Hebrews 9:11-15

IIPerfect communion with God is rendered possible by the perfect mediatorship of Jesus Christ, on the ground of a real expiation

Hebrews 9:11-15

11But Christ being come [coming forward,5 παραγενόμενος] a high priest of [the] good things to come, by a [by means of the διὰ τῆς] greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building [world, or creation, κτίσεως]; 12Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he [om. he] entered in once [for all] into the holy place, having obtained [obtaining] eternal redemption for us [om. for us]. 13For if the blood of bulls and goats [goats and bulls],6 and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying [in respect to the purity] of the flesh, 14How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the [an] eternal,7 Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your [our]8 conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 15And for this cause he is the mediator of the [a] new testament [covenant] that by means of death [a death taking place] for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament [covenant], they which are [have been] called might [may] receive the promise of the eternal inheritance [or, those called to the eternal inheritance may receive the promise].

[Hebrews 9:11.—χριστὸς δὲ παραγενόμενος, but Christ coming forward, presenting himself, i. e., appearing upon the stage of history, Matthew 3:1, etc.—τῶν μελλόντων , of the future good things.—διὰ τῆς μείζ., by means of the greater, etc., with def. article.—οὐ ταύτης τῆς κτίσεως, not of this creation, thus not κοσμικόν, belonging to the world, Hebrews 9:1.

Hebrews 9:12.—οὐδε δι’ αἵματος, nor, or, and not by or through the blood: not “neither by the blood.”—εἰσῆλθεν, entered; the pron. he, of the Eng. ver., is not needed, χριστόςis the subject.—εὑράμενος, not having procured (as if εὑρημένος), but procuring; his “procuring” is represented as coincident with, and in fact conditioned upon his entering. The added for us, of the Eng. ver. (especially standing where it does), is unnecessary and enfeebling. The emphasis is on αἰωνίαν, eternal.

Hebrews 9:13.—τοὺς κεκοινωμένους, those who have been defiled.—πρὸς τὴν σαρκὸς καθαρότητα, in reference to the purity of the flesh.

Hebrews 9:14.—καθαριεῖ, shall cleanse, with reference to καθαρότητα, cleanness above.—εἰς τὸ λατρεύειν, into or unto our serving=in order that we may serve.

Hebrews 9:15.—διαθ. καινῆς, of a (not, the) new covenant—θανάτου γενομένου, a death talking place.—οἱ κεκλημένοι τῆς αἰων. κληρον. Moll constructs: “the called ones of the eternal inheritance,” as Thol., Ebr., and some older expositors. Alford objects that thus κληρονομία, which receives “the stress, as being presently taken up in the next verse, would hardly be introduced in the most insignificant place possible, as a mere adjunct to the description of the subject of the sentence.” But the stress seems not upon κληρονομίας, but rather on the eternal (as contradistinguishing the character of the New Covenant inheritance from that of the Old), and partly also upon the λάβωσιν, may receive, in order to characterize the New Covenant, as one under which, by the death of the great sacrificial victim, the called ones receive that inheritance which had before been only promised. And so in the verses following, it is not the κληρονομία, that is dwelt upon, but the connection between the death of the testator (the θανάτου γενομένου), and the obtaining of the promised inheritance. The real objection to the construction in question (adopted by Moll, Tholuck, Ebrard, Luther, the Peshito, etc.), is that, although not without examples, especially in Greek poetic diction, it has no warrant elsewhere in the usage of the author, and is rather too harsh to be assumed without necessity.—K.].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Hebrews 9:11.—But Christ coming forward, etc.—Παραγενόμενος is used with reference to a historical appearance or advent, 1Ma 4:46; Matthew 3:1; Luke 12:51. But had he had in mind the entrance of Christ upon His heavenly priesthood, he would have employed γενόμενος, Hebrews 1:4; Hebrews 6:20; Hebrews 7:26. Still the words are not to be referred to His incarnation, but to His actual appearance as matter of historical fact, in the character and function immediately designated. For the words ἀρχιερεὺς τῶν μελλόντων , are not to be separated by a comma from παραγέν, (Beng., Griesb.) and not to be resolved into εἰς τὸ εἶναι , but to be taken as predicate. But the τὰ good things are not styled future (μελλ. to come), as being future to the believers of the Old Test., but as belonging to the οἰκουμένη Hebrews 2:5, the αἰὼν μέλλων Hebrews 6:5, the μέλλουσα πόλις Hebrews 13:14.

By means of the greater and more perfect tabernacle, etc.—With Primas., Luth. and others we connect the much-vexed words διὰ τῆς μείζονος—κτίσεως immediately with the preceding, which we, however, construct as in apposition to Χριστός. Hofm. extends this connection clear to αἵματος, but the majority of interpreters make both dependent on εἰσῆλθεν, and commonly refer the “greater tabernacle” to the heavens, through which Christ passed into the inner sanctury, as God’s real dwelling-place, as the earthly high-priest passed through the outer tabernacle. Undoubtedly, διά may denote in the one case the local place and way, in the other the means whereby Christ entered into the Holiest of all. Nor does the repeated declaration of Scripture that the hands of God formed and stretched out the heavens, forbid our inferring that the heavens could be here meant, on the ground that the tabernacle is here designated as “not made with hands.” For this we might appeal to Hebrews 9:24, where heaven is contrasted with the Mosaic sanctuary, and this latter is called in the contrast χειροποίητα. Nor need we again, if we adopt this view, restrict ourselves to the mere material heaven of clouds, but might refer the words to the invisible worlds, the dwelling-place of angels and of the blessed, which, as a tabernacle not made with hands, are contrasted with the hand-wrought tabernacle of Moses. In favor of this too is the emphatic heightening of the import of the term χειροποιήτου by the appended οὐ ταύτης τῆς κτίσεως. For we must conceive these supramundane heavens as God’s creation and work, but not belonging to this perishable creation, with which we have immediately to do. And if we distinguish these supramundane, but still created heavens, in which are “many mansions,” John 14:2, to which thus still a locality is ascribed, from the uncreated dwelling-place of God Himself, as the heaven exalted above all relations of time and space (Stier, Del.), then we could not charge on the view under consideration the objection urged by Beza: “perabsurde diceretur per cælum ingressus esse in cælum.” But, after all, this interpretation furnishes no proper point of comparison between heaven and the outer tabernacle. For this tabernacle was not a mere passage-way to an interior locality; and we again see no object in so detailed and elaborate a description. This studious elaborateness is decidedly at war with Tholuck’s idea that the representation of the lower heavens is but as it were a mere foil to the conception of the heavenly holy of holies. Still less can we understand by the outer tabernacle, the world in general (Justiniani, Carpz.) in which case we should have to render “not of this mode of building,” i.e, not like the tabernacle of Moses; which false translation, with a different conception of the meaning, is given by Erasm., Luth., Beng., and others. With just as little reason finally can the words be applied (with reference to Hebrews 10:20; John 1:14) to the body of Christ, whether it be understood of His human nature (Chrys., Primas., Calv., Bez., Grot., Est., Beng. and others), or of His holy life in the flash (Ebr.), or of His glorified body (Hofm.), or of His mystical body the church militant on earth (Cajet., Calov, Braun, Ramb., etc.). We get under each explanation either an unnatural idea, or an unnatural parallel, even though we take the first διά not locally but instrumentally; or we subject the words to a sense which they will not bear. For σκηνή may indeed denote the body, but scarcely life in the body, or the sacrifice of the body, or the glorified body. To the sinlessness and holiness of Christ the phrase cannot refer; for the high-priest attained these not in the outer sanctuary, but only in the most holy place by the sprinkling of the blood of the heifer. To me the very contrast presented with the purely symbolical and typical nature of the old covenant, a nature illustrated in the character of the Mosaic tabernacle by the Holy Spirit Himself, seems utterly to exclude the carrying over of the distinction of a hither and inner tabernacle to the New Testament dispensation, and to this the figurative language here used has exclusive reference. I regard, therefore, σκηνή as a designation of the tabernacle in general, and prefer the perfectly simple explanation previously touched upon (at Hebrews 8:2), which is supported by the very arrangement of the words, and corroborated by the much more natural force thus given to οὐδέ. The manner in which Christ has become a high-priest is here not in the slightest degree in question: the author is simply setting forth the fact that, by His high-priesthood, not a symbolical, but a true and actual reconciliation with God has been effected. He is a high-priest, not of the earthly, but, as has been already shown by the author, of the heavenly tabernacle. This heavenly sanctuary which Hebrews 8:2 he called σκηνὴ , genuine tabernacle, of which Christ is λειτουργός, he here styles the better and more perfect tabernacle, which he characterizes as that not built by hands, i.e., founded indeed, but not belonging to this world, by means of which Christ has historically appeared and exists as high-priest of the good things to come, in the same way as the Jewish high-priest, by means of the Mosaic tabernacle, became the priest of symbolical and typical blessings. In accordance with this, or as such, has He also not (οὐδέ) by means of the blood of goats entered into the holy place, which corresponds to the holiest of all, or the dwelling-place of God. Εὑράμενος is the second Aorist (formed in imitation of the first Aorist (which Alexandrine peculiarity became, by means of the Sept., an ordinary Hellenistic usage), and coincides in time with that of the finite verb [i.e., not having procured, but procuring]. The feminine formation αἰωνία is found in the New Test only here, and 2 Thessalonians 2:16.

[There is no point, in my opinion, in which Moll has shown sounder judgment as an interpreter than in the clear and simple way in which he has here (as at Hebrews 8:2) brushed aside the numerous vagaries and conceits in which eminent expositors have indulged regarding the heavenly tabernacle. Christ’s holy life on earth, His sacrifice on the cross, His earthly human body, His heavenly glorified body, the lower local heavens, the heaven of the angels and glorified saints, have all been made to answer to the outer tabernacle, through which the Saviour past into the inner sanctuary. The lower local heavens, as being those through which Christ actually did pass, is the only one of these that does not at once strike one as purely arbitrary and capricious; and these heavens stand in no conceivable relation to the proper significance of the outer tabernacle. This, as Moll justly remarks, was no mere passage-way into the holiest of all, but stood with its own expressive import, and as a theatre of constant priestly service. The other meanings too are such as could only by the harshest straining of terms, be called a tabernacle, or as utterly fail of correspondence to the idea of the outer tabernacle of Moses. The language of the author at first view, indeed, seems to favor this distinction of the two tabernacles. Christ, he says, entered διὰ τῆς σκηνῆς, into the sanctuary. It is natural here to interpret διά locally, and to think, therefore, of the Levitical high-priests passing through the outer into the inner tabernacle, and thus to make διὰ τῆς σκηνῆς here analogous to the former. But against it there are several serious objections, as would be readily conjectured by one who considers the numerous and widely diverse and discordant opinions regarding the nature and significance of this outer tabernacle through which the heavenly high-priest passed. These objections are chiefly four: First, the outer tabernacle of Moses is not represented as a mere place for passing through, but as a place of constant priestly service; and although the high-priest must have past through it when he entered the holy of holies, yet that is a mere incident upon which no stress is laid, which the author does not even mention, and of which he does not appear to have thought. It is not supposable, therefore, that he would have selected as a prominent feature of Christ’s entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary, that which it had not even occurred to him to mention with reference to the earthly. Secondly, there is in the figurative tabernacle of the New Testament no outer sanctuary. There cannot be any. There is no place for it. The outer Sanctuary of the Mosaic tabernacle stood as the “emblem for the time then existing,” the Holy Ghost signifying, while that anterior tabernacle yet had place, that the way into the holiest of all had not been yet made manifest. There is here a most explicit and unmistakable declaration on the subject. The outer Mosaic tabernacle stood as the symbol of imperfection, of distance from God—of approach to Him only typically, but not really effected. With the rending of the veil of the temple at the death of Christ, that distinction between outer and inner tabernacle disappeared for ever. Unless, therefore, we are willing to reverse the author’s entire doctrine, and maintain that the sacrifice of Christ has not fulfilled what was before symbolized, producing a real approach to God, and converting the whole Christian body into a “royal priesthood,” we must concede that there is and can be in the New Testament arrangements nothing answering to the outer tabernacle of Moses. Thirdly, in perfect correspondence with this is the brief but emphatic and striking description which the author gives of this σκηνή, through which Christ passed into the Sanctuary on high. It is “the greater and more perfect tabernacle”—“not made with hands,” i.e., not “of this material creation.” This clearly stands in antithesis, not to a part of the tabernacle of Moses, but to the whole of it. That was typical; this is ἀληθινή, the genuine archetypal tabernacle. That was κοσμική, belonging to the world, material, made with hands: this is heavenly, spiritual, not made with hands, not of this creation. These epithets and descriptive phrases, which would have no significance as referring to the outer Mosaic tabernacle, are strikingly pertinent as referring to it as a whole, and as characterizing the archetypal, true, heavenly, greater, and more perfect tabernacle, in which the New Testament high-priest ministers in distinction from the worldly, typical, material tabernacle of the Levitical priesthood. Fourthly, with this view, and only with this, the author’s parallel becomes complete. The parallel has reference to two points, the tabernacle, in which the respective priests ministered, and the offerings which they brought. The Levitical priest ministered in the earthly, worldly, typical tabernacle, and brought into it the blood of bulls and goats; Christ ministers in the heavenly, spiritual, archetypal tabernacle, and His offering is His own blood. The διά may, in both cases, be taken instrumentally; or in the first locally, and the second instrumentally: the author having his mind on the fact, that in the tabernacle the priest did really pass through a considerable portion of it before reaching the adytum, and transferring the same imagery to the skies.—K].

Hebrews 9:13. The ashes of an heifer, etc.—Besides the expiatory offering, the author mentions the rite of purification, by which those contaminated by contact with dead bodies, i.e., persons and utensils that had become Levitically unclean, might, by means of spring water mingled with the ashes of a red, spotless heifer, burnt outside of the court, sprinkled upon them with a hyssop branch, become again Levitically clean (Numbers 19:0). It is better, with Erasm., Bez., etc., to connect τοὺς κεκοινωμένους with ῥαντίζουσα, which requires an object, than with ἁγίάζει (Vulg., Luth., Calv., Beng.), which may easily stand absolutely, and differs essentially from ἁγνίζει.

Hebrews 9:14. By means of an eternal Spirit.—The words διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου belong as well to ἄμωμον as to προσήνεγκεν, which, however, belongs not to the offering of the blood poured out upon the earth in the inner sanctuary (Socin., Schlicht., Grot., Limb., Bl., in part Riehm), but, as shown by the technical expressions, to the offering on the cross. Nor is the πνεῦμα αἰων. identical with the δύναμις ζωῆς , Hebrews 7:16 (Socin., Schlicht., Grot., Limb., Carpz., Riehm, Reuss), but its cause; nor does it apply either to Christ’s glorified condition after His exaltation (Döder., Storr), nor to the spirit of the law in contrast with its letter (Michael.), nor to the spirit of prophecy in the prophets (Planck). It is undoubtedly by design that the Holy Spirit Himself is not expressly named, and the absence of the article implies that the noun is to be taken generically (Lün.) as Romans 1:3. But it must be still referred, as to the matter of fact, to the Holy Spirit dwelling in Christ, and not to the divine nature of Christ (Bez., Calov, Bisp., etc.), or to the Spirit of God that made Christ a living man (Hofm.), or to His divine personality (Del.). But this view, which brings into clear relief the ethical features of Christ’s sacrifice of Himself, is by Bleek, De Wette, and others, raised into undue prominence, while others, again, with Este, refer the words too exclusively to the Third Person of the Trinity. The author, on the contrary, is laying stress, on the spiritual power of the offering of Christ, as an unblemished and spotless mediator, in its attribute of eternal. In this epithet is, of course, then implied a contrast. It implies, however, not a contrast with the fire which consumed the Levitical offerings (Chrys., Œc., Theophyl., etc.); nor with the perishing animal soul in the blood of the sacrificial victim (Hofm., Del.), inasmuch as it is not the offering itself that is secured by the agency of this Eternal Spirit, but the atoning efficacy of the blood, a fact which Riehm II. 527 Anmerk, appears to overlook. The words rather express a contrast with that which originates and perishes in time; and they bring the offering of Christ upon the cross into immediate dependence upon the ministry of a Spirit whose agency for this purpose at once reaches back into the eternity of the past, and carries its influence forward into the eternity of the future. Tholuck regards the words as expressing a contrast with the fleshly character of the law, taking with Fritzsche the διά to denote not so much condition as the sphere, in which the offering takes place; thus, “in a true and eternal manner” (similarly Socin. and Beng.). The ἔργα νεκρά are not sinful, and hence death-bringing actions, but the works of the law which, as they have in themselves no life, so produce no life, comp. Hebrews 6:1.

Hebrews 9:15. And for this reason he is mediator of a new covenant, etc.—Διὰ τοῦτο is to be referred, not to what follows, merely anticipating the ὅπως (Schlicht., Bl., Ebr., etc.), but in view of the close connection with the preceding, to the whole train of thought, Hebrews 9:9-14, not specially to αἷμα (Sykes, Chr. F. Schmid). The final clause, ὅπως, etc., gives not so much the goal to which, according to the divine counsel, the New Covenant was to lead, and with this the way and means by which the attainment of this goal should be accomplished (Lün.), as the purpose of God to bring by the way that has been described, those who have been called to the eternal inheritance into the fruition of the promise. We are certainly not to connect εἰς with λάβωσιν, but, as a clause denoting object and purpose, with θανάτου γενομένου. But to connect τῆς κληρον. with ἐπαγγ. (Erasm., Luth., Calv., Bl., De W., Lün., Hofm., Del.), though intrinsically possible, is less natural than with the immediately preceding κεκλημένοι (Pesh., Thol., Ebr., Riehm, etc.), inasmuch as the called here are not Christians as such (κλητοί) or exclusively, but also according to Hebrews 9:26 and Hebrews 11:39-40, embrace the believers of the Old Testament, and the word, therefore, seems to need a qualifying addition,. The λαβεῖν τὴν ἐπαγγ. occurs also, Hebrews 11:13; Acts 2:33, of the reception of the substance of the promise, as κληρονομεῖν τὴν ἐπαγγ. Hebrews 6:12; Hebrews 6:17; ἐπιτυχεῖν τῆς ἐπαγγ. Hebrews 6:15; κομίσασθαι τὴν ἐπαγγ. Hebrews 10:36; Hebrews 11:39. The importance to the following discussion of the idea of that inheritance (κληρονομία), which even in the Old Testament is promised, and by the counsel of God designed for all the members of the covenant people, but into whose possession the κεκλημένοι can enter only by means of a new διαθήκη, renders it natural even here to link with the διαθήκη the idea of a testament. Since, however, this signification develops itself only from the connection of the following verses, it is more appropriate, in this introductory sentence, to, use a word which, like διαθήκη, can admit, according to the exigency, of being specialized either into covenant or testament.—Löffler (on the Church Doctrine of Satisfaction), Bretschn. (Dogmatic II. § 155), and Reiche at Rom. (3:25) regard the idea as expressed that the reconciliation refers only to sins committed before the transition to Christianity. But Calvin says rightly: non quæ tempore Vet. Test. Commissæ, sed quæ Vet. Test vigore manebant irremissæ; and Tholuck remarks how it springs from the train of thought that only he who stands in the New Covenant, can have continually and forever the consolation of feeling the sense of guilt completely done away.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Christ has, indeed, historically, that is to say, in time and on earth, appeared as a High-priest, but on the one hand His priesthood is not merely the fulfilment of the Aaronic, but also of the Melchisedec type; and, on the other, the sanctuary, of which He is High-priest in both relations, is not the earthly sanctuary, reared by human hands after a divinely indicated pattern, and by its typical and symbolical character destined to pass away; but the sanctuary belonging to the heavenly world, imperishable and opening the way to the fulfilment of all the promises of God. The same character is, for this reason, also borne by all the good things of which Christ, as High-priest, is mediator.

2. In the ritual of the Old Testament there lies between the means and the result no internal and essential connection. That which unites the two, is merely a divine ordination. But on account of the covenant relation, the Israelites in believing obedience to God, yielded themselves to this ordination, and in carrying out its requirements received from it a blessing. Still, the whole bore merely the stamp of externality, alike in the means and in the result, and also in the union of atonement, cleansing and sanctification.

3. In the New Covenant, also, expiation, cleansing, sanctification, are still distinguished, but are at the same time internally and essentially united. The same blood of Christ, which objectively expiates, subjectively purifies the moral consciousness, so that the consequence of this redemption is a priestly service, in which the ransomed one no longer in individual rites and under the compulsion of the law, but with his whole person, by means of the new spirit, is sanctified, and henceforth continually sanctifying himself for the living God.

4. Precisely the same remark applies to the features of the sacrifice of Christ, which latter stands not in an outward relation and one merely approved and determined by God, but in an internal and essential relation to this result as the alone sufficient, and eternally efficacious means of accomplishing the divine purpose of redemption. For Christ has offered Himself, and that as a spotless and blameless victim in the sense of the High-priestly sacrifice, and all this has been effected through the instrumentality of an Eternal Spirit.

5. There is, indeed, a ransom and a redemption, in a more general sense, as simple deliverance; but taken in connection with high-priestly arrangements, we must here adhere to the more specific sense of “ransoming” or freeing, by the payment of a ransom-price. This ransom-price is the blood of Christ as of an entirely spotless lamb, 1 Peter 1:19; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14, and is here, as always, in Scripture, designated as a price divinely offered; so that the idea of the ransom price as paid to Satan (Origen, Basil, and others till St. Bernhard) is to be totally rejected. It can, indeed, be said that Christ has been made unto us of God redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:30. But this expression merely gives prominence to the divine agency alike in the sending of Christ into the world, and particularly in the work of redemption, and points at the same time to the acceptance on the part of God, of the ransom which has been paid. In that we have been sold under sin, Romans 7:14, we have become helpless victims of the wrath, or avenging justice of God. Against this we are, according to the Hebrew mode of expression, covered by the blood shed for us, which, as sacrificial blood, has an expiatory significance. The redemption can thus, on the one hand, be conceived as the payment of a כֹפֶּר, i.e., λύτρωσις; on the other as a כַּפָּרָה, i.e., ἱλασμός. It is invariably effected by means of a substitutionary satisfaction, and by a perfectly valid expiation.

6. The efficacious element in the blood lies not in its matter or substance, but the life which moves in it, and which, by means of a special act, not connected with the course of nature, has been yielded up to death, Leviticus 17:11. Since, then, the crucifixion of Christ falls not under the category of the slaughter of an innocent person, or of the murder, for the ends of justice, of a righteous man, but under that of the surrendering up of His own person at once freely and in accordance with the purpose of God, Titus 2:14; 1 Timothy 2:5, the significance, power and efficacy of this death must correspond entirely with the peculiar nature and dignity of the person of Jesus Christ. He Himself, however, expressly indicates, Matthew 20:28, His death as the substitutionary offering of a ransom-price. On account of the nature of His person, consequently, this vicariousness must be complete, the satisfaction all sufficient, the ransom actual and eternal. As against the false and distorted interpretations of Hofmann, see Delitzsch’s Second Appendix “on the firm Scriptural basis for the Church doctrine of vicarious satisfaction” (in his Commentary, p. 708 ff.).

7. The sacrifice of Christ is also not compared with the human sacrifices of the heathen, but is brought into direct relation with the high-priestly expiatory offering ordained by God, as being the accomplishment of its type, and the realization of its symbol. In this very fact lies the certainty that the relation of God to this offering is neither that of mere passive permission, nor that of Divine wrath quenched in the blood of human sacrifices, nor that of any caprice or unrighteousness on the part of God in His acceptance of this sacrifice, and holding the substitution as valid. This becomes perfectly clear, if we regard, on the one hand, the position of Christ alike in reference to God and to mankind, and, on the other, His relation to the Spirit of God.

8. It is not enough to bring into prominence the thoroughly moral character of the sacrifice of Christ; neither is it sufficient to lay stress on the religious purity and acceptableness in the sight of God of this act, with its moving grounds and impelling causes. In this case we should merely have a sacrifice accomplished such as, in respect of conscientiousness, love of truth, zealous faith, and fidelity of compassion, all true Christians are enabled by the influences of the Holy Spirit to accomplish in a death by martyrdom. We have to do with a movement and working of the Spirit in Christ, which has its ground and beginning not within the limits of time and of humanity, and thus with a sacrifice freely determined upon in eternity, and accomplished within the limits of time in perfect unity with the eternal Spirit, who works perpetually through Christ’s whole career of life and suffering—a sacrifice which, precisely for this reason, has a world-embracing and ever-during significance, and has become the means of the establishment of a new covenant.

9. On the basis, and under the authority of the Mosaic law and worship, there was indeed a calling to the eternal inheritance of the children of God; but the promised inheritance could not be received, because the law was able only to sharpen the consciousness of guilt, and with this the sense of deserved punishment and death, while the ritual could, in its turn, produce only, as a Levitical purification, a typical redemption, a merely symbolical approach to God. It was only through the truly expiatory death of the God-man, who expiated, suffered and died, not for Himself, but vicariously, and rendered satisfaction not merely to the righteousness, but to the punitive righteousness of God, that a change was wrought in the entire relation of humanity to God, and a real taking away of man’s guilty condition and relations became possible.

10. All this mirrors itself indeed in human feelings, experiences, and testimonies, and finds in them expression; but it has its ground in no human conditions and conceptions, but in the arrangements and promises of God. The necessary consequence of the death of Jesus Christ is, therefore, a new covenant; so that this death is not merely the antitype of the High-priestly offering of atonement, but also, of the Paschal Lamb, 2 Corinthians 5:7, and, as is immediately intimated in what follows by the author of our Epistle, is the antitype of the covenant sacrifice, Exodus 24:0., whereby Israel, sprinkled by the blood of atonement, was dedicated as the people of God, and as a royal priesthood (LeHebrews Hebrews 9:8).

11. The death of Christ is, in its significance in sacred history, just as little to be conceived apart from the glorification of the Royal Priest enthroned at the right hand of God, which followed upon His resurrection and ascension, as from the perfected life of the Incarnate One, which was secured by His obedience and sufferings. In the passage before us, however, these intermediate and conditioning acts are merely indicated, and not brought into prominence. The emphasis lies rather on the fact that the accomplished entrance of Christ into the heavenly sanctuary accomplished once and for ever, in that it wrought eternal redemption, had its ground and efficiency in His own blood, and for this reason infinitely transcends its one-sided and shadowy type in the expiatory rites of the Old Covenant.

12. It is only by a reference to the High-priestly offering of atonement, that an emphasis is laid upon the blood (see particularly Hebrews 13:11). Elsewhere an offering of the body is also mentioned (Hebrews 10:10), but, of course, comprehending this, in that Christ is said to have offered up Himself (Hebrews 7:26; Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 9:25; Ephesians 5:2); since we have to do with the full and undivided person of the Redeemer, alike in His earthly and His glorified state. At all events, our author is not chargeable with that sensuous mode of conception and expression employed by the Socinians, which characterizes the school of Bengel and Höttinger, and has been followed by Stier, and, in part, by Hofmann—a mode of expression which, while unduly pressing the analogy of the earthly high-priest’s proceedings in the act of expiation, is fraught with misconceptions, false assumptions, and dangerous consequences. It assumes that the blood of sprinkling (Hebrews 10:22; Hebrews 12:24) is even in heaven a separate thing, existing beside the glorified but bloodless body of the exalted Redeemer. Quenstädt has strikingly expressed the correct view, while Calov, on the other hand, has indulged in many sensuous representations, and in an undue admixture of merely sensuous and poetic with dogmatic elements.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The perfection of the mediatorship of Jesus Christ consists in the perfection: 1, of the sanctuary in which He exercises His office; 2, of the office which He exercises; 3, of the sacrifice which He has offered; 4, of the covenant which He established; 5, of the blessings which He procures.—The power of the blood of Jesus Christ: a. whence it springs; b. what it accomplishes; c. how it is appropriated.—The death of Jesus Christ as a High-priestly sacrifice—The nature, the causes, and the effects of the sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ.—We are redeemed: 1, from what? 2, by what? 3, for what?—The purging of our conscience: a. in its necessity; b. in its means; c. in its consequences.—The consequences of Christ’s offering of Himself are: 1, His entrance into the heavenly sanctuary; 2, an eternal redemption; 3, the New Covenant.—What defiles and what purifies us.—Redeemed by Christ, we yet cannot do whatever we would; we are members of the New Covenant.—The New Covenant in: 1, its object; 2, its foundation; 3, its means.—The death of Christ is the most perfect offering: 1, as an offering of Himself; 2, as a sin-offering; 3, as a cleansing offering; 4, as a covenant offering; 5, as a peace-offering.—The Redemption through Jesus Christ is: 1, an eternal one; 2, a complete one.—We have in our redemption to look: 1, at the Mediator, who has procured it; 2, at the price which it has cost; 3, at the gain which it has secured; 4, at the covenant which it has established; 5, at the end which it proposes.

Starke:—Saviours [healers] and redeemers [ransomers] from bodily needs are distinguishable; but Jesus is the true Saviour, who saves us even from our sins; He alone has procured an eternal redemption.—Grand redemption of the human race! The Son of God Himself has redeemed us by His own blood.—The blood of Christ is a free, public boundary fixed against sin.—How heavy, great and dreadful must our sins be in the sight of God! They are assuredly dead works, which bring not only temporal, but also eternal death.—A believer may indulge in defiance and glorying against the Devil. Out of Christ I am to and in myself a sinner; In Christ I am a sinner no longer.—The atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is efficacious not only for the future, but for the past; for the believers of the Old as well as of the New Testament.—Many children of the world imagine that they are able to live well and rightly before others, when behold, their works are purely dead works, which spring from a heart spiritually dead, and lead to eternal death. Matthew 23:27; Revelation 3:1.

Rieger:—Purification and propitiation comprehend God’s entire work of rescuing from sin. 1 John 2:2; Colossians 1:14; Colossians 1:22.—With the plague of an evil conscience, or with the halting movements of an unpurified conscience, there is no service acceptable to the living God.

Menken:—The way into the holiest of all was no path of pleasure pursued by self-will and self-glorification; but a path of the deepest self-abasement, which, through the Eternal Spirit, offered itself unto the uttermost before God.—The New Testament is nothing but the history of the fulfilment of the Divine promise, and thus the history of the appearance of the Promised One, and along with this, the history of an accomplished, the announcement of an existing, reconciliation of the world with God.

Heubner:—The infinite value of the reconciliation wrought by Christ: 1. In the way and manner in which it has been made; a. as an immediate propitiation of God in the sanctuary of God; b. by Christ’s offering of Himself. 2. In the effects of this reconciliation, since a. it purifies the conscience; b. gives power for a holy life; c. has established God’s covenant with men, so that they now have full entrance into life.

Textor:—(Epistolary Sermons, 1853). The high-priestly office of Jesus Christ: 1. how this is already prefigured in the Old Testament; 2. how Jesus Christ has exercised it; 3. the benefit which it brings us.

Fricke:—The blood of Jesus Christ purifies 1. the conscience; 2. from dead works; 3. to serve the living God.

L. Harms:—(At Hermannsburg): The heavenly high-priesthood of our Lord Jesus on the new earth: 1. His Church; 2. the altar; 3. the congregation (1863).

Footnotes:

[6][Hebrews 9:13—τράγων καὶ ταύρων, goats and balls instead of bulls and goats, is the reading of A. B. D. Sin., etc.—K.].

Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 9:14.—The reading of the Vulg. πνεύματος ἁγίου, found in D*., and in many minusc, is only an interpretation. In the Cod. Sin. it appears only as a correction.

Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 9:14.—Instead of the Rec. ὑμῶν, we are to read after A. D*. K., 44, 47, 67, ἡμῶν. The Rec. has, however, the sanction of the Cod. Sin.