Question: Is it true that Heb. 4:14; 9:11, 12 speak of Christ’s entrance into heaven when He died, not on His ascension? R. T.
Answer: It is pure assumption, in order to scrape an appearance of evidence for the strange and unsound doctrine of propitiation made by Christ, not through the blood of His cross, but by His subsequent action as a separate spirit in heaven, by an unintelligent misuse of the types. Hence the pretense that Heb. 4:14 and 9:11, 12 refer to His entrance on death as priest! whereas other passages in the Epistle speak of His entrance on ascension as Man! Whosoever is bold enough to draw such a line is on every principle of truth bound to prove his assertion. Those who deny it, as almost if not all believers hitherto, stand on the common character thus far of Heb. 1:3; 6:20; 8:1; 9:24; 10:12; 12:2 with the two texts in question. No one denies the Lord’s presence in Paradise immediately after death; no sober Christian has ever confounded this with His entrance after ascension on priestly function. Indeed one of the two texts even maintains beyond cavil Christ’s entrance once for all into the sanctuary, having obtained eternal redemption. This is the sole entrance which the Epistle contemplates or allows: if any one disputes this, let him try to give an adequate proof. Dean Alford’s argument for simultaneity here is at issue with the doctrine of the Epistle. Indeed, ingenious as he was, he is unreliable often for orthodoxy. And as to Greek, think of a scholar comparing ἀποκριθεὶς εῖπε and similar cases with εἰσῆλθεν ἐφάπαξ..., αἰ. λ. εὑράμενος! The rendering of the A. and R. Vv., Green, Davidson, &c., is alone tenable: so the Vulgate, &c.