NOTES for Heb 9:27-28

Comparing the former sacrifices with what Jesus did for His faithful ones, the author of the letter speaks about the traditional Yahwist worship, with all its forms, as an earthly image of another reality, the reality of the Kingdom, and he applies this also to sacrifice (v. 23). Now, according to him, we have the possibility through Christ to share in the Kingdom itself (v. 24). And in the Kingdom the endlessness of those partial purifications and partial sanctifications, which alone could be available to a person in our still untransformed world, is removed and loses its meaning (vv. 25-26). The author of the letter draws a fairly clear parallel between the life of the Kingdom in its relation to the life of the untransformed world, on the one hand, and the corresponding ways of communion with God, on the other. No human being can become a living Torah, be sanctified to the point of the complete transformation of human nature, and contain the Kingdom in all its fullness. Therefore the only means left to any priest for purifying and sanctifying both himself and others was sacrificial blood sanctified by God.

The human being remained human; in God's hands he was only an imperfect instrument of incomplete purification and partial sanctification. Hence the bad infinity of the process: in this way it is impossible either to tear sin out by the root or to transform human nature completely. Only the Messiah, who became the living Torah and contained in Himself the whole fullness of the Kingdom, and therefore the fullness of God, was able to change the situation qualitatively. Entering the Kingdom and sharing in its life changes a person once and for all. Here there is no longer room for constantly repeated partial purifications and regular sanctifications that never reach fullness. Meanwhile, among second-generation Christians there had already begun, apparently, to spread attitudes that were essentially Old Testament ones, extending to Christianity the former, pre-Christian ideas about spiritual life. It is apparently against these that the author of the letter argues, reminding his readers that the sacrifice of Christ, despite the similarity of the name, is fundamentally different from the former sacrifices. Unlike them, it is not repeated again and again. It is the beginning of the history of the Kingdom, which will be completed by its triumph and by the return of the Savior (vv. 27-28).

Everyone has heard of Christ's Second Coming, but not all of us can immediately say what its purpose is. Was not everything needed for our salvation accomplished at His First Coming? Has redemption not taken place? Of course it has. But redemption is only part of what God has intended. By offering Himself in sacrifice, Christ brought liberation from slavery to sin into the world and gave people the possibility—but not the obligation!—of uniting with Him and ascending towards salvation. Yet evil is still present in the world, and not only in people. Redemption is the beginning of the victory over evil, the pledge of that victory, but the victory must still be fully manifested in time and space, in this world. It is precisely for this final victory that Christ will come in power and glory, revealing Himself to everything and everyone at once as absolute and all-conquering Good. That moment will be judgement upon the world and the end of this world. Everything redeemed, everything that has accepted this gift of redemption, will gather to the victorious Christ, while everything that has no share in redemption will cease to exist. Then Christ will truly be all and in all.

Thus what began at the First Coming finds its final fulfilment at the Second. But notice the parallel drawn by the author of the Epistle. In the same way, something begins during a person's life that receives its final determination and completion after death, at judgement. Note that Scripture here speaks quite clearly of a person dying only once: there is no ‘multiple’ life, no reincarnation. Indeed, between death and judgement there are no ‘events’; through physical death a person is ‘transported’ to judgement. However much time, by our earthly reckoning, may pass between their death and the Second Coming, to them it is like a single instant. For time matters only for bodily existence; thus, in a person's own experience, there is no time between physical death and bodily resurrection.