Book of the Covenant (30:1-31:40) 479death of the one who makes it-i.e., the testator. Jesus is therefore the testator
of the new covenant. At his death the elect receive their inheritance, which is
redemption from transgressions under the first covenant. The blood performs
the same function of ratification in the new covenant as it did in the old (9: 18-
21; cf. Exod 24:6-8). The author echoes a common rabbinic theme when he
says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins, or no
atonement with God (9:22; cf. Lev 17: 11).
In the abridged quotation from Jeremiah in Heb 10:16-17 the accent is on
the concluding words of the new covenant promise-i.e., that God will no
longer remember the peoples' sins. Earlier in chap. 10 the author maintained
that yearly sacrifices on the Day of Atonement-as well as daily sin offerings-
were ineffectual because they had to be repeated. Jewish teachers would find
such an argument unconvincing; indeed it is flatly contradicted in Jub 5: 17-- Nevertheless, for the writer of Hebrews Jesus makes the single offering of
his body, which for all time perfects the sanctified elect (10:10, 14). Once the
forgiveness of sins is granted, there is no longer any sin offering that can be
made (10:18, 26).
The "once for all" view of Jesus' sacrifice is matched in Hebrews with a
"once for all" view of repentance, enlightenment (baptism), and sanctification
of the believer. If one deliberately sins after coming to a knowledge of the
truth, that person profanes the blood of the new covenant and has only God's
vengeance to look forward to (10:26-31). This exaggerated view of Christian
sanctification has the effect of recasting the new covenant in terms of the old,
and it also qualifies the "blessings only" promise made to the Church. Al-
though curses are not explicitly placed on individuals who lapse under the new
covenant, they are implied (6:1-8; 10:26-31; cf. Gen 17:13-14). The idea that
deliberate sin makes a sin offering inefficacious is found in Num 15:30-31
(Mishnah Yoma 8:9 applies the same principle to the Day of Atonement rit-
ual). But in a closing benediction the author of Hebrews prays that the Lord
Jesus, "by the blood of the eternal covenant," will equip the elect to do God's
will (13:20-21).
B. Patristic Literature to A.D. 325
The Church of the second and third centuries carried on a polemic against
two major opponents, one external to the Church, the other internal. The ex-
ternal opponent was the Jews, from whom an all-Gentile Church had now
been completely cut off. The Fathers saw the Jews as a rejected people, one
that the Church had supplanted in God's economy of salvation. In arguing
against the Jews, they contrasted the new and old covenants, or the new and
old "laws," if topics such as circumcision happened to be at issue (Tertullian,
adv. Jud. 3). By the end of the second century, "New Testament" (="New
Covenant") was the name given to the Gospels and other apostolic writings
that the Church took to be Scripture (Irenaeus, haer. iv 15.2). The Hebrew
Scriptures were called the "Old Testament" (Melito of Sardis frag. 4; Irenaeus