Hebrews 9
Chapter 9 brings us into the types of the Levitical ritual, priesthood, and sacrifice. Before developing these, the Apostle refers to the tabernacle itself in which these sacrifices were offered. "There was a tabernacle made; the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread; which is called holy. And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called holy of holies; which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold." Carefully observe that it is the tabernacle, never the temple. The latter is not referred to because it represents the millennial glory; the former is, because it finds its proper fulfillment in that which is made good in the Christian scheme now. This supposes the people of God not actually settled in the land, but still pilgrims and strangers on the earth; and the epistle to the Hebrews, as we have already seen, looks emphatically and exclusively at the people of God as not yet passed out of the wilderness- never as brought into the land, though it might be on the verge of it-just entering, but not actually entered. There remains, therefore, a sabbath-keeping for the people of God. Thither they are to be brought, and there are means for the road to keep us moving onward. But meanwhile we have not yet entered into the rest of God. It remains. Such is a main point, not of chapter 4 only, but of the epistle. It was the more urgent to insist on it because the Jews, like others, would have liked to be settled in rest here and now. This is natural and pleasant to the flesh, no doubt; but it is precisely what opposes the whole object of God in Christianity (since Christ went on high till He comes again), and therefore opposes the path of faith to which the children of God are called.
Accordingly, then, as suiting this pilgrim path of the Christian, the tabernacle is referred to, and not the temple. This is the more remarkable because his language is essentially of the actual state of what was going on in the temple; but he always calls it the tabernacle. In truth, the substratum was the same, and therefore it was not only quite lawful so to call it, but if he had not, the design would have been marred. This shows the main object of the Spirit of God in directing us to the type that applies to the believer now in an unsettled pilgrim condition, not to Israel established in the land of promise.
To what, then, is the allusion to the sanctuary applied? To mark that in it the veil was unrent. "Into the second [goes] the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people: the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way of the holies was not yet made manifest, while as yet the first tabernacle was standing: which is a figure for the present time, according to which are offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not, as pertaining to the conscience, make him that did the religious service perfect; which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation."
Christianity is contrasted with all this. "But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by the better and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, nor by blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood entered in once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption." Here the words "for us" had better be left out. They really mar the sense because they draw attention not to the truth in itself so much as its application to us, which is not the point in chapter 9, but rather in chapter 10. Here it is the grand truth in itself in its own character. 'What is the value, the import, of the sacrifice of Christ viewed according to God, and as bearing on His ways? This is the fact. Christ has gone into the presence of God, "having obtained eternal redemption." For whom it may be, is another thing, of which he will speak by-and-by. Meanwhile we are told that He has obtained (not temporary, but) "eternal redemption." It is that which infinitely exceeds the deliverance out of Egypt, or any ceremonial atonement ever wrought by a high priest for Israel. Christ has obtained redemption, and this is witnessed by the token of the veil rent from top to bottom. The unrent veil bore evidence on its front that man could not yet draw near into the holiest-that he had no access into the presence of God. This is of the deepest importance. It did not matter whether it was a priest or an Israelite. A priest, as such, could no more draw near into the presence of God in the holiest than any of the common people. Christianity is stamped by this: that, in virtue of the blood of Christ, once for all for every believer the way is made manifest into the holiest of all. The veil is rent: the believer can draw near, as is shown in the next chapter, but meanwhile it is merely pointed out that there is no veil now, eternal redemption being obtained.
Thus does the Apostle reason on it: "For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh" (which the Jew would not contest): "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 do religious service to the living God? And for this cause He is the mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, for redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, the called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." Thus the power of what Christ had wrought was now brought in for future ends; it was not merely retrospective, but above all in present efficacy while the Jews refuse Christ.
The allusion in the last clause to the eternal inheritance (for everything is eternal in the Hebrews, standing in decided contrast with Jewish things which were but for a season) leads the Holy Spirit to take up the other meaning of the same word, which was and is rightly enough translated covenant. At first sight everyone may have been surprised, especially those that read the New Testament in the language in which God wrote it, at the double meaning of the word which is here translated covenant. It means testament as well as covenant. In point of fact the English translators did not know what to make of the matter; for they give sometimes one, sometimes the other, without any apparent reason for it, except to vary the phrase. In my judgment it is correct to translate it both ways, never arbitrarily, but according to context. There is nothing capricious about the usage. There are certain surroundings which indicate to the competent eye when the word covenant is right, and when the word testament is better.
It may then be stated summarily, in few words, unless I am greatly mistaken, that the word should always be translated covenant in every part of the New Testament, except in these two verses; namely, Heb. 9:1616For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. (Hebrews 9:16) and 17. If therefore, when you find the word testament anywhere else in the authorized version, you turn it into covenant, in my opinion, you will not do amiss. If in these two verses we bear in mind that it really means testament, growing out of the previous mention of the "inheritance," I am persuaded that you will have better understanding of the argument. In short, the word in itself may mean either; but this is no proof that it may indifferently or without adequate reason be translated both ways. The fact is that love of uniformity may mislead some, as love of variety misled our English translators too often. It is hard to keep clear of both. Everyone can understand, when once we find that the word almost always means covenant, how g r e a t the temptation is to translate it so in these two verses, especially as before and after it means covenant in the same passage. But why should it be testament in these two verses alone, and covenant in all other places? The answer is that the language is peculiar and precise in these same two verses, requiring not a covenant but a testament, and therefore the sense of testament here is the preferable one, and not covenant. The reasons will be given.
First of all, as has been hinted, that which suggests testament is the end of verse 15-"They which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." How is it that anybody ordinarily gets an inheritance? By a testament, to be sure, as everyone knows. Such has been the usual form in all countries not savage, and in all ages. No figure therefore would be more natural than that if God intended certain persons called
to have an inheritance, there should be a testament about the matter. Accordingly, advantage is taken of an unquestionable meaning of the word for this added illustration, which is based on the death of Christ; "Where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator." That the word in this connection means testator, appears to me beyond just question. I am not aware that it is, nor do. I believe that it could be, ever used in such a sense as covenanting victim, for which some contend. It often means one who arranges or disposes of property, or anything else, such as a treaty or covenant.
Let us next apply the word covenant here, and you will soon see the insuperable difficulties into which you are plunged if you say, "For where a covenant is, there must also of necessity be the death of the covenanter"-the person. Now is it an axiom that a covenant maker must die to give it force? It is quite evident, on the contrary, that this is not only not the truth which all recognize when stated, but altogether inconsistent with the Bible, with all books, and with all experience. In every covenant of Scripture the man that makes it has never to die for any such end. Indeed both should die, for it usually consists of two parties who are thus bound, and therefore, were the maxim true, both ought to die, which is an evident absurdity.
The consequence is that many have tried (and I remember making efforts of that kind myself, until convinced that it could not succeed) to give the Greek word here which is rightly rendered the testator in the King James translation, the force of the covenanting victim. But the answer to this is that there is not a single writer in the language, not sacred only but profane, who employs it in such a sense. Those therefore that so translate our two verses have invented a meaning for the phrase, instead of accepting its legitimate sense as attested by all the monuments of the Greek tongue; whereas the moment that we give it the meaning assigned here rightly by the better translators, that is, the sense of testator and testament, all runs with perfect smoothness, and with striking aptitude.
He is showing us the efficacy of Christ's death. He demonstrates its vicarious nature and value from the sacrifices so familiar to all then, and to the Jew particularly, in connection with the covenant that required them. Now his rapid mind seizes, under the Spirit's guidance, the other well- known sense of the word; namely, as a testamentary disposition, and shows the necessity of Christ's death to bring it into force. It is true that victims were sometimes slain in ratifying a covenant, and thus were the seal of that covenant; but first, they were not essential; second, the covenanter or contracting party had in no case to die in order to make the contract valid. On the other hand, it is notoriously true that in no case can a testament come into execution without the testator's death- a figure that every man at once discerns. There must be the death of him who so disposes of his property in order that the heir should take it under his testament. Which of these two most commends itself as the unforced meaning of the passage, it is for the reader to judge. And observe that it is assumed to be so common and obvious a maxim that it could not be questioned. "For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator." The addition of this last clause as a necessary condition confirms the sense assigned. Had he merely referred to the covenant (that is, the sense of the word which had been used before), what would be the aim of the also? It is just what he had been speaking of throughout, if covenant were still meant. Apply it to Christ's death as the testator, and nothing can be plainer or more forcible. The death of Christ, both in the sense of a victim sacrificed, and of a testator, though a double figure, is evident to all, and tends to the selfsame point. "For a testament is of force after men are dead" (or, in case of dead men): "since it is never of force when the testator liveth."
But now, returning from this striking instance of Paul's habit of bringing out the meaning of a word, let us resume the regular course of the Apostle's argument. "Whereupon neither the first [covenant] was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself, and all the people, saying, This [is] the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you. And he sprinkled likewise with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are according to the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the representations of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into holies made with hands, figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us."
Thus we have distinctly set before us the general doctrine of the chapter-that Christ has suffered but once, and has been offered but once—that the offering cannot be severed from the suffering. If He is to be often offered, He must also often suffer. The truth, on the contrary, is that there was but one offering and but one suffering of Christ, once for all, in witness of the perfection of which He is gone into the presence of God, there to appear for us. Thus it will be observed that at the end of all the moral and experimental dealings with the first man (manifested in Israel), we come to a deeply momentous point, as in God's ways, so in the Apostle's reasoning. Up to this time man was the object of those ways; it was simply, and rightly of course, a probation. Man was tried by all sorts of tests from time to time. God knew perfectly well, and even declared here and there, the end from the beginning; but He would make it manifest to every conscience that all He got from man, in these His varied dealings, was sin. Then comes a total change: God takes up the matter Himself, acting in view of man's sin; but in Jesus, in the very Messiah for whom the Jews were waiting, He has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and has accomplished this mighty work as admirably befitting the goodness of God, as it alone descends low enough to reach the vilest man, and yet deliver him with a salvation which only the more humbles man and glorifies God. For now God came out, so to speak, in His own power and grace, and, in the Person of Christ on the cross, put away sin-abolished it from before His face, and set the believer absolutely free from it as regards judgment.
"But now once in the consummation of the ages"-this is the meaning of the "end of the world"-it is the consummation of those dispensations for bringing out what man was. Man's worst sin culminated in the death of Christ who knew no sin; but in that very death He put away sin. Christ, therefore, goes into heaven, and will come again apart from sin. He has nothing more to do with sin; He will judge man who rejects Himself and slights sin, as He will appear to the salvation of His own people. "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so 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."
It is perfectly true that if we think of Christ, He was here below absolutely without sin; but He who was without sin in His Person, and all His life, had everything to do with sin on the cross when God made Him to be sin for us. The atonement was at least as real as our sin; and God Himself dealt with Christ as laying sin upon Him, and treating Him, the Great Substitute, as sin before Himself, that at one blow it might be all put away from before His face. This He has done, and done with. Now accordingly, by virtue of His death which rent the veil, God and man stand face to face. What then is man's actual estate? "As it is appointed unto men once to die"-wages of sin, though not all-"but after this the judgment," or the full wages of sin-"so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many"-this He has finished- "and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." He will have nothing more to do with sin. He has so absolutely swept it away for those who believe on Him, that when He comes again, there will be no question of judgment, as far as they are concerned, but only of salvation in the sense of their being cleared from the last relic or result of sin, even for the body. Indeed it is only the body that is here spoken of. As far as the soul is concerned, Christ would not go up to heaven until sin was abrogated before God. Christ is doing nothing there to take away sin; nor when He comes again will He touch the question of sin, because it is a finished work. Christ Himself could not add to the perfection of that sacrifice by which He has put away sin. Consequently, when He comes again to them that look for Him, it is simply to bring them into all the eternal results of that great salvation.
(To be continued)
Any variation from the King James Version of the Scriptures is Mr. Kelly's own translation.