Hebrews 9

Hebrews 9:1

C. Christ’s Offering Superior to Old Testament Sacrifices (9:1-10:18) 9:1 In Heb_8:3 the writer made passing mention of the fact that every high priest must have something to offer. He is now ready to discuss the offering of our great High Priest and to contrast it with the OT offerings. To introduce the subject he gives a rapid review of the layout of the tabernacle and of the regulations for worship. 9:2 The tabernacle was a tentlike structure in which God dwelt among the Israelites from the time of their encampment at Mount Sinai to the building of the temple. The area around the tabernacle was called the outer court. It was enclosed by a fence consisting of a series of bronze posts with linen cloth stretched between them. As the Israelite entered the tabernacle court through the gate at the east, he came to the altar of burnt offering, where the sacrificial animals were slain and burned; then to the laver, a large bronze stand containing water, in which the priests washed their hands and feet. The tabernacle itself measured about 45 feet long, 15 feet wide, and 15 feet high. It was divided into two compartments. The first, the Holy Place, was 30 feet long and the second, the Most Holy Place, was 15 feet long. The tent consisted of a wooden framework covered by goats’ hair curtains and weatherproof drapes of animal skins. These coverings formed the top, back, and sides of the tent. The front of the tabernacle was an embroidered veil. The Holy Place contained three articles of furniture:

1. The table of showbread, on which were twelve cakes of bread, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. These cakes were called bread of the Presence because they were set before the face or presence of God.
2. The golden lampstand, with seven arms reaching upward and holding oil-burning lamps.
3. The golden altar of incense, on which the holy incense was burned morning and evening. 9:3 Behind the second veil was the Holiest of All or the Holy of Holies. Here God manifested Himself in a bright shining cloud. It was the one spot on earth where He could be approached with the blood of atonement. 9:4 This second compartment of the original tabernacle contained the ark of the covenant, a large wooden chest overlaid on all sides with gold. Inside the chest were the golden pot holding manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the two tablets of the law. (When the temple was erected later, there was nothing in the ark but the tablets of the lawsee 1Ki_8:9). Verse 4 says that the golden censer was also in the Most Holy Place. The Greek word translated censer can mean either the incense altar (mentioned in Exo_30:6 as being in the Holy Place) or the censer with which the high priest carried the incense. The best explanation is the latter. The writer regarded the censer as belonging to the Most Holy Place because the high priest carried it in from the incense altar into the Holiest Place on the Day of Atonement. 9:5 The gold lid of the ark of the covenant was known as the mercy seat. On top of it were two golden figures known as cherubim. They faced each other, with wings overspread, and with heads bowed over the cover of the ark. The writer stops with this brief description. It is not his purpose to go into great detail, but merely to outline the contents of the tabernacle and the way of approach to God which it depicted. 9:6 Since the writer is going to contrast Christ’s offering with the offerings of Judaism, he must first of all describe those which were required by the law. There were many he could choose from, but he selects the most important in the whole legal system, the sacrifice which was offered on the great Day of Atonement (Lev. 16). If he can prove Christ’s work to be superior to that of the high priest on the outstanding day of Israel’s religious calendar, then he has won his point. The priests had access to the outer tent, that is, the Holy Place. They went there continually in the performance of their ritual duties. The common people were not permitted in this room; they had to stay outside. 9:7 Only one man in the world could go into the Most Holy Placethe high priest of Israel. And that one man, out of one race, out of one tribe, out of one family, could enter on only one day of the yearthe Day of Atonement. When he did enter, he was required to carry a basin of blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance. 9:8 There were deep spiritual truths connected with this. The Holy Spirit was teaching that sin had created distance between man and God, that man must approach God through a mediator, and that the mediator could approach God only through the blood of a sacrificial victim. It was an object lesson to teach that the way into God’s presence was not yet opened for worshipers. Imperfect access continued while the first tabernacle was still standing. Darby’s translation may be preferable here: While as yet the first tabernacle has [its] standing. The tabernacle was displaced by the temple during the reign of Solomon, but it still had a standing until the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The principles it proclaimed concerning approach to God were still valid until the veil of the temple was ripped in two from the top to the bottom. 9:9 The tabernacle system was symbolic for the present time. A picture of something better to come, it was an imperfect representation of Christ’s perfect work. The gifts and sacrifices could never make the worshipers perfect in regard to the conscience. If complete remission of sins had been procured, then the offerer’s conscience would have been free from the guilt of sin. But this never happened. 9:10 As a matter of fact, the Levitical offerings dealt only with ritual defilements. They were concerned with such externals as clean and unclean foods and drinks, and with ceremonial washings that would rid the people of ritual impurity, but they did not deal with moral uncleanness. The offerings were concerned with a people who were in covenant relationship with God. They were designed to maintain the people in a position of ritual purity so that they could worship. They had nothing to do with salvation or with cleansing from sin. The people were saved by faith in the Lord, on the basis of the work of Christ still future. Finally, the sacrifices were temporary. They were imposed until the time of reformation. They pointed forward to the coming of Christ and to His perfect offering. The Christian era is the time of reformation referred to here. 9:11 Christ has appeared as High Priest of the good things to come, that is, of the tremendous blessings that He bestows on those who receive Him. His sanctuary is a greater and more perfect tent. It is not made with hands in the sense that it is not constructed of this world’s building materials. It is the sanctuary of heaven, the dwelling place of God. No temple made with hands, His place of service is; In heaven itself He serves, A heavenly priesthood His: In Him the shadows of the law Are all fulfilled, and now withdraw. Thomas Kelly 9:12 Our Lord entered the Most Holy Place once for all. At the time of His Ascension, He went into God’s presence, having finished the work of redemption at Calvary. We should never cease to rejoice over those words, once for all. The work is completed. Praise the Lord! He offered His own blood, not the blood of bulls and goats. Animal blood had no power to put away sins; it was effective only in cases of technical offenses against religious ritual. But the blood of Christ is of infinite value; its power is sufficient to cleanse all the sins of all the people who have ever lived, all the people who are now living, and all the people who will ever live. Of course, its power is applicable only to those who come to Him by faith. But its cleansing potential is unlimited. By His sacrifice He obtained eternal redemption. The former priests obtained annual atonement. There is a vast difference between the two. 9:13 To illustrate the difference between the sacrifice of Christ and the ceremonies of the law, the writer now turns to the ritual of the red heifer. Under the law, if an Israelite touched a dead body, he became ceremonially unclean for seven days. The remedy was to mix the ashes of a heifer with pure spring water and to sprinkle the defiled person on the third and seventh days. He then became clean. Mantle says: The ashes were regarded as a concentration of the essential properties of the sin-offering, and could be resorted to at all times with comparatively little trouble and no loss of time. One red heifer availed for centuries. Only six are said to have been required during the whole of Jewish history; for the smallest quantity of the ashes availed to impart the cleansing virtue to the pure spring water (Num_19:17). 9:14 If the ashes of a heifer had such power to cleanse from one of the most serious forms of outward defilement, how much more powerful is the blood of Christ to cleanse from inward sins of the deepest dye! His offering was through the eternal Spirit. There is some difference of opinion as to the meaning of this expression. Some interpret it to mean, through an eternal spirit, meaning the willing spirit in which He made His sacrifice in contrast to the involuntary character of animal offerings. Others understand it to mean, through His eternal spirit. We rather believe that the Holy Spirit is in view; He made His sacrifice in the power of the Holy Spirit.It was an offering made to God. He was the spotless, sinless Lamb of God whose moral perfection qualified Him to be our Sin-bearer. The animal sacrifices had to be physically spotless; He was without blemish morally. His blood cleanses the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. It is not merely a physical purging or a ceremonial cleansing but a moral renewal that purifies the conscience. It cleanses from those dead works which unbelievers produce in an effort to earn their own cleansing. It frees men from these lifeless works to serve the living God. 9:15 The previous verses stressed the superiority of the blood of the New Covenant to the blood of the Old. This leads to the conclusion of verse 15that Christ is the Mediator of the New Covenant. Wuest explains: The word mediator is the translation of mesites which refers to one who intervenes between two, to make or restore peace and friendship, to form a compact, or to ratify a covenant. Here the Messiah acts as a go-between or mediator between a holy God and sinful man. By His death on the cross, He removes the obstacle (sin) which caused an estrangement between man and God. When the sinner accepts the merits of Messiah’s sacrifice, the guilt and penalty of his sin is his no more, the power of sin in his life is broken, he becomes the recipient of the divine nature, and the estrangement between himself and God, both legal and personal, disappears. Now those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Through Christ’s work saints of the OT as well as of the New enjoy eternal salvation and eternal redemption. The fact that qualifies believers of the pre-Christian era for the inheritance is that a death has occurred, that is, the death of Christ. His death redeems them from transgressions under the law. There is a sense in which God saved OT people on credit. They were justified by faith, just as we are. But Christ had not died as yet. Then how could God save them? The answer is that He saved them on the basis of what He knew Christ would accomplish. They knew little or nothing of what Christ would do at Calvary. But God knew, and He reckoned the value of that work to their account when they believed whatever revelation He gave them of Himself. In a sense a great debt of transgression had accumulated under the Old Covenant. By His death, Christ redeemed believers of the former dispensation from these transgressions. The manner in which God saved them through the still-future work of Christ is known as the pretermission of sins. It is discussed in Rom_3:25-26. 9:16 The author’s mention of inheritance in verse 15 reminds him that before a last will and testament can be probated, evidence must be submitted that the testator has died. Usually a death certificate is sufficient evidence. 9:17 The testator may have drawn up his will many years previously and kept it secure in his safe, but it does not take effect until he dies. As long as he is alive, his property cannot be distributed to those named in the will. 9:18 Now the subject switches from a person’s last will to the Old Covenant given by God through Moses. (The English words covenant and testament both translate the same Greek word, diatheke.) Here too a death had to take place. It was ratified by the shedding of blood. In ancient times every covenant was made valid by the sacrificial death of an animal. The blood was a pledge that the terms of the covenant would be fulfilled. 9:19 After Moses had recited the laws to Israel, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book of the law itself and all the people. In this way Moses arranged the ceremony for the solemn sealing of the covenant. In Exo_24:1-11, we read that Moses sprinkled the altar and the people; no mention is made of sprinkling the book, or of the water, scarlet wool, and hyssop. It is best to view both accounts as complementary. God, represented by the altar, and the people were the contracting parties. The book was the covenant. The sprinkled blood bound both parties to keep the terms of the covenant. The people promised to obey, and the Lord promised to bless them if they did. 9:20 As Moses sprinkled the blood he said, This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you. This action pledged the life of the people if they failed to keep the law. 9:21 In a similar manner Moses sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels used in worship. This ritual is not found in the OT. No mention is made of blood in the consecration of the tabernacle in Exodus 40. However, the symbolism is clear. Everything that has any contact with sinful man becomes defiled and needs to be cleansed. 9:22 Almost everything under the law was purified with blood. But there were exceptions. For instance, when a man was to be numbered in a census among the children of Israel, he could bring a half-shekel of silver as atonement money instead of a blood offering (Exo_30:11-16). The coin was a token symbolizing atonement for the man’s soul in order for him to be reckoned as one of God’s people. Another exception is found in Lev_5:11, where certain forms of ritual uncleanness could be dealt with by an offering of fine flour. These exceptions dealt with atonement for, or covering of, sin, although generally speaking a blood offering was required even for atonement. But as far as remission of sin is concerned, there is no exception: blood must be shed. 9:23 The rest of chapter 9 compares and contrasts the two covenants. First of all, the earthly tabernacle had to be purified with the blood of bulls and goats. As has been pointed out this was a ceremonial purification. It was a symbolic sanctification of a symbolic sanctuary. The heavenly sanctuary was the reality of which the earthly tent was a copy. It has to be cleansed with better sacrifices than these, that is, with the sacrifices of Christ. The use of the plural to describe the single offering of Christ is a figure of speech known as the plural of majesty. It may seem surprising that the heavenly places needed to be purified. Perhaps a clue is found in Job_15:15, the heavens are not pure in His sight. Doubtless this is because Satan committed the first act of sin in heaven (Isa_14:12-14), and because he still has access to the presence of God as the accuser of the brethren (Rev_12:10). 9:24 Christ did not enter the man-made sanctuary, which was a pattern or figure of the true one, but into heaven itself. There He appears in the presence of God for us. It is difficult to understand why anyone would want to leave the reality and go back to the copy, why anyone would leave the great High Priest serving in the heavenly sanctuary to return to the priests of Israel serving in a symbolic tent. 9:25 The Lord Jesus did not make repeated offerings, as the Aaronic high priest had to do. The latter went into the Most Holy Place on one day of the yearthat is, the Day of Atonement, and he did not offer his own blood but the blood of sacrificial animals. 9:26 If Christ had made repeated offerings, that would have meant repeated suffering, since His offering was His own life. It is unthinkable that He should have suffered the agonies of Calvary periodically since the foundation of the world! And unnecessary too! Under the New Covenant, there is:
4. Positive finalityHe has appeared once for all. The work never needs to be repeated.
5. A propitious timeHe appeared at the end of the ages, that is, after the Old Covenant had conclusively demonstrated man’s failure and powerlessness.
6. A perfect workHe appeared, to put away sin. The emphasis is on the words put away. It was no longer a matter of annual atonement. Now it was eternal forgiveness.
7. A personal sacrificeHe put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. In His own body He bore the punishment which our sins deserved. Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place condemned He stood; Sealed my pardon with His blood; Hallelujah! What a Saviour! Philip P. Bliss 9:27 Verses 27 and 28 seem to present another contrast between the Old Covenant and the New. The law condemned sinners to die once, but after this the judgment. The law was given to a people who were already sinners and who could not keep it perfectly. Therefore it became a means of condemnation to all who were under it. 9:28 The New Covenant introduces the infinite sacrifice of Christ; He was offered once to bear the sins of many. It presents the blessed hope of His imminent Return; to those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time. But when He returns, it will not be to deal with the problem of sin: He finished that work at the cross. He will come to take His people home to heaven. This will be the culmination of their salvation; they will receive their glorified bodies and be forever beyond the reach of sin. The expression, those who eagerly wait for Him, is a description of all true believers. All the Lord’s people look for Him to return, though they may not agree on the exact order of events connected with His Coming. The Bible does not teach that only a certain group of especially spiritual Christians will be taken to heaven at the time of the Rapture. It describes the participants as the dead in Christ and we who are alive and remain (1Th_4:16-17); this means all true believers, dead or living. In 1Co_15:23 the participants are identified as those who are Christ’s.It has often been pointed out that we have three appearances of Christ in verses 24-28. They may be summarized as follows: Verse 26: He has appeared. This refers to His First Advent when He came to earth to save us from the penalty of sin (the past tense of salvation). Verse 24: He now appears. This is a reference to His present ministry in the presence of God to save us from the power of sin (the present tense of salvation). Verse 28: He will appear. This speaks of His imminent Return when He will save us from the presence of sin (the future tense of salvation).