A Perfecting Sacrifice – Hebrews 10:8-10

The Incarnation and the Messiah’s Purpose

Now with your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 10, let's bow our heads in prayer before we begin. Our Father, we pray that you would teach us from your Word, that you would give us the ability to understand what is here, the argument that the author is making.

Help us to see your eternal purposes, your eternal glory and grace, and to rejoice in what you have accomplished in the death of Christ for us, your people. We pray that you would teach us that we may be obedient to you and that we may give to you hearts of praise and adoration and love and loving obedience.

Be glorified through this time, we pray, and open our eyes and our hearts to the truth in Jesus' name. At this time of year, which is obviously Christmas time, our thoughts most naturally gravitate to the miracle of the incarnation, which for us as Christians is right at the very top of the list of significant events that has happened because the incarnation of the Divine Son, the second person of the Trinity, into human flesh to step into this world, that singular miracle is the culmination of God's redemptive purposes in the Old Testament.

And of course, all the Old Testament looks forward to it and the prophets anticipated it and prophesied about that grace that was to come and the accomplishment of that. And then we have to ask the question, why did the Messiah come?

Why was it necessary that Christ come to earth? What was the purpose behind that greatest miracle of the incarnation? Salvation would certainly make that list of answers that we would give. When the angel told Joseph that Mary was going to be with child, he said, you shall name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

And of course in that designation and in that prediction was the stated purpose of the Messiah's birth. He would save his people from their sins. Jesus himself said that the Son of Man, that's him, did not come to be served but to serve and then to give his life as a ransom for many.

So that comes from the lips of the Savior himself. We would also say that he came to fulfill the law, to fulfill the promises of God, to preach the message of the kingdom, to fulfill all righteousness, to heal the sick, to make the lame to walk and the blind to see, to do miracles.

He came as a light to the world. He came to testify to the world that his deeds were evil. He came to call men to repentance. He came as a judgment to an unbelieving world. He came to glorify the Father.

He came to gather his sheep to himself. He came to call his bride to himself. We could use all of those designations. All of those would be answers. But there's one way that we could answer that question.

Why is it that Jesus Christ came? Why was the Messiah born? There's one way of answering that question that would sort of group all of those answers together, would encapsulate all of them together, and it would be to say that he came to do the Father's will.

And that's the language that we find here in Hebrews chapter 10 in verse 5 when the author says that when Christ comes into the world, he says that the Father has not desired to offer sacrifices, but verse 7, then I said, and this is the author of Hebrews putting on the lips of the incarnate Son these words, Behold, I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me, to do your will, O God.

He restates that in verse 9. Behold, I have come to do your will. The Son came to do the will of the Father. And in terms of the incarnation, the reason for his birth, that is the language that is used here in Hebrews chapter 10.

Now that sounds almost so generic and so nonspecific and so vague, just to do the will of God. That sounds almost so vague as to be meaningless to us. We want more specifics than that. We want something of more substance than that.

Just to do the Father's will? Okay. Well, what is that? Well, the author goes on to describe what that will is in verse 10, when he says, it is by that will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Specifically, the Father's will that the Son came to accomplish was the sanctification and thus the salvation of all those whom the Father had given to the Son. That was the purpose behind his coming.

So that's the will that stands over top of all of those other answers. So it was the Father's will that the Son fulfill all righteousness and that he fulfill the law and that he call men to repentance and that he preach the kingdom and that he come into this world as a judgment to unbelievers and as the light of the world, that he give life to his people, that he resurrect them from the dead, that he do the miracles and teach the gospel.

All of those were the purposes and purposes in his coming, but all of them would fall under that umbrella of the Son came to do the will of the Father. And we've been out of Hebrews chapter 10 for a couple of weeks now.

We got as far as verse, the end of verse 7, where the author is using here words from Psalm 40. Now, remember that Psalm 40 had its own meaning when David wrote it. David described the sacrifices that God had required in the law and he said that God did not take delight in those sacrifices in and of themselves as if the desire of God was just to see animal sacrifices, dead animals and burnt offerings, etc.

And so then David says, since that is not what God desires in and of itself, but rather he desires a penitent, humble, obedient, loving and affectionate, a pious worshiper. David said that is what I will give to the Lord.

I will come therefore to do the will of God. Well, then viewed from the New Testament perspective in light of the ministry and life of the Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 40 takes on a whole new meaning, which the author here then uses in Hebrews chapter 10, to show that the Son, when he came into the world, he did not come in order to offer more animal sacrifices or to minister in a tabernacle or to reform the earthly Aaronic priesthood.

Instead, he came simply to do the will of the Father. And so those words taken from Psalm 40 have an even more profound meaning when you view them in light of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to do only the Father's will and, of course, to do all of the Father's will.

The Abolition of Animal Sacrifices

So the Father did not send the Son into the world to offer animal sacrifices. That's one thing we learned from Psalm 40 and this quotation of it. There was a whole priesthood that was very adept at offering animal sacrifices.

If God wanted more dead animals, he could just command more dead animals. There was a whole priesthood ordained for that purpose. They were very good at killing animals, very good at burning offerings, very good at doing all of the things associated with the blood of the Old Covenant.

And the Father did not send the Son into the world to minister in an earthly tabernacle, but instead, having offered his body as a sacrifice for many, to go and enter heaven itself, which is the true tabernacle, and there in the presence of God to intercede for us.

The Father didn't send the Son into the world to reform an earthly priesthood, to clean it up, to become a better Aaronic priest, but instead to establish an entirely new priesthood. And the Father did not send the Son into the world to add on to or to clean up the Old Covenant, but simply to replace it and to inaugurate the New Covenant.

All of those are what the Father sent the Son into the world to do. That was his will that is mentioned here in that passage. So since it has been a couple of weeks, and that is our review of Psalm 40 and its use here in this passage, now we come to verse 8, where the author now takes what he has said, and he uses it as an argument to demonstrate two things, from Psalm 40 and his use of it here.

Number one, that part of the will of God was that Christ should abolish animal sacrifices. And number two, that Christ, having abolished animal sacrifices, would accomplish salvation. To abolish the sacrifices and to accomplish salvation.

Those are the two things that the author, the two purposes of Christ's coming that the author zeroes in here at the end of verse 8, 9, and 10. At the end of his argument here in these three verses. So let's first of all look at Christ abolishing the sacrifices.

Notice, let's just read verses 8 through 10, and I want you to see the structure here. Verse 8, After saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law.

Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first in order to establish the second. And he's talking there about the abolition of the Old Testament sacrifices. Notice in verse 8 that there is a rearranging of the quotation from Psalm 40.

He quotes Psalm 40 in verses 5, 6, and 7. And then beginning in verse 8, he rearranges the phrases of that quotation, including all of the essential elements of the quotation. He has it all there, but he gathers together all the phrases that have to do with the sacrifices.

He says in verse 8, After saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. He groups all of those together at the head of that. And then he groups together the phrases that have to do with God not taking pleasure or delight in those things.

Verse 8, Nor have you, you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them. So he's sort of breaking apart the quotation in order to establish an order. So first, all those sacrifices, all of them, he just paints it with a broad brush, as it were.

All of those Old Testament sacrifices, God has not desired them or taken pleasure in them as an end in themselves. Remember, that's the idea behind that. But instead, after saying all of that, he then says, and notice the order in verse 8, he says, After saying above, Sacrifices, et cetera.

Verse 9,. Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will. So the author takes the order of Psalm 40 and he is drawing a theological argument from the order of Psalm 40. There is an argument to his order.

God takes no pleasure in the death of those sacrifices as if God just desired to see burnt offerings. What God wanted was the heart, the humble penitent heart of a worshiper who would come and offer that animal sacrifice in obedience to the law, because you'll notice verse 10 says, sorry, verse 8 says, that those sacrifices were offered according to the law.

So the sacrifices were offered according to the law and the worshiper who would come to offer the sacrifice was to come with a penitent heart, giving to God the best of his flock as an act of worship and penitence.

That God took delight in, but it wasn't God taking delight in that sacrifice itself, in the animal itself, or just in the blood. It was the heart of the worshiper that God was after. It was the heart of the worshiper that God was looking at.

That's what God wanted, an obedient heart that would pour out itself to God in humble obedience, adoration, praise, and worship that might be expressed in the offering of that animal. God took no delight in the sacrifices themselves because they could not atone for sin.

They could not redeem people. They could not perfect the worshiper. That priesthood and those sacrifices could not draw men close to God. They couldn't do any of those things because they were weak and inadequate and useless for those tasks, but those sacrifices did do what they were intended to do.

What were they intended to do? To picture and portray the great sacrifice that was to come. They anticipated the sacrifice of the Messiah, and that the sacrifices did very well. Don't miss this when he says in verse eight that these are offered according to the law.

The author is sort of, I wouldn't say that he's backpedaling so much as he's clarifying his objection to those sacrifices. After saying, sacrifices and offering, whole burnt offering, sacrifices for sin, you've not desired nor taken pleasure in them, right?

The author does not want us to think that he is disparaging those sacrifices as if we should conclude that those sacrifices were sinful, that they were unlawful, that they were not required, that they were not within the will of God.

They most certainly were not any of those things. Instead, they were offered according to the law. That was what the law demanded. The law demanded the sacrifice for sins. So the author is essentially saying, I'm not disparaging the animal sacrifices.

Those were lawful and right sacrifices done in obedience to God. That is not the point. The point was not that they were unlawful or sinful or rebellious to offer those sacrifices, but rather having expressed that concerning the sacrifices, the son then said, instead, I have come to do your will.

Notice again, the order. After saying this, he then says this. So there is a first that is in mind here, which is the God taking no delight in the sacrifices. Then there was the second thing that the son comes to do the will of the father.

Now I ask you, which came first, the animal sacrifices or the sacrifice of Christ? That's easy. And every kid here who's in Sunday school can answer that question. It was the animal sacrifices that came first.

Well, the author sees in the order of God's working in human history, the animal sacrifices first, then the coming of the Savior. The author sees in Psalm 40, the exact same order. He talks about the animal sacrifices and said, those things God has not desired, but what God has desired does take pleasure in, namely the doing of his will, the son came to do that.

So you have a first thing, which is the establishment of the animal sacrifices. Then you have a second thing, which is the work of Christ on the cross. So these two things, that is the order of them in history.

That is the order of those in Psalm 40. And the author sees the same order in Psalm 40, I'm sorry, as he does in the actions of God's redemption in human history. And so he is establishing here that order to show that the first thing, the animal sacrifices, have been done away or replaced and superseded by the second thing.

So the argument is simply this. If God takes no desire or pleasure in those sacrifices in themselves, but instead he wants obedience, how much greater and better then is the one who comes to offer a sacrifice that God does delight in, that he does take pleasure in, that is an expression of obedience, namely the obedience of the son.

So God therefore takes away the first, animal sacrifices, in order to establish the second, that's verse nine. After saying above, verse eight, then he said, behold, I've come to do your will. Verse nine, he takes away the first in order to establish the second.

The first is the animal sacrifices, the second is the sacrifice of the son. One came before the other, and the one that comes before is lesser than the other. The one that comes later is better. That's the argument, that which comes later is better.

In God's redemptive plan, this is how it always is. The best is always yet to come. And all the way through human history, you can see that, that the best is always yet to come. We're always anticipating that which God brings to us and gives to us to be better than that which we possess now.

And it was the same under the old covenant. Those under the old covenant could look at the animal sacrifices and realize there's a better sacrifice that is to come. And so the author is making the argument that if Christ has come after the animal sacrifices, Christ then, in his sacrifice, must be better than the animal sacrifices.

What comes later is always better. Now, in this world, with the things that we are familiar with, that is not always true, is it? That which is newer is not necessarily always better, is it? Can you think of some examples?

How about New Coke? Do you remember New Coke? If you don't remember New Coke, it's because you were not alive during the 80s for the worst marketing and corporate disaster ever conceived in the history of humanity.

It came out with New Coke, and it was horrible. It was a blight on humanity forevermore. And those of us who lived through it remember that. Well, God is not in the business of New Coke and Old Coke. When God does something, that which comes later is always an improvement upon, an expansion of, and making better or replacing of that which came before.

And that's the author's point. Christ has come after the sacrifices. We see this in Psalm 40, the intention of God to have one do his will after the sacrifices has demonstrated that God is not pleased in them.

And if this thing comes after this thing, then this thing is better than this thing. The revelation that we have in the New Testament in the Son is greater, it is clearer, it is better, it is fuller than the revelation that we have of those same subjects in the Old Covenant dispensation.

Remember the author made that point back in chapter one at the very beginning? God spoke in those ways and those times through those means, but now he has spoken once and for all in his Son. That later revelation is better.

And we see this with the New Covenant. The New Covenant has made the Old Covenant obsolete. The Old Covenant has been replaced by the New. The Melchizedekian priesthood, it has been replaced by the Aaronic priesthood.

The Aaronic priesthood is no more. Christ's ministry in heaven has fulfilled the ministry that the Old Testament priest had in the earthly tabernacle. Christ's sacrifice has taken away animal sacrifices.

The Lord Jesus did not come to make an addendum or put an appendix upon animal sacrifices. It is not as if animal sacrifices brought the plan of salvation thus far and all we needed was just a little bit more blood to be spilled so Christ came to just sort of push the animal sacrifices over the top.

No, the animal sacrifices accomplished nothing in terms of dealing with sin, removing sin, making atonement, payment for sin, any of those things. The animal sacrifices didn't bring us a little way. They didn't bring us anywhere at all.

All they did was point to the one thing that would take us from zero to 100 and that was the sacrifice of Christ. So Christ having come did not just simply add his blood to the blood of the Old Covenant sacrifices.

Christ having come did away with the animal sacrifices. He didn't add on to that. He didn't remodel the Old Covenant. He replaced it with the New Covenant. He inaugurated a brand new covenant and now the Old Covenant having passed away is becoming obsolete, the author says, in chapter nine and eight.

So that's the argument. What has come later is better. Do you ever stop to pause to consider just how blessed you are to live in this dispensation under this covenant? That God, by his grace, has appointed your time and your season to be alive today, as crazy as today is, to be alive today and to enjoy the blessings of the New Covenant and the fullness of revelation that we have in Jesus Christ.

That is so gracious that God has provided all you need in the person of Christ and none of it in animal sacrifices. Full forgiveness, full pardon, full righteousness, full and final salvation, full atonement for every last sin you have ever committed it is provided for in the person of Christ.

That is such a grace. So Christ has accomplished the abolishing of the animal sacrifices in second, verse 10. He has accomplished salvation. Look at verse 10. I'm sorry, verse nine first. Behold, then he says, behold, I've come to do your will.

He takes away the first in order to establish the second, the second being the will of God done by the Son. Verse 10, by this will, that is, by this same will that Christ came to fulfill, to do, as sent by the Father, by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The will that Christ came to do was to sanctify you through the offering of his own body. That is the will that the Son accomplished. That is the will that the Father sent the Son into the world to do.

And the Son, according to Psalm 40, on the cusp of coming into the world in the incarnation, said and understood that that was what the Father was sending him to do, and he willingly came to do it. He said, behold, I have come to do your will.

And the Son knew full well before he even came into the world that the will of the Father was that he would give his life as a ransom for many and offer his body up to sanctify his people. God willed the salvation of his people.

That's what verse 10 is describing. God willed the salvation and sanctification of his people and Christ came to accomplish that will. The word sanctified is the word that is sometimes translated to make holy or made holy or sometimes just as holy.

It's the word hagiadzo. It means to be set apart or to be consecrated or dedicated to something. In the New Testament, when it is used of men, it describes somebody who is set apart by God for God. It is God who does the work of setting that person apart for his own purposes or for his own glory.

And so that is what is being described here. And I want you to notice, and this is something that is key, the tense of that word sanctified in the original is a past tense perfect, meaning it's a past action that resulted in a present reality.

This is something, this sanctifying work is something that happened in the past. It happened on the cross when Christ offered his body as a sacrifice for us. So it happens in the past but it has a present reality for you and I.

That is that by that event which took place back then, you and I today have been set apart. We were set apart back then for what we experience and enjoy now. Now there are different tenses to sanctification in the New Testament.

There's the past tense of sanctification. There is the sense in which God in eternity past set us apart even before our mother's womb. Paul describes this in Galatians 1 verse 15. I've been set apart from my mother's womb.

That was not something that Paul did. Paul as an infant in the womb didn't say, I'm fully devoting myself to the Lord and to his work. Paul didn't set himself apart to that. That was something that God did.

When did God do that upon the apostle Paul? Before Paul was even aware of his own existence. God set him apart for that purpose, Galatians 1 verse 15. Then there's a present tense sanctification. We describe sanctification not just as us being set apart unto God and made holy or separate and distinct in eternity past but also a present reality to sanctification.

The present reality of sanctification is what is described in Hebrews 12 verse 14 when the author says, you are to pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord. This is the aspect of sanctification that we contribute to and we participate in as we mortify sin and deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Christ and say no to ourself and pursue holiness and righteousness and yield our members as instruments of righteousness.

That's a progressive sanctification that is constantly striving in this life as we walk day by day in the power of the Spirit. We are constantly striving in this life to be conformed to the image of Christ.

We participate with God in that. Your past sanctification, you had nothing to do with that. That happened before you were born, before you even knew you existed. It happened before a molecule was spoken into existence.

Present sanctification, we pursue in our own efforts. We cooperate with God as we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Then there is future sanctification when we will be made fully holy, fully complete in the presence of God.

When we see Christ as he is, we will be made just like him and there will be no inclination towards sin. There will be no desire to sin, no capacity to sin. We will be made fully holy when we will be fully conformed to the image of Christ.

I look forward to that. That's future sanctification. So there's past, there's present, and there's future sanctification. And whenever you speak of sanctification or read of sanctification scripture, you always have to ask yourself what element or aspect of salvation is the author describing?

So what element or aspect of sanctification is the author describing here in this passage? He obviously cannot be describing our present state of pursuit of holiness because I have not been fully sanctified, I'm not fully sinless even now as we are here.

And he's not describing here a progressive sanctification that we participate in because this is something that happened in the past, which means that it can't even be our future sanctification. He's not describing here our future glorification and our enjoyment of that.

He is describing that something that happened at a point in time and what is the point in time? The offering of the body of Jesus on the cross once and for all. That is what he says in verse 10. By this will, that is the will of God that Christ came to fulfill, we have been, past tense, sanctified, set apart, made holy, set apart for God by God, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Do you realize how much happened in the mind and purposes and the decrees of God concerning you before you were ever born?

A lot.

Before a single Adam was spoken into existence. God knew you, he knew your name, and he set you apart for himself if you're in Jesus Christ. That was true of you because of the Father's choosing. So there is a sense in which the Father sanctified us or set us apart for himself when he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, Ephesians one, when he granted us grace in Christ before time began at 2 Timothy chapter two, I believe, maybe chapter one, it's somewhere toward the back of your Bible, it's in there, he set us apart and granted us that grace in Christ before time began, and in the choosing of the Father, the predestining of the Father, predestining us to be glorified and sanctified and conformed to the image of Christ, in that work from eternity past, God himself set apart a people for himself.

And then in the words of Jesus in John six, John 10, and John 17, the Father gave those people to the Son as a gift of his love. Jesus spoke of those whom the Father had given to him. His gracious gift to the Son, the Father gave us as his gift to the Son.

Well, that's the setting apart in eternity past and the purposes of God. But then in time on the cross of Christ, because of what Christ accomplished in our stead and on our behalf in giving himself, no, I'm good, thanks, Ed, in giving himself to us on the cross and the offering of his body for our sake, God sanctified or set us apart in Christ through that action because our sins have been fully atoned for, fully paid for, and we have been fully forgiven in the cross of Christ.

Because of what he did, he set us apart in another way. But then in time, there is a third person of the Holy Trinity who also sets us apart when he calls us and woos us to himself and causes us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and grants us new life.

Then we are set apart from the world as God's people. So in eternity past, the Father set us apart, sanctified us by his choice in his purposes. In time, the Son set us apart when he paid the price for our sin and atoned for our iniquity on the cross.

And then when we are alive and we are here, we have the Holy Spirit set us apart for himself as he calls us out of the world and makes us his own through regeneration so that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in our salvation and in our sanctification.

And it is not here the electing work of the Father that is described in Hebrews chapter 10. Instead, it is the sacrificial work of the Son that is described. In other words, the author is not in Hebrews chapter 10 focusing on the work of the Father and choosing us.

He is focusing instead on the work of the Son in dying for us. And in that offering on the cross and in that death on the cross, Christ has set apart and fully sanctified, paid for and redeemed all those whom the Father had given to him.

What a glorious message that is. What a glorious gospel that is. What a glorious work of grace that is. And so though we can distinguish between the work of the Father and his choosing, the work of the Son and his sacrificing and the work of the Spirit is regenerating works concerning us.

We can distinguish between them in our own mind in terms of each work that they do, but we cannot distinguish between the persons of the Trinity in terms of their will. In other words, the will of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one concerning you.

That is why your salvation, if you are in Jesus Christ, is absolutely certain and secure. It has to be because the Father has willed your sanctification from eternity past. Therefore, the Son must pay your price and therefore the Spirit must regenerate you.

And if the Spirit regenerates you and sanctifies you or set you apart in his regenerating work, he must and will then also sanctify you in making you grow in holiness. And the triune God then will and must sanctify you fully in the future when he removes you from sin and removes sin from you and makes you perfectly holy in the eternal state.

All of that must happen.

Why?

Because the Father in eternity past sanctified us or set us apart. The Son on the cross sanctified us through the offering of his body once and for all. And the Spirit has sanctified us in regenerating us and calling us out of the world and drawing us to himself.

The work and the will of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in salvation. That is why his people are secure. I wanna close with one last observation, and that is at the end of verse 10, I want you to notice that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Notice that language, offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Now that is kind of odd language given the way that the author in the book of Hebrews describes the sacrifice of Christ. I did a search through the book of Hebrews.

This is the only place in Hebrews where it speaks of the body of Jesus Christ being offered. It is as if the author is focusing in on something specific, something physical here in this context. Other places, he describes the sacrifice of Christ this way.

He'll say that he offered himself or that he gave himself or that he sacrificed himself. But notice the language here through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Why the emphasis on body, do you think?

Verse five, when he comes into the world, he says, sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but what? A body you have prepared for me. And therefore in the context here, the gist of this really is that the son anticipating coming into the world is aware that the Father has prepared a body for him.

That is what is on his mind. He comes to take that body that the Father has prepared for him and offer it entirely as a sacrifice for sin on the cross. And so in the author's mind here, this is the end of the incarnational work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He comes for this purpose, to offer the body. And before he even takes up the body, he is aware that he will offer it on a cross in the stead of his people. And so it is the body that is emphasized here because the author is drawing this all the way back to the incarnation.

It begins in a manger, it ends on a cross. And these two things can never be separated in our minds. That the Jesus in Bethlehem is the Jesus of Calvary. And the Jesus in Bethlehem becomes the Jesus in Bethlehem because the Jesus in Bethlehem knows that he will offer himself on a cross on Calvary.

And it is the offering of that body, the body that the Father had prepared, the body that the son took up, the body that the son lived in, it is the offering of that body specifically as a sacrifice for sin that the author focuses in on.

And it is that physical offering that we remember when we partake of communion. We gather together the bread, symbolizes the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ and the juice, the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We understand what it means that he shed his blood. He inaugurated the new covenant by the sacrifice of himself and the shedding of his own blood. It wasn't with the blood of bulls and goats that he entered into the Holy of Holies and heaven itself, but with his own blood, having sacrificed himself.

And the bread reminds us of the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it was the eternal plan and the eternal purpose of the Father to give a body for the son to come into this world veiled in human flesh.

He was very God of very God, the eternal son. And he stepped into humanity, into this world so that he could live a perfect life and then die a perfect death. And so that in all of his living and all of his doing and all of his dying, he is our representative.

His life represents what we should have lived. He lived it in our place. His death represents the penalty that we should have paid for our sin. But being the infinite son of God, he could live and acquire infinite righteousness, achieve infinite righteousness, and provide infinite righteousness to his people.