Hebrews 10:2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

For then would they not have ceased to be offered?— Many copies read this without the interrogation, For then they would have ceased to be offered. The sense is the same; but the true reading seems to be with the interrogation. The reasoning of the apostle here is this: "If the yearly sacrifices could make men perfect, there could be no occasion for such continual repetition of them: for if menwere once entitled to perfection, the yearly repetition of that which gave them their title, would do nomore than what was done already; namely, give them a title to perfection,—just like baptism among Christians. A man baptized is initiated into the visible church of Christ; and were this rite to be repeated every day or every year, it would still be no more than aninitiatory rite. Just so the yearly atonement would have given men a title to a state of perfection, had it been designed for such a purpose, which indeed was impossible; but as it was instituted only to procure the good things of this world, which annually are given by God, (except as it prefigured and pointed at Christ, holiness, and heaven,) there was a necessity that those sacrifices should be annually repeated; whereas, could the law have given perfection, one oblation had been sufficient for that." The next verse is rendered very plainly thus: But in them [in those sacrifices] there is a yearly commemoration of sins. See Leviticus 16:21.