Hebrews 10:4

He makes his speech even stronger by pointing out the insignificance of the sacrifices offered and the severity of the disease, just as if someone skilled in the medical art, seeing that a leper is being offered the herb called mercurialis (λινόζωστιν), were to say: …

483. – Then when he says, For it is impossible that the blood of oxen and goats should take away sins, he proves the same thing by reason of the condition of the things offered. For the offering of oxen and goats, which took place …

It is impossible the blood of goats should take away sins - Either the guilt or the power of them.

For it is not possible,....

He raises and exalts the priesthood of Christ very high, that he might effectually recommend him and his gospel to them,

18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Here the apostle raises up and exalts the Lord Jesus Christ, as high as he had laid the Levitical priesthood low. He recommends Christ to them as the true high priest, the true atoning sacrifice, the antitype of all the rest: and this he illustrates, I.

For, &c.--reason why, necessarily, there is a continually recurring "remembrance of sins" in the legal sacrifices (Heb 10:3).

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins - The reference here is to the sacrifices which were made on the great day of the atonement, for on that day the blood of bulls and of goats alone was offered; see the notes on Heb 9:7. Paul here means to say, doubtless, that it was not possible that the blood of these animals should make a complete expiation so as to purify the conscience, and so as to save the sinner from deserved wrath. According to the divine arrangement, expiation was made by those sacrifices for offences of various kinds against the ritual law of Moses, and pardon for such offences was thus obtained. But the meaning here is, that there was no efficacy in the blood of a mere animal to wash away a “moral” offence. It could not repair the Law; it could not do anything to maintain the justice of God; it had no efficacy to make the heart pure. The mere shedding of the blood of an animal never could make the soul pure. This the apostle states as a truth which must be admitted at once as indisputable, and yet it is probable that many of the Jews had imbibed the opinion that there was such efficacy in blood shed according to the divine direction, as to remove all stains of guilt from the soul; see the notes, Heb 9:9-10.