Hebrews 9:9-12 sits inside this longer paragraph.
1Now indeed even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and an earthly sanctuary. 2For a tabernacle was prepared. In the first part were the lamp stand, the table, and the show bread; which is called the Holy Place. 3After the second veil was the tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, 4having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; 5and above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, of which things we can’t speak now in detail. 6Now these things having been thus prepared, the priests go in continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the services, 7but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself, and for the errors of the people. 8The Holy Spirit is indicating this, that the way into the Holy Place wasn’t yet revealed while the first tabernacle was still standing. 9This is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshiper perfect, 10being only (with meats and drinks and various washings) fleshly ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation.
11But Christ having come as a high priest of the coming good things, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, 12nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 15For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, that those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 16For where a last will and testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him who made it. 17For a will is in force where there has been death, for it is never in force while he who made it lives. 18Therefore even the first covenant has not been dedicated without blood. 19For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv9–12 9. Which was a figure, etc. The word παραθολὴ,…
9. Which was a figure, etc. The word παραθολὴ, used here, signifies, as I think, the same thing with ἀντίτυπος, antitype; for he means that that tabernacle was a second pattern which corresponded with the first. For the portrait of a man ought to be so like the man himself, that when seen, it ought immediately to remind us of him whom it represents. He says further, that it was a figure, or likeness, for the time then present, that is, as long as the external observance was in force; and he says this in order to confine its use and duration to the time of the Law; for it means the same with what he afterwards adds, that all the ceremonies were imposed until the time of reformation; nor is it any objection that he uses the present tense in saying, gifts are offered; for as he had to do with the Jews, he speaks by way of concession, as though he were one of those who sacrificed. Gifts and sacrifices differ, as the first is a general term, and the other is particular.
That could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience; that is, they did not reach the soul so as to confer true holiness. I do not reject the words, make perfect, and yet I prefer the term sanctify, as being more suitable to the context. But that readers may better understand the meaning of the Apostle, let the contrast between the flesh and the conscience be noticed; he denies that worshippers could be spiritually and inwardly cleansed by the sacrifices of the Law. It is added as a reason, that all these rites were of the flesh or carnal. What then does he allow them to be? It is commonly supposed, that they were useful only as means of training to men, conducive to virtue and decorum. But they who thus think do not sufficiently consider the promises which are added. This gloss, therefore, ought to be wholly repudiated. Absurdly and ignorantly too do they interpret the ordinances of the flesh, as being such as cleansed or sanctified only the body; for the Apostle understands by these words that they were earthly symbols, which did not reach the soul; for though they were true testimonies of perfect holiness, yet they by no means contained it in themselves, nor could they convey it to men; for the faithful were by such helps led, as it were, by the hand to Christ, that they might obtain from him what was wanting in the symbols.
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Were any one to ask why the Apostle speaks with so little respect and even with contempt of Sacraments divinely instituted, and extenuates their efficacy? This he does, because he separates them from Christ; and we know that when viewed in themselves they are but beggarly elements, as Paul calls them. (Galatians 4:9.)
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv9–12 For that time that that figure had to last.
For that time that that figure had to last.
An objection: If the way were not opened into heaven by those sacrifices (that is to say, If the worshippers were not purged by them) why then were those ceremonies used? to wit, that men might be called back to that spiritual example, that is to say, to Christ, who should correct all those things at his coming.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv9–12 9 Which was a figure for the time then…
9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
Ver. 9. Which was a figure] Gr. παραβολη, a parable, that is, such a form of service as intimated some greater matter than to the sense appeared; and called upon the people to look through the type to the truth of things, through the history to the mystery.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Which was a figure for the time then present:…
Which was a figure for the time then present: the tabernacle in all its parts, and the whole economy of it, was παραβολη, which signifieth the translation of a word or thing from its own natural signification to signify another, which thing so signified by it is commonly more excellent than itself, as the substance exceeds the shadow; equivalent it is to those terms of types, examples, figures of things to come: such are the tabernacle and its services, representations of things spiritual and Divine, and very imperfect shadows of them, serving only for that infant state of the church: and when its nonage was to expire by the coming of the truths themselves, then were they to expire too. The only time when the tabernacle administration was present, and no longer.
In which were offered both gifts and sacrifices; in which tabernacle were performed services to the great God, whose tent it was, suitable to his person, and agreeable to his will, even gifts and sacrifices, as before described, Heb 5:1; 8:3.
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That could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; they were all impotent as to the restoring of a sinner to God’s favour by themselves; they could not reconcile him to God, preserve communion with him, nor bring them to happiness in him, Heb 10:3,4; no perfect justifying, sanctifying could be had by any of them, though never so often repeated. They might do all to the letter which God required, absolving the worshipper as to the external part, but not at all according to the conscience; or they could not take the guilt of sin from the conscience as to themselves, but it would cry guilty still; neither could they remove the power of it, for it was under bondage to it still; neither could they take away the fears and terrors of it, but left it shaking under them and unquiet still, being abused by them as a veil to keep them from Christ the true Priest and sacrifice, when as types and shadows they should have led these worshippers to him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv9, 11 As if the apostle had said, "The first tabernacle…
As if the apostle had said, "The first tabernacle was but a figure, or typical representation of good things to come, serving only for the present nonage of the church: for the gifts and sacrifices then offered could not, of themselves, perfectly justify, sanctify, or save any man, nor could they pacify the conscience of the sinner."
Where note, That conscience cannot be satisfied until God’s wrath be pacified. Now, the ceremonial rites could not pacify God’s wrath, because they could not satisfy God’s justice: nothing but the blood of Christ could do that, which those sacrifices were only typical representations and prefigurations of.
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Observe farther, The apostle’s reasons why those legal rites could not make them perfect; namely, because the nature of them was such, that they reached only to the outward man, consisting only, for the most part, in meats, drinks, and divers washings, that concerned the flesh and body of man, which did not, of themselves, commend any man to God and were imposed upon them as a yoke, until the times of reformation; that is, the time of the Messiah, the times of the New Testament dispensaton.
Note here, The great imperfection of the Jewish dispensation, it was weak and imperfect, and consequently not to be continued.
Note farther, That nothing can give peace to conscience but what gives satisfaction to God’s justice. Whoever seeks it in any other way, than by virtue of Christ’s atonement, will never attain it in this world, or in that which is to come: No offerings could make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Which was a figure for the time then present,....…
Which was a figure for the time then present,.... The tabernacle in general was a figure of Christ's human nature, Heb 8:2 and the most holy part of it was a figure of heaven itself, Heb 9:24 the whole service of it was typical and shadowy; but it was but a temporary figure; it was for that present time only; the things of it were suited to that dispensation, and are now abolished, and ought not to be revived, the ordinances of the Gospel being greatly preferable to them; and while it did continue, it was only a parable, as the word here used signifies; it was like a dark saying; it had much obscurity and darkness in it; or as the Vulgate Latin version renders it, it was a "figure of the present time"; that is, of the Gospel dispensation; it was a shadow of good things to come under that; it prefigured what is now accomplished; or rather it was a "figure unto, or until the present time"; till Christ came, when all figures, types, and shadows fled away, and were of no more real use and service:
in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices; that is, in which tabernacle, or at which then present time, or , "according to which figure or parable", as the Alexandrian copy and Vulgate Latin version read, gifts and sacrifices were offered by the priests; see Heb 5:1,
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that could not make him that did the service perfect; neither the priest that offered them, nor the people whom he represented, and for whom he did the service; they could not make real and perfect expiation for sin, nor justify from it, nor cleanse and sanctify; the spiritual worshippers had their sins expiated by the sacrifice of Christ; and their persons were justified by his righteousness, and they were cleansed by his blood: the particular instance in which, legal sacrifices did not make perfect is, "pertaining to the conscience"; there is in every man a conscience, and when sin is charged home upon it, that is filled with a sense of divine wrath; nor can it be pacified with anything short of what will answer the law and justice of God, and which is only done by the blood and righteousness of Christ.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Which - Tabernacle, with all its furniture and services.…
Which - Tabernacle, with all its furniture and services. Is a figure - Or type, of good things to come Which cannot perfect the worshipper - Neither the priest nor him who brought the offering. As to his conscience - So that he should be no longer conscious of the guilt or power of sin. Observe, the temple was as yet standing.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Verse 9. Which] Tabernacle and its services, was a…
Verse 9. Which] Tabernacle and its services, was a figure, παραβολη, a dark enigmatical representation, for the time then present - for that age and dispensation, and for all those who lived under it.
In which, καθον, during which, time or dispensation were offered both gifts and sacrifices - eucharistic offerings and victims for sin, that could not make him that did the service, whether the priest who made the offering, or the person who brought it in the behalf of his soul, perfect as pertaining to the conscience - could not take away guilt from the mind, nor purify the conscience from dead works. The whole was a figure, or dark representation, of a spiritual and more glorious system: and although a sinner, who made these offerings and sacrifices according to the law, might be considered as having done his duty, and thus he would be exempted from many ecclesiastical and legal disabilities and punishments; yet his conscience would ever tell him that the guilt of sin was still remaining, and that it was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take it away. Thus even he that did the service best continued to be imperfect - had a guilty conscience, and an unholy heart.
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The words καθον, in which, referred in the above paraphrase to τον καιρον, the time, are read καθ' ην by ABD, and several others, one copy of the Slavonic, the Vulgate, and some of the fathers, and thus refer to την σκηνην, the tabernacle; and this is the reading which our translators appear to have followed. Griesbach places it in his margin, as a very probable reading; but I prefer the other.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v11 Heb 9:11-12. But Christ being come — As if…
Heb 9:11-12. But Christ being come — As if he had said, Though the types and legal ceremonies could not make the worshippers perfect, yet Christ, the antitype and truth, can. Here he comes to interpret and show the end of the typical services he had spoke of; a high-priest of good things to come — Described Heb 9:15; that is, a dispenser of those benefits and advantages which were prefigured by the Mosaic institutions, but could only be obtained for us, and bestowed upon us, by the Messiah. By a greater and more perfect tabernacle — That is, not by the service of the Jewish tabernacle, (Heb 9:23,) but by a service performed in a greater and more perfect tabernacle above; not made with hands, that is, not of this building — Namely, the building of this worldly sanctuary, or not making any part of this lower creation. Neither by the blood of goats and calves, &c., did he procure a right to enter and minister in that tabernacle, but by his own blood — By the merit of his death; he entered in once into the holy place above — That is, once for all: not once, or one day every year, as the Jewish high-priest into the holy place of the emblematical tabernacle: having obtained — By his one perfect sacrifice; eternal redemption and salvation for us — Of which all the remissions, and all the benefits procured by the ministration of the Aaronical priesthood, were but very imperfect figures. Beza, Pierce, and many others, by the greater and more perfect tabernacle, understand our Lord’s human nature. In support of which notion Beza says, that his human nature may as properly be called a tabernacle as his flesh is called a veil, Heb 10:24. “But, not to dispute about the propriety of the figure, it appears an absurdity to say that Christ entered into the holy place through his own human nature, as through a tabernacle. He entered into heaven clothed with his human nature, and not through it, as through a place: for, on that supposition, he did not carry his human nature with him into heaven.” — Macknight.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Which was a figure for the time then present…
Which was a figure for the time then present - That is, as long as the tabernacle stood. The word rendered “figure” - παραβολὴ parabolē - is not the same as type - τύπος tupos - (Rom 5:14; Act 7:13, Act 7:44; Joh 20:25; 1Co 10:6, 1Co 10:11; Phi 3:17, et al.) - but is the word commonly rendered “parable;” Mat 13:3, Mat 13:10, Mat 13:13, Mat 13:18, Mat 13:24, Mat 13:31, Mat 13:33-36, Mat 13:53; Mat 15:15, “et soepe,” and means properly “a placing side by side;” then a “comparison, or similitude.” Here it is used in the sense of “image, or symbol” - something to “represent” other things. The idea is, that the arrangements and services of the tabernacle were a representation of important realities, and of things which were more fully to be revealed at a future period. There can be no doubt that Paul meant to say that this service in general was symbolical or typical, though this will not authorize us to attempt to spiritualize every minute arrangement of it. Some of the things in which it was typical are specified by the apostle himself, and wisdom and safety in explaining the arrangements of the tabernacle and its services consist in adhering very closely to the explanations furnished by the inspired writers. An interpreter is on an open sea, to be driven he knows not whither, when he takes leave of these safe pilots.
Both gifts - Thank-offerings.
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And sacrifices - Bloody offerings. The idea is, that all kinds of offerings to God were made there.
That could not make him that did the service perfect - That could not take away sin, and remove the stains of guilt on the soul; note, Heb 7:11; compare Heb 8:7; Heb 7:27; Heb 10:1, Heb 10:11.
As pertaining to the conscience - They related mainly to outward and ceremonial rites, and even when offerings were made for sin the conscience was not relieved. They could not expiate guilt; they could not make the soul pure; they could not of themselves impart peace to the soul by reconciling it to God. They could not fully accomplish what the conscience needed to have done in order to give it peace. Nothing will do this but the blood of the Redeemer.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 12 Which is a parable of the time then present;…
Which is a parable of the time then present; or, unto the present time, as in the Greek. By the present time, according to the common exposition, is not meant the time of the new law, as some would have it, but the time of the former law; so that the sense is, which parable or type was a representation of things as they were to be performed, and to last during the time of the law, which was before present. --- According to which. Some understand, according to which time; others, according to which parable, type, or typical worship of the former law, gifts and sacrifices are (i.e. were, and are) still offered by those who adhere to the Jewish law and ceremonies, which cannot of themselves make such worshippers perfect in conscience; i.e. can never give true interior sanctification, being only in meats, and drinks, and baptisms, &c. These words must not be referred to gifts and sacrifices, but to the worshipper; (literally, server) and the sense is, that to the priests, who worshipped and served God in the sanctuary and in offering sacrifices, was not prescribed an interior purity and sanctity, as in the new law, but only that legal sanctity which consisted in abstaining from such meats or drinks as were called unclean, or made them unclean. See Leviticus x. 9. where the priests are forbidden to drink wine when they were to enter into the tabernacle of the testimony. --- In divers washings, &c. These precepts and ceremonies were only to last till the time of their correction, by the coming of Christ under the new and better law and testament. (Witham) --- Of correction; viz. when Christ should correct and settle all things. (Challoner)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v11 Perfect communion with God is rendered possible by the…
II
Perfect communion with God is rendered possible by the perfect mediatorship of Jesus Christ, on the ground of a real expiation
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Heb_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].
[Heb_9:11.—χριστὸς δὲ παραγενόμενος, but Christ coming forward, presenting himself, i. e., appearing upon the stage of history, Mat_3:1, etc.—τῶν μελλόντων ἀγαθῶν, 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, Heb_9:1.
Heb_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.
Heb_9:13.—τοὺς κεκοινωμένους, those who have been defiled.—πρὸς τὴν σαρκὸς καθαρότητα, in reference to the purity of the flesh.
Heb_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.
Heb_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
Heb_9:11.—But Christ coming forward, etc.—Παραγενόμενος is used with reference to a historical appearance or advent, 1Ma_4:46; Mat_3:1; Luk_12:51. But had he had in mind the entrance of Christ upon His heavenly priesthood, he would have employed γενόμενος, Heb_1:4; Heb_6:20; Heb_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 ἀγαθῶν, are not to be separated by a comma from παραγέν, (Beng., Griesb.) and not to be resolved into εἰς τὸ εἶναι ἀρχιερέα, but to be taken as predicate. But the τὰ ἀγαθά 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 Heb_2:5, the αἰὼν μέλλων Heb_6:5, the μέλλουσα πόλις Heb_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 Heb_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,” Joh_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 Heb_10:20; Joh_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 Heb_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 Heb_8:2 he called σκηνὴ ἀληθινή, 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 2Th_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 Heb_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].
Heb_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). 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.
Heb_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 ἀκαταλύτου, Heb_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 Rom_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. Heb_6:1.
Heb_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, Heb_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 ἀπολύτρωσιν 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 Heb_9:26 and Heb_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, Heb_11:13; Act_2:33, of the reception of the substance of the promise, as κληρονομεῖν τὴν ἐπαγγ. Heb_6:12; Heb_6:17; ἐπιτυχεῖν τῆς ἐπαγγ. Heb_6:15; κομίσασθαι τὴν ἐπαγγ. Heb_10:36; Heb_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, 1Pe_1:19; Eph_1:7; Col_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, 1Co_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, Rom_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, Lev_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, Tit_2:14; 1Ti_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, Mat_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, 2Co_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., whereby Israel, sprinkled by the blood of atonement, was dedicated as the people of God, and as a royal priesthood (LeHebrews Heb_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 Heb_13:11). Elsewhere an offering of the body is also mentioned (Heb_10:10), but, of course, comprehending this, in that Christ is said to have offered up Himself (Heb_7:26; Heb_9:14; Heb_9:25; Eph_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 (Heb_10:22; Heb_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. Mat_23:27; Rev_3:1.
Rieger:—Purification and propitiation comprehend God’s entire work of rescuing from sin. 1Jn_2:2; Col_1:14; Col_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][Heb_9:13—τράγων καὶ ταύρων, goats and balls instead of bulls and goats, is the reading of A. B. D. Sin., etc.—K.].
[7]Heb_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.
[8]Heb_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.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Which--"The which," namely, anterior tabernacle: "as being that which…
Which--"The which," namely, anterior tabernacle: "as being that which was" [ALFORD].
figure--Greek, "parable": a parabolic setting forth of the character of the Old Testament.
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for--"in reference to the existing time." The time of the temple-worship really belonged to the Old Testament, but continued still in Paul's time and that of his Hebrew readers. "The time of reformation" (Heb 9:10) stands in contrast to this, "the existing time"; though, in reality, "the time of reformation," the New Testament time, was now present and existing. So "the age to come," is the phrase applied to the Gospel, because it was present only to believers, and its fulness even to them is still to come. Compare Heb 9:11, "good things to come."
in which--tabernacle, not time, according to the reading of the oldest manuscripts. Or translate, "according to which" parabolic representation, or figure.
were--Greek, "are."
gifts--unbloody oblations.
could not--Greek, "cannot": are not able.
him that did the service--any worshipper. The Greek is "latreuein," serve God, which is all men's duty; not "leitourgein," to serve in a ministerial office.
make . . . perfect--perfectly remove the sense of guilt, and sanctify inwardly through love.
as pertaining to the conscience--"in respect to the (moral-religious) consciousness." They can only reach as far as the outward flesh (compare "carnal ordinances," Heb 9:10, Heb 9:13-14).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv9–12 9. Which—All agree that this relative refers to first…
9. Which—All agree that this relative refers to first tabernacle, in Heb_9:8. And that further demonstrates that the whole one tabernacle was meant: for is it not clear that it was the one whole tabernacle which was a figure, a parable, of the inefficacy of the type without the antitype? Were not the incense and blood as inefficacious, intrinsically, in the holiest as in the holy?
For the time then present—Rather, for the time now insetting; that is, time that is now begun and is in progress. The same phrase is used at Rom_8:38; 1Co_3:22; 1Co_7:26; Gal_1:4; also, 2Th_2:2, where see note.
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Were offered—The Greek is in the present tense, are offered. The offerings are still made, for the temple at the apostle’s writing is still standing, and the inefficacy of the ritual still exists.
Make… perfect—Render justified and right.
Conscience—The moral consciousness of guilt or innocence.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv9–12 9. which was a figure for the time then…
9. which was a figure for the time then present] i.e. And this outer Tabernacle is a parable for the present time. By “the present time” he means the prae-Christian epoch in which the unconverted Jews were still (practically) living. The full inauguration of the New Covenant of which Christ had prophesied as his Second Coming, began with the final annulment of the Old, which was only completed when the Temple fell, and when the observance of the Levitic system thus became (by the manifest interposition of God in history) a thing simply impossible. A Christian was already living in “the Future Aeon” (Olam habba); a Jew who had not embraced the Gospel still belonged to “the present time” (olam hazzeh ὁ καιρὸς ὁ ἐνεστηκώς). The meaning of the verse is that the very existence of an outer Tabernacle (“the Holy Place”) emphasized the fact that close access to God (of which the entrance of the High Priest into the Holiest was a symbol) was not permitted under the Old Covenant.
in which …”] The true reading is not καθ' ὅν, but καθ' ἥν, so that the “which” refers to the word “parable” or “symbol,” “in accordance with which symbolism of the outer Tabernacle, both gifts and sacrifices are being offered, such as (μὴ) are not able, so far as the conscience is concerned, to perfect the worshipper.” He says “are offered” and “him that does the service,” using the present (not as in the A. V. the past tense), because he is throwing himself into the position of the Jew who still clings to the Old Covenant. The introduction of “a clear conscience” (or moral consciousness) into the question may seem like a new thought, but it is not. The implied argument is this: only the innocent can “ascend the hill of the Lord, and stand in His Holy Place:” the High Priest was regarded as symbolically innocent by virtue of minute precautions against any ceremonial defilement, and because he carried with him the atonement for his own sins and those of the people: he therefore, but he alone, was permitted to approach God by entering the Holiest Place. The worshippers in general were so little regarded as “perfected in conscience” that only the Priests could enter even the outer “Holy” (Heb_7:18-19, Heb_10:1-4; Heb_10:11).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv9–11 (9) Which was a figure . . .—Rather, Which…
(9) Which was a figure . . .—Rather, Which is a parable unto the time present, according to which (parable) are offered both gifts and sacrifices, which cannot perfect, as to the conscience, him that doeth the service. The general meaning may be given thus: this “first Tabernacle” (i.e., the existence of an outer as: distinguished from an inner sanctuary) is a parable for the period connected with it (literally, “for the season that stands near it,” the adjacent period, so to speak); and in full accordance with the parabolic character of the first Tabernacle (see Heb_9:8) is the presentation of offerings which have no power to accomplish the perfect end of worship in the case of any worshipper. The priests offered sacrifices to God, but were limited to the outer sanctuary, which was not the place of God’s manifested presence; a fit symbol this of offerings which cannot purify the conscience (see Heb_9:14; Heb_10:1). The above rendering follows the best reading of the Greek; in the ordinary text the relative “which,” in the second clause, refers to “the time,” not to “the first Tabernacle.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Which (htiv , with its usual force) is a…
Which (htiv , with its usual force) is a parable for the time present (i.e. present as regarded from the standpoint of the old dispensation. The A.V, translating "then present," and using past tenses throughout, though departing from literalism, still gives, we conceive, the idea correctly); according to which (referring to "parable," if we adopt the best-supported reading, kay hn . The Textus Receptus, followed by the A.V, has kay on , referring to "the time") are offered both gifts and sacrifices (cf. ver. 1), which cannot, as pertaining to the conscience, make him that doth the service (or, "the worshipper," the idea not being confined to the officiating priest; cf. Heb_10:2, where touontav is translated "the worshippers") perfect. The emphatic expression here is kata suneidhsin . The gifts and sacrifices of the Law availed in themselves only for external ceremonial purification; they did not reach, however typical, the sphere of man"s inner consciousness; they could not bring about that sense of spiritual accord with God which is spoken of in Jeremiah 31. as marking the new covenant (see below, vers. 13, 14).
The parabolic function of the tabernacle services.
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The tabernacle, with its contents and its institutions, was one great parable embracing and uniting many subordinate parables. A parable looking towards the time of the new covenant the "present time," as the writer calls it; or, as we might even more closely render it, the impending season. For in God"s economy the new state of things is to be ever looked at as impending. So Christ would have us, who rejoice in his first advent, to be ever making ready for his second one. And in the same way the men of the old covenant had to be on the look-out for the initiation of the new. Rejoicing in what Moses had given them, they looked eagerly for what Messiah had to give; and in the mean time Moses had given them parables through the eye, even as in after times Christ gave his disciples parables in words. Such mode was suitable for the time and the purpose. What parabolic teaching was there, then, in the tabernacle and the things connected with it?
I THE REALITY OF GOD"S DWELLING WITH MEN. Each Israelite family had its tent, and Jehovah"s tent was in the midst of all, a center of unity, protection, and glory. Jehovah was the Companion of his people in all their pilgrimage and vicissitudes. It is only as we recollect this that we get at the full significance of John"s expression concerning the Word becoming flesh and tabernacling among us, full of grace and truth. (Joh_1:14) The glory that belonged to the tabernacle was thus a parable of the Incarnation glory.
II THE POSSIBILITY OF SATISFACTORY INTERCOURSE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. It was dangerous for a man to meddle in Divine things according to his own inclination and his own wisdom. Yet he could not stand aside and neglect Divine things altogether. Such a course was equally dangerous with the other. But if he would only submit to the way of Jehovah"s appointment, attending to every detail, and striving to comprehend the undoubted purpose in it, then he-was assuredly in the way of safety. He was doing what God wanted him to do with the resources then within his reach. And though an obedience of this kind, an obedience in certain external rites, could not take away all trouble of conscience, yet when a man comprehended that Jehovah had even this in view, he would feel that what he enjoyed not now he would enjoy hereafter. Though the blood of bulls and goats could not put away sin and wash out the heart"s deep defilement, yet the blood-shedding was not in vain, if it intimated the coming of something that would take away sin.
III THE POSSIBILITY OF REAL SERVICE. In itself, the elaborate ritual of the tabernacle was nothing. Save as it was parabolic and provocative of hope and aspiration, it could not be called other than a waste of time. "What mean ye by this service?" was a question which might well be put to every Levitical person every day. But when the service of the high priest looked forward to the sacrificial cleansing service of Christ in perpetuity, and when the service of all the subordinate attendants looked forward to the daily obedience of Christians, faithful in little things, then assuredly the service of the tabernacle gets lifted above a mechanical routine. Under the old covenant, a whole tribe, separated for ritual observance, serving Jehovah in formal religious ordinances, was thereby serving, not only a nation, but all mankind. Serving God in appearance, the Levite served men in reality. Now, under the new covenant, we serve God in serving men. The Christian, because he is a Christian, has most power of all men to serve his brother man. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv9–11 Which was a figure
Heb_9:9
Which was a figure
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Types:
Prophecy is the prediction of the coming of the Redeemer in word; type is the prediction in act.
(W. B. Pope, D. D.)
The types are, indeed, pictures, but to understand the pictures it is necessary we should know something of the reality. The most perfect representation of a steam-engine to a South Sea savage would be wholly and hopelessly unintelligible to him simply because the reality, the outline of which was presented to him, was something hitherto unknown. But let the same drawing be shown to those who have seen the reality, such will have no difficulty in explaining the representation. And the greater the acquaintance with the reality, the greater will be the ability to explain the picture. (Andrew Jukes.)
Sacrifices.
Love in the ordinance of sacrifice
I. If we look over the religious practice of all men in all ages, unquestionably the most remarkable fact, common to them all, is the practice of SACRIFICE. What is its meaning? I find answer thus. Mans Fall was from love into selfishness. All sacrifice is an abnegation of selfishness; a devoting something to God, which otherwise would belong to self. All sacrifice is offering--bringing as a gift. Whether sin-offering, or thank-offering, or prayer, or thanksgiving, the essence of all these, which are equally sacrifices, is, the rendering up of ourselves or of that which is or seems to be ours, to God. And sacrifice is a direct recognition of One above us whom we wish thus to approach, and in approaching whom we must deny and go out of ourselves. The creature offered represents the person offering. From this, the transition is the simplest possible, if indeed it be strictly any transition at all, to regarding the death of that animal as representing the death which the offerers sin has merited; and the infliction of that death as representing the expiation of that sin. And throughout the nations unenlightened by a written revelation, these things were regarded as not only representing, but as actually being, the expiation required.
II. In order to be acceptable to God, the self-sacrifice must be UNRESERVED and COMPLETE. It must be the perfect rendering up of the will to His will, of the being to His disposal, of the energies to His obedience. Now it must be obvious to us, that such full and entire rendering up to God is impossible on the part of man, whose will is corrupted by sin. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Who can bring entire and perfect obedience out of one whose very leading principle is that of disobedience--whose thoughts and desires are, however his outward conduct may beordered, in a continual state of rebellion against God? And accordingly the Law, in its typical enactments, set this plainly before the ancient Church.
III. Every victim was to be WITHOUT BLEMISH. God would accept nothing which was corrupted, or imperfect, or contaminated.
IV. Then again, if each man could not for himself fulfil this spiritual meaning of sacrifice--that sacrifice itself taught him something of a SUBSTITUTE for himself, who in his stead might be offered to God. And the Law, working on this, further continually familiarised the people with the idea of one such substitute for all. The lamb of the passover was chosen, one for each household. The daily morning and evening sacrifice was one lamb for the whole people of Israel. The great annual day of atonement witnessed one goat slain for a sin-offering for all the people.
V. But there is plainly more than this--one important element in the meaning of sacrifice is yet unconsidered. Man, as sinful, rests under the just judgment of God. And the conflict of Gods will and his own will within him, if it end in his becoming united again to God, must obviously include the entire subjection of his own will, as in all other points so in this--the SUBMITTING TO THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN as part of Gods holy will. The animals offered in sacrifice were almost uniformly slain, and the remnants of them consumed by fire, which fire was the well-known symbol of the Divine wrath; which as uniformly, as we observed, were required to be without spot or blemish.
VI. Again, in the substitution indicated by the sacrifice, if any adequate idea of reconciliation to God is to be conveyed, there must be represented a TRANSFERENCE OF GUILT from the offerer to the substitute. For this the Law also took especial care. To mention only one instance: in the ceremonies of the day of atonement two goats are to be offered, typifying the double result of the Redeemers sacrifice--His death for sin, and His life for righteousness; His dying for our sins, and rising again for our justification.
VII. The next point is this: that some METHOD OF COMMUNICATION of its virtue, and its acceptableness to the offerers, should be indicated. Suppose the one atoning sacrifice represented as Offered; suppose God to be set forth as well pleased with it, and as accepting it: how was the offerer to apply these things to himself? In cases of offering for sin, and uncleanness, the blood of the slain animal was sprinkled or placed on the person of the offender for whom the victim was offered, or on the tabernacle or vessels which represented, in their use for holy things, the instrumentality of the whole people of Israel. In the great sacrifice first ordained, viz., that of the passover, this reconciliation by the imputation of blood shed in the offering was even more plainly pointed out. The blood was ordered to be sprinkled on the lintel and side-posts of the house-door of the family which offered the sacrifice; seeing which blood the destroying angel would pass over the house and would not touch them.
VIII. But more than this participation was signified also by the ceremonial law. The offerers actually PARTOOK of the sacrifice. The substance of the victim actually passed into their bodies, and was assimilated into their substance, and thus the victim became identified with themselves--their flesh and their blood; and the union between the offerer and the offered became the closest possible.
IX. The great and real sacrifice, when offered, is not only to reconcile man to God by the removal of guilt, but to possess a RENOVATING VIRTUE, by means of which man, unable before, shall be first enabled to offer himself, body, soul, and spirit, an offering acceptable to God. In other words, he is not only to be justified by the application of the atonement thus wrought to his person, but he is to be put into a process of SANCTIFICATION, whereby his whole body, soul, and spirit are to be made holy to the Lord. Did the Law in any way sybolise this, the ultimate object, as regards us, of what Christ has done for us? We may trace it in more ordinances than one. In the repeated washings and cleansings with water, of the priests, and all that belonged to the tabernacle service; in the inscription, Holiness to the Lord, on the forehead of the high priest; but above all in the fact that every sacrifice was ordered to be seasoned with salt--that preservative and restoring power, representing the Spirit of holiness, by which the believers are renovated onto the life Of God.
X. The Law also set forth the Redeemer and His work by PERSONS as well as by ordinances. A more striking type of Him cannot be imagined than the
Levitical high priest. It is an interesting question for us, though not the main question, how far these things may be supposed to have been patent to the Jewish worshipper of old--how far he took in his mind the idea of spiritual reconciliation by the sacrifice of a spotless Redeemer. The only answer to such an inquiry must be found in their own ancient interpretations of those remarkable prophecies which relate to the sufferings and atonement of Christ. And it is well kown that in commentaries of theirs, written probably before the Christian era, those passages such as the fifty-third of Isaiah are interpreted as prophecies of their future Messiah. We may also surmise the answer to such a question from the fact that John the Baptist could make use, when speaking to Jesus, himself a Jew, of such words respecting our Lord as theses Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. From such facts as these, we are certainly justified in assuming that the meaning of the types in the Law was not altogether unknown to the pious Jew; though whether it influenced, or was intended to influence, his thoughts and the nature of his faith to any great extent, rosy well be doubted. It was perhaps enough for him to be taught, in distinction from all heathen nations, the utter inadequacy of sacrifice or offering to please God; and to be kept shut up under the ceremonial system, in a covenant with God of obedience and fidelity, in the abnegation, if he felt and lived Gods law, of all self-righteousness--waiting for the consolation of Israel; looking for the prophetic promises to be fulfilled in Gods good time. For he had not only types of Christ, but the voices of the prophets all point onward to the future Redeemer. (Dean Alford.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv9–12 9. Which was a figure. The Jewish rites were…
9. Which was a figure. The Jewish rites were not the true and complete divine service but only figures, types. Both gifts and sacrifices were symbols. Nor could they make the worshiper perfect. They could not cleanse him from all sin, deliver him from all fear, and make his conscience clear. They were not perfect sacrifices but pointed to the perfect sacrifice. The Jewish sacrifices only removed ceremonial impurities and sins of ignorance.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v11 Heb_9:11. Good things to come.—Lit. “who procures future blessings”;…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Heb_9:11. Good things to come.—Lit. “who procures future blessings”; in the sense of spiritual blessings. Farrar suggests the reading “of the good things that have come.” Compare the expressions “last days,” “latter days.” Tabernacle.—Representing heaven, the spiritual sphere, after the figure of the material tent. Made with hands.—A rhetorical way of showing its distinction from the Jewish tabernacle.
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Heb_9:12. Neither by the blood, etc.—Referring to the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. Goats and calves.—A summarising of the victims offered, not a precise detail. Bullocks may be put for calves. His own blood.—As the heavenly sanctuary cannot be thought of as admitting actual blood, that spiritual thing which the blood represented must be meant. What then was that spiritual thing which Christ, as spiritual High Priest, presented, which answers to the symbol of the blood? What is the soul sacrifice that has “blood” for its earthly figure? This is the great question to be solved, if this portion of the epistle is to be understood. “His own blood was the offering by which He was admitted as our High Priest and eternal Redeemer into the Holy of Holies of God’s immediate presence.” Eternal redemption.—Compare the temporary redemption which was all that the old priest could accomplish. The spiritual is the permanent. Omit the words “for us.” The λύτρωσις effected by Christ needs no repetition.
Heb_9:13. Ashes, etc.—Num_19:2-9. These were distinctly for purification from ceremonial offences. Flesh.—I.e. from uncleanness according to Mosaic ideas and rules; ritual disabilities.
Heb_9:14. How much more.—The form of argument characteristic of this epistle. The argument recalls to mind what has already been said concerning the dignity of the person of Christ. Through the eternal Spirit.—One of the most difficult expressions in the epistle. It may mean either
(1) by the help of the Holy Spirit; or
(2) in an eternal, that is a spiritual, nature or manner; or
(3) by His own Divine nature, i.e. with the full concurrence of His own eternal spirit or will. Ellicott says, “in spirit, in the higher sphere of His Divine life; the πνεῦμα of Christ is not here the Holy Spirit, but the higher principle of spiritual life.” Through this spirit, a spirit of holiness, a spirit of indissoluble life, He offered Himself to God. This made such a self-offering possible, this gave to the offering infinite worth. It must refer to Christ’s own spirit, the consenting act of His Divine personality. This expression, offered Himself, explains the reference to the blood; the offering of the blood is the figure, the offering of Himself is the fact. Without spot.—ἄμωμον, with allusion to the ground of acceptance for Jewish victims. Christ’s offering of Himself, if it had been that of a stained sinner, could not have been acceptable. Spotless, it could be representative. Dead works.—The term “dead” is used because the ashes, referred to above, cleansed those who were made unclean by contact with the dead. “Dead works” may mean generally sinful works, since it is from the pollution as well as the penalty of sin that Christ’s offering of Himself delivers and cleanses.
Heb_9:15.—The writer now proceeds to show that this real sacrifice of Christ was the medium through which full forgiveness and personal acceptance were vouchsafed under the old covenant. “The doctrine of Heb_9:15; Heb_9:26, together with the passage Rom_3:25-26, is clear and conclusive to the point, that from the fall of Adam to the end of time the way of salvation is one, viz. God’s free grace manifested through the Redeemer’s self-sacrifice, responded to by the thankful trust of the sinner in undeserved Divine mercy, and in the medium of that mercy according to the degree of its revelation.” Stuart gives the sentiment of this verse thus: “As Jewish sacrifices rendered the offerer externally clean, so the blood of Christ purifies the moral or internal man, and removes the consequences of sin. On this account (διὰ τοῦτο), i.e. because the sacrifice of Christ produces an effect such as the Jewish sacrifices did not, He may justly be called the ‘Mediator of a new covenant,’ differing greatly from the old.” For this cause.—Either “on account of the grandeur of His offering,” or “as bearing relation to conscience” (see Heb_9:14). New testament.—The Greek word is “covenant,” διαθήκη; testament is the confusing translation of the A.V.; in the R.V. the word “covenant” is restored. For mediator with idea of “negotiator,” see Moses (Gal_3:19). The idea expressed is, that this new covenant is retrospective as well as prospective, and is the explanation of the spiritual relationship with God that could be attained under the old, and preparatory, and formal covenant. The new covenant, in fact, underlay, and was involved in, the old covenant. That was indeed such an expression of it as was possible in the age to which it was given. By means of death.—Christ’s surrender of Himself in death. In the light of it as the covenant acceptance and seal. Redemption, etc.—Those spiritual transgressions (including penalties) which the old covenant did not touch; concerning them God promised forgiveness on the condition of Christ’s obedience. When that obedience was rendered the promise was actually fulfilled. They which are called.—The Scripture figure for the sincerely believing and pious. Eternal.—Equivalent to “spiritual,” which includes that idea of permanence. Inheritance.—Stuart renders “blessings”; “proffered good.” Compare Heb_3:1, “partakers of a heavenly calling.” Farrar renders “eternal heritage.”
Heb_9:16-17. Testament.—διαθήκη. Here rhetorically used in its Greek and Roman sense of “a will,” the idea being suggested by the mention of the “inheritance” (Heb_9:15), and of the necessity of a “death.” The covenant ratified by the death of Christ is compared with a testament proved valid, and rendered operative, by the death of the testator. But the argument is rhetorical rather than logical. Death of the testator.—It lies over as a promise, but the testator’s death alone gives possession. Of force.—Comes into power and operation. It is an inoperative thing, a mere promise through all the long ages, until Christ’s death brings it into operation. This is one view of the death of Christ, but it appeals much more forcibly to Jewish minds than to ours.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_9:11-17
The High Priest of Spiritual Things.—The greater involves the less. If it can be shown that Christ has gained for a man a right of free personal access to God Himself, it is involved that He has gained for him the right to offer his worship himself. If He has opened the way into the Holy of Holies, He must have opened the way into the Holy Place. This explains why the writer carries his reference to the Holy Place no further, but fixes attention on the Most Holy. Recall the symbolical ceremonies of the Day of Atonement.
1. The attention of the priest to personal cleanliness and suitable clothing.
2. The sacrificial ceremonies by means of which he gained personal acceptance with God, before undertaking to represent anybody else.
3. The precise acts associated with his passing, as standing for the people, into the presence of Jehovah.
(1) Taking the golden censer out;
(2) putting in it live coals;
(3) dropping on the coals the handful of incense, just as he took the veil aside;
(4) sprinkling the blood of the goat on the mercy-seat;
(5) waiting, anxiously watching for, the sign of Divine acceptance;
(6) coming forth to declare unto the people the Divine forgiveness and favour. But notice that, when he came forth, he closed the veil behind him, and it remained closed for another year. Now see resemblances and differences between the work of the old high priest of symbols, and the new High Priest of spiritual realities.
I. Christ, as High Priest, entered the spiritual Holy of Holies.—The spiritual counterpart of that material chamber. By the spiritual presence of God we mean that presence which we, as spirits, may realise in a spiritual way. Direct access of spirit to spirit. In using the term “heavenly,” there is some danger of our making material figures in our minds of the eternal abode of the Eternal. God is a spirit. His heaven is spiritual. And it is the loss of free spiritual access to the spiritual God which is man’s supreme loss; and it is that lost access which Christ set Himself to restore. Man’s humanity, as the medium of his sin, is the veil which shuts him out of the spiritual Holy of Holies, even as the gates and the cherubim shut our first parents out of Eden. Christ entered through the veil, “His flesh,” by winning His humanity wholly for God, and because of His sinlessness He could go right in; there was no hindering veil of a sinful body.
II. Christ, as High Priest, took in His own spiritual blood.—The figure is taken from the blood of the goat which the high priest took in, but we must see the spiritual thing which the figure symbolised. And the blood that Jesus took was His own life. “The blood is the life.” In Heb_9:14 it is precisely explained for us. He “offered Himself without spot to God.” He had fully won His body and His earthly life for God. And now He gave Himself,—sinless body, obedient will, devoted self—Priest and sacrifice: Himself, as it were, the old high priest; and Himself, as it were, the blood which the old high priest took.
III. Christ, as High Priest, gained spiritual rights and privileges for us.—
1. Rights of free, open, permanent access to God. Our being human, and having these sin-experienced human bodies, no longer makes a veil hiding God away, for any of us whose wills are renewed and made as Christ’s. His representative body-triumph stands for us; and the veil is gone for us, as it was for Him, and we have “boldness of access.”
2. Privileges of cleansed consciences. Relief from that sense of constraint to sin which distresses every man so long as his will is unrenewed. Jewish ceremonies brought removal of certain penalties of sins. Christ by His sacrifice and mediation brings deliverance from the sinfulness which works out into sins.
3. Privileges and rights of a new and spiritual covenant; which pledges, on God’s part, spiritual power for maintaining spiritual life; and, on man’s part, spiritual service, the constant holding of himself as a “living sacrifice” unto God. And these rights and privileges are kept up for us by the abiding presence of our High Priest in the heavenly Holy of Holies, where He is with His blood, Himself, fully surrendered to God in our name, and as our pledge.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Heb_9:11. The Greater Tabernacle.—The tabernacle of old was the dwelling of God in the midst of His people: “Let them make Me a sanctuary where I may dwell among them”; “I will set My tabernacle among you and My soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people” (Exo_25:8; Lev_26:11-12). Whatever other thoughts, therefore, the tabernacle may have suggested, this was its first and most important aspect; and it need only further be observed that, when it is spoken of as the dwelling-place of God, it is of God, not in His abstract Being, but as He makes Himself known to, as He comes into contact with, us. It is not a model upon a small scale of the universe, as if He of whom Solomon at the dedication of the Temple sublimely said, “Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee,” desired an earthly representation of His boundless abode. We have to do with God in the relation in which He stands to man. Of that relation as it existed toward Israel the σκηνή was a type. Yet, further, the other name by which the structure was known, and which is even more frequently given it than that of tabernacle, has to, be taken into account. It was the “tent of meeting,” words unhappily rendered in the A.V., though corrected in the R.V., the “tabernacle of the congregation”; and it received this name because there God met with Israel. “This,” it is said, “shall be a continual burnt-offering throughout your generations at the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee. And there will I meet with the children of Israel” (Exo_29:42-43). This, then, was the meaning of the tabernacle. It was the place in which God dwelt, and at which He met with His people, and they with Him. It had relation to the Almighty, not as the Ruler of the universe, but as One who desired to bring His children nearer to Himself, that they might be sanctified for His service, and be made to rejoice in His favour. It spoke to man, not as a creature to be bowed down beneath the thought of infinite power, but to be elevated to communion and fellowship with that holy yet merciful Being who had formed him to show forth His praise, and to find in doing so his true dignity and joy. If this was the meaning of the tabernacle to Israel, there can be no doubt as to what is expressed by the word when filled with Christian thought. Christ Himself is the Christian tabernacle. In Him the Father dwells with men, meets with them, and makes Himself in ever-increasing measure known to them. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father”; “If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also” (Joh_14:9; Joh_8:19). It ought to be unnecessary to remind the reader that this idea of meeting God, of His drawing nigh on His side to us, and of our drawing nigh to Him, is the distinguishing feature of the Christian dispensation, and that it is dwelt upon with remarkable frequency and emphasis in the epistle to the Hebrews. Putting these considerations together, we appear to be justified in coming to the conclusion that by “the greater and more perfect tabernacle” we are to understand the human nature of our Lord, or our Lord in His incarnate state; and the only question comes to be, whether we are to think simply of His humanity, as it was on earth, or (with Hofmann) of that humanity as it exists in its glorified state in heaven. There is little room for hesitation as to the answer. That the writer of this epistle could never have spoken of the earthly body of Christ as “not made with hands—that is to say, not of this creation”—is clear from the statement of Heb_10:20, where he refers to “the new and living way which Jesus has dedicated for us through the veil—that is to say, His flesh”—words founded upon that rending asunder of the veil of the Temple at the Crucifixion, by which the veil was not so much opened as abrogated and thrown aside—words also in which it is not without interest to notice that the human name “Jesus” is used, not, as now, the higher name “Christ.” The “flesh” of our Lord, then, i.e. His humanity under its earthly conditions and limitations, was in like manner something, so far at least as these conditions were concerned, which needed to be thrown aside, something not spiritual, heavenly, and unlimited, and of which we give a true description when we say that it was “of this creation.” It was a body of flesh, and what the writer understands by that word we see from his use, in Heb_7:16, of the word σάρκινος, made of flesh (not σαρκικός, fleshly), when he employs it to express the character of that Old Testament dispensation which had been superseded by the higher, to which Christ belonged. Nor is this all: for throughout his epistle the redeeming work of our Lord is conceived of as that not of an earthly, but of a heavenly High Priest, and the writer would certainly not depart from that conception at the moment when he is contrasting the very essence of Christ’s work with that of the high priest of Israel. Once admit, therefore, that the “greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands—that is to say, not of this creation”—is the incarnate Lord, and it is impossible to pause there. We must also admit that it is that Lord in His human nature exalted and glorified. In the nature which He possessed, when He returned, after His resurrection and ascension, to His Father in heaven, He carries out the great work of bringing God and man into perfect union and communion with one another. In the glorified Redeemer God and man have their true and everlasting meeting-place.—Prof. W. Milligan.
Heb_9:14. The Offering of Himself.—Our Lord’s death was a voluntary offering, a sacrifice, a sacrifice of Himself. But the word “sacrifice,” and the associations of the text, bring up before us the Jewish tabernacle and ritual. We see the smoking altars, the slain beasts, the waiting worshippers. And it must be with the imagery of these altar forms in our minds that we approach the consideration of the “self-offering” of Christ. But it is evident that our Lord’s death was not a sacrifice after the precise Jewish pattern. We visit Calvary on that ever-memor able day, and we say, Where is the Temple? Where is the altar? Where are the officiating priests? Where is the flowing blood? Where is the floating incense? We can find none of them. In the outward seeming there is no sacrifice here. That prætorium, this knoll, are no temples. That howling mob was no devout company of worshippers. Pilate was no priest. The cross is no altar. At first we are bewildered, and it is only as we search deeper that we recover our confidence, and find that within this strange appearance there is the great spiritual reality of sacrifice. In expecting Christ’s sacrifice to answer precisely to the Jewish model we have mistaken the proper relations of “type” and “antitype.” A type is a representation, taking some material form, for an earlier and undeveloped age, of some spiritual thing, which is to be afterwards realised as antitpye. The type and antitype cannot be of the same material and form. A picture may be the type of a man, but the man differs from the picture. Earth is the type of heaven, but we may not therefore conclude that in everything heaven is like earth; it is the spiritual realisation of the type. Properly a type is the representation, in other forms and modes, of some spiritual reality which either cannot get outward expression at all, or only in modes which could not be understood when the type was given. In treating of Christ’s sacrifice as the antitype to which the Jewish typical sacrifices pointed, we have not perhaps made due account of this fact: the sacrifice of Judaism was a pictured material representation; the sacrifice of Christ is an inward spiritual reality. The type was a kind of drama, wrought out with scenes and representative figures. The antitype was the very life-story itself, wrought out in mental agony, and soul-struggling; and ending in sublime moral victory. We ought not, therefore, to seek any precise reproduction of the Jewish altar-forms in connection with the antitypical and spiritual sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
I. Christ’s offering was a sacrifice.—The pious Jew sought to offer a spiritual sacrifice by means of the victim he brought in accordance with Mosaic rules. And though the days of Judaism are long past, and no altars smoke with burning victims now, it is as possible as it ever was for true hearts to make oblation of themselves to God; and when we say that the death of Christ was a sacrifice, we mean that it was such a sacrifice as a man may make, not merely such a special and peculiar sacrifice as only a Jew may make. As the Jew brought his very costliest and best, and surrendered it wholly to God in testimony that he held all he was and all he had as God’s and for Him, so Christ brought Himself, He had nothing, so He brought all He was, and surrendered it wholly, “a living sacrifice”—devoted Himself to the obedience of the will of God.
II. Christ’s offering was a self-sacrifice.—The only true sacrifice is self-sacrifice. No gift reaches the dignity of a sacrifice until, to give it, a man has deprived himself, given up his own will and pleasure. Every human gift is measured by the self-sacrifice in it. No redemptions can ever come out of the mere giving of things. But even upon God a kind of power may be gained by self-sacrifice. Mere gifts of things may become acceptable, and even propitiatory, when they serve to express devotion and self-sacrifice. If a man can suffer for God, can give up for God, can die for God, putting his inmost soul to agony in order to do the will and accomplish the purpose of God, he gains, as it were, a kind of holy moral power with God. And how will this kind of power be increased when it is the self-sacrifice of the only begotten Son, for the sake of the honour of the eternal Father?
III. Christ’s offering was a spotless self-sacrifice.—In the preceding chapter the sinlessness of Christ has been treated. The sacrifices of Judaism had to be “without blemish.” A perfect service God demands of every creature He has made. Not an absolutely, only a relatively, perfect service. From a man God asks the full devotion and sacrifice of all that belongs to his manhood. The claim is just and good; but man, by his wilfulness, has rendered himself incapable of meeting it. Jesus Christ, as man, brings the proof that man can meet God’s claim. He lifts up into view the great law of our life, and shows it to be “holy, and just, and good.” He submitted to human conditions, and in them worked out a perfect obedience, presenting himself to God as a man without spot. In Him God accepted what He had vainly sought for through all the generations of humanity—the perfect, spotless obedience and service of a man. The perfectness of Christ’s sacrifice was the ennobling of the human race. It lifted its burden, and gave it hope. To the view of God it was a salvation for the race.
IV. Christ’s offering was a spotless self-sacrifice on behalf of others.—Christ is our Representative, our Vicar. As Adam dealt with God for the human race, not instead of it, in the first great moral trial, carrying weaknesses and moral evils to the race in his failure, so Christ, as the second Adam, dealt with God for the race in the second great moral trial, carrying salvation, forgiveness, life, and hope to the race by His spotless obedience unto, and through, death. Christ’s righteousness does not supersede ours; it involves, and demands, and pledges ours. His sacrifice was not made in order that we might never have to make any; but He, in fulness, offered what we, in our measure, also should offer. And in acknowledging Christ’s offering as ours we declare ourselves to be not our own, and we testify our determination to strive also to offer ourselves without spot to God. “Real human life is a perpetual completion and repetition of the sacrifice of Christ,”
Christ’s Eternal Spirit.—This fact must be fully faced—there is no instance, in the New Testament, in which the Holy Ghost is spoken of as the “eternal Spirit.” The assumption therefore is, that the Holy Ghost is not referred to in this verse. Moreover, this writer uses the term “Holy Ghost” (Heb_2:4; Heb_3:7; Heb_4:4; Heb_9:8; Heb_10:15); and if on one occasion he uses another term, the assumption is that he had in his mind another idea. It may also be shown that there was nothing to suggest the Holy Ghost to the writer at this point. He was dealing with Christ’s voluntary offering of Himself to God. His own will, His own spirit, inspired the surrender, and made it so infinitely acceptable. It was the real, genuine, willing, entire devotion of a man’s self to God in obedience and submission; and this was the representative Man. If the Holy Ghost, conceived in any sense as separate from Christ, really inspired our Lord’s surrender, then it was not, genuinely and simply, Christ’s offering of Himself. The real merit of the offering belongs to the Holy Ghost who inspired it, not to Jesus—the Man Christ Jesus—who made it. We cannot use the term “spiritual spirit,” though that might best convey the idea that is in the term “eternal spirit.” We may say “Divine spirit”—the holy will and resolve of a Divine Being. So understanding the term, the point of the writer’s reference to it comes fully into view. “By His own spirit—by that burning love which proceeded from His own spirit.” Moses Stuart translates, “in an eternal spiritual nature”; and he explains thus: “It is in the heavenly world, in the tabernacle not made with hands, that the offering of our great High Priest is made. There He has presented Himself, in His heavenly or glorified state, in His eternal spiritual condition, or possessed of an eternal spiritual nature.” Dr. Moulton says: “For the opinion that the reference is to the Holy Spirit there seems to be no foundation in the usage of the New Testament, and it is not indicated by anything in the context. The explanation of the words must rather be sought in the nature of our Lord, or in some attribute of that nature. The πνεῦμα of Christ is not the Holy Spirit, but the higher principle of spiritual life, which was not the Divinity (this would be an Apollinarian assertion), but especially and intimately united with it.”
Heb_9:15. The Old and the New.—It was a part of the mission of the apostles not to transfer the allegiance of the Jews from one God to another, but to teach them how to serve the same God in a higher dispensation, under a noble disclosure of His character and attributes by new and better methods. The Old was good; the New was better. We could scarcely conceive of Christianity as a system developed in this world, if it had not been preceded by the Mosaic economy. The Old was local and national in its prime intents and in its results. The New was for all ages. The Old was a system of practices; the New is a system of principles. The Old built men for this world. Therefore it hardly looked beyond this world. The whole force of the New is derived from its supereminent doctrine of the future. The Old addressed the conscience through fear. The New aims at the very springs of moral power in the soul, and that through love. The Old sought to build up around the man physical helps. It was a system of crutches and canes. The New strikes straight for character, by the force of a man’s own will. The Old Testament was not wholly without its natural religion. To the Hebrew mind nature was one vast symbolism. With a far lower aim in character, the Old kept men in bondage. With immeasurably higher aim and larger requisition, the New yields liberty. The Old was a dispensation of secular morals. It lived in the past. The New is a system of aspiration. It lives in the future. The Old was a system in which men remembered; the New is a system in which men aspire. The Old Testament was God hidden; the New Testament is God made known through Jesus Christ—a living force. We are the children of the New Testament, and not of the Old. Woe be to us if, living in these latter days, we find ourselves groping in the imperfections of the Old Testament, instead of springing up with all the vitality and supereminent manhood which belongs to the New Testament! We are the children of a living Saviour. To be a disciple of the New Testament is to have a living Head. It is to have a vital connection with that Head. It is to be conscious, while all nature speaks of God, and while all the exercises of religion assist indirectly, that the main power of a true religion in the soul is the soul’s connection with a living God. Let your life mount up toward God.—H. Ward Beecher.
Redemption through Death.—Read “that, death having taken place for redemption from the transgressions,” etc. The first covenant had been broken by “transgressions”: unless there be redemption from these—that is, from the bondage of penalty which has resulted from these—there can be no promise, and no new covenant. In respect of this bondage, this penalty, the death of Christ was a ransom—an offering to God looked at in the light of a payment in the place of debt, service, or penalty due. When debt and payment are changed into the corresponding ideas of sin and punishment, the ransom gives place to the sin-offering, of which the principle was the acknowledgment of death deserved, and the vicarious suffering of death. So far our thought has rested on the removal of the results of the past. The covenant and the promise relate to the establishment of the better future. Death was necessary alike for both. “The offering of Christ’s life (Mat_20:28) was a ransom or an offering for sin; it was also a sacrifice inaugurating a new covenant, which contained the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Dr. Moulton). It will be seen that this is a setting of truth designed to meet the ideas and associations of Jews, who would want to be assured that every obligation of the old covenant had been fully and honourably met. What precisely does the term “ransom” teach us when applied to the death of Christ? This much at least: that the death of Jesus, voluntarily endured, is somehow the means of delivering from death the souls of the many; He died, that they might live; He died willingly, because He believed that thereby He could render this service. This much, and perhaps not much more. How the death of the Son of man brings life to others, and whether the life thus procured could not be obtained in any other way, does not appear. We may have recourse to the sacrificial system in search of the needful supplementary explanations.—Dr. A. B. Bruce.
Heb_9:16. The Ratification of God’s Covenant.—For “testator,” R.V. reads “Him that made it.” Doddridge has paraphrased thus: “For where a covenant is, it necessarily imports the death of that by which the covenant is confirmed: since sacrificial rites have ever attended the most celebrated covenants which God hath made with man, so that a covenant is confirmed over the dead.” And it is evident from the line of reasoning which the author of the epistle follows, that if διαθήκη is to be taken as equivalent to “covenant,” then the death of the pacifier, or confirming instrument, is implied. Parkhurst and others suggest that “institution,” or “dispensation,” gives greater force, and is a just rendering. And though the idea of a will or testamentary document (as given in our A.V.) seems to fit in with Heb_9:16-17, there is much difficulty in harmonising it with the whole passage.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Heb_9:14. Philo’s Divine Spirit.—Professor Bruce aptly illustrates this passage by a citation from Philo. The question in the verse is this—How should the blood of Christ have so unlimited value as compared with that of bulls and goats? The reply is found in the phrase “by an eternal spirit.” Philo in one place says that a man has two souls: the blood, the soul of the man as a whole; the Divine spirit, the soul of his higher nature. “We may conceive our author as consciously or unconsciously re-echoing the sentiment, and saying: ‘Yes, the blood, according to the Scriptures, is the soul of a living animal, and in the blood of the slain victim its soul or life was presented as an offering to God by the officiating priest. But in connection with the sacrifice of Christ, we must think of the higher human soul, the Divine spirit. It was as a spirit He offered Himself, as a self-conscious, free, moral personality; and His offering was a spirit revealed through a never-to-be-forgotten act of self-surrender, not the literal blood shed on Calvary, which in itself possessed no more intrinsic value than the blood of Levitical victims.’ ”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v11 ; Heb 9:24-28
; Heb 9:24-28
Hebrews
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THE PRIEST IN THE HOLY PLACE
Heb 9:11-14; Heb 9:24-28.
SPACE forbids attempting full treatment of these pregnant verses. We can only sum up generally their teaching on the priesthood of Jesus.
I. Christ, as the high priest of the world, offers Himself. Obviously verse 14 refers to Christ’s sacrificial death, and in verse 26 His ‘sacrifice of Himself’ is equivalent to His ‘having suffered.’
The contention that the priestly office of Jesus begins with His entrance into the presence of God is set aside by the plain teaching of this passage, which regards His death as the beginning of His priestly work. What, then, are the characteristics of that offering, according to this Writer? The point dwelt on most emphatically is that He is both priest and sacrifice. That great thought opens a wide field of meditation, for adoring thankfulness and love. It implies the voluntariness of His death. No necessity bound Him to the Cross. Not the nails, but His, love; fastened Him there. Himself He would not save, because others He would save. The offering was ‘through the Eternal Spirit,’ the divine personality in Himself, which as it were, took the knife and slew the human life. That sacrifice was ‘without blemish,’ fulfilling in perfect moral purity the prescriptions of the ceremonial law, which but clothe in outward form the universal consciousness that nothing stained or faulty is worthy to be given to God. What are the blessings brought to us by that wondrous self-sacrifice? They are stated most generally in verse 26 as the putting away of sin, and again in verse 28 as being the bearing of the sins of many, and again in verse 14 as cleansing conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Now the first of these expressions includes the other two, and expresses the blessed truth that, by His death, Jesus has made an end of sin, in all its shapes and powers, whether it is regarded as guilt or burden, or taint and tendency paralysing and disabling. Sin is guilt, and Christ’s death deals with our past, taking away the burden of condemnation. Thus verse 28 presents Him as bearing the sins of many, as the scapegoat bore the sins of the congregation into a land not inhabited, as ‘the Lord made to meet’ on the head of the Servant ‘the iniquities of us all.’ The best commentary on the words here is, ‘He bare our sins in His own body on the tree.’ But sin has an effect in the future as in the past, and the death of Christ deals with that, So verse 14 parallels it not only with the sacrifice which made access to God possible, but with the ceremonial of the red heifer,’ by which pollution from touching a corpse was removed. A conscience which has been in contact with ‘dead works’ {and all works which are not done from ‘the life’ are so} is unfit to serve God, as well as lacking in wish to serve; and the only way to set it free from the nightmare which fetters it is to touch it with ‘the blood,’ and then it will spring up to a waking life of glad service. ‘The blood’ is shed to take away guilt; ‘the blood’ is the life, and, being shed in the death, it can be transfused into our veins, and so will. cleanse us from all sin. Thus, in regard both to past and future, sin is put away by the sacrifice of Himself. The completeness of His priestly work is further attested by the fact, triumphantly dwelt on in the lesson, that it is done once for all, and needs no repetition, and is incapable of repetition, while the world lasts.
II. Christ, as the high priest of the world, passes into heaven for us.
The priest’s office of old culminated in his entrance into the Holy of Holies, to present the blood of sacrifice. Christ’s priesthood is completed by His ascension and heavenly intercession. We necessarily attach local ideas to this, but the reality is deeper than all notions of place. The passage speaks of Jesus as ‘entering into the holy place,’ and again as entering ‘heaven itself for us.’ It also speaks of His having entered ‘through the greater and more perfect tabernacle,’ the meaning of which phrase depends on the force attached to ‘through.’ If it is taken locally, the meaning is as in chapter 4:14, that He has passed through the [lower] heavens to ‘heaven itself’; if it is taken instrumentally {as in following clause}, the meaning is that Jesus used the ‘greater tabernacle’ in the discharge of His office of priest. The great truth underlying both the ascension and the representations of this context is, as verse 24 puts it, that He appears ‘before the face of God,’ and there carries on His work, preparing a place for us. Further. we note that Jesus, as priest representing humanity, end being Himself man, can stand before the face of God, by virtue of His sacrifice, in which man is reconciled to God. His sinless manhood needed no such sacrifice, but, as our representative, He could not appear there without the blood of sacrifice. That blood, as shed on earth, avails to ‘put away sin’; as presented in heaven, it avails ‘for us,’ being ever present before the divine eye, and influencing the divine dealings. That entrance is the climax of the process by which He obtained ‘eternal redemption’ for us. Initial redemption is obtained through His death, but the full, perfect unending deliverance from all sin and evil is obtained, indeed, by His passing into the Holy Place above, but possessed in fact only when we follow Him thither. We need Him who ‘became dead’ for pardon and cleansing; we need Him who is ‘alive for evermore’ for present participation in His life and present sitting with Him in the heavenly places, and for the ultimate and eternal entrance there, whence we shall go no more out.
III. Christ, as the high priest of the world, will come forth from the holy place.
The ascension cannot end His connection with the world. It carries in itself the prophecy of a return. ‘If I go,... I will come again.’ The high priest came forth to the people waiting for him, so our High Priest will come. Men have to die, and ‘after death,’ not merely as following in time, but as necessarily following in idea and fact, a judgment in which each man’s work shall be infallibly estimated and manifested. Jesus has died ‘to bear the sins of many.’ There must follow for Him, too, an estimate and manifestation of His work. What for others is a judgment,’ for Him is manifestation of His sinlessness and saving power. He shall be seen, no longer stooping under the weight of a world’s sins, but ‘apart from sir,’ He shall be seen ‘unto salvation,’ for the vision will bring with it assimilation to His sinless likeness. He shall be thus seen by those that wait for Him, looking through the shows of time to the far-off shining of His coming, and meanwhile having their loins girt and their lamps burning.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v9 (See Scofield "Mat 5:48").
perfect
(See Scofield "Mat 5:48").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v11 The perfection of Christ’s sacrifice:
The perfection of Christ’s sacrifice:
v. 11. But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
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v. 12. neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood he entered in once in to the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
v. 13. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifeth to the purifying of the flesh,
v. 14. how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!
This paragraph embodies a conclusion which covers practically the discussion of the entire letter, as Luther remarks: "For the proper understanding of this section it is necessary to understand the entire Epistle to the Hebrews. " The perfection of Christ’s redemption is thus brought out: Christ, however, having come as a High Priest of the good things to be, through a better and more perfect tent not made by hand, that is, not of this creation, neither through the blood of goats and oxen, but through His own blood entered once and for always into the Holy Place, obtaining eternal redemption. Christ is here placed into the very center of the Gospel proclamation. He has come, He has presented Himself, He was sent by God in the fullness of time as a High Priest, not of earthly and temporal goods and gifts, but of such gifts, joys, and blessings as are to be ours in the future, at the time when we shall have the consummation of our salvation. It is an eternal redemption which He has earned or obtained for us by paying the ransom required by the justice of His heavenly Father. The inspired author tells exactly how this was done, saying that Christ appeared through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by human hands, not pertaining to this present creation, to the visible world and age, not constructed of gold or silver or woven materials. It was the tabernacle of His human nature, of His flesh and blood, which enabled Him to shed His blood for us, in which He entered in to God. By giving His flesh, His human life, into death, Christ became partaker of the glory of His Father, was exalted to the right hand of God. See chap. 10:19, 20; Eph 2:14. It is immaterial whether we say that Christ entered into glory through the veil of His flesh or through the tabernacle of His flesh. It was not the blood of goats or bullocks which this High Priest shed, as did the priests of the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement and at other times, but it was His own most precious and divine blood. That is what gave to the ransom which He paid the perfect and eternal value. Only once He gave His life, only once did He shed His blood for us, but that sacrifice was once and for always, it paid for the redemption of the whole world forever. The high priests of the Old Testament had to renew their atonement for the sins of the people every year, chiefly because the sacrifices which they brought were only typical and symbolical; but here no such repetition is necessary: the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sins, 1Jn 1:7.
This is further substantiated by a comparison: For if the blood of goats and of bullocks and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean purify toward the cleanness of the flesh, how much rather shall the blood of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered up Himself to God unblemished, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? The author here refers to the work which Christ is at the present time performing in our interest. His readers were familiar with the requirements of the Jewish cult, they knew that the blood of bullocks and of goats, used not only on the Day of Atonement, but also on other days in the year, was used to restore a transgressor to personal purity before the Law of God. Thus also, when the ashes of a red heifer, mixed with water, were sprinkled upon such as had become polluted by contact with a dead body, they were restored to Levitical purity and permitted to remain in the midst of the people. But the knowledge of sin, the consciousness of sinfulness, was not removed by all the sacrifices and washings of the Old Testament. The believers of the Old Testament did not place their confidence in the essential merit of their sacrifices, knowing that they were valid only in the measure of their prophetical quality, but in the Messiah and His work, to whom all their ceremonies pointed forward. Now that Christ has actually come, we know that His blood is able to cleanse our consciences from all dead works, from the vain and empty acts, from all transgressions of the Law which pollute the conscience, and from all the vain efforts of self-righteousness. That is true because He has offered up Himself through the eternal spirit as a sacrifice without blemish. The incomparable, priceless worth of the blood of Christ, of the offering of His life and body, is here emphasized. It was the pure and holy Son of God that gave Himself, as the innocent Substitute, for the sins of the whole world. Through the eternal spirit He did this, through His invisible, spiritual, divine essence, through His divine nature. Through, by virtue of, His eternal deity Christ offered up Himself. God’s blood, God’s martyrdom, God’s death was thrown into the scales; that fact gives us the blessed certainty of our salvation. And that fact also gives us the willingness and the power to serve the Lord in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life, to make our life a continual offering of thanksgiving for all the wonderful gifts of His grace which we enjoy without ceasing. It is the living God whom we serve, He who Himself is the Source of life and finds His delight in pouring out upon us spiritual life and power in rich measure.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v11 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Having described the service of the tabernacle under God's law, the writer makes clear that Christ's service under the new covenant is better because it is sealed with his blood. It is better also because Christ has entered the true "tabernacle," that is, God's own presence in heaven, instead of entering, as other high priests, into the earthly tabernacle, which was only an imperfect copy.
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good things
This does not refer to material things. It means the good things that God promised in his new covenant.
the greater and more perfect tabernacle
This refers to the heavenly tent or tabernacle, which is more important and more perfect than the earthly tabernacle.
that was not made by human hands
This can be stated in active form. AT: "that humans hands did not make" (See: Active or Passive)
human hands
Here "hands" refers to the whole person. AT: "humans" (See: Synecdoche)
most holy place
God's presence in heaven is spoken of as if it were the most holy place, the innermost room in the tabernacle. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
Christ
high priest
perfect
tabernacle
hand
create
blood
goat
cow
holy place
eternity
redeem
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv9–12 9:9 This is an illustration: The problem with the…
9:9 This is an illustration: The problem with the gifts and sacrifices of the old covenant is that they were not able to cleanse the consciences of the people—they could not remove people’s guilt before a holy God (cp. 9:14; 10:2, 22; 13:18).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.