Hebrews 10:3

But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) There is a remembrance.—Better, a remembrance of sins is made year by year. In each of the three prayers of the high priest (see Hebrews 5:3) for himself and his house, for the priesthood, for the people, he made special acknowledgment of sin. “I have sinned, I and my house and the sons of Aaron: Thy people have done perversely.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:1-10 The apostle having shown that the tabernacle, and ordinances of the covenant of Sinai, were only emblems and types of the gospel, concludes that the sacrifices the high priests offered continually, could not make the worshippers perfect, with respect to pardon, and the purifying of their consciences. But when God manifested in the flesh, became the sacrifice, and his death upon the accursed tree the ransom, then the Sufferer being of infinite worth, his free-will sufferings were of infinite value. The atoning sacrifice must be one capable of consenting, and must of his own will place himself in the sinner's stead: Christ did so. The fountain of all that Christ has done for his people, is the sovereign will and grace of God. The righteousness brought in, and the sacrifice once offered by Christ, are of eternal power, and his salvation shall never be done away. They are of power to make all the comers thereunto perfect; they derive from the atoning blood, strength and motives for obedience, and inward comfort.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year - The reference here is to the sacrifices made on the great day of atonement. This occurred once in a year. Of course as often as a sacrifice was offered, it was an acknowledgment of guilt on the part of those for whom it was made. As these sacrifices continued to be offered every year, they who made the offering were reminded of their guilt and their desert of punishment. All the efficacy which could be pretended to belong those sacrifices, was that they made expiation for the past year. Their efficacy did not extend into the future, nor did it embrace any but those who were engaged in offering them. These sacrifices, therefore, could not make the atonement which man needed. They could not make the conscience easy; they could not be regarded as a sufficient expiation for the time to come, so that the sinner at any time could plead an offering which was already made as a ground of pardon, and they could not meet the wants of all people in all lands and at all times. These things are to be found only in that great sacrifice made by the Redeemer on the cross.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. But—so far from those sacrifices ceasing to be offered (Heb 10:2).

in, &c.—in the fact of their being offered, and in the course of their being offered on the day of atonement. Contrast Heb 10:17.

a remembrance—a recalling to mind by the high priest's confession, on the day of atonement, of the sins both of each past year and of all former years, proving that the expiatory sacrifices of former years were not felt by men's consciences to have fully atoned for former sins; in fact, the expiation and remission were only legal and typical (Heb 10:4, 11). The Gospel remission, on the contrary, is so complete, that sins are "remembered no more" (Heb 10:17) by God. It is unbelief to "forget" this once-for-all purgation, and to fear on account of "former sins" (2Pe 1:9). The believer, once for all bathed, needs only to "wash" his hands and "feet" of soils, according as he daily contracts them, in Christ's blood (Joh 13:10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

If the legal sacrifices could have perfected their offerers, there would have been no remembrance of sins; but there is a remembrance of sins yearly, therefore they are weak and cannot perfect. These shadowy-sacrifices yearly reiterated, still left sins in their guilt and killing power, loading and grinding the conscience by accusation and condemnation for them, as well as setting them in the light of God’s countenance. For in the expiation day Aaron was to remember and to confess over the head of the scape-goat, laying his hands on it, all the church’s sins of the past year and life, notwithstanding former expiatory sacrifices offered for them, Leviticus 16:22. For as soon as that was done, their expiating virtue vanished, and so they renewed sacrifices without any spiritual profit by them, the guilt of past and present sins remaining still: whereas Christians now renewing sin, do renew their faith and repentance, but not their sacrifice for it; the virtue of which, in a full and final absolution, applied to them by the Spirit, makes them to have, upon their final accounts, no conscience of sin for ever.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But in those sacrifices,.... The Arabic version reads, "but in it"; that is, in the law; but the Syriac version reads, and supplies, as we do, , "in those sacrifices", which were offered every year on the day of atonement:

there is a remembrance of sins made again every year; of all the sins that were committed the year past, and even of those that were expiated typically by the daily sacrifice, and others that had been offered; which proves the imperfection and insufficiency of such sacrifices: there was a remembrance of sins by God, before whom the goats were presented, their blood was sprinkled, and the people cleansed, Leviticus 16:7 and there was a remembrance of them by the people, who, on that day, afflicted their souls for them, Leviticus 16:29 and there was a remembrance of them by the high priest, who confessed them over, and put them upon the head of the goat, Leviticus 16:21 by which it was owned, that these sins were committed; that they deserved death, the curse of the law; that the expiation of them was undertook by another, typified by the goat; that this was not yet done, and therefore there was no remission, but a typical one, by these sacrifices; but that sins remained, and required a more perfect sacrifice, which was yet to be offered up. Legal sacrifices were so far from inducing an oblivion of sins, that they themselves brought them to remembrance, and were so many acknowledgments of them. Though Philo the Jew thinks the contrary, and gives this as a reason why the heart and brain were not offered in sacrifice, because

"it would be foolish, that the sacrifices should cause, not a forgetfulness of sins, but a remembrance of them (q).''

(q) De Victimis, p. 841.

Geneva Study Bible

But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Hebrews 10:3. Contrast to τὸ μηδεμίαν ἔχειν ἔτι συνείδησιν ἁμαρτιῶν τοὺς λατρεύοντας. In such wise, however, that the offerers should have no more consciousness of guilt, the matter does not stand; on the contrary, there lies in the yearly repetition of the sacrifices the yearly reminder that sins are still remaining, and have to be expiated.[97] Comp. Philo, de Victim. p. 841 A (with Mangey, II. p. 244): Εὔηθες γὰρ τὰς θυσίας μὴ λήθην ἁμαρτημάτων, ἀλλʼ ὑπόμνησιν αὐτῶν κατασκευάζειν.

De plantat. Noë, p. 229 B (I. p. 345): αἱ … θυσίαι … ὑπομιμνήσκουσαι τὰς ἑκάστων ἀγνοίας τε καὶ διαμαρτίας.

Vit. Mos. 3. p. 669 E (II. p. 151): Καὶ γὰρ ὁπότε γίνεσθαι δοκοῦσιν (sc. the θυσίαι, and ΕὐΧΑΊ of the impious), Οὐ ΛΎΣΙΝ ἉΜΑΡΤΗΜΆΤΩΝ ἈΛΛʼ ὙΠΌΜΝΗΣΙΝ ἘΡΓΆΖΟΝΤΑΙ.

ἘΝ ΑὐΤΑῖς] sc. ταῖς θυσίαις.

ἀνάμνησις] not: commemoratio (Vulgate, Calvin, Clarius, al.) or commemoratio publica (Bengel and others), so that we must think of the confession of sin (tract. Jom. iv. 2, iii. 8, vi. 2) which the high priest made on the great day of atonement with regard to himself and the whole people (Schlichting, Grotius, Braun, al.); but: reminding, recalling to memory. Comp. 1 Corinthians 11:24-25; Luke 22:19.

[97] To join on the words of ver. 3 to those of ver. 1, and then to look upon ver. 2 as a parenthesis (Kurtz, Hofmann), is inadmissible, even—apart from the ἀλλά, of frequent use after a question—because ἀνάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν, ver. 3, points back to the kindred συνείδησιν ἁμαρτιῶν, ver. 2.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. there is a remembrance again made of sins] This view of sacrifices—that they are “a calling to mind of sins yearly”—is very remarkable. It seems to be derived from Numbers 5:15, where “the offering of jealousy” is called “an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.” Philo also speaks of sacrifices as providing “not an oblivion of sins, but a reminding of them.” De plant. Noe, § 25. De Vit. Mos. iii. § 10 (Opp. i. 345, ii. 246). But if the sacrifices thus called sins to remembrance, they also daily symbolised the means of their removal, so that when offered obediently with repentance and faith they became valid symbols.

Bengel's Gnomen

Hebrews 10:3. Ἐν αὐταῖς, in those) sacrifices.—ἀνάμνησις, a remembrance) public; comp. Hebrews 10:17.—ἁμαρτιῶν, of sins) viz. those of the last year, and of all years. The day of expiation was not on that day on which Christ was crucified, but on the tenth day of Tisri, of which see Ord. Temp., p. 22. The forgetting [the “remembering no more”] of sins is opposed to this admonitory remembrance: Hebrews 10:17.—κατʼ ἐνιαυτὸν, yearly) An Epanalepsis;[57] comp. Hebrews 10:1. He is speaking chiefly of the solemn yearly sacrifices.

[57] See Append. The same word in beginning of the preceding and in the end of the following member: or antecedent repeated after a parenthesis.—ED.

Hebrews 10:3

Vincent's Word Studies

A remembrance of sins (ἀνάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν)

Each successive sacrifice was a fresh reminder of sins to be atoned for; so far were the sacrifices from satisfying the conscience of the worshipper. Ἀνάμνησις, lit. a calling to mind. Comp. Hebrews 10:17, and see lxx, Numbers 5:15.