Main news for 24 December 2022

King James Version (en)

Hebrews, Chapter 9, verses 11-12

¹¹ far inferior to the dignity and perfection of the blood and sacrifice of Christ

¹¹But 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;

¹²Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

NOTES

Continuing the theme of the Messiah as High Priest, the author of the letter gives his main attention to sacrifice as a form...

Continuing the theme of the Messiah as High Priest, the author of the letter gives his main attention to sacrifice as a form of communion with God that connects a person with God through purification and sanctification. It is no accident that he speaks of Christ as the One who passed through a greater and more perfect sanctuary, made not by human beings but by God Himself, calling Him "the high priest of the good things already manifested" (v. 11; in the Synodal translation, "High Priest of the good things to come"; the Greek text can mean not only "coming with a greater and more perfect tabernacle," but also "passing through a greater and more perfect tabernacle"). The former sacrifices purified a person from the outside, touching first of all his external, bodily, natural component (v. 13). Such purification could free the one being purified from the consequences of a particular sin, if that sin had been committed unintentionally or in ignorance, but it could not free a person completely from the power of sin. That is no surprise: external purification was directed not at the root cause of human sinfulness, but only at its concrete manifestations.

Jesus, however, makes "eternal redemption" possible, complete liberation from sin, after which it no longer has power over a person (v. 12). This becomes possible because the Kingdom that He brought into the world, paying for it by His death on the cross, changes a person not partially, touching only his nature, but completely, transforming his heart and therefore his spiritual and moral life, "purifying the conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (v. 14).

Since the time of Moses, sacrificial blood had sanctified both individual persons and a whole people, joining to God those who wanted this. It also purified a person from the consequences of sins he had committed, freeing him from the power of the evil in which the world lies (vv. 19-22). Such liberation was sometimes called ransom, or redemption, comparing a person's liberation from the power of worldly evil, and therefore from death, with the ransom and freeing of a fellow tribesman who had fallen into slavery, something that in every age was considered a righteous deed. But formerly the ransom was temporary, the liberation relative. Now the One has come into the world who, at the price of His own blood, ransoms forever everyone who is ready to accept His authority, finally and definitively freeing His faithful ones from the power of sin and death (v. 15). The former covenant required sacrificial blood for the purification and sanctification of those who had made it with God (v. 18); the new covenant unites the faithful with God not through sacrificial blood, but through that life of the Kingdom which the Risen One gives to everyone ready to believe Him and follow Him.

In the new messianic covenant-union, the person of the Messiah Himself as High Priest plays the decisive role, for He can cleanse those who trust Him in a way...

In the new messianic covenant-union, the person of the Messiah Himself as High Priest plays the decisive role, for He can cleanse those who trust Him in a way no cleansing sacrifices of former times could cleanse them. Yahwistic cleansing sacrifices really could deliver a sinner from the consequences of the sin he had committed, if the sin had been committed unintentionally, but only until the next sin. With his sin a person remained alone before God and had to think for himself what to do with his sinfulness. It is not so with Christ: He does not leave the sinner who has trusted Him alone with his sin before God.

He Himself takes upon Himself the consequences of the sin committed by the person, if only the person agrees to this and if he repents of his sin. He not only brought the Kingdom into the world; He also helps everyone who seeks to enter it, regardless of the past, regardless of the sins that could have hindered a person on his path.

Formerly a person could be cleansed for a time, for a time return to the state in which he could approach the altar and be sanctified. But such a state could not be permanent; a person was sanctified, and then rolled back again, sinned again, repented again, performed cleansing sacrifices again, and again went to the altar so that, having been sanctified, he would then roll back again. The rollback was inevitable: sin held the person in its power, never releasing him completely into freedom.

Sometimes the chain became longer, and then an illusion of liberation arose, but sooner or later the person again discovered its end, realizing that he still had no real freedom. With Christ it is not so: He breaks the chains binding us completely - at the cost of His own life, which He gives for the possibility of freeing from the power of sin everyone who is ready to allow Him to do this and who is ready to ask Him for it. Here liberation is no longer for a time, but forever. And there is the possibility of true, full life in the Kingdom, which without Him we would not have, not only because there would be no Kingdom in the world, but also because we would never be able to contain its life.

"The blood of Christ," the semantic, emotional, and spiritual center of today's apostolic reading, appears against the background of the request made by...

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