Did you ever stop to think, if you are a believer, that Jesus’ perfectly obedient life was lived for you? That when God views you through Jesus your representative, he sees you as perfectly pleasing to himself? That is the astounding message of Hebrews 10:4-14.
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Hebrews 10:10 is a gospel gem! The author has already told us that Jesus came to do God’s will in a human body — to offer God the living sacrifice of a sinless and obedient human life. Now he tells us that Jesus’ obedience was for our benefit. “By this will” — this life of perfect human obedience, this life lived fully in right relationship with God according to God’s own wishes and desires — “we have been sanctified [this ‘religious’ word means to be counted as holy, to be made presentable to a holy God], through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all.”
The word “will” (thelema) in these verses means “desire” or pleasure.” It is not the word (diatheke) for a “will and testament.” The “first” and “second” things mentioned here do not refer to an old and a new law, system or covenant, but to the two subjects being discussed: “first” = animal sacrifices; “second” = faithful human obedience. Jesus lived completely according to God’s desires, then offered his human body (in which he obeyed God) to God on the cross. And God accepted Jesus’ perfect obedience as the present he had always wanted first from humanity but had never before received — a human life lived wholly in right relationship with God, a faithful and obedient life from first to last.
Because Jesus represented us in all that he did — in his perfect doing and in his perfect dying — God relates to all who trust in Jesus based on the life-record of Jesus’ faithful and obedient life. In Jesus’ own historical life, God sees everything he ever wanted in human performance and character. And because Jesus represented all who trust in him, God counts us “holy” based on his perfectly-fulfilled “will” as lived out by Jesus our substitute and Savior.