The Dedication of the Servant Son (Hebrews 10:5-7)

Psalm 40 as the Background to Hebrews 10

With your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 10, let's bow in prayer before we begin.

Our gracious Father, we desire to know and to understand your word, and we need your help to do that. We pray that you would open our eyes, give us eyes to see the truth in your word, and ears to hear it, and hearts that are quick to obey it, so that both speaker and hearer this morning may be sanctified by your truth and conformed to the image of your Son through our time and our study here.

We ask this in his name. Amen. So last week we were in Psalm 40 for most of our time looking at that passage that is quoted here in Hebrews chapter 10. And Psalm 40, written a thousand years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, was David's prayer of dedication and his plea to God to be delivered from his enemies.

And so we saw how there was a double meaning or sort of two layers to that understanding of Psalm 40, one of them relating to David in his time, and one of them looking forward to the coming of the Lord Christ into the world.

And in David's intention, he was just simply... By the way, this is the passage that is quoted here in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5, 6, and 7. David, in his intention, was simply expressing his desire to dedicate himself entirely to the Lord and do fully the Lord's will, knowing that sacrifices are empty and offerings are offensive if they are not accompanied by an obedient heart, one that is ready to do the Lord's will, and one to willingly be obedient to the Lord.

And so that was David's prayer, asking God to deliver those who are his and those who are totally devoted to him. And then David prayed and gave himself entirely to God. And that was the quotation that we looked at.

That was the passage we looked at last week. Well, it's quoted here in Hebrews chapter 10, and the author here in Hebrews takes those words of David, and he applies them primarily to the Lord Jesus Christ on the verge of his incarnation.

Before the Lord steps into the world, the author of Hebrews puts these words in verse 5 into his mouth. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, "...sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

In whole burnt offering and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me, to do your will, O God.". And then in verses 8 through 10, he applies that quotation from Psalm 40.

And so we're now having looked at what it meant to David for him to say those words. Now we're going to transition, and we're going to see how that meaning is sort of brought in here to Hebrews chapter 10, and how the author of Hebrews uses that passage.

And remember, his point is stated succinctly and clearly in verse 4. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. That is what he is driving at. Therefore, he is making the case that God took no delight and had no pleasure in the death of those animals in and of themselves, as if God's only delight or joy was in just seeing animals killed.

That was not it at all. Instead, God desired obedience, the obedience coupled with the sacrifices. And so he's taking this passage from Psalm 40, and he is applying it, as it were, to the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the Messiah comes into the world, the Messiah says, it is not animal sacrifices that you have desired that I offer, because you don't take pleasure in those.

It's not offerings of drink offerings and meal offerings that God the Father sent the Son into the world to offer on our behalf. He sent him into the world to do something different, and that was to give his life as a ransom for many.

So last week, we examined Psalm 40. Today, we're looking here in Hebrews chapter 10, and so let's jump into it. Notice in verse 5 that he is concluding an argument. He says,. And he's really, in that way, he is causing us to reflect upon what he has been saying in the previous verses.

It is because animal offerings were only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very substance of them. It is because animal offerings were repeated, and it is because animal offerings were merely animal offerings, and thus unable to take away sins.

It is for that reason that the Son comes into the world, and before doing, he says, You have prepared a body for me, a body that he might offer as sacrifice. So this is really the conclusion to an offering, sorry, to an argument, and verse 4 is the explanation as to why the Son comes into the world, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

If that were possible, then the death of Jesus would not have been necessary. Does that make sense? If it were possible for animal sacrifices to do the trick, then the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was quite unnecessary.

He wouldn't have needed to come and to offer up a sacrifice. And verse 4 explains why it is that he says in verse 5 and 6 and 7 that the Lord was not pleased, nor did he delight in those offerings. Verse 4 is the explanation for that.

It is because the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins. Therefore, God was not pleased with those offerings. God was pleased with a contrite heart, a humble heart, a heart that would come in obedience and say, I am giving an offering.

You see, somebody who brought an offering to the temple whose heart was contrite and who was penitent and recognized their sin and brought it as an act of joy and worship to the Lord, the Lord would be pleased, not in the animal offering itself, but in the entire presentation of the worshiper who would bring the animal offering to him in faith with an obedient heart.

But just the animal offerings by themselves, there is no pleasure in those. The Lord does not delight in those. But there is a sacrifice and there is an offering in which the Lord did take pleasure and which the Lord did delight in.

In fact, that sacrifice is mentioned in the passage that describes how his scourging are the basis by which we are healed, how his stripes are the basis of our spiritual healing. That is Isaiah 53 verse 10.

Isaiah says this, the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief if he would render himself as an offering for sin. The Lord was pleased to crush him. There is one sacrifice that pleased the Lord.

There is one offering of a body that brought God great delight, and that was the sacrifice of the Son. The Lord was pleased to crush him and put him to grief if he would offer himself as a sacrifice for sin.

By the scourging of an animal, you and I are not healed, but by the scourging of the Son, we are. By the chastening of an animal, you and I are not delivered, but by the chastening of the Son, we are.

By the death of that animal, it does nothing for us, but by the death of the Son of God, we have our sins atoned for. So God delights in the sacrifice of Christ, not because God delights in gore or that God delights in blood or that God delights in suffering or affliction.

God delights in and was pleased with the sacrifice of Christ because of its power, because of its efficacy, and because of what it accomplished. He was not pleased with the sacrifice of bulls and goats because they cannot take away sin, but the sacrifice of his Son can take away sin.

In its fullness and in its entirety, that one sacrifice, once for all, sanctifies forever those who are his. And by that one sacrifice, because of its effectiveness, because of its power, because of its intention, because of what it actually does, that pleases the Lord.

The Categories of Sacrifice in the Old Testament

Notice in verse 5 that there are different kinds of sacrifices that are mentioned. When he comes into the world, he says, "...sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared.".

Notice in verse 5 there are sacrifices and offerings that are mentioned. In verse 6 he mentions whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Now there's a little Hebrew parallelism that's going on here.

When you read through the Old Testament in Hebrew poetry, in Hebrew poetry it is not the words that rhyme, it's the ideas that rhyme. So you're reading through the Psalms and what you notice is that it is not the end of every phrase or sentence that rhymes like we expect poetry to rhyme in English.

At least good poetry rhymes in English. So you people who just do your ramblings on paper and none of it rhymes, it doesn't make any sense, that's not poetry. It's just incomplete sentences, etc. But that's a subject for another time.

So in English, sentences, our poetry rhymes at the end of a sentence, at the end of sentences. In Hebrew, it was not the words that rhymed, it was the ideas that rhymed. So you get these parallel statements.

Oftentimes making a statement and then the rhyme is the same idea said from a different angle, or the same idea sort of communicated on a negative way, or the same idea restated in different language or different words.

So you read through the Old Testament and once you understand Hebrew poetry, and it might be worth having like an adult Sunday school class on that subject, but once you understand all the ways that the parallelisms are used in the Hebrew language and Hebrew poetry, I'm telling you, it will open up the Old Testament to you.

It will open up the prophets, it will open up the Psalms, it helps you to understand what is being, what is meant there. It is the parallelism or the rhyming of ideas. We have the same thing here in Psalm 40 and quoted accurately here in Hebrews 10.

We have sacrifices and offerings mentioned in verse 5, whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin mentioned in verse 6. So there's a little bit of parallelism and here's how they are parallel. In verse 5, you'll notice that the mention of sacrifice and offering, these are different in terms of their material nature, different in terms of their material nature.

So one of these is a bloody offering and one of these is an unbloody offering. The reference to sacrifice in verse 5 was a reference to the bloody offerings, the animal offerings of the Old Testament, the sacrifices for sin.

Just the word offering itself used here in verse 5 is not a reference to bloody offerings or sacrifices, but unbloody or non-bloody offerings or sacrifices. So that would be like the Jews, for instance, in Leviticus 16, no Leviticus 6, have meal offerings and barley offerings and grain offerings and drink offerings.

Those are different than animal offerings in terms of their nature, their material nature. One is an animal and one is a food. And so like drink offerings, for instance, sometimes would be poured over top of animal offerings or sacrifices while they were being sacrificed or while they were being burnt.

That's the reference to offering. So one of those in verse 5 is a bloody offering and one of them is a non-bloody offering, a meal offering. These are two different categories of offerings in the Old Testament.

In verse 6, you have two different kinds of bloody offerings that are mentioned. Verse 6, these two offerings, the whole burnt offering and the sacrifices for sin, those are not different in terms of their nature.

They're different in terms of their function. So in verse 6, in whole burnt offerings, that would be referring to the sacrifices that an Israelite worshiper would bring out of a thankful heart, an animal offering that's not necessarily for the purpose of sin, but just to offer an animal to the Lord as an expression of his heart of gratitude, his heart of love and devotion.

So that is an animal offering, but it's not for the purpose of sin, but out of gratitude. The reference in verse 6 to burnt offerings, sorry, for sacrifices for sin, those would refer to the prescribed offerings.

So the first is voluntary offerings. The second was the involuntary offerings, what was required or prescribed by God. So that would have been the morning offering, the evening offering, the Passover offering, the Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement offering, which we've talked about in depth recently here in Hebrews, that one day of the year when the high priest would enter in and go behind the veil and apply the blood to the Ark of the Covenant, that offering, that was a prescribed offering.

So this is referring to the same kind of offering, animal offerings, but really two different purposes. One, just an expression of gratitude and voluntary, and one, a prescribed offering that dealt with sin.

So the author here in Hebrews 10 is not simply throwing around synonyms for the sake of variety. He actually is using these category distinctions to try and circumscribe, as it were, the entire Old Testament sacrificial system.

Whether we're talking about the entire category of animal sacrifices, bloody offerings, or whether we are talking about the entire category of non-bloody offerings, non-animal sacrifices, including meal offerings and drink offerings and money offerings and anything else you might bring to the Lord, whatever it is, whether animal or otherwise, and whether it is a voluntary offering out of gratitude or a prescribed offering that dealt with sin, whether it was a personal offering or a corporate offering, you see what he's doing?

These massive categories of offering. He is circumscribing the entire Old Testament sacrificial system, and he is saying, any one of those offerings cannot take away sin, and all of those offerings and sacrifices combined cannot take away sin.

God did not delight in any of them by themselves. He delighted in them insofar as they were the symbols, the shadows that pointed to the substance. And when a person brought his offering in the right heart, the Lord delighted in that, but it wasn't the sacrifice or the offering itself.

And therefore, the Lord did not require that of the Son. When the Son came into the world, the Lord, the Father, did not send the Son into the world to offer up another animal sacrifice or to offer up a meal offering or a drink offering or to tithe a tithe offering or to offer up a personal offering out of gratitude or to offer up involuntary offerings or prescribed offerings.

The Lord did not send the Son into the world to do any of those sacrifices or offerings, but instead to offer up his body. And this brings us, in verse 5, to something that we looked at briefly last week, and I promised you we would deal with it today, and we are going to.

Here in verse 5, you'll notice that he says, sacrifice an offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. He came into the world to offer up the body that he has prepared for me. Now, last week, when you're looking at Psalm 40, do you remember from Psalm 40 that the translation of that was quite a bit different than what we have here in Hebrews chapter 10?

Do you remember that? The translation in Hebrews, sorry, Psalm 40 verse 8, sorry, Psalm 40 verse 6 says, my ears you have opened. And here in Hebrews 7 verse 5, but a body you have prepared for me. Those are a little bit different, aren't they?

My ears you have opened, a body you have prepared for me. And yet you're reading out of the same English translation, but when you read that phrase in your English translation out of Psalm 40 verse 6, it says, my ears you have opened.

And when you read that phrase out of Hebrews chapter 10, the same quotation says, a body you have prepared for me. Now, what is the difference between those two? It's not a radical, it's not a radical difference, but it is a substantial difference.

You might notice that the reference to ears and the reference to a body, those are something of the same kind, right? We're talking about a material aspect of our body in some way, something being prepared or something being opened, kind of those are similar ideas.

So though the phrasing is quite different, it is not radically different, but it is substantial enough that we should give it a little bit of attention. These words, by the way, the reason why it presents a little bit of an interpretive challenge for us is because the author of Hebrews seems to use that phrase as he quotes it here in Hebrews 10 in a way that if he had quoted it exactly as we read it out of Psalm 40, it would not make any sense.

So for instance, the author uses this, he puts these words on the mouth or the lips of the pre-incarnate son, when the son himself comes into the world. So going back prior to coming into the womb of the Virgin Mary, prior to coming into the world, it is the divine son, the second person of the Trinity that has described these words here in Hebrews 10, where he says, sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

So the author of Hebrews takes that phrase and he puts it on the lips of the pre-incarnate son as if the son himself is quoting that passage as dealing with his incarnation. So it is the way that the author of Hebrews uses the text that makes you think, hold on a second, something is going wrong here.

Because if you read this same quotation, for instance, Hebrews 10, look at verse 5, sacrifice and offering you have not desired, my ears you have opened, in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you've taken no pleasure.

Does my ears you have opened sound like a pre-incarnate statement in the same way as a body you have prepared for me? See, we can hear that phrase, a body you have prepared for me, and we can imagine that on the lips of the pre-incarnate son as he is about to step into the world, conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and we can imagine the son saying that to the father, a body you have prepared for me, because it is an incarnate, an incarnational statement.

So that would make sense. But if we just read on the lips of the pre-incarnate son about to step into the world through a body conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and he says, my ears you have opened, see that's a little bit different.

That really doesn't sound like pre-incarnational language, does it? So it's the way that the author of Hebrews uses the phrase that makes us say, hold on, what is up with this? What is he saying here?

Let me give you, let me give you three things that he's not doing, so we can sort of eliminate some possibilities. First of all, the author of Hebrews is not quoting from a corrupted text, as some have imagined.

As if there was some corrupted version of the Old Testament that he's quoting from and he didn't know it, and so it just sort of slipped in here, it's a corruption and it doesn't belong. That's not what's going on.

Second, the author is not intentionally misquoting the scripture in order to make a theological point. In other words, he's not, he's not taking a passage from the Old Testament and intentionally corrupting it or mistranslating or misusing it in order to drive home some unrelated theological idea that he wants to communicate.

Third, he is not unintentionally misquoting the passage, like you and I might do when we are reciting scripture and we start into the middle of the verse and we leave out something or we change the wording a little bit because it was familiar to something else.

Have you ever had that happen to you? The older you get, the more that happens, right? Where you're quoting scripture and it doesn't quite come out the same as when you read it earlier, you tried to memorize it.

That's not what the author is doing here. He's not simply unintentionally misquoting it. The author is quoting from the Septuagint. Here's a little bit of church history for you, a little bit of history.

This is not at all interesting, but it does help explain this, and so I don't expect you to feign interest in what I'm about to say, but if you listen, you'll learn a little bit of something. The author is quoting from the Septuagint.

The Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. It was commissioned by King Ptolemy Philadelphus in the 3rd century BC and finished sometime prior to 150 BC. So, we're talking about a period of time before Christ.

He commissioned, the King Philadelphus, commissioned the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament text and some other books into Greek sometime before 150, because that seems to be the earliest reference that we know of the Septuagint.

That translation was completed 150 years before Christ. The Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament, again, the Septuagint was the translation, the Bible translation of Jesus and the apostles.

So, because Greek was the common language and almost the universal language in the way that English is today, the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures was what was most often quoted by Jesus and the apostles, especially when they were quoting the scriptures to Greek-speaking audiences.

So, when we are reading in the New Testament a quotation from the Old Testament, what we are reading is the Greek-speaking authors of the New Testament quoting the Greek translation of the Old Testament that would have been familiar to their audience.

They're simply quoting the Bible of their day, the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures, which was the Bible of their day. Does that make sense? So, there is obviously going to be something of a translation issue here.

Now, listen, Jesus and the apostles quoted from the Greek Septuagint and they quoted it as the Word of God, because the Greek Septuagint was an accurate and a good translation. So, the writers of the New Testament, writing in the common language of the day, would not have quoted the Old Testament in a language that most people wouldn't have spoken and that only Jews would have spoken.

They would have quoted the scriptures in the language that the people to whom they were writing would have spoken, which was the Greek Septuagint. Just as today, when I quote scripture in my writings, I don't quote Hebrew or Greek text.

Instead, I quote an English translation of the Hebrew and the Greek text. That's what the authors of the New Testament did. So, that accounts for something of the wording difference between Psalm 40 and Hebrews chapter 10.

And when we notice variations between the Old Testament text as it is translated from Hebrew into English, and then we notice the difference of the New Testament quotation of the Old Testament text, which is a translation from the Hebrew into the Septuagint, and then quoted in the Septuagint, and then we take the Greek translation of that and translate it into English, we're going to see some textual variations.

We're going to see some translational differences. But again, we come back to the observation that it is quite a distinct difference between Psalm 40 and Hebrews chapter 10. So, how would we answer this?

What are we dealing with here? What's going on? In other words, why did the Septuagint translate it? And by the way, the statement here in Hebrews 10, a body you have prepared for me, that's an accurate translation or citation of the Greek Septuagint.

That's how the Septuagint would have rendered it. So, why the difference between Psalm 40 and Hebrews chapter 10? Let's go back to the meaning of Psalm 40. Let's deal with that statement. Psalm 40 says, my ears you have opened.

So, if we were to read that in Hebrews 10, sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but my ears you have opened. That word translated open is a Hebrew word that means to hollow out or to dig. It was used of digging into or digging through something, like you might hollow out a cistern or dig into or dig through a cistern.

So, it describes something that is dug out or hollowed through. It has even been translated occasionally as pierced. My ear you have pierced or my ear you have dug out. So, then what would David be describing there?

The phrase means one of two things. First, and I'm comfortable with saying this phrase means either one of these, and either one of these is heresy, and it might mean either one. I think it's the second.

But first, the word could mean that the phrase could simply mean that the Lord gave him ears to hear. In other words, you have dug out or cleaned out my ears so that I may hear and obey your word. The idea there being you have opened, Lord, you have given me ears to hear so that I may hear your word and obey it.

And, of course, that would be a biblical sentiment. When I was a kid, I can't even tell you how many times a grandparent or an uncle or aunt would say, boy, what is wrong with you? You need to have your ears cleaned out.

You're not listening to me. You ever hear that? And then I almost got to the point where I thought maybe smacking somebody up alongside the head would actually clean out their ears. I started looking for earwax around thinking maybe that did it.

It hit me in the head. That cleaned out my ears. Hitting me in the head often did clean out my ears. It gave me ears to hear because it alerted me to the fact that somebody was saying something. Well, that would be the idea here the same way.

Lord, you have dug out, you have digged out, you have hollowed out, you have hollowed through my ears so that you have given me ears to hear something. Now, that is a biblical idea because we are stone-hearted, deaf, and blind in our natural state.

And if the Lord does not give us eyes to see spiritual truth and ears to hear spiritual truth, then we can neither see it nor hear it. And we certainly cannot understand it apart from a divine work of grace and the work of the Spirit of God in us who helps us to understand spiritual things.

Those are all biblical concepts. So David would simply be saying, Lord, you have given me ears that are attentive to your word, which is why he says in Psalm 40, verse 7 and 8, then I said, behold, I come in the scroll of the book it has written me.

I delight to do your will. Oh my God, your law is within my heart. He'd be simply saying the Lord has given me these ears to hear. So now his word is in my heart and now I desire to obey it. That's a biblical idea.

Second, this is the second possible meaning of what David had in mind. Some think that what David is describing here is the Old Testament custom of a slave voluntarily relinquishing his freedom and going to his master and having his ear pierced through with an awl.

How many of you, when I said it was the word pierced, thought of that analogy from the Old Testament? A few of you did, right? Well, that may be indeed what David is describing here. That custom, a Hebrew custom, is mentioned in Deuteronomy 15.

It's also mentioned in Exodus 21, verse 5, which says this, if a slave plainly says, I love my master and my wife and my children, I will not go out as a free man, then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door of the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him permanently.

So the purpose of that custom in Hebrew was to permanently mark the body of that slave as belonging to that master. And that slave would always walk around with a permanent reminder, a pierced or hollowed out ear, that he belonged to somebody else and that he was to give himself entirely in loving and sacrificial and devoted obedience to his master in everything that the master gave him to do.

So a slave who willingly, voluntarily relinquished his freedom and gave it up and continued to, out of love and devotion, to serve his master, his ear was, in that sense, pierced or dug out or hollowed out so that that slave might do fully and always the will of his master.

It was a symbol of doing something to his body to prepare him for indentured service. Now you can see, of course, that these two ideas are similar and they're not all that different when you break it down like that, can you?

In one sense, having one's ears dug out or cleaned out so that they are able to do fully the service of their master, and one having their ear pierced through so that they might be marked and permanently set aside to do the service of their master, both of them would fit the context in Psalm 40 when David says, I delight to do your will, your law is within my heart.

In the book it is written of me, these are your commandments, this is what you have told me to do. So Lord, I give myself to you to be entirely yours to do that, because you have prepared this body or you have marked this body, you have pierced this ear so that I may hear and obey your truth.

Now the commentators are a little divided as to which one of those it is, but either way it would fit the context of Psalm 40 and of Hebrews chapter 10. So now the question is, and you could probably see where we're going with this already, why did the Greek translators of the Hebrew Old Testament, those who translated the Septuagint, why did they not render it, my ear you have pierced or hollowed out, and instead rendered it a body you have prepared for me?

Why did they translate it differently in that way? And the reason is this, because the custom of having your ear pierced or hollowed out, dug through as it were, marking you as a slave to your master was something that would have been understood to only a small portion of the population of that day, the Hebrews, it was a Hebrew custom, something that they would have understood.

But the wider audience, the Greek audience to whom the Septuagint would be available all over the Greek speaking world, that audience would not have understood that custom. So the translators of the Septuagint, they took that idea of having your ear pierced out and being marked as a slave, they took that idea and translated it this way, God has prepared for me a body that I can devote to him for his service, that fits the context.

So it's a bit of a different translation but the meaning is essentially the same. Well, the author of Hebrews looks at that passage and of course he sees the messianic implications of this, a body you have prepared for me.

Not that the son came into the world to offer an animal sacrifice but the son came into the world to give his body as a sacrifice. So he sees the messianic meaning behind that, he sees this as something, a translation, perfectly fit to put on the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ because nothing could more perfectly capture the sentiment of that devoted slave, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to give himself not only in obedience to all that the father called him to do but then also to give himself in obedience as a voluntary sacrifice on a cross.

And it is this loving and voluntary obedience that Paul mentions in Philippians chapter 2 when he says in those familiar words that Christ emptied himself taking the form of a bond servant, form of a slave, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Notice the language, it is the self-giving, voluntary, loving, obedient nature of the son, that is what he did. Leaving heaven and coming here was not simply on just a mission that he did to accomplish something for sinners and he did it reluctantly or with his teeth gritted or as an unwilling volunteer, it was not that at all.

He willingly gave himself and the mark of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was this loving, dedicated obedience to do all that the father gave him. And that, if you remember when we went through the Gospel of John, was one of the main themes as we worked our way through John's Gospel.

The self-giving, self-dedicating, loving service of the son to the father to do all that the father gave him and to do only what the father gave him to do. So Jesus describes it in John chapter 4 when he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

In John chapter 5, Jesus said he came only to do the father's will and to do all the father's will and none of his own. John chapter 5 verse 30, Jesus said, I can do nothing on my own initiative as I hear I judge and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me.