Hebrews 9

Hebrews 9:1-10

Subdivision 3. (Hebrews 9:1-28; Hebrews 10:1-39.)The Way into the Holiest made Manifest. Thus we have had before us the Priest, and the covenant with which He is connected. The Priest is the Son of God, the One who as such is over the house of God, that is the whole universe, which was created by Him, and which He upholds by the word of His power. Sin having come in, it is He who necessarily comes forth in order to deliver His creation from it, and at the same time to glorify God by the declaration of His holiness and righteousness and love in regard to it. For this He has been down in the lowest depths, under the penalty of sin itself, to justify that penalty, and to bring in the love and light which God is into the midst of its darkest shadows. He has gone up, “passed through the heavens,” into the supreme place above all, with the power thus strangely acquired to bring in blessing according to the whole character of God Himself, justifying all God’s thoughts in the creation of man, and displaying in manhood itself a depth of wisdom in those thoughts by which He is glorified forever. The way is opened thus for redeemed and saved man into heaven itself, presently to be there in actual fact, but in the meanwhile, that he may enter there in spirit, in the way in which we have it shown here, into the holiest of all: a sanctuary which, while on earth, is the anticipation of the heavenly one.

That which is before us now is just the manifestation of this way into the Holiest. The work is accomplished, but we have to see the application of it to man, the purging of his conscience by the offering made for him, and the setting him free so that he may draw near to God as fully manifested by “a new and living way” which is opened to him. There are four sections here, and the fourth of these is an exhortation in view of all that is involved. The first three give the subject itself: the first speaking of the first tabernacle of the first covenant, and which shows the character of this, the way into the holiest not being made manifest. The second shows the removal of the hindrance to manifestation. The third, the sanctification of the worshiper for the opened sanctuary.

1. The first section carries us back to the tabernacle of old, to show briefly the disposition of things there; and here stress is laid upon the division into two parts, (virtually two tabernacles,) divided from each other by the interior veil. The outermost one was practically open as the place of continuous priestly service. The inner was, with the exception of the brief visit of the high priest on the Day of Atonement, as constantly closed. The things which had their place in each are mentioned, but without any purpose to speak particularly of them. The great point here is this strict separation of the two; the one shut off being the place in which, when things were right in Israel, the glory of God abode, so that no access to God was what the unrent veil proclaimed.

This first tabernacle was characteristic, therefore, of the law; when even to Moses, the mediator, it was said: “Thou canst not see My face; for there shall no man see Me and live.” It was an image for the time then present, when gifts and sacrifices of such sort were being offered as could not perfect the conscience of the worshiper. In their very nature they could not. They were but “meats and drinks and divers baptisms,” “the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean,” sanctifying only to the purification of the flesh. Such a system plainly could not satisfy God, could not bring man near to God. No one, one would say, were not the facts so plainly against us in this, could even imagine it. It must therefore pass away. This first covenant, then, had “ordinances of divine service and a world-sanctuary.” There has been a difficulty made of this last expression, but it seems, evidently, to have reference to what it was as a typical presentation of heavenly things which yet accompanied the people all the way through the wilderness. This is what is before us also, when we look at what it typified. We have such a world-sanctuary, that is to say, a place in which we can meet God and enter in faith, therefore, into heavenly things, while conscious that we are but passing through a world in which we are pilgrims and strangers. This is the sweetest grace, that such a sanctuary is open to us even here. We must not, of course, attach the idea to any structure made with hands, nor, indeed, to anything which would imply any kind of ritualistic entrance into the presence of God. It is our joy to know that without mediation of any kind, except that of the heavenly High Priest Himself, we have ability to draw near to God, apart from all circumstances, all question even of the gatherings of His people; although here certainly we are privileged to realize to the full this heavenly worship. But we may remark that we are not here in the line of the first of Corinthians, and that Scripture itself has severed this thought of entrance into the Holiest from any idea of even our common remembrance of the Lord in His death, and of the fellowship which we enjoy as thus come together. Corinthians does not enter upon the topic of worship, even though it speaks of the Church as the temple of God; but this in regard to its holiness as such, and not to its being even a special sphere of worship. The epistle to the Hebrews is precisely that which does away with all connection of ritualistic service as necessary to the worship of God. The Jewish system pressed this very thing; but the Christian antitype to its shadows is here revealed as in absolute contrast to Judaism altogether.

The holy place, with its candlestick, and table, and showbread, as to which the apostle has little to say in this connection, was Israel’s practical holy place. As such it is for us not abolished, except as to its being a “first” tabernacle, in contrast with the second one. For us, as we shall see, the two tabernacles are now one, the veil not having passed away, but being rent, so that Christ is now for us a Minister of “the holy places,” -both of them, -of “the true tabernacle, which the Lord hath pitched and not man.” It is important to remember this, which will find more development as we go on. The point here is simply that, while the first tabernacle had its standing, (had its place, therefore, as first,) the way into the holiest was not manifest. This characterized the law, and has come to an end for us forever. 2. The second section shows us the coming in of redemption, the putting away of sin from before God, that sin which hindered God’s manifestation of Himself as He desired. The things to which the Levitical system pointed are now fulfilled, the true Day of Atonement, the Great High Priest of a better tabernacle, who has entered the sanctuary, “not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by His own blood,” having found, not an atonement which would last a year, but “eternal redemption.” Thus the worshiper has at last his conscience purified from dead works, from that which had in it no savor of life; would not satisfy, therefore, the living God. The legalism of the old covenant has been replaced by the grace of the new. The eternal inheritance is secured to those who are called by the grace of the gospel. Christ is thus the High Priest of those good things which were typified in Judaism, things still to come, which its shadows pointed to, but nothing more.

The tabernacle is a better and more perfect one, “not made with hands,” not belonging to the old creation. The blood of goats and bulls has been replaced by the value of His own blood, in virtue of which He has entered in once for all into the holy places, having found an “eternal redemption.” He entered in in the triumph of having done this. There may be need of some additional clearing of the old types which are here interpreted for us, as well as of their application to the things of which they speak. The mercy-seat in the holiest, as being the “propitiatory,” or place of propitiation, propitiation or atonement (for the word is the same in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and in its translation in the Septuagint Greek) being made upon it once a year, the question cannot but be raised, How does this affect the question of propitiation for us being really made in heaven, in some sense at least, when our High Priest entered in? It is evident that for Israel the blood upon the mercy-seat was the fundamental condition of all their blessing. Atonement, or propitiation, was then made “for the holy sanctuary, and for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation” (Leviticus 16:33). Insomuch that this and this alone was the “day of atonement,” apart from which no other sacrifice could legally have been offered, or God have remained in their midst at all. Is there nothing, then, in the substance that answers to these shadows, that answers just to this putting of the blood upon the mercy-seat, equally fundamental, that the throne may be for us that “throne of grace” which we know it to be? Or, can this speak simply of the Cross, and what was done there? and was not the blood, in any sense, carried in so as to be presented for acceptance before God in heaven? Now, there is another question that may be asked in return, which, simple as it is, deserves yet serious consideration. Does any one conceive of our blessed. Lord carrying in literally His blood into heaven? That will, of course, be denied at once, and wonder expressed even at the suggestion of it. These are figures, it will be rightly said, and must be figuratively conceived; and we may add, as the apostle declares of them, that they are not even “the very image” of what they represent. This must not be taken as license for any avoidance of honest, consistent observance of the very terms in which it has pleased God to reveal things to us, as has many times been said, yet it has to be considered and reckoned with none the less.

What could the application of the blood to the various objects to which it was applied in the Levitical ritual mean with reference to us now? When the high priest had completed his work in the tabernacle, he went out to the altar (of burnt-offering) to apply the blood similarly there.

Are we to conceive of this as some further presentation of it for acceptance in relation to what the altar typifies? It is plain that this cannot be. The altar was that from which the daily sacrifices went up for Israel, and the blood put upon it for propitiation simply set forth the righteousness of God in accepting what was done there. Just so by that upon the mercy-seat God’s righteousness was set forth in continuing to dwell among a sinful people. In each case it was the blood that made the propitiation (Leviticus 17:11); and the application of it gave it no new efficacy, but simply revealed its efficacy in particular relations. It was one of those object-lessons of which the ritualistic service consisted, and which may be easily strained in the endeavor to find in them a kind of exactness which does not belong to them.

Thus, because the burning upon the altar followed the slaying of the victim, it was made by many to speak of atoning sufferings on the Lord’s part after death. It has been forgotten in all such cases that “no parable can teach doctrine.” We must find elsewhere the doctrine which the type illustrates, before we can find the ground for a just application. Now it is here that the doctrine thought to be found in Scripture as to this fails so absolutely. Where shall we expect to find it if not in Hebrews, where confessedly the Day of Atonement is the text upon which the apostle is dwelling in all this part? And where is it to be found in Hebrews, or anywhere else in the New Testament, that Christ went into heaven to make propitiation there? to present His work to God for its acceptance, or in any sense to sprinkle the blood upon the Eternal Throne? Quite another thing is, in fact, taught there, -namely, that Christ entered in once into the holy places, having obtained eternal redemption. As risen from the dead, raised up by the glory of the Father, He entered once, not the second time, propitiation therefore already accomplished, the resurrection the evidence of the ransom accepted, nothing remaining in this way to be done. The virtue of the blood revealed itself all the way, even as the typical veil of the sanctuary had been rent at the Cross already, before a step had been taken on the triumphant journey. All is as consistent as possible, and as plain as need be. And if it be said, Have we, then, nothing that answers more closely to this priestly action at the Throne? the answer is abundant, that the reality far transcends the type; for not only has the Throne been acting in power thus all along the road, but the Great High Priest, “having made by Himself purification of sins, He seated Himself” upon the Throne, “at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” No blood is needed further to assure us that the Throne whereon He sits who shed it is a Throne of triumphant, glorious grace. Christ there is, as we are told in the epistle to the Romans (Romans 3:25), “set forth a propitiatory” (or mercy-seat) “through faith, by His blood.” Christ is HIMSELF, in heaven, the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat.

The New Testament, while confirming and interpreting the Old, goes yet far beyond it; and this is an important principle for its interpretation. Where should we find this more than in the light which thus streams out through these opened heavens? There is a parenthesis added here, in which the covenant of which Christ is Mediator is identified with a testament of which Christ is the Testator. The word in the Greek means both of these, “covenant” and “testament;” and the covenant has, in fact, come to us in the shape of a testament which His death has made good. We have been so accustomed to this view of it that it has almost obscured the thought of the covenant itself which is, however, what the apostle dwells upon most earnestly throughout, and here he returns immediately to the thought of it. The first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. The book and all the people were sprinkled with the blood of sacrifice. This seems strange, because the covenant was the legal one, and we can only view it in this character as affirming, as the blood of atonement did in fact affirm, the righteous penalty of the law for those under it. Christ affirmed this decisively when, to redeem us, He took the curse of the law, magnified it, and made it honorable; but this blood of sacrifice showed therefore in itself what must be the necessary issue of that first covenant. But not only so, the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry were in like manner sprinkled with blood; and here the typical meaning is evident. Almost all things according to the law were purified with blood.

For remission of sins there was no other way. Thus the mere figurative representations bore witness; but the heavenly things needed a better Sacrifice than anything the law could furnish. 3. Christ has entered into heaven itself, and with a Sacrifice which never needs to be repeated. If He were to offer again, notice, He would have to suffer again; but neither is possible. It is clear that here the Romish notion of an unbloody offering is absolutely set aside. “Once for all,” at the completion of the ages of probation, when man’s ungodliness and hopelessness of self-recovery had been perfectly demonstrated, He was manifested for the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself. The consequence for faith is a complete deliverance by His work from the common portion of men in death and judgment. Death itself is for man judgment in this sense, that it is the sentence of God upon a fallen condition; and thus the law used it as the “ministration of death,” as the second of Corinthians teaches us that it was. But while it was thus in itself the judgment of a fallen condition, there is for man as such a judgment afterwards which every awakened conscience prophesies to itself. The necessary issue of this, also, is condemnation, if we personally enter into it, -that is, if we are to be judged according to such judgment as we find at the Great White Throne, every one receiving according to his works. The psalmist has already shown us that as to those even who are true servants of the Lord, they could not endure this. “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no flesh living be justified.” From this personal judgment Christ has entirely delivered us. His own words are that “He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.” The appraisal of our works, when we give account of ourselves at the judgment-seat of Christ, is a wholly different matter. We are not delivered from this, because it would not be true blessing for us to be delivered from it; and grace will, after all, be most signally manifested with regard to this very judgment. From personally coming into judgment we are, by our Lord’s explicit assurance, forever exempt. Our condition is already pronounced upon, the Word of Life has come to us, as it were, by the very sentence of the One who will be the Judge in that day; and He cannot repent of it.

There is no confusion of the world with His people, such confusion as people often make. There is no picking out by judgment of those that are His own from the world around. We are, in fact, taken up from the world which lies under judgment, to Christ Himself, when He appears, taken up in one special company, and already changed into His likeness before even we see Him. Thus judgment, in the sense in which the apostle speaks of it here, there can be none. Death there may be, but it does not come now as penalty, as before it did. Here the Lord’s words again conic in to assure us that while he that believed on Him in the past, though he were dead, yet would live, he that now liveth and believeth in Him shall never die. Jordan is thus, for the Lord’s people, dried to the bottom. Thus, out of the whole condition of man as under penalty, the Christian is delivered; and, in place of death and judgment, the Christ who “once was offered to bear the sins of many shall appear to those that look for Him the second time, apart from sin, for salvation.” He comes apart from sin for our deliverance. He has nothing to do with sin then.

He takes up no question of this kind when He comes for His people. His coming is simply deliverance: the full, realized salvation of the whole man, when we are delivered from the last remnant of evil and all that it implies, and changed into His own blessed likeness, to be with Him as the companions of His heart forever. Our entrance already, in spirit, into all this is that which shows our perfect sanctification for worship in the holiest as the fruit of His glorious work. This, we are reminded, was impossible under the law. That was not even the image, the exact representation, of the good things it typified; and the repetition yearly of the day of atonement showed the inefficacy of these multiplied sacrifices: “For then,” asks the apostle, “would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.” We must remember, in order to realize the completeness of this, that even in Israel no sacrifice was offered twice for the same sins, and that in Christendom the putting away of sins as they arise is the common thought. For this, not, indeed, a fresh sacrifice, but a fresh application of the blood is thought a necessity; but that is just what the apostle would call having “conscience of sins,” instead of the conscience being “once purged,” purged once for all. One who needs a fresh offering or a fresh application of the blood to cleanse him is not purged once for all; but nothing else would satisfy God’s heart for us or the need which, in fact, we have. How dreadful the presence of God would be for one who fully, accepted the thought of being left there an unpurged sinner, if only for a moment! No doubt, for the Christian, the thought of God’s grace, however contradictory to his system, prevents him from clearly realizing what this would mean; but the apostle plainly says here that to need a repetition of such purging would mean never having been purged according to God; for He could not leave so great a need less than perfectly met. The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins at all; and that was what the repetition, the taking away of sin again and again, meant. It was not true purging that was accomplished in this way at all. Christ therefore comes to substitute for these inefficacious sacrifices His own perfect one. This was what these typical ones foreshadowed. “In the volume of the book” they were written of Him. This does not refer to eternal counsels, but to the book of the law. Coming into the world He says this, not in eternity; and it is properly “Lo, I am come,” not “I come.” He sees the offerings going on, but with no divine satisfaction in them, and He brings them to an end by the accomplishment of His own work. This is our need, then, as worshipers, and thus it is met. The heart is free from everything that would cloud it in the presence of God, everything that would prevent the free pouring forth of praise and thanksgiving. We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." “A body hast Thou prepared Me,” which in this connection the apostle quotes from the Septuagint, shows how perfectly the offering had been cared for by God. The Hebrew original has, as is well known, “Ears hast Thou digged for Me;” which, no doubt, is, on the whole, equivalent in meaning. It does not, apparently, as it might seem at first, refer to the bored ear of the Hebrew servant, though it approaches so nearly to it as to make the distinguishing between them no great necessity. The bored ear was the token of perpetual service voluntarily assumed; the ears digged, of capacity and readiness for receiving the word of another. A body prepared implies the “form of a servant,” a nature assumed which is not, in fact, to be given up again. It is the link with the lowest rank of intelligent creaturehood, though with what possibilities of future development He alone who created them could make manifest as to them.

They are the advance rank of a system with which the thought of development (though in quite another than the evolutionist sense) seems connected throughout. But in this advance the lower links do not drop off, but are raised and incorporated with the higher -a prophetic witness to that Highest which has now been revealed to us. But the “body prepared” intimates something besides creative advance. The Fall had taken place, and the body of man, in the seeds of mortality and various derangement now inherent in it, is the manifest evidence of this. The Son of Man must be true man in all that constitutes manhood; deriving it, also, from a human mother, one of the fallen race. Who, then, can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? The power of God must come in here, as in our Lord’s case is expressly declared it did, and the very body of the blessed Doer of His Father’s will must be prepared Him. Thus we can see why the version of the Septuagint is accepted by the inspired writer; the body that was to be offered being thus shown to have the character of a perfect offering: “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” This is the sanctification of the epistle to the Hebrews. It is not practical sanctification by the Spirit, but by sacrifice. It is not the anointing of the priest with oil, but with the blood. The oil can be only upon the blood, which is the foundation of everything; and thus the priestly family is set apart to God. The offering is offered, never to be repeated. Christ is, therefore, not busy in offering continual sacrifices, as the legal priesthood.

He has sat down at the right hand of God. Blessed thing for us to realize, love is at rest! He needs not to rise any more on this account. He sits perpetually there, until the time comes for His enemies to be put under His feet. There is no more to be done as regards offering. “By one offering He has perfected in perpetuity” (as the word is) “those that are sanctified;” that is, there is never a moment in which they are not in the full value of that work before God. For this the apostle can appeal again to the inspired writings in the hands of the Jews themselves, and thus brings the testimony of the Holy Spirit to confirm what he is saying. What is said as to this is not a reference to the coming out of the Spirit after the ascent of Christ to the right hand of God, as some have made it, but, as should be evident, an appeal to what the Spirit had uttered long before. The words of the new covenant itself show fully the cessation of sacrifices for the putting away of sin, for God says in it: “Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” But repetition of sacrifice for putting them away would be still a remembrance. Now the point is reached to which the apostle has been so long in coming, and for which he has so carefully prepared the way. We have, therefore, now “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.” There are things here which we need to consider attentively. First of all, let us notice that the word for “the holiest of all” is really “the holies,” or “holy places.” In our common translation it is “the holiest,” supposing the need of supplying “holy of” before “holies.” This has been done, also, in Hebrews 9:8-12, Hebrews 13:11, but “the holy of holies,” or “holiest,” is found once, and only once, in Hebrews 9:3. In Hebrews 9:24-25, it is “holy places,” though the Revised Version translates here, as elsewhere, “holy place” without any marginal indication of the change that has been made. There is absolutely no necessity for any such alterations. Scripture is perfect as it is. In Hebrews 9:3, where there is need to distinguish between “the holy place” and “the holy of holies,” the apostle uses the correct term for the latter; and where he has not done so, we may be sure that he had design in not distinguishing. Scripture is accurate here, as always. In fact, to read here, as we should, that we have “boldness to enter into the holy places by the blood of Jesus,” destroys at once two statements that have been made, to the confusion of the interpretation of the epistle: -the first, that there is no rending of the veil in Hebrews; the second, that the first tabernacle, the outer holy place, is now entirely removed in Christianity, and only the holiest of all remains. As a consequence of the latter, neither the lamp of the sanctuary, nor the table of showbread, nor the incense altar, has anything to do with us. These are wholly Jewish, and to apply them to Christianity, it is said, is a grave mistake. Notice how this is set aside by simply taking Scripture as it is undeniably given us. We have boldness, it says, “to enter into the holy places (both of them, though now made one) by the blood of Jesus;” and thus it is established that the outer sanctuary abides for us as well as the inner, not as outer, no doubt. The two become one. It will be asked how this consists with Hebrews 9:8, in which it is stated that the way into the holy places was not yet manifested as long as the first tabernacle had its standing: but this only leads us to the true statement as to the veil being rent; for the rending of the veil it is which makes both tabernacles one; so that, in fact, the first tabernacle has no standing, no existence as such. If we have come into the true tabernacle at all, we have come into the holiest. If the veil be not rent, then indeed we could go, on the contrary, into the outer sanctuary first, and worship afar off until we found our way, or were admitted into the holiest; but Hebrews knows nothing of this. There is but one entrance, “by the blood of Jesus,” into the united sanctuaries; and this is the access which is given us in the grace of Christianity. The veil is not removed, -that is never said, -and the mistake has resulted from the confusion, as has been already stated, with another and different veil which we have in the second of Corinthians, the veil over Moses’ face. That has been removed for us as Christians, and there is no veil over Christ’s face.

That is true; but in the way things are stated here in Hebrews, we go through the veil, which is the flesh of Jesus. We go through, because it is rent for us to go through. “The new and living way” made through it is the thing which enables us to go through. This brings it sufficiently near to what we have in the Gospels; where, as soon as the Lord Jesus died, the veil of the sanctuary was rent in the midst. And the reference to this is more complete, in fact, than perhaps any translation can easily convey; for the word “new” in this expression, though one used in the sense of “recent,” has a fuller signification, which is its primary one. In the sense of “new” we should expect the word used in “new covenant” (kainos), scarcely “recent,” a word used but once beside, adverbially, in the New Testament.* For what connection would there be between “recent” and “living”! and what force would there be in it if taken by itself? On the other hand, its full meaning of “newly slain” (prosphaton)** harmonizes contrastively with “and living,” which completes the thought. By death and resurrection has the way been made for us into the heavenly sanctuary, through the flesh, the human nature, of Jesus; and here the doctrine of the epistle is plainly interpretative of the fact in the Gospels.
The veil, therefore, is rent in Hebrews, and that is why, as has been said, it is not really having boldness to enter into the holiest, “but into the holy places;” because the two are thus united. Yet that does not mean, as it seems often to be taken to mean, that the veil is removed. It is by Jesus always that we draw near to God, and the veil has always its place. This very veil was in the type broidered with the emblems of the glory which is His as the result of His work accomplished. This is not removed, nor do we want it removed. Rent and removed are different things. By Him we draw near to God; but He had to die that it might be so. Look at the beautiful veil, and see what it implies.*
The drawing near has, of course, to be, with us, a spiritual realization. The ability to draw near is our privilege at all times. The conditions are given by the apostle. “Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” We have the way secured, and the living Person of the Great Priest over the house of God, Himself on the throne of God, One who in the tenderness of divine grace ministers to our infirmities, and lifts us up above ourselves. On our part, therefore, we are to approach “with a true heart, in full assurance of faith,” -that is the proper answer to the grace that has thus provided for us; with the “heart sprinkled from an evil conscience,” which is the Christian purification of the conscience previously insisted on as necessary for the practical opening of the sanctuary. The “body washed with pure water” refers to what was done at the consecration of the priests (Exodus 29:4), and which answers to “the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5), the word of God bringing us out from a world in rampant insubjection to God, into whole-hearted allegiance to the Son of His love. This is the spiritual reality of which baptism is the expression outwardly; but “the washing of regeneration” is not baptism, which is the mere shadow, and not the substance. Immediately, as we are brought to the question of responsibilities here, we recognize our weakness and the general need. We must hold fast unwaveringly the confession of our hope. We must “consider one another, to provoke to love and to good works.” We must “not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.” We must “encourage one another, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.” Ah, is it not just the drawing near to God that exposes our essential weakness? The presence of God is the only refuge from ourselves, from the power of things around; it is the very sanctuary, the place of holiness. But how feeble are we in the enjoyment of it! And our feebleness, instead of making us draw together for mutual help, tends to disorganize and make us drift asunder; and, instead of awakening pity and longing over one another, makes us, even to each other, the subject of unsparing criticism. We need the ability to “provoke to love and to good works.” If souls have got away from God, nothing but the power of the love of Christ can break down and restore. It may seem strange to us at this time to think of Christians then seeing the day of Christ approaching; but the signs of the end, to observant eyes, soon began to show themselves. “The mystery of iniquity” was already at work; and when John writes his first epistle, many antichrists show it already to be the last time. Disheartening things these, but the apostle would tell us that we have not received the spirit of cowardice, but of power (2 Timothy 1:7), and we are not to be disheartened. Nothing more effectually cuts the nerve of activity than the loss of hope. The devil knows this well. Love itself will be reduced to idleness if assured there is no good in working. God is the God of all encouragement; and the moment we get to His side of things, we are on the winning side. Divine love invites us to draw on it without stint. 4. The warning which follows is one of those which in Hebrews are so frequent. The “wilful sin” here spoken of supposes, as in the sixth chapter, the knowledge of the truth, with the will in error. Sin is here, in the root-meaning of the word (hamartia), “missing the mark,” “going astray.” Here is a class whom he has to warn, as those before, against treading under foot the Son of God, going back to a Judaism all the impotence of which has been exposed, and which now, therefore, has manifestly “no more sacrifice for sins.” The sacrifices were still going on at Jerusalem, but there was no reality any more in anything there. They are not failing saints, but adversaries, who, as such, must expect sorer judgment than under Moses’ law, so much more as what they despised was greater. The blood of the covenant could not avail for one who had given it up as common, or having no virtue; and grace itself must fail those who insult the Spirit of grace. “Wherewith he was sanctified” is naturally a difficulty, though the reference to the day of atonement helps us to realize what is intended.

The blood put before God then was the blood of the covenant as being that in virtue of which the relation between God and Israel was maintained: in God’s sight, the type of what truly sanctifies. Thus it sanctified the people, every one among them abiding in the value of it. The Christian assembly now abides under the blood of a better covenant, and of this assembly the person spoken of had formed a part. If his profession had not been true, he still had the responsibility of it in giving it up, as all the blessing of it had been open to him to enjoy. He is thus credited with that which on God’s part was never hindered being made good to him, and which he had claimed to be his own. But again the apostle comforts those he is addressing with remembrance of what they had endured, and how the Lord’s grace had upheld them under it, and wrought experience, in which what had been trial becomes in result abiding blessing. Still, they had need of endurance, and would in due time find the recompense; for He who cometh will at last come. Meanwhile, “the just shall live by faith;” and he who draws back God can have no pleasure in him. The principle always remains true, but these are marked out by the apostle here as being really distinct classes. “We are not of those,” he says, “who draw back to perdition.” We are not of that class of people at all, “but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.”