Hebrews 10:18Meaning & 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.

If remission of sins was granted on account of one sacrifice, what need is there afterward for a second sacrifice? Therefore it is shown that we, having received forgiveness of sins, were brought to perfection by the one offering of Christ, and no longer need another sacrifice. Thus the Jewish sacrifices are unnecessary. Since they are performed out of obstinacy, they have long been acknowledged as useless even by those who now perform them.

But where He promised us such forgiveness, that is, the remission of our sins, there is no longer any necessity to perform the offerings prescribed by the Law for our sins.

For it is superfluous when forgiveness has been granted. God promised forgiveness, for He says, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." This has been accomplished by the new covenant, because in all-holy Baptism we receive forgiveness of sins.

But in the life to come, when immortality is granted to us, we shall live without any sin, since sin cannot trouble those who have been made immortal. O that we too may obtain this life! We shall obtain it if, in the present life, we earnestly love the labors of virtue and undertake struggles for its sake.

There is no sacrifice after the remission of sin. Why should there be one, when sin has been remitted? Thus, after the former sins of believers have been remitted through the one sacrifice of Christ, no sacrifice is any longer performed for them.

On the basis of these words, the sectarians reject every kind of offering made by Christians in the hope of receiving mercy and forgiveness of sins from God. This includes prosphora, incense, and candles brought to the church. They consider all this, as well as the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice itself, unnecessary and out of place. They argue that forgiveness of sins has already been obtained by the suffering on Golgotha, which supposedly abolished all other means of reconciliation with God's justice.

What conclusion does the Apostle draw from Jeremiah’s prophecy about the coming of the New Covenant, with the forgetting of human sins and iniquity? That where there is forgiveness of sins, no offering for them is needed. In other words, with the shedding of Christ’s Blood of the New Covenant, the Old Covenant, with its shadowy priesthood and powerless sacrifices, had to cease. Note. With the nineteenth verse of the chapter under examination, the moral part of Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews begins. From this verse to the end of the chapter, the Apostle exhorts them to steadfastness in faith.

Even in the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit, foretelling the New Covenant, testified that the people of this covenant would have their sins completely forgiven. Therefore, the Apostle concludes, the Old Covenant itself foretold the abolition of sacrifices, accomplished through Christ.