Hebrews 10:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Having said that sacrifices are no longer offered, he confirmed this both from Scripture and apart from Scripture. He also presented the prophetic saying: "Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin, which are offered according to the law, Thou didst not desire, nor hadst pleasure in them." Now he says that God has already forgiven sins.

He again assures us of this by the testimony of Scripture: "The Holy Spirit also bears witness to us," he says, "for after He had said: This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put My laws into their hearts, and write them on their minds, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer any offering for them."

Thus God forgave sins when He gave the new covenant. He gave this covenant because of the sacrifice of Christ. If He forgave sins through this one sacrifice, then there is no longer need for another.

He has perfectly freed from sins those who are sanctified and anointed by His Blood through baptism into death. Since all who are baptized are united to the likeness of His death, it is clear that they are sanctified by His Blood.

For by one offering of Himself in sacrifice He made us perfect through baptism and sanctified us to the end of the age, that is, forever.

There there are both many priests and many sacrifices, yet no benefit at all. Here one and the same Person, both Priest and Sacrifice, accomplished the release from sins. He has no need of another ministry, but is present with the Father Who begot Him, awaiting the end of the present life.

For then all His enemies will worship Him as God and Master. His enemies are first the devil and the host of demons. Then come those among Jews and Gentiles who did not receive the ray of faith. After them is the assembly of heretics, which dared to utter blasphemies against Him.

He made perfect those who were afterward cleansed. And He perfected them by freeing them from their former sins, as has often already been said.

What precise circumstance does the Apostle here set forth as testimony to the exaltation of Christ’s high priesthood above that of the Old Covenant? It is that the priests of the Old Covenant continue to perform services standing on their feet, while Christ sat down at the right hand of His Father. This means that they continue to remain in a ministerial position, while Christ has begun to reign in heaven (compare Heb 1:3 above), having offered once for all one all-powerful sacrifice for human sins.

Understand Jesus Christ as "the High Priest of our confession," the great High Priest not according to the temporal order of Aaron, but according to the eternal order of Melchizedek. He offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins on the altar of the Cross. By this "one offering" He "perfected forever" all "those who are being sanctified" (Heb 10:14).

Thus the sacrifice of Christ destroyed the necessity of offering any legal sacrifices. In the same way, the lofty and fully effective ministry of Christ removes and makes unnecessary the ministry of the Jewish priests.

The latter perform their service day after day, offering the same sacrifices while standing, without the right to sit down (Deut 10:8; 18:7). Christ, however, offered only one sacrifice, and then sat down and remains at the right hand of God Himself. He does not interrupt this blessed rest by descending again for service.

Consequently, He has fully accomplished the sanctification of mankind and has made the further activity of the Old Testament priests entirely unnecessary.