The Christadelphian 1934, John Carter

“The Letter to the Hebrews” 

An Analysis and Exposition

XIII.—The Priesthood of Christ

(g) The Tabernacle (9:1–28)

(Continued.)

The New Covenant Ratified by Christ’s Death (verses 15–22)

IN Christ, says the apostle, all the promises of God are yea and Amen unto the glory of God. It is through Christ that the promises will be fulfilled. He was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.

Paul has already shewn that a new covenant was purposed by God, and had been the subject of prophecy through Jeremiah (Heb. 8.). The new covenant has far more reaching effects than the old. In citing Jeremiah Paul was content with the inference that a new covenant implied that the previous one had waxed old and would vanish away. But he had also just before spoken of Christ as the mediator of a better covenant which was based upon better promises (verse 6); and again he had said (7:22) that Jesus was the surety of a better covenant.

The time has now come to show why Jesus was fitted to be this mediator. The fitness arises out of the superiority of his sacrifice. Animal sacrifices had a ceremonial cleansing power; they “sanctified to the purifying of the flesh” (verse 13). But Christ’s perfect offering purges the conscience from the sense of sin; it effects the forgiveness of sins, inasmuch as it is upon the basis of it that God forgives sin. “And for this cause he is the mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (verse 15).

Christ’s offering of himself without spot to God (verse 14) is here further described as a “death having taken place for the transgressions that were under the old covenant.” From this we learn that the old covenant was powerless, with all its many offerings, to forgive transgressions. It could point the way, and did, to the means to be employed for this. When that indication was perceived in faith, there was forgiveness, and justification; but it was on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ to be made later.

During all the dispensation of the Mosaic law some were being “called.” The oracles of God, committed to Israel’s keeping, instructed them concerning the call of Abraham, and of the promises of the everlasting inheritance of the land wherein they were dwelling. Those oracles told them that Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. If Paul can say that this was written for the sake of Roman Gentiles in the first century (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:22, 23) may we not say that it was written for every generation of the descendants of Abraham, who after this example believed the promises of God. Such, like Abraham, would be justified by faith. Abraham saw Christ’s day, as Jesus himself witnesses; he saw it not only in the day of glory, but also in the day of suffering when, as “the lamb God provided for himself” (Gen. 22:8) he would be offered in the place where he bound Isaac to the altar, and whence he came again “the third day” (verses 4, 5). So Abraham withheld not his son; and God spared not His son (verse 16; Rom. 8:22). All Abraham’s faithful seed possessed this same faith.

But neither Abraham who was “called” nor those of his descendants who had “been called” could enter into the promised inheritance without the death of the seed who mediates the covenant. The reason is clear. Mortal men, who are also sinners, cannot possess the land promised for ever. It was necessary that means should be devised by God (for man was powerless to do it) for the forgiveness of their sins and the bestowal of immortality. This necessity required the death of Christ, who therefore is the mediator.

The law-covenant had to do with the inheritance of the land during the length of mortal life—and even that was contingent upon obedience. But the new covenant—the Abrahamic, the first to be proclaimed, but the last to be established and therefore the “new” covenant—concerns “the eternal inheritance.”

The R.V. in this verse (15) changes the word “testament” of the A.V. to “covenant,” and puts a note in the margin to the effect that “the Greek word here used signifies both ‘covenant’ and ‘testament.’” This is true, but it may be doubted if they have done wisely in retaining “testament” in the text in verses 16, 17, and then supplying, by the very obvious requirement of sense, the word “covenant” in verse 18 to all in the ellipsis.

Either we must treat verses 16 and 17 as an “aside,” as all who retain “testament” are driven to do, or we must throughout retain “covenant” as indicating Paul’s idea, and then endeavour to find his meaning. We believe Paul is treating of a covenant, and not of a will—a Gentile idea that is out of place in a letter written to Hebrews, and particularly Hebrews of Palestine. The idea of a testator bequeathing his property, to be inherited after his death, is incongruous to the divine idea of a joint possession by God and His people of the land promised.

A modification of the translation helps to bring verses 16 and 17 into line with the context on both sides. Here are alternatives, the A.V. and R.V. being given for comparison:—

A.V.—“For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead; otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.”

R.V.—For where a testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him that made it. For a testament is of force where there hath been death: for doth it ever avail while he that made it liveth?”

Emphatic Diaglott.—“For where a Covenant exists, the death of that which has ratified it is necessary to be produced: because a covenant is firm over dead victims, since it is never valid when that which ratifies it is alive.”

Weymouth (third edition) in a footnote:—“It is possible that the real meaning is ‘For where a covenant is made, there must be evidence of the death of the covenant-victim. For a covenant is only of force over dead bodies, because it is not binding as long as the covenant-victim lives.’” The fourth edition removes this note, and another substituted defends the idea of “will,” and says that the attempt to retain the sense of “covenant” throughout leads to forced interpretation. The “later” hand in Weymouth is “modern” in its changes in many places.

Bullinger.—“For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of him (or that) which makes (the sacrifice). For a covenant is of force over dead victims (or sacrifices); otherwise it is never held to be of force while he who is the appointed sacrifice is alive.”

Amended translation by Henry Craik, published in pamphlet form by Bagsters in 1847, gives, as an alternative to the translation similar to A.V. adopted by author, the following in a note: “For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be brought in the death of the mediating sacrifice. For a covenant is valid over dead sacrifices; since it is never of any force while the mediating sacrifice continues alive.”

Rotherham has an interesting note on the word “Covenant” at the end of The Emphasised Bible, from which the following sentences are taken. “The N.T. word diatheke signifies ‘covenant’ because it is the Septuagint rendering of the Hebrew b’rith which everywhere in the O.T. means covenant and covenant only. This argument from Septuagintal usage is immensely strengthened by observing along what a highway of Divine dealing the word diatheke passes into the N.T. Let us look at these two points in succession. That ‘covenant’ is the meaning of b’rith is sufficiently attested by the fact that the Oxford ‘Gesenius’ assigns it to no other. If, however, we pass from lexical authority to actual usage, we discover the most abundant and varied evidence that ‘covenant’ is indeed the one meaning . . . It is a word in common use to denote all sorts of covenants between all sorts of persons . . . And it should be observed that never once, as between man and man, does b’rith mean a ‘testament’ or ‘will’ to come into force when the testator is dead. Advancing now to the second point. The word diatheke first appears in the N.T. over the Lord’s table, from the lips of the Lord himself: ‘This is my blood of the diatheke’ (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24); The words ‘blood of the diatheke’ are from Ex. 24:8; from which passage we learn that there was a diatheke entered into at Sinai—was it a ‘testament’ or a ‘covenant’? According to Luke 22:20 and 1 Cor. 11:25, the word ‘new’ was prefixed to diatheke; and this at once sends us to Jer. 31:31, where old and new are brought into contrast (cp. Heb. 8:12). This then is the highway by which the word diatheke comes into our Christian Scriptures—from Moses by way of Jeremiah into the upper room at Jerusalem. Under these circumstances it is confidently submitted that the same meaning must hold good throughout: if it was a ‘testament’ at the Last Supper, then it must have been a ‘testament’ in Jeremiah, and a ‘testament” in Exodus—which even the A.V. does not affirm; whereas, working in the opposite direction, if it was a ‘covenant’ in Exodus and a ‘covenant’ in Jeremiah, as even the A.V. has it, then the word must have meant ‘covenant’ and not ‘testament’ on the lips of our Lord and in the letter of his Apostle.”

A translation along the lines of these suggestions meets the sense of the argument, and allows the logical force of ‘Wherefore’ in verse 18. “Wherefore even the first covenant hath not been dedicated without blood.”

A covenant between men did not necessarily require such a confirmation; as for example between Isaac and Abimelech. But a covenant between God and man requires such an arrangement as brings to view the position in which man stands as the transgressor of His laws.

This was maintained when the first covenant was ratified; and the principle was exhibited, as Paul says, in “almost all things under the law.” “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, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission” (verses 19–22).

At this point we may notice how intimately the covenant is bound up with the priesthood. Its close connection is seen by the repeated introduction of the relationship of Jesus to the covenant in this section which deals with his priesthood. We must guard against inverting the position of covenant and priesthood. The law-covenant, as we have before seen (in Heb. 7:11) was based upon the Levitical priesthood and partook of the limitations of that priesthood in its inability to bring men to God and give them life. The new covenant is ratified by a priest who fulfils truly all that is signified by the office. He brings men to God, forgiven and justified: He gives them eternal life and the everlasting inheritance of the earth; for his blood is “the blood of the new covenant shed for many for the remission of sins.”

The Cleansing of the True Tabernacle

(verses 23–28).

But as both new and old covenants required confirmation by shed blood, so also both the typical and the true tabernacles were cleansed with blood. For the old covenant and the typical tabernacle animal sacrifices sufficed, becoming by their use and association part of the ritual shadow. But the substance is the “better sacrifice” of Christ. “It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these” (verse 23).

“The heavenly things” is a phrase denoting Christ and those who are redeemed by him. They are denominated “heavenly” in contrast to the “earthly” tabernacle, “made with hands, of this creation.” They are heavenly, not because their final abode is in heaven, but because they partake of the character of God Who is in heaven. Christ has gone to heaven for the time being, but location is incidental to the matter. The phrase has its source in the fact that in the mount Moses was shown a pattern of which the tabernacle made by Israel was a “copy.” Relative to this “copy,” the pattern was heavenly; so Paul describes it in 8:5: the priests under the law “serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the mount.”

It is important to observe that these heavenly things stood in need of cleansing; and undoubtedly Christ is part of the heavenly things. As brother Roberts says, “The phrase ‘the heavenly things’ is an expression covering all the high, holy, and exalted things of which the Mosaic pattern was but a foreshadowing. They are all comprehended in Christ, who is the nucleus from which all will be developed, the foundation on which all will be built. The statement is therefore a declaration that it was necessary that Christ should first of all be purified with better sacrifices than the Mosaic: ‘Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place’; ‘not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us’” (Law of Moses, page 92).

“There must therefore be a sense in which Christ (the antitypical Aaron, the antitypical altar, the antitypical mercyseat, the antitypical everything) must not only have been sanctified by the action of the antitypical oil of the Holy Spirit, but purged by the antitypical blood of his own sacrifice . . .

“If the typical holy things contracted defilement from connection with a sinful congregation, were not the antitypical (Christ) holy things in a similar state, through derivation on his mother’s side from a sinful race? If not, how came they to need purging with his own ‘better sacrifice’?

“Great difficulty is experienced by various classes of thinkers in receiving this view. Needlessly so, it should seem. There is first the express declaration that the matter stands so: ‘it was, therefore, necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these (Mosaic sacrifices), but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.’ ‘It was of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.’ ‘By reason hereof, he ought as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.’ ‘By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption’ (Heb. 9:23: 8:3 : 5:3 : 9:12).

“There was next the necessity that it should be so. The word ‘necessity,’ it will be perceived, occurs frequently in the course of Paul’s argument. The necessity arises from the position in which men stood as regards the law of sin and death, and the position in which the Lord stood as their redeemer from this position. The position of men was that they were under condemnation to die because of sin, and that not their own sin, in the first instance, but ancestral sin at the beginning. The forgiveness of personal offences is the prominent feature of the apostolic proclamation, because personal offences are the greater barrier. Nevertheless, men are mortal because of sin, quite independently of their own transgressions. Their redemption from this position is a work of mercy and forgiveness, yet a work to be effected in harmony with the righteousness of God, that He might be just while justifying those believing in the Redeemer. It is so declared (Rom. 3:26). It was not to be done by setting aside the law of sin and death, but by righteously nullifying it in One, who should obtain this redemption in his own right, and who should be authorised to offer to other men a partnership in his right, subject to required conditions.

“How to effect this blending and poising of apparently opposing principles and differing requirements; mercy and justice: forgiveness and righteousness: goodness and severity, would have been impossible for human wisdom. It has not been impossible with God, to whom all things are possible. We see the perfect adjustment of all the apparently incompatible elements of the problem in His work in Christ, ‘who of God, is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1:30)” (pages 171–173).

“Under apostolic guidance, we see Christ both in the bullock, in the furniture, in the veil, in the high priest, and in brief, in all these Mosaic ‘patterns,’ which he says were ‘a shadow of things to come.’ All were both atoning and atoned for. There is no counterpart to this if Christ is kept out of his own sacrifice, as some thoughts would do. He cannot so be kept out if place is given to all the testimony—an express part of which is that as the sum total of the things signified by these patterns, he was ‘purified with’ a better sacrifice than bulls and goats—his own sacrifice. If he was ‘purified’ there was a something to be purified from. What was it? Look at his hereditary death taint, as the son of Adam, through whom death entered the world by sin, and there is no difficulty. Look at the curse of God brought on him in hanging on a tree (Gal. 3:13; Deut. 21:22, 23). We must not get away from the testimony” (page 182).

Thus speaks brother Roberts in his last work, written at the end of a life during which the subject had often been discussed in controversy, and expounded in writings free from the stress of controversy.

The result of Christ’s sacrifice proves that it is “better.” “For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us” (verse 24). What is the “true”? It is immortality, as we have before seen; and, in Christ’s case, ascent to the very presence of God—“before the face of God” as the R.V. puts it. Is there not a suggestion here of the inferior position of Aaron, whose view of the typical throne of God in Israel was obscured by the incense cloud about him—a cloud which had to cover the mercyseat “that he die not”? “Before the face of God” expresses, in any case, full fellowship with God; a joy to be shared, as Jesus assures us, by the “pure in heart; for they shall see God.”

Further, Christ’s entry into the Holiest to present his atoning work is not something to be repeated; “nor yet that he should offer himself often: as the high priest entereth into the holy place year by year with blood not his own; else must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (verses 25, 26).

A repeated offering would involve repeated suffering, and that all along the way since sin entered the world. But this was impossible. But from the foundation of the world he was in the Father’s purpose as the Lamb of God to be slain. And during all that time God exercised forbearance in “passing over sins done aforetime” because He had in view the coming declaration of His righteousness in the death of His Son (Rom. 3:25, R.V.). His death is “once for all”; it is “at the end of the ages,” bringing to an end for the present the slaying of typical animals as the condition of approach to God. His manifestation was to fulfil all these foreshadowings: to put away sin by sacrifice of himself. “To put away sin” or “annul sin” is to strike at the principle which dominates the posterity of Adam; in the language of Genesis “to bruise the serpent in the head,” so far as he personally was concerned. “Sin reigns unto death”; but one has broken this rule; a vanquisher has come and sin has been “condemned.” And while Jesus was “bruised in the heel,” sin’s power was limited to that. Sin’s victory was its own defeat. Its enforcement of death was its own annulment. All this animal sacrifices could never do; the repeated entry of the high priest under the law to the Holiest never opened the way—the curtain swung back as the high priest came out.

The final proof of the superiority of Christ’s offering will yet be seen when its effects on his people are fully manifested. He could not offer himself often; only once had he to die. This is the lot of all men, after which the results of their work will be manifested at the judgment. “And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment; so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him unto salvation” (verses 27, 28).

There is a parallel between Christ and those for whom he died. The results of his death will yet be seen at the judgment. He died to annul sin, and to provide the condition for the forgiveness of sins. And therefore he is said, in the language of Isaiah, “to bear the sins of many.” As the high priest came out of the tabernacle to bless a waiting, expectant Israel, so Christ will appear a second time. He will come “apart from sin” himself, for the old nature, sin nature, which he bore, has been changed to “a body of glory.” The past years were “the days of his flesh” when he “was made sin,” though “he knew no sin.” He will come for the salvation of those who wait for him, to change their bodies like unto the body of his glory.

With such results on his re-appearance, there is an evident excellence in Christ’s offering and work. Nothing like this followed the reappearance of the high priest of Israel. His work within the veil was not such as could issue in this; he did not offer himself—it would not have availed for he was not sinless; he went in with “blood not his own”—only the blood of animals, which could not avail to declare the righteousness of God, for they were not of the race that sinned. As the difference in that offering and the offering of Christ, so is the result upon those represented by each of the high priests.

But it is for those who “wait for him,” a hint to the Hebrews that they must not leave their position as worshippers in Christ, looking for his return, to go back to stand with the throng in the temple court waiting the return of a fellow mortal who had gone within the inner shrine on the day of atonement. But the hint is not without its meaning for all; it is for all those who wait for him that he will come for their salvation.

This is the climax of Paul’s argument on the priesthood of Christ; his offering and priesthood issue in the salvation of his people. But before he passes on in his letter he recapitulates his points as a conclusion to this section. This occupies the first eighteen verses of chapter ten.

John Carter.