NOTES for Heb 9:11-22
11 But 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; |
12 Neither 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. |
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: |
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? |
15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. |
16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. |
17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. |
18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. |
19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, |
20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. |
21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. |
22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. |
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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.
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