For all its divine design, the Torah’s sacrificial system nevertheless has an inherent flaw: the people. Men “encompassed with weakness” (Heb. 5:2) could make no one permanently perfect through such a limited priestly service. Even with daily and endless sacrifices, it ultimately proved “impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). Each sacrifice merely served as a constant reminder to both God and His people of a stain that could never be fully cleansed. It is against this reality that the author of Hebrews reveals the decisive means through which God could finally forget the one thing we need Him to never remember.

The role of the Levitical priest is to stand daily in the Tabernacle, spilling the blood of innumerable innocents upon the altar, offering the same sacrifices over and over again on behalf of the people. Yet these sacrifices are so minimal in effect that not only must they be repeated many times every single day, but they can only make temporary atonement. They are completely without the ability to take away sins forever.

This stands in stark contrast to the awesome service and sacrifice of Yeshua. “This One,” the author says, offered only one sacrifice for sin—one which was so effective that its power would last “to the end of time” (Heb. 10:12). Unlike the priests of Levi, the Master Yeshua had no need to continue standing before an altar, repeatedly slaughtering guiltless animals. Instead, having made a single, perfect sacrifice of Himself—for though He was tempted in all things, yet He remained without sin (Heb. 4:15)—He was able to sit down at the right hand of God, His work complete (Heb. 10:12). It is a deeply profound juxtaposition: one priest standing, one priest sitting; one earthly priest whose work never ends, one heavenly priest whose work is finished to everlasting.

It is because Yeshua has been exalted in this way, able to sit down from His completed service, that by just one single offering, “He has perfected to the end those who are set apart”—us (Heb. 10:14). We too have no more need to keep returning to the holy Tent, hauling our hopeless oblations, because our last and final offering has already been made. Through the eternal power of His one-time sacrifice, Yeshua has utterly surpassed and transcended the priesthood of Levi. This is how God was able to fix the flaw—by providing and accepting a sacrifice that could actually take away sins and make us holy forever. It is the promise of God’s New Covenant with Israel in which He would not only give His Torah on their hearts and write it upon their minds, but “their sins and their misdeeds I will remember no more” (Heb. 10:17).

The author of Hebrews’ contrast between Yeshua’s priesthood and that of Levi is intended to emphasize and underscore the finality of the Messiah’s ministry. The problem with the Levitical priesthood is that the daily, yearly, and continual earthly sacrifices necessitate a remembrance of sin. It is a system that continually parades the consequences of sin before a holy God, and therefore never allows Him to forget them. But through Yeshua, where we find true forgiveness as it has been provided for us through the New Covenant, then “there is no longer any offering for sin” (Heb. 10:18). In Yeshua, every other offering and sacrifice of the Levitical priestly service is rendered totally redundant and obsolete.

Unlike the sacrifices of Levi, Yeshua’s sin offering of Himself ended the ongoing display of our sins before God. Since no more sacrifice is required and continual offerings for sin are finished, then without them, there is simply nothing left for God to remember. This is the one thing that the God of the Universe keeps forgetting because of Yeshua’s perfect and magnificent sacrifice: He is able to forget all our sins.

The sacrifices of Levi would never be enough, but Ye­shua’s sacrifice was once and for all. The New Covenant which our sinless High Priest mediates bypasses Levi’s flaw so that we may be cleansed forever. Because of Ye­shua the exalted Son, when it comes to our sins, God can now simply forgive and forget.

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