Old Order Replaced by the New

February 17th, 2026
by Lance Waldie

Hebrews 10:5-10 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me; 6 in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of Me) to do Your will, O God.’ ” 8 After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), 9 then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

In light of the fact that it is “impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4), Jesus came into the world to sacrifice Himself to make forgiveness of sins possible. God gave the Law to reveal Israel’s sin and blood sacrifices to remind them of such (v. 3). But since the blood of animals did not actually provide forgiveness, God provided such through the “prepared” body of His Son (v. 5), the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins.

When God came into the world in Christ, He fulfilled Psalm 40:6—a Messianic Psalm quoted by the Hebrews author. Christ announced that God “prepared” (Gr. katartizō) a body for Him, or “made ready” such a body. God the Father summoned His Son and furnished the body needed to clothe Him so that He might die and provide the perfect sacrifice. God thus provided a sacrifice to satisfy His own wrath for sin in order to give His creation the forgiveness they need. Taking no pleasure in animal sacrifices, God actually provided the worship He required (v. 6). The eternal Son of God thus came in fulfillment of the Psalm 40:6-8 prophecy (v. 7).

The author of Hebrews loved to use the OT to solidify his point with his Jewish audience, but he most often used the Septuagint (LXX) to do so—the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT. In this case, the Hebrew of Psalm 40:6 and the LXX are a bit different. The LXX quoted in 10:5 says, “My ears you have opened,” not “a body you have prepared for me” found in the Hebrew text. The LXX translators thus regarded “ears you have opened” as synecdoche (a part for the whole)—“ears” representing the entire body. For what our ears hear, our body responds to.

Now when Jesus performed God’s will in sacrificing Himself for the forgiveness of sins, “He takes away” the first order (animal sacrifices) of the old covenant in order to establish the second—His own sacrifice. The Greek for “takes away” (anaireō) in v. 9 can mean “kill; put to death.” God thus kills the first order—that of killing animals, to set in motion the new order—life in His Son. The Jewish old covenant is therefore incapable of granting salvation. Worthless sacrifices cannot exist alongside the one perfect sacrifice in Jesus Christ. One cannot tolerate the other. Once God killed the first order, He “established” (Gr. histēmi) the second, literally authorizing the second. He put it in place and authorized the new system through Jesus Christ who is far superior to that which He replaced. The new is therefore superior to the old.

In v. 10, “By this,” that is, through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, “we have been sanctified” — a perfect passive verb signifying that Christ Himself made all who trust in Him holy at one particular point in time with ongoing, eternal results. How? “…through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” No daily or annual animal sacrifices, and no more pagan ideas of mundane prayers and man-made works. Just Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. Trust in Him alone!

Food For Thought
Jesus said in regard to the new covenant trumping the old: “No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved” (Matt. 9:16-17, NLT).