Hebrews Chapter Ten, The Holy Spirit's Witness

 

Hebrews 10:15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, [16] “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” [17] then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

 

God the Holy Spirit is the ultimate Author of Scripture. It says here that He is a witness to us. Jesus has much to say of God the Holy Spirit. We are told by our Lord that He is the Helper (Greek, Parakletos) that will come in His stead when He departs.

It is said that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth, for He will take from what is Christ’s and declare it to us. He will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment in regard to Satan’s condemnation as god of this world. He will glorify the risen Christ, leading people to Christ, not seeking His own glory, but the glory of the Son, just as Jesus while on earth did not seek His own glory, but the glory of the Father, John 16:7-15.

 

Those who do not acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s ministry and personhood as a member of the Godhead are not genuine followers of Jesus Christ, because they have rejected what Jesus taught about God the Holy Spirit. Conversely, those who teach and glorify God the Holy Spirit inordinately over our Savior—such as the Pentecostal movement—trespass what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit: He did not come in Jesus’ stead to glorify Himself, but to lead a guilty world to the Savior. We see the earthly ministry of the Holy Spirit clearly reflected Jesus our Lord’s own ministry while on earth, before His ascension. Each of the members of the Trinity seeks the others’ glory. While many professing Christians err, making Jesus a created being less than the Father and making the Holy Spirit an energy source or force like Star Wars, the Bible is clear that the three persons that comprise the Trinity are all equally God. The Devil understands this and parodies it in the end times, creating his own trinity as it were, with the Dragon (parodying the Father), the Beast (parodying the Son), and the False Prophet (parodying the Holy Spirit) acting in concert, Revelation 13:1, 4, 11, 12.

 

It is also said of the Holy Spirit that not only will He lead us into all truth, but that He would reveal things to come, John 16:13. This He did, when He vouchsafed to John the Revelation of Jesus Christ, declaring how the end of the created universe would culminate, and the creation of the new heavens and new earth, when sin is purged and only those who have chosen Christ as their Savior remain in it. Doubling back a trifle, we are shown that the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. How? Through Scripture, of course. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” 2 Timothy 3:16. Scripture is God-breathed, inspired by the Holy Spirit as He moved men to pen its pages, 2 Peter 1:21.

 

We find in Hebrews 10:16, 17 a citation from the book of the prophet Jeremiah. It is from Jeremiah 31:33, 34. The context of this passage begins in Jeremiah 31:31, 32, when God states, “Behold, the days are coming says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.”

 

Examining the verses we note a few items. First, the Holy Spirit tells us that it is (in Jeremiah’s time) future tense. “I will make a new covenant.” But a new covenant as opposed to what? What was the former covenant God made with the house of Israel and Judah to which He refers? “The covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.” This future, new covenant is starkly contrasted to the (tacitly implied) old covenant, which Israel formerly broke. This passage was formerly cited in greater detail in Hebrews 8:8-12, culminating in Hebrews 8:13, stating that the old covenant was rendered obsolete and was fading away. The old covenant, ratified on Sinai between God and Israel, was the Law, symbolized by the giving of the priesthood to act as God’s proxy between parties.

 

The new covenant, ratified in the blood of our Savior, involves an internal conversion rather than external formality, which seems to be the fate of religious observance, Malachi 1:13. This internal transformation involves God’s actions toward the Jews. He will put His laws into their hearts and write them on their minds. When this occurs, He will remember their sins no more. The transformation and forgiveness we receive in Christ is complete. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus; our sins are blotted out and we have peace with God. The Jews, attempting to affect salvation through legalism, will relinquish their efforts at last when they behold the One whom they pierced. They will grieve, and then rejoice, and their nation will be saved and Christ will reign over them, with none to make them afraid, Micah 4:4.

 

What has been pardoned for Jesus’ sake will not—indeed cannot—be held any longer against the born-again believer. And that is the situation here; national repentance and faith toward Christ will see Israel born again in a day, Isaiah 66:8, Ezekiel 37:14, Zechariah 12:10, 13:1. Remember what the apostle Paul wrote about the Jewish nation: “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the gentiles has come in,” Romans 11:25. The key word in this marvelous verse is “until.” Blindness in part, or partial blindness has settled upon Israel for the rejection of their Messiah, Luke 19:42, Matthew 27:25. But this is not forever. What God has promised, He will fulfill. Israel once more became an independent state in 1948. Though still in unbelief, and spiritually looking a little like the raised dead after their dry bones came together in Ezekiel’s vision, the culmination of God’s plan will not be frustrated. Paul assured his Roman readership, and us, that the Jews are not forsaken or cast off forever. Partial blindness will endure only until the fullness of the Gentiles concludes. This will apparently coincide or closely precede the time of Jacob’s trouble and the Christ’s bodily return from Heaven to deliver His people from the army of Antichrist. But Paul assures us, as the writer of Hebrews does for his own audience, “And so all Israel shall be saved,” Romans 11:26, KJV.