John Calvin Commentary Hebrews 10:15

"And the Holy Spirit also beareth witness to us; for after he hath said," — Hebrews 10:15 (ASV)

The Holy Ghost also is a witness, etc. This testimony from Jeremiah is not cited the second time without reason or unnecessarily. He quoted it before for a different purpose, specifically to show that it was necessary for the Old Testament to be abrogated, because another, a new one, had been promised, and for this purpose, to remedy the weakness of the old. But he now has another purpose in mind, for he takes his stand on these words alone: Their iniquities will I remember no more. From this he concludes that there is no more need of a sacrifice since sins are blotted out.

This inference may indeed seem not to be well-founded. For although formerly there were innumerable promises concerning the remission of sins under the Law and in the prophets, yet the Church did not cease to offer sacrifices; therefore, remission of sins does not exclude sacrifices. But if you consider each detail more closely, you will find that the fathers also had the same promises concerning the remission of sins under the Law as we have today. Relying on them, they called on God and rejoiced in the pardon they obtained. And yet the Prophet, as though he had brought forward something new and unheard of before, promises that there would be no remembrance of sins before God under the new covenant.

From this we may conclude that sins are now remitted in a way different from how they were formerly. But this difference is not in the promise, nor in faith, but in the very price by which remission is procured. God then does not now remember sins because an expiation has been made once for all; otherwise, what is said by the Prophet would have been to no purpose: that the benefit of the New Testament was to be this—that God would no more remember sins.

Now, since we have come to the close of the discussion concerning the priesthood of Christ, readers must be briefly reminded that the sacrifices of the Law are no more effectually proven here to have been abolished than the sacrifice of the mass practiced by the Papists is proven to be a vain fiction.

They maintain that their mass is a sacrifice for expiating the sins of the living and of the dead; but the Apostle denies that there is now any place for a sacrifice, ever since the time in which the prophecy of Jeremiah has been fulfilled.

They try to make an evasion by saying that it is not a new sacrifice, or different from that of Christ, but the same. On the contrary, the Apostle contends that the same sacrifice ought not to be repeated and declares that Christ’s sacrifice is only one and that it was offered for all. And, further, he often claims for Christ alone the honor of being a priest, so that no one was fit to offer him but himself alone.

The Papists have another evasion and call their sacrifice bloodless; but the Apostle affirms it as a truth without exception that death is necessary in order to make a sacrifice.

The Papists attempt to evade again by saying that the mass is the application of the one sacrifice which Christ has made. But the Apostle teaches us on the contrary that the sacrifices of the Law were abolished by Christ’s death for this reason: because in them a remembrance of sins was made. It therefore appears evident that this kind of application which they have devised has ceased.

In short, let the Papists twist themselves into any forms they please, they can never escape from the plain arguments of the Apostle, by which it appears clear that their mass abounds in impieties. For:

1. According to the Apostle’s testimony, Christ alone was fit to offer himself; in the mass he is offered by other hands.
2. The Apostle asserts that Christ’s sacrifice was not only one, but was also once offered, so that it is impious to repeat it. But in the mass, however they may talk idly about the sacrifice, it is nevertheless evidently made every day, and they themselves confess it.
3. The Apostle acknowledges no sacrifice without blood and death; they then chatter in vain that the sacrifice they offer is bloodless.
4. The Apostle, in speaking of obtaining pardon for sins, instructs us to flee to that one sacrifice which Christ offered on the cross, and makes this distinction between us and the fathers: that the rite of continually sacrificing was abolished by the coming of Christ. But the Papists, in order to make the death of Christ efficacious, require daily applications by means of a sacrifice, so that they, calling themselves Christians, differ in nothing from the Jews except in the external symbol.