the Levitical offerings had not effected, but was also to make His people “perfect” v. 1, Heb. 5:14. God designed not only to remove all the effects of sin, original and personal, which provoked His judicial hatred of us Eph. 2:3, but also to provide and give us such a righteousness that would cause Him to love us than ever, and to delight in us. His “will” meant not only peace and pardon to us, but grace and favor: as the angels announced to the Bethlehem shepherds, the coming of Christ meant not only “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,” but also “good will toward men.” He had predestinated not only to forgive us, but to have us adopted and graciously “accepted,” and that “to the praise of the glory of His grace” Eph. 1:5, 6.
