July 23, 2006
THE PREPARED BODY
Hebrews 10:1-18

 

   "Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, 'Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, "Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God" (Hebrews 10:5-7). While it is obvious that these verses from Psalm 40 are applied to the Lord Jesus Christ in Hebrews, what might they have meant to David, who wrote them? How do they apply here to Christ? And what application should a believer draw today?
   In Psalm 40 David expressed his patient waiting on the Lord, conscious that He had heard David's cry for help. David had been delivered from a horrible calamity and was filled with praise to God! His confidence and trust in God had been strengthened greatly. Therefore he exhorted others to "make the Lord [their] trust" (40:4). David reckoned that God's wonderful works were beyond counting – innumerable! David reflected further that God really did not want even His prescribed offerings of the law. He saw a far deeper meaning. What God truly wanted was David's total dedication of heart. He even looked upon his own body, a body like God had prepared for Adam, but this body had been prepared for David. And God's purpose in David's life was that God's will would be accomplished through the dedication of this body and life to Himself.
   In the matter of Bathsheba David fell far short of his vision of total dedication. Yet it was by faith, not failure, that the elders (such as David) would obtain a good report. He was forgiven all his transgressions and still mightily used of God. Yet how far short he fell can be realized only as we consider the Lord Jesus Christ, that in Him God's will was accomplished not in part but in full! It was "By the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb. 10:10). The body of Christ, from incarnation through crucifixion, was the dedicated instrument whereby God's will was accomplished, not only to redeem the lost, but to sanctify the believer! In every dispensation God desires that His will be accomplished, for "this is the will of God for you, even your sanctification" (1 Th. 4:3). This also explains why Paul should beseech us that we "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God unto God which is our intelligent service..." (Rom. 12:1).

Ivan L. Burgener