The pas­sage in ques­tion is often used as a proof­text that the law was abol­ished in order to estab­lish the new covenant. If it was so, what we call “new covenant” is not the new covenant of Jere­miah, which is the law in the heart, not the absence of the law.

Let us con­sider the pas­sage in question.

Heb. 10:1 “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these real­i­ties, it can never, by the same sac­ri­fices which are con­tin­u­ally offered year after year, make per­fect those who draw near.”

Indeed, if those who offered sac­ri­fices were made per­fect, there would have been no need for another sacrifice.

It is worth con­sid­er­ing the mean­ing of the term “per­fect”. We read the fol­low­ing con­cern­ing Jesus from the very same author:

Heb 5:7 “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and sup­pli­ca­tions, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obe­di­ence through what he suf­fered; 9 and being made per­fect he became the source of eter­nal sal­va­tion to all who obey him.”

So accord­ing to the writer Jesus, though he had the posi­tion of a son, learned obe­di­ence, that is, he learned some­thing that he didn’t know. If he knew how to obey, there would have been no need to learn it.

Now, we need to clar­ify a few things here. Learn­ing obe­di­ence does not mean Jesus was a dis­obe­di­ent child before­hand. The con­trast is with Adam, who, though he was inno­cent, he should have learned obe­di­ence through the test God ordained — for if you did not know, it is God who ordains the tests, just look at Jesus’ when the Spirit draged him out into the wilder­ness to be tested — but Adam failed the test.

Jesus with­stood it, and through the tests — and the vic­to­ries — he learned obe­di­ence. Obe­di­ence is mak­ing the right choices.

Heb 4:15 “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sym­pa­thize with our weak­nesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet with­out sin.”

Is it not some­thing we all should also do? To resist temp­ta­tion and thereby grow in our walk with God?

Now we find some­thing else. Jesus was “being made per­fect” by learn­ing obe­di­ence. Thus, he gained some­thing he did not have — per­fec­tion. Oh, does it mean he was not per­fect? When Adam was tested, he was to prove that he was wor­thy to enjoy the bless­ings of the Gar­den of Eden and the com­pany of God. He failed the test, so he did not sat­isfy the cri­te­ria, he was not perfect.

Don’t we have sim­i­lar test? When we went for our dri­ving test, we had to prove that we were qual­i­fied to drive cars. It doesn’t mat­ter what we claim to be able to do, unless we are tested and proved, we don’t qual­ify. If we pass the test, per­fect, we can drive. Per­fect doesn’t refer to sin­less per­fec­tion, but rather to sat­is­fy­ing the requirements.

Jesus learned obe­di­ence through the things he suf­fered — and with­stood — and was made per­fect. He was “being made per­fect, and he became the source of eter­nal sal­va­tion to all who obey him”.

We notice that the con­di­tion is “obey”. It is about doing, not about head knowl­edge. Head knowl­edge surely helps one to choose right, but belief doesn’t replace deeds. Per­haps we should do a study to find out what we needed to do if we wanted to obey him. I sug­gest you do con­duct such a study. You will find that he taught about what it meant to truly obey the laws of God. 1John is in agree­ment with this:

1John 2:3 “And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his com­mand­ments. 4 He who says “I know him” but dis­obeys his com­mand­ments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but who­ever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is per­fected. By this we may be sure that we are in him: 6 he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

1John 5:2 “By this we know that we love the chil­dren of God, when we love God and obey his com­mand­ments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his com­mand­ments. And his com­mand­ments are not bur­den­some.”

Surely, there is noth­ing bur­den­some about not steal­ing or not murdering.

So I con­tend that Jesus called for obey­ing God. Those who obey are the ones that heard his voice and fol­low him.

Now let us con­tinue our dis­cus­sion with Hebrews 10. We recall that the sac­ri­fices could not make those who offered them per­fect. Of course, not, because the sin sac­ri­fice was the proof of fail­ure, not the proof of vic­tory. Sin sac­ri­fices were given as crutches to restore what was lost, not as tools of vic­tory. The one who lived right did not need to offer sac­ri­fices.
Cer­tainly, these sac­ri­fi­cial laws served as shad­ows of the real thing, for in the new covenant God gives his laws directly into the heart, and empow­ers his peo­ple to walk in his statutes. Then there is no need for sac­ri­fices, for the lives of his peo­ple are char­ac­terised by vic­tory, not failure.

Besides, the sac­ri­fi­cial sys­tem was not designed to deal with sin as a gen­eral con­di­tion, but with indi­vid­ual sin­ful acts. The per­son who sinned had to repent and bring a sac­ri­fice to the LORD. Sac­ri­fices were for par­tic­u­lar sins, not for sin as a gen­eral con­di­tion. Thus, while those offend­ers who repented and offered up sac­ri­fices gained for­give­ness and were restored, they received no super­nat­ural help from God to con­quer the next sin around the corner.

Of course, God did give them help. He gave the law that told peo­ple what was sin, but it was their duty to put his laws into their hearts, so that they obeyed them habit­u­ally. Those who attained to this level were in a sim­i­lar posi­tion that those who are in the new covenant of Jere­miah — they had the law of God in their heart, obe­di­ence was their nature.
Now we come to verse 5. Of course, God did not desire sac­ri­fices and offer­ings, he desired obe­di­ence. Sac­ri­fices were the proof of fail­ure when offered for sin. God desired obe­di­ence, not fail­ure. The vic­to­ri­ous needed to offer no sac­ri­fice.
The writer puts the words of Ps. 40 into Jesus’ mouth, so he wants us to study that par­tic­u­lar pas­sage, for we need to see it in con­text. The psalm is about David, and it is he who speaks. What is the rea­son the writer of Hebrews stops quot­ing Psalms 40 just before the solu­tion is pre­sented? I sug­gest his read­ers would have checked the con­text, so there was no need to quote it all.

I rec­om­mend we all read the psalm in whole, it is beau­ti­ful. Here is the rel­e­vant pas­sage, I will not quote all of it:

Ps. 40:7 “Sac­ri­fice and offer­ing you do not desire; but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offer­ing and sin offer­ing you have not required. 8 Then I said, “Look, I come; in the roll of the book it is writ­ten of me; 9 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.””

Wow! Because God has given him an open ear he heard what God desired. And the result of hav­ing the law in his heart is the desire to do his will. Obe­di­ence. Hear­ing the Mas­ter and obey­ing him leads to vic­tory. There is no need for sac­ri­fices and offerings.

“He abol­ishes the first [i.e. the fail­ure result­ing in sac­ri­fices and offer­ings] in order to estab­lish the sec­ond [i.e. obe­di­ence through giv­ing open ears and the law in the heart].”

The text says noth­ing about abol­ish­ing the law or the mosaic covenant. Indeed, the pas­sage was true of David, who lived under the mosaic covenant. He was the man after God’s own heart. How­ever, it deals with the power of the new covenant — the super­nat­ural help.

Of course, the new covenant of Jere­miah is only dif­fer­ent from that of Moses in the man­ner the law is given. In the mosaic covenant God gave the law through Moses and com­manded the peo­ple to put it into their heart and teach their house­hold how to obey the LORD. In the new covenant of Jere­miah the law is given directly into the heart, and thus, the learn­ing process is elim­i­nated. Receiv­ing the law of God is receiv­ing his spirit, which Paul calls the new nature that auto­mat­i­cally obeys God.