NOTES for Heb 9:11-22

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.

Talking about the renovation of the union with God, the author of the epistle connects it to the death of the One, Who made possible this renovation. And as argumentation of his words, he quotes for example with the testament, which comes into force only after the death of the testator. At first sight, the link is not obvious: because the union with God, quite as any other union, can not be transmitted by inheritance, as goods transfer, it is not a matter of property here, but of relationship, that each has to establish again and himself.

But all the same, if it is impossible to establish for man a relation with God, or with people, it is at least possible to put him into a well-known group of people, where to establish such relations is easier. The environment doesn’t certainly define completely the fate of man, but gives in certain cases such possibilities, that in another case the same person would never have received.

That is exactly what Jesus did for all of us together and for each in particular: He led us into His Kingdom, in this environment, where love to God and to the neighbor is a natural habitat. And, having led, He ended His earthly way: it is not by chance if the day before His death, the last thing He did, was the Last Supper, Passover seder, becoming thereby the messianic wedding, which was the first sacred meal of the Kingdom.

And then He goes away after the resurrection and the Ascension, somehow moving away, dissolving in the depths of the Kingdom, which coming into the world, becomes wider and more spacious. He leaves, granting us the possibility of living in the Kingdom He left. To live one life with Him, and at the same time be completely independent, free and responsible. So that at the end of time, when the Kingdom will be revealed in all its plenitude, we would meet again with Him. This time not like slaves or mercenaries, but as friends.