CHAPTER 9
The covenant being changed by the bringing in of the priesthood of Christ, the whole system undergoes the change; the sanctuary, offerings, worship, the state of the worshippers — everything is altered. Here the question arises: How near can we approach to God through the new priesthood? The answer is: We draw nigh even to God Himself. This privilege is founded on the perfect value of the blood of Christ; which value is unfolded in these two chapters.
In chapter 9 the special subject is atonement; the blood shed and carried into the sanctuary. In chapter 10 it is the application of the blood to the individual, conscience being perfected through sprinkling of the blood.
Verses 1-10. Under the first covenant there was an ordinance of service with regard to the worship which Jehovah received from His people. A tabernacle had been made in which God concealed His glory; and sacrifices were offered, the blood of which was carried into this tabernacle by the high priest.
We must notice that it is the tabernacle pitched by Moses in the wilderness which is spoken of here. There is no mention made of the temple built by Solomon. The temple was not the shadow of heavenly things; but a figure of the government of God during the millennium. When the ark of the covenant was placed in it, it contained neither the pot of manna nor Aaron’s rod, which are both symbols of the resources displayed by grace in the wilderness. But the tabernacle, with its furniture and service, set forth the provision of the grace of God to help us during our journey here below. In fact this tabernacle belongs to a higher order of things; for it was not, like the temple, the expression of a terrestrial rest; it exhibited the grace of God going with His people till their introduction into the heavenly rest.
[p. 22] Verse 2. The table of shewbread and the seven-branched candlestick in the sanctuary set forth the manifestation of God in man. God revealed in Christ the anointed man and by the Spirit, according to the riches of a grace which opens its treasures to man.
Verses 3-5. The arrangement of the holiest of all set forth the supreme God in the immediate manifestation of His divine Person: God manifested in testimony to man, as well as in government and judgment in the midst of His people; but remaining in darkness and keeping man at a distance.
Verses 6-8. The priests went daily into the holy place, accomplishing the usual service; the high priest only went into the holiest of all. He carried blood in, that God should not come out in judgment.
The Levitical service was for the children of Israel the means of approaching God. In the state they were in they never could have approached God in the light; therefore it was necessary that there should be this order of things between them and God. Evidently in an earthly system of religion, and under a regimen in which God reveals Himself to man in judgment and providence, God must remain veiled: only the grace which is in Jesus is that which fits man to approach to God without a veil.
Verse 9. “Sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience.” It cannot be said that, under this order of things, the conscience of the Israelite remained deaf to the communications of God; but by the sole effect of sacrifices, it was never in a state to bear the presence of God. Their conscience was formed more by personal communications with Jehovah. David, for instance, in his wandering life had found God; and he was nearer to Him in the wilderness than the Israelites were when approaching the altar with the tabernacle and the ordinances, between themselves and God. This advantage was also limited: certain springs of conscience remained inactive. In that state they could not have sustained communion with God in that full light which penetrates man and searches into the motions of his soul. Never would a Jew have been heard speaking of the flesh, saying that it is opposed to the Spirit. In summing up what we learn in these verses of the priesthood under the first covenant, we find that there was a tabernacle in which God was hidden in obscurity, and sacrifices which were not able to perfect the conscience of the worshippers.
[p. 23] Verses 11, 12. But the contrast of the new priesthood presents a much more excellent order of things, “Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands ... but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption.” O! how far Christ surpasses that which was greatest under the Levitical economy. Heaven is the sanctuary into which He has entered; and the blood which He has carried in is His own, the blood which has obtained an eternal redemption.
We notice that the truths declared in these verses present the value of the blood of Christ according to the efficacy of the day of atonement. The unfoldings which follow are, generally speaking, given from the same point of view.+
“By his own blood he entered in once, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” The sacrifice is shewn here as forming part of the glory of Christ; the humiliation of the cross, and suffering for sin, do not appear here. But Christ having obtained eternal redemption by His blood entered into heaven carrying the value of that blood into the presence of God. Moreover the relation of the blood to the state of man, its application to the sinner, is not unfolded here.
+Chapter 9 of Hebrews takes us back to Leviticus 16 and, though not a complete exposition of its contents, presents the leading features. On the great day of atonement the service of the priesthood consisted in this: the sacrificing of the goat offered to Jehovah and whose blood was sprinkled upon the mercy-seat; the sprinkling of blood on the tabernacle; and the sending off of the scapegoat to the wilderness, bearing away the sins of the people. We find these three actions in this chapter now before us: the blood put upon the mercy-seat (verse 12); the sprinkling on the tabernacle (verse 23); and the scapegoat bearing sins (verse 28).
[p. 24] It is primarily for God that this sacrifice took place; to Him. was the blood offered; and before Him, in redemption, as in all His works, things are set in their proper place before reaching down to man.
Verses 13, 14. If the blood of Christ belongs to God, it is nevertheless on man’s account it was shed. Christ, the anointed Man, offered Himself without spot, and His blood purged the conscience of the believers. But what perfection is in this work of salvation! There is no room left for man to take a part in the divine operations; a redemption which saves him is accomplished, but this work is entirely of God. Christ offered Himself by the eternal Spirit. The work of the cross is perfect and absolute; wrought wholly between Christ and God, to the exclusion of all outside. Christ in His death has been lifted up from the earth. “How much more shall the blood of Christ ... purge your conscience?” The purification of the conscience by the blood is simply maintained here. The effect of the blood of Christ unfolded in its extensiveness will be the subject-matter of chapter 10.
Verse 15. The blood which Jesus has shed gives Him a title to be the Mediator of the new covenant. This blood could not belong to the first one under which purification only applied to defilements of the flesh; but it belongs to the second: it is the foundation of this covenant under which sin is no more before God. “That by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant.” This first covenant brought in consequences for which it was not provided: for law makes sin to abound and only acts towards transgressors by punishing them with death. But here is another covenant founded on the value of the blood of Christ and this blood answers for the transgression committed under the first.
It is a retro-active effect applying itself to transgressions committed beforehand, as it applies now to the state of the called. “They which are called might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance.” Everything in this present dispensation is done by calling. Calling opens the door of the new covenant to those who found themselves under the grave consequences of the first, even as also to those who did not belong to it at all. Nevertheless it is with reference to the first of these classes that these truths are unfolded.
Mark how the expressions “entered in once,” “an eternal redemption,” “through the eternal Spirit offered,” “an eternal inheritance” contrasted the heavenly priesthood, and the new covenant with the earthly privileges of the Jews and their conditions under the first. Yet these expressions are still Jewish, they describe very little of heaven; the privileges of saints united to Christ on high are not touched upon.
[p. 25] Verses 16, 17. As the death of Jesus is the redemption of transgressions committed under the first covenant, it is also the surety of the inheritance promised under the second. The word inheritance of verse 15 seems to bring in the idea of “testament” for verses 16, 17. These two verses may be read as a parenthesis. Translating by “testament” the Greek word, the expression “there must also of necessity be the death of the testator” is made to signify there must be the death of the testator to make sure the provisions of it; for as long as he lives he can alter them. Elsewhere in the epistle we always translate the Greek word by “covenant.”
Verses 18-22. The second covenant grounded on the value of the blood of Christ is not on this basis without having a type answering to it in the first. This one, of whom Moses was the mediator, was inaugurated by blood; it had also, by the sprinkling of the blood, means of purification connected with worship.
Verse 22. “And without shedding of blood there is no remission.” There are purifications made by water; also the purification by sprinkling of blood made once; but for the remission of sins the shedding of blood was necessary: blood must flow, some one must die. It is important to notice this; for it often happens that a soul without peace sighs for fresh sprinklings. That soul might as well ask God to renew the sacrifice, for without shedding there can be no sprinkling. It is on the value of the shed blood that the peace of the soul rests. Now the shedding of the blood of Christ has taken place, and it can only take place once. So is it also as to the sprinkling granted to the believers.
Verses 23, 24. The blood of Christ purifies the heavenly places; even as the blood of bulls and of goats did purge the tabernacle. The reason of this rite for the tabernacle in the wilderness is given in these terms, Leviticus 16, “the tabernacle of the congregation that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness,” verse 16. By this we understand the purification of the heavenly places. God has established His dwelling-place amidst His people. We are in contact with His tabernacle. Our transgressions and our sins are named there. What a thing for sin to be named in heaven! Perhaps there is more general reason for the purification of the heavenly places: the defilement of creation by the entrance of sin into the world. Creation seen as a whole is unclean by reason of the presence of sin.
[p. 26] Verse 24. The entering of Christ into the heavenlies, also His appearing in the presence of God, correspond to a privilege infinitely blessed to our souls. Not only is Christ seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, but in this place of perfection He “appears in the presence of God for us” and represents us there.
Verses 25-28. The end of the chapter is specially given up to shewing that Christ could suffer but once.
Verse 26. For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: the offering could not take place without Jesus suffering. This connection of the offering with suffering is remarkable; the Holy Ghost does not separate them. Some speak of “unbloody sacrifices,” but sacrifice only takes place through the sufferings of death. If then the sacrifice has not been effected, it never will: for Christ cannot suffer any more.
“But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Until Christ, the question of sin had not been settled, but every trial of man under responsibility was being made; in the case of man without law or man under a law, sin had come to maturity. Besides, there was no more occasion for the existence of an age with man in the same way as before, under the same responsibility: the ages were accomplished; Christ appears; He closes the preceding period by abolishing sin, and opens new ages for the glory. Therefore He can now call souls to enter into this heavenly glory. During the call the “present evil age” continues for this world, but the called partake already of the blessing of the ages to come. He appeared (the Greek verb is in the perfect tense); the fact has passed and still subsists.
Verses 27, 28. The offering of Christ made once answers to the condition of man as son of Adam. The fate of sinful man is once to die, and after this the judgment. But Christ offering Himself once hath put away sin and removed the judgment for His own. He will be seen a second time by those who wait for Him, it will be unto salvation.
“Unto salvation.” This expression is in contrast with the judgment to come for man, after death. He has for his end two terrible passes: death and judgment. On the contrary, the Christian possesses two boundless privileges: he partakes of a Christ who died for his sins; and he waits the coming of this Christ in glory unto salvation. Jesus having abolished sin on the cross, the only thing that remains to accomplish after His death is His return to bring His own into the glory.