Hebrews 10:14

[glasses101]

I have some confusion regarding “has forever perfected” meaning in this scripture. If we are “being (present tense) sanctified (made holy)” as the scripture then says, how can we already be perfected (past tense)? The perfected here does not seam it imply a future tense as in ones pilgrimage in this life or in purgatory.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

If we are perfect, then why do we sin?

 

[Della]

glasses101:

I have some confusion regarding “has forever perfected” meaning in this scripture. If we are “being (present tense) sanctified (made holy)” as the scripture then says, how can we already be perfected (past tense)? The perfected here does not seam it imply a future tense as in ones pilgrimage in this life or in purgatory.

It might help to read the preceding verses along with it:

[12] But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
[13] then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet.
[14] For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

It isn’t saying we are sanctified for all time, it is saying Christ’s one offering of his one sacrifice has perfected “for all time those who are sanctified.” In other words, Christ’s one sacrifice is perpetual not something that needs to be offered again and again.

And I’ll stave off any ideas that Catholics offer many sacrifices by offering the one time sacrifice of Christ at our every Mass. We do not re-offer sacrifices again and again. We re-present the one sacrifice of Christ which is a perpetual sacrifice (as these verses say) for all time. If Christ’s one sacrifice were not perpetual, no one in our day would be able to claim it for his salvation, but only those who were actually present at the Crucifixion, which certainly isn’t what the Apostles taught.