Hebrews 10:15-17

Hebrews 10:15-17. And with this teaching agrees the old prophetic word which makes inward holiness and absolute forgiveness the most characteristic marks of the new covenant whereof the Holy Ghost also bears as witness then follow passages that have been quoted before (Hebrews 8:12). The verbal differences in the two quotations are suggestive, though they do not change the general sense. For ‘with the house of Israel' (Hebrews 8:10) we have now ‘with them,' so that the promise is denationalized and wider. In the earlier passage the mind is first influenced, and then the heart; in the later, the heart is first changed and then the mind. Both are changed is the truth common to the two passages. The order alone differs. Even this is suggestive. Renewal and forgiveness are really contemporaneous. The faith that renews is also the faith that justifies. The dead letter is written on the heart, and becomes a living spirit; and contemporaneous with this great change, and the effect of the same faith, sin is not only forgiven, it is forgotten and remembered no more. Other sacrifices are remembrances of sins; this sacrifice is the complete obliteration of them all.