Thus the Holy Spirit pronounces the Levitical institutions, however instructive in their season, essentially provisional and temporary, adapted to man in his weakness, ignorance, and probation. Christ is the intervention of God in man, yet God's own Son, revealing Himself, and saving the lost.
As John puts it, the law was given by Moses; grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ. Nor was it word only, even if this were, as it really is, God's word. God has wrought in Christ. Instead of responsible man, tried in every way, and proved failing and guilty in all, we see now by faith the Second man in heaven set down on the right hand of the throne, sin judged in a perfect sacrifice, death vanquished, Satan's power annulled, God glorified, and the way into the holiest now manifested, to the present blessedness of every believer here below. And these are and are declared to be everlasting realities, in contrast with Israel's natural and transient privileges in the past, and before the day when they too, repentant and renewed, enter by divine mercy into their portion, even Messiah and the new covenant, which shall never pass away.
“But Christ having come high priest of the good things to come, by the better and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), nor yet by blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, entered once for all into the holies, having found an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and a heifer's ashes sprinkling those that are defiled sanctifieth unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of the Christ, who by an eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God, cleanse your [or our] conscience from dead works to serve a living God” (Heb. 9:11-1411But 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. 13For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14How 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? (Hebrews 9:11‑14))?
The great, sure, and plain basis of the Epistle is Christ, not reigning yet as Son of David, but arrived at His actual heavenly position. He is High priest not here below, but in the heavenly places. It is no longer a figure in the hand of mortal man on earth, but God's work of everlasting efficacy in His Son, yet man risen and ascended, by virtue of an atonement, the perfection of which God thus attested, as well as the glory of His person Who suffered to the utmost in achieving it; for sin could only thus be absolutely judged and Satan triumphed over by such a sacrifice. Yet while the blessing is fully made known to the believer now, in order to place him in immediate access to God according to the rights of Christ's glory and of redemption actually accomplished for the soul, the phraseology is purposely such as to hold out and ensure “the coming good things” for His people another day, like “the world to come” in Heb. 2, “the rest that remaineth for the people of God” in Heb. 4, “the age to come” in Heb. 6, and the implied exercise of the Melchizedek priesthood in Heb. 7, to say, no more now. They were familiar as promised in the Ο.Τ. For the Christian the direct aim is to, place him through Christ in present, known, and settled relationship with God in the holiest.
Accordingly the text runs “by the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not hand-made, that is, not of this creation.” We may make allowance for the difficulty of presenting the force of both this clause and the preceding one in Latin, which wants the definite article; but Tyndale, Cranmer, the Geneva, and the Authorized ought to have adhered to the sense. The Rhemish, singular to say, has “the” good things to come, but “a” more ample and more perfect tabernacle: why they should have thus halted, it is hard to conceive. “The” greater and more perfect tabernacle is in contrast with the earthly one reared by human hands. High priest and sanctuary are in exact keeping. Christianity is “not of this creation” but divine and heavenly, though for believers here below; as Judaism could not rise above sinful dying man and the earth, whatever its solemn sanction or its rigid separateness. Hence it perfected nothing and could satisfy neither God when He revealed Himself, nor man when the depth of his need on the one hand and the resources of grace on the other were fully made known. “Due time,” “season of rectification,” came when Christ, rejected of man, became by His blood-shedding the ground of God's righteousness, Who thereby and forthwith proceeds to justify the believer through faith of Him. And this is here stated in terms of the Epistle to the Roman saints that the thorough identity of the truth with that set before the Hebrew confessors may be shown without argument.
There is a curious erratum (almost certainly the printer's) in the middle of Tyndale's version of Heb. 9:1212Neither 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. (Hebrews 9:12)—"we” entered, for “he” as it unquestionably should be. The error involves the deplorable connection of our having “founde eternal! redemcion,” an idea as remote as possible from that faithful translator's mind. Of course, no ancient reading, or version, led to it, but a mere slip of typography overlooked in revision of the proof.
The “blood of goats and calves” was a grave object-lesson for Israel in the days when God condescended to deal with the ignorant and erring by the law and a worldly sanctuary and earthly rites and a high priest compassed with infirmity like the people. Now they slight the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, and are pronounced, fruit as well as root and branch, the weak and beggarly elements to which some bearing Christ's name desire to be in bondage. Now the entire system is unbelief and ignorance of Christ Who “by His own blood” entered once for all into the holies, having found eternal redemption (Heb. 9:1212Neither 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. (Hebrews 9:12)). “For us” is the gratuitous addition of the Geneva Version, followed by the Authorized. Abstractly the statement is no more than is in substance taught elsewhere, notably and yet more forcibly in chapter 10 of this Epistle. But here it is not only uncalled for, as not so written, but improper, as going beyond the actual aim of the Holy Ghost Who is setting out the intrinsic value of the infinite sacrifice, not its application to any, which follows in its own due time and place.
It may be added that there is no good reason here to give the preposition translated “by” the mere local (10) or instrumental (12) notion of “through,” though capable of either when contextually required. But Jui may and does when needed express the circumstantial condition, as in Rom. 2:2727And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? (Romans 2:27), and elsewhere. So it is best understood here. Into the holies (the veil being now rent) He entered once for all. There He abides without change or the need of repetition, indeed contrasted with any such thing; and His own blood was not for Himself, as if He required any sacrificial means of entrance: therewith it was an eternal redemption He found.
There had been of old a provisional value attached to the Levitical offerings. “The blood of goats and bulls,” on the day of atonement, &c., had an impressive significance; so had a heifer's ashes sprinkling those that had been defiled in the wilderness (Num. 19). But if these things sanctified “unto the cleanness of the flesh,” how much more shall the blood of the Christ cleanse your [or our] conscience from dead works (as all the acts of a sinful nature must be) to serve religiously (λατρεύειν) a living God? Only consider the Christ, glorious in Himself, in the character of His offering, “Who by an eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God.” As He stands alone, so does that offering of Himself; and the Holy Spirit's part in it is marked here as “an Eternal Spirit": so does eternity characterize this Epistle, and so was the Christ as ever dependent on God thus, while offering Himself up without spot to bear our sins. For here it is the previous act: not ἀνήνεγκεν, but προσήνεγκεν. Compare Heb. 9:2828So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28), where both occur and in their due relation of course.