Wherefore As if he had said, Because the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins, therefore Christ offered himself as a sacrifice to do it. When he cometh into the world That is, when the Messiah is described by David as making his entrance into the world; he saith He is represented by that inspired writer as saying, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not Accept for a sufficient expiation and full satisfaction for sin; but thou hast provided something of another nature for this purpose; thou hast given me a body Miraculously formed, and qualified to be an expiatory sacrifice for sin. The words, a body hast thou prepared me, are the translation of the LXX.; but in the Hebrew it is, Mine ears hast thou opened, or bored; an expression which signifies, I have devoted myself to thy perpetual service, and thou hast accepted of me as thy servant, and signified so much by the boring of mine ears. So that, though the words of the translation of the LXX., here used by the apostle, are not the same with those signified by the original Hebrew, the sense is the same; for the ears suppose a body to which they belong, and the preparing of a body implies the preparing of the ears, and the obligation of the person for whom a body was prepared, to serve him who prepared it; which the boring of the ear signified. How far the rest of the psalm is applicable to Christ, see the notes there. Then, &c. That is, when the way appointed for the expiation of sin was not perfectly available for that purpose; I said, Lo, I come To make expiation; in the volume of the book That is, according to what is foretold of me in Scripture, even in this very psalm; to do thy will, O God To suffer whatsoever thy justice shall require of me in order to the making of a complete atonement. Above when he said That is, when the psalmist pronounced those words in his name; Sacrifice, &c., thou wouldest not Or thou hast not chosen; then said he In that very instant he subjoined; Lo, I come to do thy will
By offering myself a sacrifice for sin. He taketh away the first, &c. That is, by this very act he taketh away the legal, that he may establish the evangelical, dispensation. By which will Namely, that he should become a sacrifice; we Believers under the gospel; are sanctified Are both delivered from the guilt of sin, and dedicated to God in heart and life; yea, are conformed to his image, and made truly holy; through the offering of the body of Christ Which, while it expiates our sins, procures for us the sanctifying Spirit of God, and lays us under an indispensable obligation to die to those sins, the guilt of which required such an expiation, and to live to him who made it. “Here we learn it was by the express will of God that the sacrifice of Christ was appointed a propitiation for the sins of mankind; and it must ever be remembered, that the will of God is the true foundation on which any atonement of sin can be established. Wherefore, since the death of Christ is by God made the propitiation for men's sins, it rests on the foundation of his will, secure from all the objections raised against it, either by erring Christians or by obstinate infidels, on account of our not being able to explain the reasons which determined God to save sinners in that method, rather than in any other.”