Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 9:13

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

13. if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean ] The writer has designedly chosen the two most striking sacrifices and ceremonials of the Levitical Law, namely the calf and the goat offered for the sins of people and priest on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) and “the water of separation,” or rather “of impurity,” i.e. “to remove impurity” “as a sin-offering” described in Num 19:1-12 (comp. Heb 7:26).

of a heifer ] The Jews have the interesting legend that nine such red heifers had been slain between the time of Moses and the destruction of the Temple.

the unclean ] Those that have become ceremonially defiled, especially by having touched a corpse.

sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh ] i.e. if these things are adequate to restore a man to ceremonial cleanness which was a type of moral purity. So much efficacy they had; they did make the worshipper ceremonially pure before God: their further and deeper efficacy depended on the faith and sincerity with which they were offered, and was derived from the one offering of which they were a type.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For if the blood of bulls and of goats – Referring still to the great day of atonement, when the offering made was the sacrifice of a bullock and a goat.

And the ashes of an heifer – For an account of this, see Num 19:2-10. In ver. 9, it is said that the ashes of the heifer, after it was burnt, should be kept for a water of separation; it is a purification for sin. That is, the ashes were to be carefully preserved, and being mixed with water were sprinkled on those who were from any cause ceremonially impure. The reason for this appears to have been that the heifer was considered as a sacrifice whose blood has been offered, and the application of the ashes to which she had been burnt was regarded as an evidence of participation in that sacrifice. It was needful, where the laws were so numerous respecting external pollutions, or where the members of the Jewish community were regarded as so frequently unclean by contact with dead bodies, and in various other ways, that there should be some method in which they could be declared to be cleansed from their uncleanness. The nature of these institutions also required that this should be in connection with sacrifice, and in order to this, it was arranged that there should be this permanent sacrifice – the ashes of the heifer that had been sacrificed – of which they could avail themselves at any time, without the expense and delay of making a bloody offering specifically for the occasion. It was, therefore, a provision of convenience, and at the same time was designed to keep up the idea, that all purification was somehow connected with the shedding of blood.

Sprinkling the unclean – Mingled with water, and sprinkled on the unclean. The word unclean here refers to such as had been defiled by contact with dead bodies, or when one had died in the family, etc.; see Num 19:11-22.

Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh – Makes holy so far as the flesh or body is concerned. The uncleanness here referred to related to the body only, and of course the means of cleansing extended only to that. It was not designed to give peace to the conscience, or to expiate moral offences. The offering thus made removed the obstructions to the worship of God so far as to allow him who had been defiled to approach him in a regular manner. Thus, much the apostle allows was accomplished by the Jewish rites. They had an efficacy in removing ceremonial uncleanness, and in rendering it proper that he who had been polluted should be permitted again to approach and worship God. The apostle goes on to argue that if they had such an efficacy, it was fair to presume that the blood of Christ would have far greater efficacy, and would reach to the conscience itself, and make that pure.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Heb 9:13-14

How much more shall the blood of Christ?

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ

The sacrifice of our Lord admits of being considered from many different points of view. We may consider it as making atonement for our sins, and ask how any such transference and application of His merits to us, as is involved in this thought, is possible; or we may consider why any such atonement should have been necessary at all to satisfy the requirements of the Divine Righteousness in the moral government of the world. Both of these questions are legitimate, and the New Testament does in fact suggest answers to them. But there is another consideration, simpler perhaps than either of these, which is yet full of importance, and comes first in the order of thought; and that is, the nature of Christs sacrifice, considered not in its effect on us, but simply in itself: of what sort was Christs sacrifice, and wherein lay its acceptableness?

I. HE OFFERED HIS SELF, HIS PERSON, HIS HUMAN LIFE TO GOD. This human life of ours is meant to move in various directions. It moves out to the interpretation and appropriation of nature; and so man gains in natural knowledge, and develops the resources of civilisation. It moves out again from each man towards his fellows, and so the bonds of humanity are knit, and society advances. It moves out also towards God, to present itself before Him, and enter into communion with Him. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. All the faculties of man are thus to be directed not only towards nature, towards his fellow men, but also deliberately Godward, and that first of all. It is the first and great commandment. This was the original law of mans being. This is his ultimate goal in Christianity (Rom 12:1). This reasonable service, which St. Paul calls a sacrifice, though there be no death involved in it, is what is supremely exemplified in the human life of Jesus. It looked manward in love and ministry. He went about doing good. But first of all it looked Godward in self-oblation. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. Aye, even before Thy will be done comes Thy name be hallowed. For to please God, to present himself before God, to know God, this is the highest privilege and the primary duty of man.

II. HE OFFERED HIMSELF WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH. The metaphor is from the inspection of the victims prepared for sacrifice. In the Lamb of God the scrutiny of the all-seeing eye can detect no disqualifying flaw. A will always vigorous, single, unflagging; an intellect wholly unclouded and unsophisticated, of perfect receptivity and exquisite penetration; a heart of incomparable tenderness and force, which yet never moved out in uncontrolled passion; a perfect humanity which yet showed its perfection in unresisting dependence upon the movement of the Divine Spirit which filled it and directed it; a humanity rich and full in experiences, passing through all sorts of vicissitudes of circumstance, yet found as perfect in one situation as in another, in failure as in success; a humanity in which nothing approaching to moral decadence is to be detected, glorious in its issue as in its inception. He offered Himself to God without blemish. He fulfilled the ideal of humanity. He was the beloved Son in whom the Father–the great Scrutiniser of human oblations–was well pleased.

III. THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS WAS A FULL, PERFECT, AND ADEQUATE SELF-OBLATION OF MAN TO GOD. It was perfectly spiritual. He, the pattern Man, gave to God an undivided allegiance, an absolute homage. When His mission on behalf of truth, and meekness, and righteousness involved the martyrs death–He accepted the condition, and offered the shedding of His blood. But in Gods sight the shedding of the blood had no value except as the symbol of obedience carried to an extreme. It is a great, a strange mistake to suppose that the death of Christ was, as it were, the act of God. It was the act in which (on the contrary) rebellion against God, the sin of man, showed itself in its true and horrible colours. What God does is to bear with this, as He has foreseen it, to spare not His only Son, to exempt Him by no miracle from the consequences of His loyalty to truth and meekness and righteousness–under the conditions of a sinful world, as things were, its inevitable consequences. God foresees, God bears with this, and He overrules it to the purposes of our redemption. But throughout, as St. Auselm says, in the greatest Christian treatise on the Atonement, what God the Father enjoined upon the Incarnate Son was, primarily simple obedience; only as obedience in fact involved death, then, secondarily, did He enjoin upon Him to die. There are splendid instances in actual history, or imaginative history, of acts in which men have poured out their blood as a sacrifice for their fellow men. It is the deep moral feeling of Euripides which converts the unwilling sacrifice of Iphigenia in Aulis into a freewill offering for her country. The whole of Greece, the truly great, is looking to me now, she cries to her mother, for all the Greeks and not for thyself alone, didst thou bear me; therefore for Greece I offer my body. So she gives herself to be sacrificed by the priests knife, and the goddess Artemis accepts the freewill offering–but not the actual life; for as the knife is falling, the place of the maiden is, by the intervention of the goddess, taken by a doe. And of the maiden it is said that the same day beheld her dead and alive again. This is a splendid thought. But it is the nobility of the victim which is supposed to move the compassion of the goddess rather than the simple worth of a human life, and the atmosphere of religious conception as to the Divine nature is still far cloudier than among the Jews. On the Jewish stage a cognate but more truly historical scene is described in Maccabees, where the heroic martyrs for the honour and liberty of the chosen people offer up their lives to God. And I, cries the youngest of the seven martyred brothers, as nay brethren, offer up my body and life for the laws of our fathers, beseeching God that He would speedily be merciful unto our nation, and that in me and my brethren the wrath of the Almighty which is justly brought upon all our nation may cease. This is a self-sacrifice which comes very near to Isaiahs conception of the vicarious self-oblation of Jehovahs righteous servant. But it has still accompanying it some ring of the false thought of God as demanding for sin some positive quantity of expiatory death. Now when we describe the sacrifice of our Lord as perfectly spiritual, we mean that it carries with it, in all its silent implications and in the spoken words in which it found expression, the perfect truth about God and about man, as the flawless homage of the self-surrendering will. Jesus taught the perfect truth in words–the truth about Gods pure Fatherhood; the truth that what God asks of man, who is made for sonship, is not mere isolated acts of obedience or sacrifice, but simply and altogether the homage of an unqualified submission and dependence. He taught the truth about mans sin, about his rebellion, about his need of conversion. He taught the truth about the unity of the human race–bidding men see that they may not live each for himself, but are bound to live each for all. He taught all this in words; He taught it in deeds, in His own human relation to the Father; in His own relation to mankind. He taught it most of all in His sacrifice. For when obedience was shown to involve death, tie spared not Himself, even as the Father spared Him not: He used no miraculous power to exempt Himself, though He declared that He possessed it. For us, in our manhood, before God He shed His blood. And this blood-shedding has, in Gods sight, a perfect value, because it is the expression of a flawless will, of truth unqualified–the truth about Gods claim on man, the truth about humanitys proper homage, the truth about sin. And the self sacrifice of Jesus lives for evermore, over against all our lawlessness, our wilfulness, our slackness, our blindness, our self-sparing, as the perfect recognition in mans name and nature of the righteous claim of God, and of the responsibility of man for man.

IV. As THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS WAS PERFECTLY SPIRITUAL SO IT WAS OFFERED, NOT ONLY IN THE POWER OF THE PERFECT HUMANITY, BUT IN THE POWER ALSO OF THE ETERNAL SPIRIT. Truly was He acting in manhood, really under conditions of manhood: the sacrifice was genuinely human in its moral effort, in its moral and physical pain, in its genuine human faith. It was the Son of Man who offered Himself. But the mind and will expressed was also Gods mind, Gods will, and therefore the meaning and value of the act is unchangeable. It is true of all human action at its best that it has an eternal element. The truly great have all one age. But the eternal element, the movement of God which lies hid at all times at the roots of humanity, is obscured and clouded by human independence of God, that is, human sin. In Jesus every human act is also the act of God. He who was acting under human conditions was very God; and the Divine Spirit which indwelt His humanity, indwelt Him perfectly, and found in Him a faultless organ in which His will could be done. Nothing, then, in the acts or sacrifice of Jesus is merely temporary, or imperfect, or inadequate. It belongs to all ages. It is eternal. (Chas. Gore, M. A.)

Gospel theology

I. THE GOD OF THE GOSPEL IS A LIVING PERSONALITY. This revelation of God as living stands opposed to

1. Heathen idolatry.

2. Secular philosophy.

3. Mere logical divinity.

II. THE CHIEF END OF MANS EXISTENCE IS TO SERVE THE LIVING GOD.

1. This implies

(1) That He has a will concerning our activities.

(2) A capacity on mans part to understand and obey the will of

God concerning him.

2. There are three facts in relation to the service of God which we should always bear in mind, and which marks it off from all other service.

(1) That acceptability does not depend either upon the kind, or the amount, or the results of our activity, but upon its principles.

(2) That to serve God does not require that we should confine ourselves to any particular department of action.

(3) That to serve God is the only way either to serve ourselves or others.

III. MANS MORAL NATURE IS GENERALLY IN A STATE WHICH DISQUALIFIES HIM FOR THIS SERVICE.

1. The conscience is polluted.

2. The conscience is polluted through dead works.

IV. THE GREAT END OF CHRISTS MEDIATION IS TO REMOVE THIS MORAL DISQUALIFICATION FOR THE SERVICE OF THE LIVING GOD.

1. By furnishing man with the most complete exhibition of what the service of the living God is.

(1) A personal consecration.

(2) A voluntary consecration.

(3) A virtuous consecration.

(4) A consecration Divinely inspired.

2. By supplying the most effective means to generate in the heart the principle of true service–supreme love to God.

3. By providing a medium which renders the service approvable to God.

V. CHRISTS MEDIATION FOR THIS PURPOSE IS MOST UNQUESTIONABLY EFFICACIOUS. If the blood, etc.

1. The object in the one case to be realised is of unspeakably greater importance than the other.

2. The means employed in the one case are immeasurably more costly than the other.

3. The agent employed in the one case to apply the means is infinitely greater than in the other. (Homilist.)

Christ the purifier of religion

I. MANS CONSCIENCE NEEDS PURIFYING. TO perceive this, contemplate the Jewish ceremonial, and that will shadow forth the spiritual truth. The man who had touched a corpse, or the grave dust, was regarded as defiled–he felt defiled, he trembled to enter the presence of God. Paul says thisis the symbol of an eternal fact. The conscience feels the touch of death. It trembles in worship. Therefore it needs purifying from its dead works to serve the living God. The more bright and keen the conscience, the deeper and more awful is the feeling of death that cleaves to us.

II. THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST THE PURIFYING POWER.

1. A perfect and holy sacrifice. That awful expenditure of sinless agony is the only purification. The voice of condemnation pursues us through every path of life until it is hushed before the Cross. Then the death-stains of past sin are cleansed away. Then the spectral forms of the past are laid for ever. Then prayer loses its tremor, aspiration its sadness, praise its undertone of fear. We no more wish to escape from God, for we are made pure by the blood of Christ.

2. A new spirit of devotion; for we need not only absolution but inspiration before we can serve God freely, lovingly, joyously. He offered Himself–not in fear, but voluntarily. Suffering, shame, death, stood in His path.He might have refused to endure them, and from the first turned aside: but daily He chose to bear the daily cross. Through the Eternal Spirit. His was not an offering from the human to avert the Divine anger, but an offering from Himself. There was the true spirit of worship when the Eternal Spirit became enshrined in Jesus. And through that Spirit He offered Himself.

III. THE PURIFIED CONSCIENCE RISES TO LIVING WORSHIP.

1. Living–in the reality of its spiritual emotions. The unpurged conscience is tempted to forget, to doubt, to deny God, or regard Him simply as some awful and mysterious power. The purified spirit feels Him near and can bear the glance of the Eternal without shrinking; for the dead past has been cleansed away by the blood of the Saviour. Thus prayer becomes real; it is no longer a vain cry breathed into the air; for the Spirit through which He offered Himself abides in us, constraining our devotion.

2. Living–for it pervades the whole life. The worship of fear is limited to time and place. But cleansed and inspired by Christ we feel He is everywhere. In suffering we bear His will, and our sighs become prayers. In sorrow, when the heart is weary, we feel ourselves near to the heavenly Friend who is leading us to find in Him rest for the restless and sad. In joys, He who hallowed social gladness by His first miracle–and amid the friendships of life, He who made friendship holy is close to our hearts. In our falls and failures we hear His voice in the hope of rising out of the gloom to a higher and purer slate beyond it. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)

The sacrifice of Christ

I. THE SPECIAL CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE, the grand atonement on which we all rest, is, that it is not the blood of the inferior animals, as in the former dispensation; but the blood of Christ.

1. It was the offering of a human being. The death of Christ, considering Him simply as a man, shows a justice in the visitation of sin, as much greater as human life is above the life of irrational animals.

2. He was an innocent and spotless man. Here the value is heightened. It was not the case of one offender selected from many to be an example. He had no part in the offence.

3. But that which carries the value of the offering to its true height, is, that it was the blood of Christ; of the whole and undivided Christ, who was both God and man. For, though a Divine nature could not bleed and die, a Divine person could.

II. ITS SPECIAL EFFICACY. It cleanses not the flesh, but purges the conscience from dead works, that we may serve the living God. Two benefits are here marked as the foundation of, and leading to, all others.

1. The purification of the conscience. The dead works, here mentioned, are sins; and the guilt from which we are purified is in another place termed the conscience of sins. Sins are dead works, because they expose us to present condemnation, and finally to eternal death. By conscience here is meant inward perception of such works as are chargeable upon us, with fearful apprehensions of the death they bring. But on this sacrifice you are to trust in order to salvation. To encourage you to this, think of the Fathers love. Think of the love of the Son. Can you doubt of that love while He is evidently set forth crucified before your eyes? Think of the value of this sacrifice. If you can conceive of anything more valuable, then doubt the efficacy of this, and fear to trust. Then trust in it. Venture in the same vessel which has carried so many over the stormy waves which now surround you, and who shout to you from the shore beyond, and bid you trust, and not be afraid.

2. The second blessed consequence is, that we may serve the living God. There is the service of worship. We have free access to God, and our services are acceptable. There is the service of obedience. We are delivered from the bondage of sin, and all our powers are consecrated to God.

Learn:

1. The infinite evil of sin. It could not be forgiven without a Divine atonement.

2. The awful character of Divine justice.

3. The fulness of the blessings purchased by this sacrifice. The salvation corresponds with the sacrifice by which it was purchased, and comprehends every spiritual blessing, both in time and eternity. (R. Watson.)

The character, agency, and efficacy of Christs sacrifice

I. THE AGENCY THROUGH WHICH CHRISTS SACRIFICE WAS PRESENTED, AND THE CHARACTER OF THAT SACRIFICE. Christ offered Himself to God, both in obedience and in suffering. His whole life was one season of oblation.

II. THE EFFECTS OF THIS SACRIFICE. St. Pauls representation rather embraces a point than extends itself to the whole of the effects of the atonement: the expression dead works, denotes sinfulness in general, by which all our consciences are polluted, in opposition to those things by which spiritual uncleanness was removed. We have, then, simply to inquire into the truth and meaning of the assertion, that the blood of Jesus cleanseth the soul of the believer from sin, and thus qualifies him for the service of the living God. And, first of all, we have full warrant for affirming that so soon as there is faith in the heart, binding a man to Christ as a member of the head, the sins of all men are swept completely away, being not only forgiven, but actually forgotten by God. It is membership with Christ which gives its might and its majesty to the gospel. Faith admits me into the invisible Church of Christ, and the members of the invisible Church make up one sinless body in the sight of the Father–the perfect righteousness of the Head being considered as belonging equally to the meanest of the members. So that when I have faith in Christ, I am literally one with Christ, and then where are my sins? The countless iniquities of my youth I the multiform transgressions of my riper years! where are they? I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgression, for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Oh! how unlike is His forgiveness to that of men, who may forgive but cannot forget! Oh! the word of the Lord is–the blood of Jesus Christ shall purge your conscience from dead works.

III. THIS PURGING OF THE CONSCIENCE IS PREPARATORY TO SERVING THE LORD. The man of whom much has been forgiven will love much, and loving without obeying is a paradox which never yet deformed practical Christianity. Like as Christ offered Himself through the Eternal Spirit unto God, so also must we through the same Spirit present ourselves as living sacrifices to the Most High. This is the service to which we are pledged; this is the consecration bound upon us by all that is most solemn in duty and glorious in hope. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The red heifer

I. LET US DESCRIBE THE TYPE (see Num 19:1-22.). First, the type mentions ceremonial defilements, which were the symbols of the uncleanness caused by sin. The Israelites could very readily render themselves unclean, so as to be unfit to go up to the tabernacle of God. There were uncleannesses connected both with birth and with death, with meats and with drinks, with garments and with houses. A man might become unclean even in his sleep; so closely did the law track him into his most secret places, and surround his most unguarded hours. Even thus doth sin beset us. Like a dog at ones heels, it is always with us! Like our shadow, it follows us, go where we may. Yea, and when the sun shines not, and shadows are gone, sin is still there. Whither shall we flee from its presence, and where shall we hide from its power? When we would do good, evil is present with us. How humbled we ought to be at the recollection of this! The Israelite became unclean even in the act of doing good; for assuredly it was a good deed to bury the dead. Alas, there is sin even in our holy things. The evil of our nature clingeth to all that we do. The touching of the dead not only made the man unclean, but he became a fountain of defilement. Pollution went forth from the polluted. Do you and I sufficiently remember how much of evil we are spreading when we are out of communion with God? Every ungenerous temper creates the like in others. We never cast a proud look without exciting resentment and bad feelings in others. Somebody or other will follow our example if we be slothful; and thus we may be doing great mischief even when we are doing nothing. This uncleanness prevented the man from going up to the worship of God, and it separated him from that great, permanent congregation which was called to dwell in Gods house by residing all around the holy place. He was, so to speak, excommunicated, suspended, at any rate, in his communion: he could bring no offering, he could not stand among the multitude and view the solemn worship, he was unclean, and must regard himself so. Do the children of God ever get here? Ah, so far as our consciences are concerned we too often come among the unclean. Until the pardoning blood speaks peace within your spirit, you cannot draw near unto God. We tremble, we find communion impossible until we are made clean. This much about the defilements described in the chapter; now concerning the cleansing which it mentions. The defilement was frequent, but the cleansing was always ready.. At a certain time all the people of Israel brought a red heifer to be used in the expiation. It was not at the expense of one person, or tribe, but the whole congregation brought the red cow to be slain. It was to be their sacrifice, and it was brought for them all. It was not led, however, up to the holy place for sacrifice, but it was brought forth without the camp, and there it was slaughtered in the presence of the priest, and wholly burnt with fire, not as a sacrifice upon the altar, but as a polluted thing which was to be made an end of outside the camp. Even as our Lord, though in Himself without spot, was made sin for us, and suffered without the camp, feeling the withdrawings of God, while He cried, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Then the ashes were collected and laid in a clean place accessible to the camp. Everybody knew where the ashes were, and whenever there was any uncleanness they went to this ash-heap and took away a small portion. Whenever the ashes were spent they brought another red heifer, and did the same as they had done before, that always there might be this purification for the unclean, There was no other method of purification from uncleanness but this. It is so with us. To-day the living water of the Divine Spirits sacred influences must take up the result of our Lords substitution, and this must be applied to our consciences. That which remaineth of Christ after the fire hath passed upon Him, ever the eternal merits, the enduring virtue of our great sacrifice, must be sprinkled upon us through the Spirit of our God. Then are we clean in conscience, but not till then.

II. LET US MAGNIFY THE GREAT ANTITYPE. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ? How much more? He doth not give us the measure, but leaves it with a note of interrogation. We shall never be able to tell how much more, for the difference between the blood of bulls and of goats and the blood of Christ, the difference between the ashes of a red cow and the eternal merits of the Lord Jesus, must be infinite. Let us help your judgments while we set forth the exceeding greatness of our mighty Expiator, by whom we are reconciled to God.

1. First, then, our defilement is much greater, for the defilement spoken of in the text is on the conscience, We cannot have fellowship with God while there is a sense of unconfessed and unforgiven sin upon us. Be ye reconciled to God is a text for saints as well as for sinners: children may quarrel with a father as well as rebels with a king. There must be oneness of heart with God, or there is an end to communion, and therefore must the conscience be purged. The man who was unclean could have come up to the tabernacle if there had been no law to prevent it, and it is possible that he could have worshipped God in spirit, notwithstanding his ceremonial disqualification. The defilement was no barrier in itself except so far as it was typical; but sin on the conscience is a natural wall between God and the soul. You cannot get into loving communion until the conscience is at ease; therefore, I charge you, fly at once to Jesus for peace.

2. Secondly, our sacrifice is greater in itself. I will not dwell upon each point of its greatness, but just notice that in the slaughter of the heifer blood was presented and sprinkled towards the holy place seven times, though it came not actually into it; so in the atonement through which we find peace of conscience there is blood, for without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Death was our doom, and death for death did Christ render unto the eternal God. It is by a sense of our Lords substitutionary death that the conscience becomes purged from dead works. Furthermore, the heifer itself was offered. After the blood was sprinkled towards the tabernacle by the priestly hand, the victim itself was utterly consumed. Read now our text: Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered up Himself without spot unto God. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave not merely His death, but His whole person, with all that appertained unto it, to be our substitutionary sacrifice. Oh, what a sacrifice is this! It is added that our Lord did this by the eternal Spirit. The heifer was not a spiritual but a carnal offering. The creature knew nothing of what was being done, it was the involuntary victim; but Christ was under the impulses of the Holy Ghost, which was poured upon Him, and He was moved by Him to render up Himself a sacrifice for sin. Hence somewhat of the greater efficacy of His death, for the willinghood of the sacrifice greatly enhanced its value. To give you another, and probably a better, interpretation of the words, there was an eternal spirit linked with the manhood of Christ our Lord, and by it He gave Himself unto God. He was God as well as man, and that eternal Godhead of His lent an infinite value to the sufferings of His human frame, so that He offered Himself as a whole Christ, in the energy of His eternal power and Godhead. One who is both God and man has given Himself as a sacrifice for us. Is not the sacrifice inconceivably greater in the fact than it is in the type? Ought it not most effectually to purge our conscience? After they had burnt the heifer they swept up the ashes. All that could be burnt had been consumed. Our Lord was made a sacrifice for sin, what remains of Him? Not a few ashes, but the whole Christ, which still remaineth, to die no more, but to abide for ever unchanged. He came uninjured through the fires, and now He ever liveth to make intercession for us. It is the application of His eternal merit which makes us clean, and is not that eternal merit inconceivably greater than the ashes of an heifer ever can be?

3. As the defilement and the sacrifice were greater, so the purging is much greater. The purifying power of the blood of Christ must be much greater than the purging power of the water mixed with the ashes of the heifer. For that could not purge conscience from sin, but the application of the atonement can do it, and does do it. Now, what is all this business about? This slain heifer–I understand that, for it admitted the unclean Israelites to the courts of the Lord–but this Christ of God offering Himself without spot by the eternal Spirit–what is that for? The object of it is a service far higher: it is that we may be purged from dead works to serve the living God. The dead works are gone, God absolves you, you are clean, and you feel it. What then? Will you not abhor dead works for the future? Sin is death. Labour to keep from it. Inasmuch as you are delivered from the yoke of sin, go forth and serve God. Since He is the living God, and evidently hates death, and makes it to be an uncleanness to Him, get you to living things. Offer to God living prayers, and living tears, love Him with living love, trust Him with living faith, serve Him with living obedience. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Self-oblation the true idea of obedience:

Christ offered up Himself. He was both Priest and Sacrifice. The atoning oblation was His perfect obedience, both in life and death, to the will of His Father. From Heb 10:5-7 we learn that the mystery of atonement began from the first act of humiliation, when He laid aside His glory, and was made in the likeness of men. It contains, therefore, His incarnation, His hope of earthly obedience, His spiritual and bodily sufferings, His death and resurrection. He overcame sin by His holiness, by perfect and perpetual obedience, by a spotless life, by His mastery in the wilderness, by His agony in the garden. His whole life was a part of the one sacrifice which, through the eternal Spirit, He offered to His Father; namely, the reasonable and spiritual sacrifice of a crucified will.

I. First we may learn INTO WHAT RELATION TOWARDS GOD THE CHURCH HAS BEEN BROUGHT BY THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. The whole mystical body is offered up to the Father, as a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. Whatsoever was fulfilled by the Head is partaken of by the body. He was an oblation, and the Church is offered up in Him. Even now the Church is crucified, buried, raised and exalted to sit with Christ in heavenly places. In the same act of self-oblation He comprehended us, and offered us in Himself. And in this is our justification; namely, in our relation, as a living sacrifice, to God through Christ, for whose sake we, all fallen though we be, are accounted righteous in the court of heaven.

II. The next truth we may learn is, THE NATURE OF THE HOLY SACRAMENTS. Under one aspect they are gifts of spiritual grace from God to us; under another they are acts of self-oblation on our part to God. They are the emphatic expressions and the efficient means of realising the great mystery of atonement in us. The faithful in early times, in the very act of offering up the living sacrifice of themselves, saw in the bread and wine of the eucharist an expressive symbol of self-oblation, and a fulfilment of the prophets words (Mal 1:11). PRACTICAL INFERENCES:

1. We may learn from this view of the great act of atonement, what is the nature of the faith by which we become partakers of it, or, in other words, by which we are justified. Plainly it is not a faith which indolently terminates in a belief that Christ died for us; or which intrusively assumes to itself the office of applying to its own needs the justifying grace of the atonement. It is God that justifieth. All that faith does at the outset, in mans justification, is to receive Gods sovereign gift.

2. We may thus learn what is the true point of sight from which to look at all the trials of life. We hear people perpetually lamenting, uttering passionate expressions of grief at visitations which, they say, have come on them unlooked for, and stunned them by their suddenness: one has lost his possessions, another his health, another his powers of sight or hearing, another the desire of his eyes, parents, children, husbands, wives, friends; each sorrowing for their own, and all alike viewing their affliction from the narrow point of their own isolated being: they seem to be hostile invasions of their peace; mutilations of the integrity of their lot; untimely disruptions of their fondest ties, and the like. Now all this loose and faithless language arises from our not recognising the great law to which all these are to be referred. It is no more than this: that God is disposing of what has been offered up to Him in sacrifice: as, for instance, when a father or mother bewails the taking away of a child, have they not forgotten he was ,not their own? Did they not offer him at the font? Did not God promise to receive their oblation? What has He done more than take them at their word? And so likewise, when any true servants of Christ are taken away, what is it but a token of His favourable acceptance of their self-oblation? While they were with us they were not ours, but His: they were permitted to abide with us, and to gladden our hearts awhile; but they were living sacrifices, and ever at the point of being caught up to heaven. And so, lastly, in all that befalls ourselves, we too are not our own, but His; all that we call ours is His; and when He takes it from us–first one loved treasure, then another, till He makes us poor, and naked, and solitary–let us not sorrow that we are stripped of all we love, but rather rejoice for that God accepts us: let us not think that we are left here, as it were, unreasonably alone, but remember that, by our bereavements, we are in part translated to the world unseen. He is calling us away, and sending on our treasures. The great law of sacrifice is embracing us, and must have its perfect work. Let us pray Him, therefore, to shed abroad in us the mind that was in Christ; that, our will being crucified, we may offer up ourselves to be disposed of as He sees best. (Archdeacon H. E. Manning.)

The more excellent ministry:

Stress must be laid on each of three particulars: Christ offered Himself; in offering Himself He presented a spotless offering; He offered Himself through an eternal spirit.

I. First, then, Christs sacrifice possesses incomparable worth and virtue because the victim was HIMSELF. In this one fact is involved that Christs sacrifice possessed certain moral attributes altogether lacking in the Levitical sacrifices: voluntariness and beneficent intention, the freedom of a rational being with a mind of his own and capable of self-determination, the love of a gracious personality in whom the soul of goodness dwells. Christs sacrifice was an affair of mind and heart–in one word, of spirit.

II. Christs sacrifice possesses incomparable worth and virtue, secondly, because in Himself He presented to God a SPOTLESS sacrifice–spotless in the moral sense. He was a perfectly holy, righteous Man, and He showed His moral purity precisely by being loyal and obedient even to the point of enduring death for righteousness sake. The victims under the law were spotless also, but merely in a physical sense. Christs spotlessness, on the contrary, was ethical, a quality belonging not to His body, but to His spirit.

III. We are now prepared in some measure to understand the third ground of the value attached to Christs sacrifice; viz., that He offered Himself THROUGH AN ETERNAL SPIRIT. Putting aside for a moment the epithet eternal, we see that Christs sacrifice was one in which spirit was concerned, as opposed to the legal sacrifices in which flesh and blood only were concerned. It was a free, loving, holy spirit. But the writer, it is observable, omits mention of these moral qualities, and employs instead another epithet, which in the connection of thought it was more important to specify, and which there was little chance of his readers supplying for themselves. The epithet eternal suggests the thought: the act performed by Jesus in offering Himself may, as a historical event, become old with the lapse of ages; but the spirit in which the act was done can never become a thing of the past. The blood shed was corruptible; but the spirit which found expression in Christs self-sacrifice is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and in its eternal self-identity lends to the priestly deed imperishable merit and significance. This fitly chosen phrase thus makes the one sacrifice of Christ cover with its efficacy all prospective sin. But it does more than that. It is retrospective as well as prospective, and makes the sacrifice valid for the ages going before. For an eternal spirit is independent of time, and gives to acts done through its inspiration validity for all time. One virtue more must be ascribed to this magic phrase, through an eternal spirit. It helps us over the difficulty created by the fact that Christs real self-sacrifice took place on earth, and yet ideally belongs to the heavenly sanctuary. When we think of Christs sacrifice as offered through an eternal spirit, we see that we may place it where we please, in earth or in heaven, on Calvary or on high, as suits our purpose. Do you insist that Christs proper offering of Himself took place in the celestial sanctuary after the ascension, even as Aarons proper offering was the blood-sprinkling within the most holy place? I reply, Be it so; but it took place there through an eternal spirit which gave to it its value; and if we want to know what that spirit was, we must look to the earthly life of obedience and love culminating in the crucifixion, wherein it found its perfect manifestation. Through this eternal spirit Christ offered Himself before He came into the world, when He was in the world, after He left the world. It was as a spirit He offered Himself, as a self-conscious, free, moral personality; and His offering was a spirit revealed through a never-to-be-forgotten act of self-surrender, not the literal blood shed on Calvary, which in itself possessed no more intrinsic value than the blood of Levitical victims. Thus interpreted, the term spirit unfolds the implicit significance of Himself, and gives us the rationale of all real value in sacrifice. It can have no value, we learn therefrom, unless mind, spirit be revealed in it. Death, blood, in its own place, may have theological significance, but not apart from spirit. It goes without saying that the idea of spirit is essentially ethical in its import. Voluntariness and beneficent intention enter into the very substance of Christs sacrifice. Another remark still may be added. In the light of the foregoing discussion we can see the vital significance of the death of Christ in connection with His priestly work. The least priestly act of the Levitical system becomes here the most important, the humble, non-sacerdotal first step the essence of the whole matter. Through the death of the Victim His spirit finds its culminating expression, and it is that spirit which constitutes the acceptableness of His sacrifice in the sight of God. On the epithet eternal attached to spirit it is not necessary further to enlarge. As the term spirit guarantees the real worth of Christs offering as opposed to the putative value of Levitical sacrifices, so the term eternal vindicates for it absolute worth. It lifts that offering above all limiting conditions of space and time, so that viewed sub specie asternitatis it may, as to its efficacy, be located at will at any point of time, and either in earth or in heaven. Eternal expresses the speculative element in the writers system of thought, as spirit expresses the ethical. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

Purge your conscience

The purging of the conscience

I. First, consider THE SAD HINDRANCE WHICH LIES IN THE WAY OF THE SERVICE OF GOD. The apostle does not say, purge your conscience from evil works, because he wanted to turn our minds to the type of defilement by death, and therefore he said, dead works. I think he had a further motive; for he was not altogether indicating wilful transgressions of the law, but those acts which are faulty because they are not performed as the result of spiritual life. I see a difference between sinful works and dead works which we may perhaps be able to bring into light as we go on. Suffice it to say for the moment, that sin is the corruption which follows necessarily upon spiritual death. First, the work is dead, and soon it rots into actual sin.

1. Upon our consciences there rests, first of all, a sense of past sin. Even if a man wishes to serve God, yet until his conscience is purged, he feels a dread of God which prevents his doing so. He has sinned, and God is just, and therefore he is ill at ease.

2. On the back of this comes the consciousness that we ourselves are sinful, and inclined to evil. We say rightly, Who shall bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. We feel that we have not that perfect purity of heart and cleanness of hands which would fit us for the holy place; nor can we ever be saved from this fear, so as to take up our heavenly priesthood and serve God, till the precious blood of Christ shall be applied to the conscience, nor until we feel that in Christ we are accounted righteous.

3. But, besides this consciousness of sin and sinfulness, we are conscious of a measure of deficient life. About us there is a body of death. Dead works are the things we most require to be purged from. Without going into what the world calls actual sin, we carry death about us, from which we daily cry to be delivered. For instance, our prayer in its form and fashion may be right enough, bat if it lacks earnestness, it will be a dead work. An alms given to the poor is good as a work of humanity, but it will be only a dead work if a desire to be seen of men is found at the bottom of it. Are not the sins of our holy things glaring before our consciences this day? Unless we are purged therefrom by the blood of Christ, who offered up Himself without spot to God, how can we serve this living God, and be as priests and kings unto Him? Once more: I told you that the Israelites were defiled by even touching a dead bone, and this teaches us the easiness of being polluted. We have to come into contact with evil in our daily dealings with ungodly men. Can we think of them, can we speak to them, can we trade with them, without incurring defilement? Nay, I go further: do we, as Christian men washed by Christ, ever associate with one another without a measure of defilement? Can we meet together at our homes and feel, when we separate, that everything we have said was seasoned with salt and ministered to edification? Is there not some taint about our purest friends; and does not the touch of that corruption which still remaineth, even in the regenerate, tend to, defile us?

II. Now, I want to show, in the second place, WHAT IS THE TRUE PURGATION FROM THIS EVIL Under the law there were several methods of purification. These things did purify the flesh, so that the man who had formerly contracted impurity might mix with his fellow-men in the congregation of the Lord. Now, if these matters were so effectual for the purifying of the flesh, well does the apostle ask, How much more shall the blood of Christ purge our conscience from dead works? Why does he say, How much more?

1. First, because it is more truly purifying. There was not truly anything of purification about the blood of bulls and of goats. When the Lord Jesus gave His body, soul, and spirit a sacrifice for sin, then in that deed there was a real atonement made, a true and effectual expiation was offered. Therefore he says How much more? if the shadow cleansed the flesh, how much more shall the substance cleanse the spirit?

2. Moreover, our Lord Christ offered a much greater sacrifice. One reason why the precious blood has such power to put away sin is because it is the blood of Christ, that is, of Gods Anointed, Gods Messiah, the Sent One of the Most High. Notice, it is not put concerning Christ that His life is purifying, though it had a wonderful relation thereto; nor is it said that His prayers are purifying, albeit everything is ascribable unto the intercession of our risen Lord; nor is it said that His resurrection is purifying; but the whole stress is laid upon the blood of Christ, signifying thereby death, death as a victim, death with reference to sin. See in His agony and His death your joy and life. It is the blood of Christ that alone can make you fit to serve the living and true God. Note what it was that Christ offered, and be sure that you lay great stress upon it. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself? What a, splendid word that is! Did He offer His blood? yes, but He offered Himself. Did He offer His life? yes, but He specially offered Himself. Now, what is Christ? The anointed of God. In His wondrous complex nature He is God and man. He is Prophet, Priest, and King. He is–but time would fail me to tell you what He is; but whatever He is He offered Himself. The entire Christ was offered by Christ.

3. It is said in our text that this offering of Himself was without spot. The sacrificial act by which He presented Himself was a faultless cue, without spot. There was nothing in what Christ was Himself, and nothing in the way in which He offered Himself, that could be objected to of God: it was without spot.

4. Further, it is added that He did this by the eternal Spirit. His eternal Godhead gave to His offering of Himself an extreme value which otherwise could not have been attached to it. Observe, then, the sacrifice was a spiritual one. He entered with His whole heart into the substitution which involved obedience unto death. For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross. It was by His Spirit that He offered up a true and real sacrifice; for He says, I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart. But then you must not forget that this Spirit was Divine–by the eternal Spirit. The Spirit of Christ was an eternal Spirit, for itwas the Godhead. There was conjoined with His deity the natural life of a perfect Man; but the eternal Spirit was His highest Self. What limit can you set to the merit of One who by the eternal Spirit offered up Himself? What bound can there be to a sacrifice Divine? You can no more set a limit to our Lords sacrifice than to Godhead itself. Once more, I must call to your notice the use of that word eternal,–who by the eternal Spirit–for it gives to the offering of Christ an endless value. Now, all this tends to make us feel how clean are they who are purged by this sacrifice which our Lord offered once for all to God.

5. Once more upon this point: as I have shown you that the sacrifice of Christ was more real and greater, so I want you to notice that it was better applied; for the ashes of an heifer mixed with water were sprinkled on the bodies of the unclean; the blood of bulls and of goats was sprinkled upon the flesh, but neither of them could reach the heart. It is not possible for a material thing to touch that which is immaterial; but the sufferings of Christ, offered up through His eternal Spirit, were not only of a corporeal but of a spiritual kind, and they reach, therefore, to the cleansing of our spirit. That precious blood comes home to us in this way: first, we understand somewhat of it. The Israelite, when he was purged by the ashes of the red cow, could only say to himself, I am made clean by these ashes, because God has appointed that I shall be, but I do not know why. But you and I can say that we are made clean through the blood of Christ, because there is in that blood an inherent efficacy; there is in the vicarious suffering of Christ on our behalf an inherent power to honour the law of God, and to put away sin. Then again, we appreciate and approve of this way of cleansing. The Israelite could not tell why the ashes of a red heifer -purified him; he did not object to it, but he could not express any great appreciation of the method. We, as we see our Lord suffering in our stead, fall at His feet in reverent wonder. We love the method of salvation by substitution; we approve of expiation by the Mediator. Further, it comes home to us in this way: we read in the Word of God that he that believeth in Him hath everlasting life, and we say to ourselves, Then we have everlasting life, for we have believed in Him. We read, The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin, and our conscience whispers, We are cleansed from all sin. Conscience finds rest and peace, and our whole consciousness becomes that of a forgiven and accepted person, with whom God is well pleased.

III. Consider THE KIND OF SERVICE WHICH WE NOW RENDER. After so much preparing, how shall we behave ourselves in the house of God? You should present unto the Lord the constant worship of living men. You see it is written, Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Are you not under bonds to serve Him? From this time forth you should not have a pulse that does not beat to His praise, nor a hair on your head that is unconsecrated to His name, nor a single moment of your time which is not used for His glory. Should not our service be rendered in the full strength of our new life? Let us have no more dead works, no more dead singing, no more dead praying, no more dead preaching, no more dead hearing. Let our religion be as warm, and constant, and natural as the flow of the blood in our veins. A living God must be served in a living way. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The purification of the conscience:

The offerings in the temple could not have satisfied the conscience; the offerings of Christ do. There are two aspects of sin which trouble the conscience. Sin by religious teachers is thought of as disturbing our relations with God. It stops our convictions, and prevents His Fatherly grace from coming to us. Another aspect of sin takes a place among the forces in the life of man to swell the sum of evil examples, to make virtue more difficult, and vice more natural. No repentance can ever recall what we have done, or make it cease to be a source of evil in the world. There is danger in the other extreme, but Christ is able to deal with the conscience, and set us right in our relations with God. There are principally three proposals for setting the relation right. They are–by mans contribution, by Gods acceptance, and by Christs transforming power. In the early ages of religion, when outward circumstances were held to be an indication of the favour or disfavour of God, the idea of propitiation took shape. They brought Him what they prized most, and supposed that He would prize it the same, and continued in this until the return of sunshine assured them that the Deitys wrath was assuaged. On the other side, some imagine that sin lapses after a term of years, or that by a certain system disorder in some things is balanced by the order in others. It is not that twenty years ago a certain deed was done: it is that in your sin you disclosed something in you which remains in you still. Let the same circumstances recur and your weakness reappears. In a very different age there grew up another theory of setting man right with God. Man had received life and power from God, and had used them against Him, and so they thought on the principle of displaying compensation against that which has to be compensated for. Thus there grew up acceptation, a sort of diminutive of acceptation. God takes it as the best that can be given, and declares the account clear. But conscience will not accept such assurance. It still recognises sin clinging to it, and so long as that sin is there, conscience is not cleansed. The third proposal is in the transforming power of Christ. The blood of Christ cleanses the conscience. If any man be in Christ, says Paul, he is a new creature. Pauls writings are full of similar verses, in which he expresses the reasonable and joyful satisfaction of conscience. He says that sin is forgiven to all men in Christ Jesus. The relation that ought to exist between God and the soul is then restored. (W. M. Macgregor, M. A.)

Dead works

Dead works

1. Dead things stink. If we meet with a dead carcase by the way, we hold our noses: even so sins, blasphemy, profanations, pride, envy, hatred, malice, covetousness; these stink in the nostrils of God Almighty: therefore let them be detested by us.

2. Dead men are forgotten. I am as a dead man out of mind. So let not our minds run on these dead works, on the profits of the world, the pleasures of the flesh: let these dead things be no more remembered.

3. That which is dead must be buried: Give me a place to bury my dead out of my sight, as Abraham said to the sons of Heth (Gen 23:4). Idolatry, blasphemy, all sins, are dead things, therefore let them be buried.

4. Dead things are abhorred of us. We shun dead things by the way, we will not come near them: so let these dead works be abhorred of us.

5. Dead things are heavy: a dead man. So these lie heavy on our consciences. Cain, Judas: they were not able to bear that intolerable burden. (W. Jones, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 13. Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh] Answers the end proposed by the law; namely, to remove legal disabilities and punishments, having the body and its interests particularly in view, though adumbrating or typifying the soul and its concerns.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This service of Christ in his sanctuary exceeds the Aaronical, not only for reconciling souls to God, but purifying of them, as cleared in this and Heb 9:14.

For if the blood of bulls and of goats: the blood is the same as spoken of Heb 9:12.

Bulls, here put for calves, are but to distinguish the sex; and it is to be noted, where our translators read oxen, as to sacrifices in the Old Testament, as particularly Num 7:87, they mean bulls, for no oxen were by the law to be offered to God at all as sacrifices; see Lev 22:17-23; because they could not be true types of the true sacrifice, which was to perfect them. This blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat and before it, and on the altar, Lev 16:14,19, &c., expiating sins, and taking away the guilt and legal punishment.

And the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean: the rite of preparing it, read in Num 19:1-10. A red heifer was by the people given to the priest; he was to bring her without the camp, and order her to be slain, and then take the blood with his finger, and sprinkle it towards the tabernacle seven times; after which she was to be wholly burnt in his sight, with cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet, the ashes of which were reserved; when they used them, they took them in a vessel, and put running water to them, and then sprinkled them with a bunch of hyssop on persons legally unclean, Heb 9:18-20, and so they purified them from their ceremonial filth and pollution; but none of these could purify an unclean soul, that was left unholy and unclean still.

Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; these sprinklings did sanctify those who were legally unclean, and did procure a legal purity and acceptance of them the service of the sanctuary, from which else they were excluded; by this they were looked on as externally holy with the congregation, their flesh and outward man being made pure by it for their external worship.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

13. ifas we know is the case;so the Greek indicative means. Argument from the less to thegreater. If the blood of mere brutes could purify in any, howeversmall a degree, how much more shall inward purification, and completeand eternal salvation, be wrought by the blood of Christ, in whomdwelt all the fulness of the Godhead?

ashes of an heifer (Nu19:16-18). The type is full of comfort for us. The water ofseparation, made of the ashes of the red heifer, was the provisionfor removing ceremonial defilement whenever incurred by contactwith the dead. As she was slain without the camp, so Christ(compare Heb 13:11; Num 19:3;Num 19:4). The ashes were laid byfor constant use; so the continually cleansing effects of Christ’sblood, once for all shed. In our wilderness journey we arecontinually contracting defilement by contact with the spirituallydead, and with dead works, and need therefore continual applicationto the antitypical life-giving cleansing blood of Christ, whereby weare afresh restored to peace and living communion with God in theheavenly holy place.

the uncleanGreek,“those defiled” on any particular occasion.

purifyingGreek,“purity.”

the fleshTheir effectin themselves extended no further. The law had a carnal and aspiritual aspect; carnal, as an instrument of the Hebrewpolity, God, their King, accepting, in minor offenses, expiatoryvictims instead of the sinner, otherwise doomed to death; spiritual,as the shadow of good things to come (Heb10:1). The spiritual Israelite derived, in partaking of theselegal rights, spiritual blessings not flowing from them, but from thegreat antitype. Ceremonial sacrifices released from temporalpenalties and ceremonial disqualifications; Christ’ssacrifice releases from everlasting penalties (Heb9:12), and moral impurities on the consciencedisqualifying from access to God (Heb9:14). The purification of the flesh (the mere outward man) wasby “sprinkling”; the washing followed by inseparableconnection (Nu 19:19). Sojustification is followed by renewing.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For if the blood of bulls and of goats,…. Shed either on the day of atonement, or at any other time: the former of thee, Pausanias y relates, was drank by certain priestesses among the Grecians, whereby they were tried, whether they spoke truth or no if not, they were immediately punished; and the latter, he says z, will dissolve an adamant stone; but neither of them can purge from sin:

and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean; the apostle refers to the red heifer, Nu 19:1 which being burnt, its ashes were gathered up and put into a vessel, and water poured upon them, which was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop on unclean persons; the ashes and the water mixed together made the water of separation, or of sprinkling; for so it is called by the Septuagint,

, “the water of sprinkling”, and in the Targum in a following citation: this was the purification for sin, though it only

sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; the body, or only in an external and typical way, but did not really sanctify the heart, or purify and cleanse the soul from sin. The Jews say, that the waters of purification for sin were not waters of purification for sin, without the ashes a; and to this the Targumist, on Eze 36:25 and on Zec 13:1 refers, paraphrasing both texts thus;

“I will forgive their sins as they are cleansed with the water of sprinkling, and with the ashes of the heifer, which is a purification for sin.”

y Achaica, sive l. 7. p. 450. z Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 485. a Misn. Temura, c. 1. sect. 5. Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Ashes (). Old word, in N. T. only here, Matt 11:21; Luke 10:13. Common in LXX.

Of a heifer (). Old word (), a red heifer whose ashes mingled with water ( , verse 19) were sprinkled (, present active participle of , in LXX, though more common) on the contaminated or defiled ones (Nu 19) as the blood of bulls and goats was offered for sins (Le 16).

Sanctify (). First-class condition, assumed as true. This ceremonial ritual does serve “for the cleansing (, old word here only in N.T.) of the flesh,” but not for the conscience (verse 9). The cow was , the individual .

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Ashes of a heifer [ ] . Spodov ashes, only here, Mt 11:21; Luk 10:13, in both instances in the phrase sackcloth and ashes. Often in LXX Damaliv heifer, N. T. o. The two examples selected cover the entire legal provision for removing uncleanness, whether contracted by sin or by contact with death. “The blood of bulls and goats” refers to the sin – offerings, perhaps especially to the annual atonement (Leviticus 16); “the ashes of a heifer” to the occasional sacrifice of the red heifer (Numbers 19) for purification from uncleanness contracted by contact with the dead. The Levitical law required two remedies : the Christian economy furnishes one for all phases of defilement.

Sprinkling the unclean [ ] . For sprinkling see on 1Pe 1:2. The verb only in Hebrews, except Mr 7:4. For the unclean rend. them that have been defiled. The literal rendering of the participle brings out better the incidental or occasional character of the defilement.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “For if the blood of bulls and of goats,” (eigarto haima targon kai taupon) “For if the blood of goats and bulls,” of the flocks and herds, as prescribed for an acknowledgment of sins under the Mosaic Law: Lev 16:14; Lev 16:16.

2) “And the ashes of an heifer,” (kai spodos damaleos) “And, even, or also ashes of an heifer,” a young female cow, used by Israel when on journeys away from the tabernacle, in a ceremony acknowledging sins of the one making the offering, Num 19:2; Num 19:17.

3) “Sprinkling the unclean,” (hrantizousa tous kekoinomenos) “Sprinkling those who have been polluted, become. unclean,” in acknowledging their uncleanness before God and men, Num 19:17-19.

4) “Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh,” (hagiazei pros ten tes sarkos katharoteta) “Sanctifies to the point of cleanness of the flesh,” ceremonially clean from outward pollution, sets the person making the sacrifice apart as an holy, law-abiding, and believing person. They were made to acknowledge sin and the need of a sacrifice Redeemer from the consequence of their sins, of which the sacrifices were, in varying ways, a type or shadow, Col 2:17; Heb 8:5; Heb 10:1.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

13. For if the blood of bulls, etc. This passage has given to many all occasion to go astray, because they did not consider that sacraments are spoken of, which had a spiritual import. The cleansing of the flesh they leave explained of what avails among men, as the heathens had their expiations to blot out the infamy of crimes. But this explanation is indeed very heathenish; for wrong is done to God’s promises, if we restrict the effect to civil matters only. Often does this declaration occur in the writings of Moses, that iniquity was expiated when a sacrifice was duly offered. This is no doubt the spiritual teaching of faith. Besides, all the sacrifices were destined for this end, that they might lead men to Christ; as the eternal salvation of the soul is through Christ, so these were true witnesses of this salvation.

What then does the Apostle mean when he speaks of the purgations of the flesh? He means what is symbolical or sacramental, as follows, — If the blood of beasts was a true symbol of purgation, so that it cleansed in a sacramental manner, how much more shall Christ who is himself the truth, not only bear witness to a purgation by an external rite, but also really perform this for consciences? The argument then is from the signs to the thing signified; for the effect by a long time preceded the reality of the signs.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(13) For if the blood of bulls and of goats.This verse connects itself with the last words of Heb. 9:12, having won eternal redemption, showing why our hope may rise so high. The sacrifice is mentioned here in words slightly different from those of Heb. 9:11; but in each case the writers thought is resting on the sin offering of the Day of Atonement, a bullock for the high priest himself, a goat for the people. (There is no distinct reference in this Epistle to the scapegoat sent into the wilderness.)

And the ashes of an heifer.The nineteenth chapter of Numbers is wholly occupied with the remarkable institution here referred to. A red heifer without spot was slain and wholly burnt, with cedar-wood and hyssop and scarlet, and the ashes were laid up in a clean place without the camp. And for the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin-offering, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel: and a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle . . . . upon the unclean (Heb. 9:17-19). The unclean are those that have been defiled by touching the dead body of a man, or by being in any way brought into connection with death. It is said that on the third and seventh days of the high priests week of preparation for the Day of Atonement (see Note on Heb. 7:26), he was sprinkled with this water of purification, lest he should inadvertently have contracted such defilement.

Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh.Better, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh. As we have seen already (Heb. 9:10), the writer is looking at the intrinsic character of the sacrifices (Heb. 10:4) and rites of purification, apart from their importance as marks of obedience or their value to those who were able to discern their spiritual lessons. They could not cleanse the conscience (Heb. 9:9); but they could and did remove what the Law accounted uncleanness, and disabilities connected with the outward life and religious worship of the commonwealth.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

13. For An argument in these two verses for the divine efficiency of the atonement, drawn from three comparative points; thus 1. The blood of animals the blood of Christ. 2. The purifying of the flesh the purifying of the conscience. 3. Through animal life through eternal Spirit. If Not implying a doubt, but assuming a fundamental certainty as basis of the momentous inference.

Ashes of a heifer Num 19:2-6. Under Jewish law a corpse, as a memento of death and sin, was unclean; and its contact rendered a man unclean, excluding him from the congregation of Israel until purified. A red heifer red as the ruddy colour of life was burned, and its ashes, mixed with water, were reserved as a purifier to be sprinkled on every person who was unclean by the death-touch. The solemn awe of sin and death was impressed by several additional points. The heifer was burned without the camp. All the persons performing the rite were unclean until evening, and not only the unclean man, but the tent in which was the corpse, must be purified by the ashes and water. In all this was impressed upon Israel the divine antithesis of God, purity, and life, on one side, and Satan, sin, and death, on the other.

Purifying of the flesh Producing a typical purity, and deriving all the power for that from the antitype it represented. Hence, even though it made the conscience quiet, it received not that benefit from the mere material character of the substances used in the rite.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh,’

There was, of course, a sense in which the earthly ordinances, the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer, which contained the blood, had catered for the defilement of men and women. They had been outwardly effective. Through them those who had sinned, and those who had had contact with death, could be restored to contact with the congregation of Israel, and thus with the means of worship and atonement, and could once again partake in the ritual. It was so because God had appointed it so. It was not through any intrinsic worth of the sacrifice (for that was symbolic) but He had appointed that it would be so.

But these ordinances could never cleanse within, they could only cleanse the outward flesh. They could never be truly effective. They set men and women apart as outwardly ‘holy’, making them ‘clean’ outwardly so that they had acceptance in the congregation of Israel. They were, by God’s appointment, a way of restoration, but they were not a way of being transformed within. For they could never purify the heart, making men clean within. They were a picture of what would be, not a genuine means of purifying (Heb 1:3), of propitiation (Heb 2:17), of dealing with sin (Heb 7:27) and cleansing (Heb 1:3). That awaited the great High Priest to come.

The blood of goats and bulls represented the many sacrifices for sin, and for guilt, and for atonement. The blood of burnt offerings and peace offerings and guilt/trespass offerings was sprinkled on or around the altar (Lev 1:5; Lev 1:11; Lev 3:2; Lev 3:8; Lev 3:13; Lev 7:2), the blood of the special guilt/sin offering prescribed for certain offences in Lev 5:1-4 was sprinkled on the side of the altar (Lev 5:9), and in the case of a sin offering on behalf of the anointed priest or the whole people it was sprinkled before the veil (Lev 4:6; Lev 4:17). On the Day of Atonement the blood of the sin offerings was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat within the veil (Lev 16:14-15) and on the altar to purify it (Lev 16:19). But in no case was the blood sprinkled on people. That only occurred at the sealing of the Sinai covenant (Exo 24:8), and in the case of the cleansing of a leper, where the blood was that of a bird. Thus the ‘sprinkling of many that be defiled’ cannot refer to the blood of the sacrifices mentioned in Heb 9:13.

What was sprinkled on men for the removal of defilement was the water of purification which was prepared by putting the ashes of the red heifer, which were specifically said to contain the blood (Num 19:5), and which were kept in a clean place outside the camp of Israel until they were to be used, into a vessel along with ‘living water’ – (spring water which bubbled out of the ground) whence it was sprinkled on those who were unclean through contact with death (Num 19:17-21; compare also Num 8:7 for its use in the cleansing of the Levites). Thus the blood of bulls and goats sanctified because it atoned. The blood was presented at the altar in order to demonstrate that the sacrifice had been carried out. But what was sprinkled in order to remove uncleanness was the combination of the ashes of the heifer (which contained the blood) mingled with ‘living’ water (untainted spring water).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Heb 9:13-14. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, The legal impurities debarred the Jews from an attendance upon the public service; but they were freed from these bythe sacrifices, washings, and sprinklings appointed by the Mosaic law, which are called carnal ordinances, Heb 9:10 and so became qualified again for the public worship; and of this the apostle speaks under the notion of sanctification, as typical of that internal sanctification which he speaks of in Heb 9:14. That this sanctification or purifying is to be considered with respect to the divine service, appears from the 14th verse, which is in immediate connection with the 13th, and wherein he represents the advantage that we have by the blood of Christ; namely, to be qualified and privileged to serve the living God. Many understand the words eternal Spirit, of the Logos, or Divine nature of our Lord; and this seems indeed most agreeable to the nature of the apostle’s argument, since he is setting forth the intrinsic worth and excellence of his offering; though it must be owned, that agood sense maybe given of the words, when they are interpreted of the Holy Spirit. Bishop Fell so understands them, and particularlymentions Christ’s being conceived, proclaimed, anointed, for working miracles, and at last voluntarily laying down and taking up his life by the Spirit; and in this view many receive the present text as a full testimony to the eternity, and consequently the divinity, of the Holy Spirit. Christ is here said to have offered himself: he was to go through life and death too; he was to do his Father’s will upon earth during his most sacred ministry; and when he had done all this, he was to offer up himself free from spot or fault in every respect. If his blood only had been mentioned, it would signify no more than his dying, as was determined of him; but the offering himself implies the whole of his life and death too, in all his undertakings for man, from his infinite condescension in becoming incarnate, to his ascension to heaven. Dead works evidently mean all sins, and, in the full sense of the phrase, all works which do not proceed from the fear and love of God, all of which have in them the nature of sin. The blood of Christ is said to purge or purify from these, as it makes atonement for, or obtains the forgiveness of them; the consequence of which is, that the conscience is hereby freed from the distressing sense of guilt, and a person acquires a freedom in the service of God. But this purification of the conscience necessarilyincludes the sanctification of the heart: for “the Blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God cleanseth from all sin,” 1Jn 1:7 not only from the guilt, but from the power, and, in the faithful soul, from the indwelling of sin. The merit of that blood derives into the souls of the faithful all the regenerating influences of the HolySpirit of God, that are necessary to prepare and mature them for eternal glory.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Heb 9:13-14 . Justification of , Heb 9:12 , by an argument a minore ad majus . With the quantitative augmentation, however, expressed by , there is at the same time blended a qualitative augmentation by means of and . . . ., in such wise that the two following thoughts are enfolded the one in the other: (1) If even the blood of animals works cleansing how much more the blood of Christ? (2) If that effects the purity of the flesh, this effects purity of conscience.

] and ashes of an heifer . According to Num 19 , those who by contact with a dead body had become defiled, must be sprinkled with a mixture of water and the ashes of a spotless red heifer wholly consumed by fire, of which the ashes were preserved in a clean place without the camp (with the so-called , Num 19:9 ; Num 19:13 ; Num 19:20-21 ; LXX.: ), in order to become clean again.

] sprinkling those who have been defiled. Free mode of expression for: with which (ashes) those who have been defiled are sprinkled.

] belongs, since most requires an express addition of the object, to this verb (Erasmus, Beza, Jac. Cappellus, Grotius, Bhme, Bleek, de Wette, Bisping, Maier, Moll, Kurtz, Ewald, Hofmann, Woerner, al.), not to (Vulgate, Luther, Calvin, Bengel, Schulz, al.), which latter stands absolutely: works sanctification.

] to the (producing of the) purity of the flesh. , as v. 14. Indication of the result.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2302
THE JEWISH SACRIFICES TYPICAL OF CHRISTS

Heb 9:13-14. If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 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?

THE peculiar benefits of Christianity are usually displayed by contrasting our state with that of the heathen world: but they will be seen nearly to the same advantage, if we compare our privileges with those that were enjoyed under the Jewish dispensation. The Jews indeed had much that distinguished them above other nations: but we possess in substance what they enjoyed only in the shadow. One great object in the Epistle to the Hebrews is, to set this matter in a just point of view. This has been done with great perspicuity and strength of argument in the preceding context: and the author having shewn that we have a true, and eternal redemption obtained for us, while that accomplished by the Jewish ordinances was only typical and temporal, states afresh, in few words, the grounds of his conclusion, and appeals to every intelligent reader for the justness of it.

In discoursing on his words we shall shew,

I.

The excellence of the type

The Jewish ordinances were altogether typical of Christs sacrifice
[The ordinances mentioned in the text, though similar, as means of purifying from pollution, were very different from each other as to the kind of pollution which they were intended to remove. The blood of bullocks and goats was offered annually on the great day of expiation, to atone for the moral guilt both of the priests and people [Note: Lev 16:6; Lev 16:15.]. The ashes of the heifer, which, together with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet, had been burnt without the camp, were to be mixed with running water, and sprinkled upon a person who had contracted any ceremonial uncleanness (as from the touch of a grave, a corpse, a human bone, or any thing that had been touched by an unclean person). On the third day, and on the seventh, they were to be sprinkled on him; and then he was to be esteemed clean [Note: Num 19:12.]. These were typical of Christs sacrifice, by which the greatest sins may be forgiven; and without which, not even the smallest pollution imaginable can ever he purged away.]

As types, these certainly were deserving of much regard
[While they shadowed forth, and prepared men for, the Messiah that should come, they conveyed many real benefits to those who conformed to the rules which they prescribed. The penitents who bewailed their moral defilements, had their hopes of mercy and forgiveness revived and strengthened: and they who, on account of some ceremonial uncleanness, were separated for seven long days from the house of God, and from all intercourse with their dearest friends, were restored, as it were to the bosom of the Church, and to communion with their God. Doubtless these rites were burthensome; but every one who valued the favour of God, and the blessings of social converse, would thankfully use the means which God had prescribed for the renewed enjoyment of them.]
Nevertheless the things, which were glorious in themselves, lost all their glory when contrasted with,

II.

The superior excellence of the antitype

As, by a type, we mean a shadowy representation of something future and substantial; so, by an antitype [Note: . 1Pe 3:21.], we mean that thing which corresponds to the type, and had before been represented by it. The antitype then, or the thing that has been before represented, is, the sacrifice of Christ: and this infinitely excels all the ordinances by which it had been shadowed forth. The superior excellence of this appears particularly, in that,

1.

It purifies the conscience

[The legal offerings never could remove guilt from the conscience [Note: Heb 9:9.]: they were mere remembrances of sins [Note: Heb 10:3-4.]; and the constant repetition of them shewed that those, which had been before offered, had not availed for the full discharge of the persons who offered them [Note: Heb 10:2.]. But the blood of Christ, once sprinkled on the conscience, perfects for ever them that are sanctified [Note: Heb 10:10; Heb 10:14.]. No other atonement is then wanted, or desired: the sinner needs only to exercise faith on that, and he will have peace in his soul; being justified by faith, he shall have peace with God. How strongly does this mark the superiority which we ascribe to the sacrifice of Christ!]

2.

It sanctifies the life

[Though the Jewish ordinances availed for the restoration of men to the enjoyment of outward privileges, they never could renew and sanctify the heart. On the contrary, they rather tended to irritate the minds of men against both the law, and him that enjoined it. But the blood of Christ sprinkled on the soul, instantly produces a visible change in the whole man: the dead works which were daily practised with delight, are now abandoned; and the service of the living God, which before appeared irksome, is now its chief joy. It is undeniable that many in every place throughout the world (wherever the Gospel is preached) have undergone a very great change in all their views, desires, and pursuits; they have become dead to the things of time and sense, and have devoted themselves in body, soul, and spirit, to the service of their God. Let the question be put to all of them, When did this change take place? there will be but one answer from them all: they will with one voice acknowledge, that it was effected by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon their hearts and consciences; that, till that blessed period, they were altogether carnal; and that from that time, they have been under the habitual influence of spiritual affections. What more can be wanting to establish the point before us?]
The pre-eminence of Christ above the legal offerings will yet further appear, while we shew,

III.

How it is that the transcendent worth of the one may be inferred from the comparatively trifling value of the other

The Apostles argument in the text is this: If the Jewish sacrifices availed for the smallest good, how much more will the sacrifice of Christ avail for the greatest possible good? The force of this argument will appear by comparing,

1.

The nature of the offerings

[The blood that was sprinkled on men under the law, was merely the blood of worthless beasts: but what is that which is sprinkled on us? Let the voice of inspiration answer this question; It was GOD that purchased the Church with his own, blood [Note: Act 20:28.]. Astonishing mystery! the blood of Christ was the blood, not of a mere man, but of one who was God as well as man. How plain is the inference in this view! Surely, if the blood of a beast, which was only externally spotless, availed for any thing, much more may the blood of Christ, that immaculate Lamb, avail for every thing.]

2.

The persons by whom they were offered

[Under the law the offerings were presented by sinful men, who needed first to offer for their own sins, before they were permitted to offer for the peoples. But our sacrifice was offered by God himself: Christ was both the sacrifice and the priest: yea, each person of the ever-blessed Trinity was engaged in this stupendous work: the Father was the person to whom the sacrifice was offered; Christ was the person who offered it; and the Eternal Spirit concurred and co-operated with him in this mysterious act. Let then the offerings be compared in this view, and how infinite will the superiority of Christs appear!]

3.

The suitableness of each to the end proposed

[What was there in the blood of bulls and goats that could wash away the stain of sin! How could that satisfy the Divine justice, or avert his wrath from sinful man? there was not the least affinity between the means and the end. But Christ was bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and he assumed our nature on purpose that he might stand in our place and stead. Here was a perfect suitableness between the means and the end. Must the penalty due to sin be endured? He became a curse for us, and submitted to endure its just deserts. Must the law be fulfilled and honoured? He magnified it by his perfect obedience. And being God as well as man, he was at liberty to do this for us; and his substitution in our place is justly available for our salvation. How plain then is the Apostles inference when viewed in this light! Surely, when these considerations are all combined, there will be a strength in his argument, and a force in his appeal, which must bear down every objection, and fix the deepest conviction on our minds.]

This subject may further lead us to observe,

1.

How manifest is the doctrine of the divinity of Christ!

[We need not look to any passages that confirm this doctrine by direct assertions; since in the text it is contained with yet stronger evidence in a way of implication. Let it be supposed for one moment that Christ was a mere creature: how will the Apostles argument then appear? If the blood of one creature avails for the obtaining of a mere shadowy and temporal benefit, how much more shall the blood of another creature avail for the obtaining of all that God himself can bestow? This were as absurd as to say, if a child can lift a feather, how much more can a grown person lift a mountain? Such an appeal would be unworthy of any man that pretends to common sense; and much more of an inspired Apostle. But let the divinity of Christ be acknowledged, and the appeal is clear, convincing, incontrovertible. Indeed the doctrines of the atonement and of the divinity of Christ are so interwoven with each other, that neither of them can be denied without effectually subverting both. Let us seek then to be well established in these important truths.]

2.

How necessary is it to trust entirely in Christs atonement!

[It is not possible to state a case more strongly than this is stated in a chapter before referred to [Note: Numbers 19.]. We cannot conceive less guilt to be contracted by any act than by unwittingly touching a thing, which, unknown to us, had been before touched by an unclean person: yet nothing but the sprinkling of the ashes of a red heifer could ever remove the uncleanness contracted by it: if the person that had contracted it were the holiest man on earth, and were to shed rivers of tears on account of what he had done, and increase his circumspection in future an hundredfold, it would be all to no purpose; he must die as a defiler of Gods sanctuary, if he did not use the purification which the law appointed. How much more then must that soul perish which is not purified by the blood of Christ! How impossible is it that even the smallest sin should ever be expiated in any other way! Let this then teach us to look unto Christ continually, and to have our consciences ever sprinkled with his precious blood.]

3.

How inseparable is the connexion between faith and works!

[They greatly err, who think that the doctrines of faith are subversive of morality. The very faith that purges the conscience from guilt, purifies the life also from dead works, and animates us to serve the living God. Let this connexion then be seen in our lives; so shall we most effectually remove the calumny; and by well-doing put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

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:

Ver. 13. The ashes of a heifer ] Gr. Ashes and cinders mixt together, as a monument of Christ’s most base and utmost afflictions, and of our justification and sanctification through faith in his name. . Sordidus cinis, et cum carbones extincti permisti sunt.

Sprinkling the unclean ] With a hyssop bunch, to note that none can have comfort either by the merit or Spirit of Christ, without true mortification.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

13, 14 .] Argument , ‘a minori ad majus,’ to shew the cleansing power of Christ’s blood . For (rendering a reason for . . ) if (with indic., ‘as we know it does’) the blood ( , compared with below, because it is not the one blood compared with the other in its quality, but the shedding of the one blood compared with the shedding of the other: the articles then distribute the subject in each case) of goats and bulls (viz. the yearly offering on the day of atonement, Lev 16 s this time, both as more precise, males alone being offered, and as forming an alliteration with ) and ashes of an heifer (see the whole ordinance, full of significance, in Num 19:1-22 . has no art. because the ashes were to be laid up, and a portion used as wanted) sprinkling (= . is a Hellenistic form: is the pure Greek, and also the commoner form in the LXX (14 times: the other 3 only. See reff.): who however in Num 19 call the water in which were ashes of the red heifer, ) those who have been defiled (D-lat., vulg., Luth., Calv., De Wette in his version, al. make this accus. depend on . But to this there are two objections: 1. it is much less likely that should be absolute, than that should: 2. on this hypothesis, those who were the subjects of the virtue of the blood of the goats and bulls would also be described as , which they were not in the same sense as those who were sprinkled with the water of separation containing the ashes of the heifer. This latter objection is to me decisive. The word , in this usage of to make unclean, to defile, as the opposite of , as itself over against , is Hellenistic, and first found in the N. T.: the LXX have for it and , and for the person defiled, . In 1Ma 1:47 ; 1Ma 1:62 only, is found in the sense of unclean) sanctifieth to (so as to bring about) the purity (not “purifying,” as E. V.) of the flesh (it is evident, that the Writer speaks only of the Levitical rites in their matter-of-fact results as ‘opera operata,’ not of any divine grace which might accrue to the soul of the faithful Israelite from a spiritual partaking in them. The outward effect of the sacrifices of the day of atonement, as well as of the sprinkling of the ashes of the heifer, was, to render ceremonially pure before God, in the one case from the imputation of the defilement of sin on the whole people, in the other, from the defilement actually contracted by contact with death or uncleanness. These effects they had in themselves: what others they had, out of themselves, belonged not so much to them, as to that great Sacrifice which they represented), how much more (see the logical connexion at the end) shall the blood of ( the ) Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered HIMSELF (emphatic) without fault to God (first, when did He offer Himself? Clearly not, as Socinus, Schlichting, Grot., which last says, “Oblatio autem Christi hic intelligitur ea, qu oblationi legali in adyto fact respondet, ea autem est non oblatio in altari crucis facta, sed facta in adyto clesti:” with whom Bleek agrees. For, as Delitzsch rightly observes, when Christ is anti-typically or by way of contrast compared with the victims of the O. T. sacrifices, as the ritual word here shews that He is, then beyond question the offering on the cross is intended, which corresponds to the slaying the victim and offering him on the altar. Besides which, the “oblatio in adyto” was but the completion of the “oblatio in altari,” and, when Christ’s self-offering is spoken of generally, we are to take the whole from the beginning, not merely that which was the last act of it. This will guide us to the meaning of the somewhat difficult words : for thus do we read, and not , which appears to have originated in a mistaken view of the words. The animals which were offered, had no will, no of their own, which could concur with the act of sacrifice. Theirs was a transitory life, of no potency or virtue. They were offered rather than any consent, or agency, or counteragency, of their own. But Christ offered Himself, with His own consent assisting and empowering the sacrifice. And what was that consent? the consent of what? of the spirit of a man? such a consent as yours or mine, given in and through our finite spirit whose acts are bounded by its own allotted space in time and its own responsibilities? No: but the consenting act of His divine Personality His , His Godhead, which from before time acquiesced in, and wrought with, the redemption-purpose of the Father. Thus we have contrasted with in speaking of our Lord, in several places: cf. Rom 1:3-4 ; 1Ti 3:16 ; 1Pe 3:18 . This divine Personality it was, which in the Resurrection so completely ruled and absorbed His : this, which causes Him to be spoken of by St. Paul in 1Co 15:45 as a , and in 2Co 3:17 f. as absolutely . Not however that any confusion hence arises in the distinction of the divine Persons: is not the Spirit of the Father dwelling in Christ, nor is it the Holy Spirit given without measure to Christ, but it is the divine Spirit of the Godhead which Christ Himself had and was in His inner Personality. And I conclude with Delitzsch as to the relevancy of such a clause here: the eternal spirit is absolute spirit, divine spirit, and thus self-conscious, laying down its own course purely of itself unbound by conditions, simply and entirely free: so that Christ’s offering of Himself is, as such, a moral act of absolute worth, as Baumg., Von Gerlach, Ebrard, Lnem., al. “Jam vero,” says Seb. Schmidt, “cum hic Spiritus ternus adeoque infinitus sit, utique pondus meriti et satisfactionis, quod ab eodem spiritu est, ternum et infinitum est. Quod si ternum et infinitum sit, ne quidem infinita Dei justitia in eo aliquid desiderari potuit.” The is beautifully paraphrased by colampadius, “per ardentissimam caritatem a Spiritu ejus terno profectam.” See for the prep., in this connexion, Act 1:2 ; Act 11:28 ; Act 21:4 . It is by virtue of so that His divine Spirit was the agent in the , penetrating and acting on the Humanity.

, as above observed, is (reff.) the regular word of the ritual in reference to the victims which must be without spot when offered. Therefore to understand it of the perfection of the glorified human nature of the ascended Saviour, as Schlichting and the Socinian interpreters, is clearly beside the meaning, and contrary to analogy.

See many further details on this difficult passage in Bleek and Delitzsch), purify our (the question of reading, or , is one not easy to settle. At the word we unfortunately lose the evidence of B, the MS. terminating there, and being completed by a later hand. From all analogy it would seem that we must infer to have been its reading here. It is true, as Bl. and Delitzsch assert, that has a more lively and emphatic aspect: “habet aliquid inexpectatum,” as Bhme: but I cannot bring myself for this purely subjective reason to desert the guidance of the best and oldest MSS., though their company is now weakened by the defect of its most important member) conscience (our English word conscience does not reach the fulness of , the self-consciousness as regards God , the inner consciousness of relation to Him. This is, by the blood of Christ, shed in the power of the divine Spirit, thoroughly purified, freed from the terror of guilt, cleared from alienation from Him and from all selfish regards and carnal pretences, and rendered living and real as He is living and real) from dead works (just as death was under the old law the fountain of ceremonial pollution, and any one by touching a dead body became unclean, so carnal works, having their origin in sin, with which death is bound up, pollute the conscience. They are like the touching of the dead body, rendering the man unclean in God’s sight, as not springing from life in Him: inducing decay and corruption in the spirit. See on ch. Heb 6:1 , and Chrys. there quoted. Here, the reference to the dead body can hardly be set aside, being more pointed than there, where I have rather advocated the general sense of .

The Writer does not here set forth how this blood of Christ acts in purifying the conscience: it is not his aim now to speak of our way of participation of its benefits, but merely of its cleansing power itself) in order to the serving (ministering to, which the unclean might not do in the ceremonial sanctuary, nor can the unclean do in heart and life) the living God (God in His spiritual reality and absolute holiness: not a God concealed by veils and signs, but approached in His verity by the sanctified soul)?

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

13 10:18 .] Enlargement upon, and substantiation of , : on which then follows, Heb 10:19 ff., the third or directly hortatory part of the Epistle. “For the blood of His self-offering purifies inwardly unto the living service of the living God ( Heb 9:13-14 ): His redeeming death is the inaugurating act of a new covenant and of the heavenly sanctuary ( Heb 9:15-23 ): His entrance into the antitypical holiest place is the conclusion of his all-sufficing atonement for sin ( Heb 9:24-26 ), after which only remains His reappearance to complete the realization of Redemption ( Heb 9:27-28 ). In distinction from the legal offerings which were constantly repeated, He has, by his offering of Himself, performed the actual will of God which willed salvation (ch. Heb 10:1-10 ): our Sanctification is now for ever accomplished, and the exalted Saviour reigns in expectation of ultimate victory ( Heb 10:11-14 ): and the promised new covenant has come in, resting on an eternal forgiveness of sins which requires no further offering ( Heb 10:15-18 ).” Delitzsch.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Heb 9:13 . “For if the blood of goats and bulls and an heifer’s ashes sprinkling the unclean purify as regards the cleanness of the flesh, how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who through eternal spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” The writer thus justifies the affirmation of Heb 9:12 that by offering His own blood Christ obtained eternal redemption. , the law of purification with the ashes of the is given in Num 19 , where we find the characteristic words of this verse, , , , , , but (not used in LXX) is replaced by . , “made common,” i.e. , profane, ceremonially unclean. Defilement was contracted by touching a dead body, or entering into a house in which a corpse was lying, or touching a bone or a tomb; and to enter the Tabernacle while thus defiled was to incur the penalty of being cut off from Israel. The water in which lay the ashes of the burned heifer was therefore provided for purification ( ) and by using it the worshipper was again rendered fit for entrance to the worship of God. governs . and is not to be translated as if it were a passive; so Vulg., “aspersus inquinatos sanctificat” ( cf. Calvin and Bengel). , the meaning is determined by its use in Num 19 , where it signifies the removal of ceremonial defilement: the taking away of that which rendered the person “common” or “profane,” and the qualifying him for again worshipping God. This extended , “in the direction of” (Heb 6:11 ) or “in relation to” (Heb 2:17 , Heb 5:1 ) ( cf. Weiss). The flesh is here opposed to “the conscience” of Heb 9:14 . It was only the flesh that was defiled by attending to the dead; and only the flesh that was cleansed by the prescribed sprinkling. Defilement and cleansing were alike symbolic. It was within a well-defined ceremonial limit these sacrifices and washings availed. What kind of water, no matter how mixed with heifer’s ashes, could reach and wash the soul?

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

if. Greek. ei. App-118.

bulls, &c. See Lev 16.

ashes, &c. See Num 19:2-20.

sprinkling. Greek. rhantizo. See App-136.

purifying. Greek. katharotes. Only here.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

13-10:18.] Enlargement upon, and substantiation of, : on which then follows, Heb 10:19 ff., the third or directly hortatory part of the Epistle. For the blood of His self-offering purifies inwardly unto the living service of the living God (Heb 9:13-14): His redeeming death is the inaugurating act of a new covenant and of the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 9:15-23): His entrance into the antitypical holiest place is the conclusion of his all-sufficing atonement for sin (Heb 9:24-26), after which only remains His reappearance to complete the realization of Redemption (Heb 9:27-28). In distinction from the legal offerings which were constantly repeated, He has, by his offering of Himself, performed the actual will of God which willed salvation (ch. Heb 10:1-10): our Sanctification is now for ever accomplished, and the exalted Saviour reigns in expectation of ultimate victory (Heb 10:11-14): and the promised new covenant has come in, resting on an eternal forgiveness of sins which requires no further offering (Heb 10:15-18). Delitzsch.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Heb 9:13. , for) He confirms the fact, that the power of the one sacrifice of Christ is as great as he intimated at Heb 9:12.- ) of bulls and goats, which are mere brutes. Extenuation.[50]-, of a heifer) which was to be red, Numbers 19. Andr. Christ. Zellerus has enlarged the treatise of Maimonides on this subject, and compares with it this passage of the apostle, p. 504. It is a tradition among the Jews, that nine heifers of that sort were sacrificed from the time of Moses to the destruction of the second temple; see ibid., pp. 416, 417.- , those defiled or made unclean) A participle [defiled on some particular occasion]: less strong than , [habitually] common or defiled. Construe with , sanctifies; compare what follows.-, cleanness or purifying) Purifying was performed by sprinkling, not by washing; but washing followed by inseparable connection: Num 19:19. This fact is exceedingly useful for making a distinction between justification and renewing.

[50] See App. The same as Litotes. The blood of bulls, etc., a less forcible expression than is the meaning, viz. sacrifices.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

There is in these verses an argument and comparison. But the comparison is such, as that the ground of it is laid in the relation of the comparates the one unto the other; namely, that the one was the type and the other the antitype, otherwise the argument will not hold. For although it follows, that he who can do the greater can do the less, whereon an argument will hold

a majori ad minus; yet it doth not absolutely do so, that if that which is less can do that which is less, then that which is greater can do that which is greater; which would be the force of the argument if there were nothing but a naked comparison in it: but it necessarily follows hereon, if that which is less, in that less thing which it doth or did, was therein a type of that which was greater, in that greater thing which it was to effect. And this was the case in the thing here proposed by the apostle. The words are,

Heb 9:13-14. , , , , () , .

The words have no difficulty in them as to their grammatical sense; nor is there any considerable variation in the rendering of them in the old translations. Only the Syriac retains , that is, , from Heb 9:12, instead of , here used. And both that and the Vulgar place here before , as in the foregoing verse, contrary unto all copies of the original, as to the order of the words.

For the Vulgar reads , per Spiritum sanctum. The Syriac follows the original, , by the eternal Spirit.

. The original copies vary, some reading , our, but most , your; which our translators follow.[7]

[7] VARIOUS READING. It seems now agreed that the reading is to be preferred to the reading ; the authority for the latter being D, Copt., Basm., Vulg., Slav., and Lat. D, E., and Chrysostom; that for the former being A, B, Peschito, Philoxen., Armen., Ambrose, Theodoret, and Theophylact. EXPOSITION. Different views have been taken of the import of ; Beza, Ernesti, Cappell, Outrein, Wolf, Cramer, Carpzoff, Morus, Schulz, and others, referring it to the divine nature of Christ; Grotius, Limborch, Heinrichs, Schleusner, Rosenmuller, Koppe, Jaspis, and others, referring it to endless or immortal life; Doederlein, Storr, and others, to the exalted and, glorified,person or condition of Christ; Winzer, Kuinoel, Moses Stuart (see his Excursus), under- standng by the phrase, divine influence; Bleek, Tholuck, and others, the Holy Spirit; Ebrard, the disposition of mind, rendering the act not mechanical compliance with a ritual but moral in its character, and eternal as done in the eternal spirit of absolute love. ED.

Heb 9:13-14. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth unto the purifying of the flesh: 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!

The words are argumentative, in the form of a hypothetical syllogism; wherein the assumption of the proposition is supposed, as proved before. That which is to be confirmed is what was asserted in the words foregoing; namely, That the Lord Jesus Christ by his blood hath obtained for us eternal redemption. This the causal redditive conjunction; for, doth manifest; whereunto the note of a supposition, if, is premised as a note of a hypothetical argumentation.

There are two parts of this confirmation:

1. A most full declaration of the way and means whereby he obtained that redemption; it was by the offering himself through the eternal Spirit without spot unto God.

2. By comparing this way of it with the typical sacrifices and ordinances of God. For arguing ad homines, that is, unto the satisfaction and conviction of the Hebrews, the apostle makes use of their concessions to confirm his own assertions.

And his argument consists of two parts:

1. A concession of their efficacy unto their proper end.

2. An inference from thence unto the greater and more noble efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ, taken partly from the relation of type and antitype that was between them, but principally from the different nature of the things themselves.

To make evident the force of his argument in general, we must observe,

1. That what he had proved before he takes here for granted, on the one side and the other. And this was, that all the Levitical services and ordinances were in themselves carnal, and had carnal ends assigned unto them, and had only an obscure representation of things spiritual and eternal; and on the other side, that the tabernacle, office, and sacrifice of Christ were spiritual, and had their effects in eternal things, 2. That those other carnal, earthly things were types and resemblances, in Gods appointment of them, of those which are spiritual and eternal.

From these suppositions the argument is firm and stable; and there are two parts of it:

1. That as the ordinances of old, being carnal, had an efficacy unto their proper end, to purify the unclean as to the flesh; so the sacrifice of Christ hath a certain efficacy unto its proper end, namely, the purging of our conscience from dead works. The force of this inference depends on the relation that was between them in the appointment of God.

2. That there was a greater efficacy, and that which gave a greater evidence of itself, in the sacrifice of Christ, with respect unto its proper end, than there was in those sacrifices and ordinances, with respect unto their proper end: How much more! And the reason hereof is, because all their efficacy depended on a mere arbitrary institution. In themselves, that is, in their own nature, they had neither worth, value, nor efficacy, no, not even as unto those ends whereunto they were by divine institution designed: but in the sacrifice of Christ, who is therefore here said to offer himself unto God through the eternal Spirit, there is an innate glorious worth and efficacy, which, suitably unto the rules of eternal reason-and righteousness, will accomplish and procure its effects.

Heb 9:13. There are two things in this verse, which are the ground from whence the apostle argueth and maketh his inference in that which follows:

1. A proposition of the sacrifices and services of the law which he had respect unto.

2. An assignation of a certain efficacy unto them. The sacrifices of the law he refers unto two heads:

1. The blood of bulls and of goats.

2. The ashes of an heifer. And the distinction is,

1. From the matter of them;

2. The manner of their performance. For the manner of their performance, the blood of bulls and goats was offered, which is supposed and included; the ashes of the heifer were sprinkled, as it is expressed.

1. The matter of the first is the blood of bulls and of goats. The same, say some, with the goats and calves mentioned in the verse foregoing. So generally do the expositors of the Roman church; and that because their translation reads hircorum et vitulorum, contrary unto the original text. And some instances they give of the same signification of and . But the apostle had just reason for the alteration of his expression. For in the foregoing verse he had respect only unto the anniversary sacrifice of the high priest, but here he enlargeth the subject unto the consideration of all other expiatory sacrifices under the law; for he joins unto the blood of bulls and of goats the ashes of an heifer, which were of no use, in the anniversary sacrifice. Wherefore he designed in these words summarily to express all sacrifices of expiation and all ordinances of purification that were appointed under the law. And therefore the words in the close of the verse, expressing the end and effect of these ordinances, sanctifieth the unclean unto the purifying of the flesh, are not to be restrained unto them immediately foregoing, the ashes of an heifer sprinkled; but an equal respect is to be had unto the other sort, or the blood of bulls and of goats.

The Socinian expositor, in his entrance into that wresting of this text wherein he labors in a peculiar manner, denies that the water of sprinkling is here to be considered as typical of Christ, and that because it is the anniversary sacrifice alone which is intended, wherein it was of no use. Yet he adds immediately, that in itself it was a type of Christ; so wresting the truth against his own convictions, to force his design. But the conclusion is strong on the other hand; because it was a type of Christ, and is so here considered, whereas it was not used in the great anniversary sacrifice, it is not that sacrifice alone which the apostle hath respect unto.

Wherefore by bulls and goats, by a usual synecdoche, all the several kinds of clean beasts, whose blood was given unto the people to make atonement withal, are intended. So is the matter of all sacrifices expressed, Psa 50:13, Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Sheep are contained under goats, being all beasts of the flock.

And it is the blood of these bulls and goats which is proposed as the first way or means of the expiation of sin, and purification under the law. For it was by their blood, and that as offered at the altar, that atonement was made, Lev 17:11. Purification was also made thereby, even by the sprinkling of it.

2. The second thing mentioned unto the same end, is the ashes of an heifer, and the use of them; which was by sprinkling. The institution, use, and end of this ordinance, are described at large, Numbers 19. And an eminent type of Christ there was therein, both as unto his suffering and the continual efficacy of the cleansing virtue of his blood in the church. It would too much divert us from the present argument, to consider all the particulars wherein there was a representation of the sacrifice of Christ and the purging virtue of it in this ordinance; yet the mention of some of them is of use unto the explication of the apostles general design: as,

(1.) It was to be a red heifer, and that without spot or blemish, whereon no yoke had come, verse 2. Red is the color of guilt, Isa 1:18, yet was there no spot or blemish in the heifer: so was the guilt of sin upon Christ, who in himself was absolutely pure and holy. No yoke had been on her; nor was there any constraint on Christ, but he offered himself willingly, through the eternal Spirit.

(2.) She was to be led forth without the camp, Num 19:3; which the apostle alludes unto, Heb 13:11, representing Christ going out of the city unto his suffering and oblation.

(3.) One did slay her before the face of the priest, and not the priest himself: so the hands of others, Jews and Gentiles, were used in the slaying of our sacrifice.

(4.) The blood of the heifer being slain, was sprinkled by the priest seven times directly before the tabernacle of the congregation, Num 19:4 : so is the whole church purified by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ.

(5.) The whole heifer was to be burned in the sight of the priest, Num 19:5 : so was whole Christ, soul and body, offered up to God in the fire of love, kindled in him by the eternal Spirit.

(6.) Cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet, were to be cast into the midst of the burning of the heifer, Num 19:6; which were all used by Gods institution in the purification of the unclean, or the sanctification and dedication of any thing unto sacred use, to teach us that all spiritual virtue unto these ends, really and eternally, was contained in the one offering of Christ.

(7.) Both the priest who sprinkled the blood, the men that slew the heifer, and he that burned her, and he that gathered her ashes, were all unclean, until they were washed, verses 7-10: so when Christ was made a sin- offering, all the legal uncleannesses, that is, the guilt of the church, were on him, and he took them away.

But it is the use of this ordinance which is principally intended. The ashes of this heifer, being burned, were preserved, that, being mixed with pure water, they might be sprinkled on persons who on any occasion were legally unclean. Whoever was so, was excluded from all the solemn worship of the church. Wherefore, without this ordinance, the worship of God and the holy state of the church could not have been continued. For the means, causes, and ways of legal defilements among them, were very many, and some of them unavoidable. In particular, every tent and house, and all persons in [hem, were defiled, if any one died among them; which could not but continually fall out in their families. Hereon they were excluded from the tabernacle and congregation, and all duties of the solemn worship of God, until they were purified. Had not therefore these ashes, which were to be mingled with living water, been always preserved and in a readiness, the whole worship of God must quickly have ceased amongst them. It is so in the church of Christ. The spiritual defilements which befall believers are many, and some of them unavoidable unto them whilst they are in this world; yea, their duties, the best of them, have defilements adhering unto them. Were it not that the blood of Christ, in its purifying virtue, is in a continual readiness unto faith, that God therein hath opened a fountain for sin and uncleanness, the worship of the church would not be acceptable unto him. In a constant application thereunto doth the exercise of faith much consist.

3. The nature and use of this ordinance are further described by its object, the unclean, that is, those that were made common. All those who had a liberty of approach unto God in his solemn worship were so far sanctified; that is, separated and dedicated. And such as were deprived of this privilege were made common, and so unclean.

The unclean especially intended in this institution were those who were defiled by the dead. Every one that by any means touched a dead body, whether dying naturally or slain, whether in the house or field, or did bear it, or assist in the bearing of it, or were in the tent or house where it was, were all defiled; no such person was to come into the congregation, or near the tabernacle. But it is certain that many offices about the dead are works of humanity and mercy, which morally defile not. Wherefore there was a peculiar reason of the constitution of this defilement, and this severe interdiction of them that were so defiled from divine worship. And this was to represent unto the people the curse of the law, whereof death was the great visible effect. The present Jews have this notion, that defilement by the dead arises from the poison that is dropped into them that die by the angel of death; whereof see our exposition on Heb 2:14. The meaning of it is, that death came in by sin, from the poisonous temptation of the old serpent, and befell men by the curse which took hold of them thereon. But they have lost the understanding of their own tradition. This belonged unto the bondage under which it was the will of God to keep that people, that they should dread death as an effect of the curse of the law, and the fruit of sin; which is taken away in Christ, Heb 2:14; 1Co 15:56-57. And these works, which were unto them so full of defilement, are now unto us accepted duties of piety and mercy.

These and many others were excluded from an interest in the solemn worship of God, upon ceremonial defilements. And some vehemently contend that none were so excluded for moral defilements; and it may be it is true, for the matter is dubious. But that it should thence follow that none under the gospel should be so excluded, for moral and spiritual evils, is a fond imagination; yea, the argument is firm, that if God did so severely shut out from a participation in his solemn worship all those who were legally or ceremonially defiled, much more is it his will that those who live in spiritual or moral defilements should not approach unto him by the holy ordinances of the gospel.

4. The manner of the application of this purifying water was by sprinkling, being sprinkled; or rather, transitively, sprinkling the unclean. Not only the act, but the efficacy of it is intended. The manner of it is declared, Num 19:17-18. The ashes were kept by themselves. When use was to be made of them, they were to be mingled with clean living water, water from the spring. The virtue was from the ashes, as they were the ashes of the heifer slain and burnt as a sin-offering. The water was used as the means of their application. Being so mingled, any clean person might dip a bunch of hyssop (see Psa 51:7) into it, and sprinkle any thing or person that was defiled. For it was not confined unto the office of the priest, but was left unto every private person; as is the continual application of the blood of Christ. And this rite of sprinkling was that alone in all sacrifices whereby their continued efficacy unto sanctification and purification was expressed. Thence is the blood of Christ called the blood of sprinkling, because of its efficacy unto our sanctification, as applied by faith unto our souls and consciences.

The effect of the things mentioned is, that they sanctified unto the purifying of the flesh; namely, that those unto whom they were applied might be made Levitically clean, be so freed from the carnal defilements as to have an admission unto the solemn worship of God and society of the church.

Sanctifieth. in the New Testament doth signify for the most part, to purify and sanctify internally and spiritually. Sometimes it is used in the sense of in the Old Testament, to separate, dedicate, consecrate. So is it by our Savior, Joh 17:19, , And for them I sanctify myself; that is, separate and dedicate myself to be a sacrifice.So is it here used. Every defiled person was made common, excluded from the privilege of a right to draw nigh unto God in his solemn worship: but in his purification he was again separated to him, and restored unto his sacred right.

The word is of the singular number, and seems only to respect the next antecedent, , the ashes of an heifer. But if so, the apostle mentions the blood of bulls and goats without the ascription of any effect or efficacy thereunto. This, therefore, is not likely, as being the more solemn ordinance. Wherefore the word is distinctly to be referred, by a zeugma, unto the one and the other. The whole effect of all the sacrifices and institutions of the law is comprised in this word. All the sacrifices of expiation and ordinances of purification had this effect, and no more.

They sanctified unto the purifying of the flesh. That is, those who were legally defiled, and were therefore excluded from an interest in the worship of God, and were made obnoxious unto the curse of the law thereon, were so legally purified, justified, and cleansed by them, as that they had free admission into the society of the church, and the solemn worship thereof. This they did, this they were able to effect, by virtue of divine institution.

This was the state of things under the law, when there was a church purity, holiness, and sanctification, to be obtained by the due observance of external rites and ordinances, without internal purity or holiness. Wherefore these things were in themselves of no worth or value. And as God himself doth often in the prophets declare, that, merely on their own account, he had no regard unto them; so by the apostle they are called worldly, carnal, and beggarly rudiments. Why then, it will be said, did God appoint and ordain them? why did he oblige the people unto their observance? I answer, It was not at all on the account of their outward use and efficacy, as unto the purifying of the flesh, which, as it was alone, God always despised; but it was because of the representation of good things to come which the wisdom of God had inlaid them withal. With respect hereunto they were glorious, and of exceeding advantage unto the faith and obedience of the church.

This state of things is changed under the new testament. For now neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. The thing signified, namely, internal purity and holiness, is no less necessary unto a right unto the privileges of the gospel, than the observance of these external rites was unto the privileges of the law. Yet is there no countenance given hereby unto the impious opinion of some, that God by the law required only external obedience, without respect unto the inward, spiritual part of it; for although the rites and sacrifices of the law, by their own virtue, purified externally, and delivered only from temporary punishments, yet the precepts and the promises of the law required the same holiness and obedience unto God as doth the gospel.

Heb 9:14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!

This verse contains the inference or argument of the apostle from the preceding propositions and concessions. The nature of the argument is a minori, and a proportione. From the first, the inference follows as unto its truth, and formally; from the latter, as to its greater evidence, and materially.

There are in the words considerable,

1. The subject treated of, in opposition unto that before spoken unto; and that is, the blood of Christ.

2. The means whereby this blood of Christ was effectual unto the end designed, in opposition unto the way and means of the efficacy of legal ordinances; he offered himself (that is, in the shedding of it) unto God without spot, through the eternal Spirit.

3. The end assigned unto this blood of Christ in that offering of himself, or the effect wrought thereby, in opposition unto the end and effect of legal ordinances; which is, to purge our consciences from dead works.

4. The benefit and advantage which we receive thereby, in opposition unto the benefit which was obtained by those legal administrations; that we may serve the living God. All which must be considered and explained.

First, The nature of the inference is expressed by, How much more. This is usual with the apostle, when he draws any inference or conclusion from a comparison between Christ and the high priest, the gospel and the law, to use an in expression, to manifest their absolute pre- eminence above them: See Heb 2:2-3; Heb 3:3; Heb 10:28-29; Heb 12:25. Although these things agreed in their general nature, whence a comparison is founded, yet were the one incomparably more glorious than the ether. Hence elsewhere, although he alloweth the administration of the law to be glorious, yet he affirms that it had no glory in comparison of what doth excel, 2Co 3:10. The person of Christ is the spring of all the glory in the church; and the more nearly any thing relates thereunto, the more glorious it is.

There are two things included in this way of the introduction of the present inference, How much more:

1. An equal certainty of the event and effect ascribed unto the blood of Christ, with the effect of the legal sacrifices, is included in it. So the argument is a minori. And the inference of such an argument is expressed by, much more, though an equal certainty be all that is evinced by it. If those sacrifices and ordinances of the law were effectual unto the ends of legal expiation and purification, then is the blood of Christ assuredly so unto the spiritual and eternal effects whereunto it is designed.And the force of the argument is not merely, as was observed before, a comparatis, and a minori, but from the nature of the things themselves, as the one was appointed to be typical of the other.

2. The argument is taken from a proportion between the things themselves that are compared, as to their efficacy. This gives greater evidence and validity unto the argument than if it were taken merely a minori. For there is a greater reason, in the nature of things, that the blood of Christ should purge our consciences from dead works, than there is that the blood of bulls and of goats should sanctify unto the purifying of the flesh. For that had all its efficacy unto this end from the sovereign pleasure of God in its institution; in itself it had neither worth nor dignity, whence, in any proportion of justice or reason, men should be legally sanctified by it. The sacrifice of Christ also, as unto its original, depended on the sovereign pleasure, wisdom, and grace of God; but being so appointed, upon the account of the infinite dignity of his person, and the nature of his oblation, it had a real efficacy, in the justice and wisdom of God, to procure the effect mentioned in the way of purchase and merit. This the apostle refers unto in these words, Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unto God. That the offering was himself, that he offered himself through the eternal Spirit, or his divine person, is that which gives assurance of the accomplishing of the effect assigned unto it by his blood, above any grounds we have to believe that the blood of bulls and goats should sanctify unto the purifying of the flesh. And we may observe from this, How much more, that,

Obs. 1. There is such an evidence of wisdom and righteousness, unto a spiritual eye, in the whole mystery of our redemption, sanctification, and salvation by Christ, as gives an immovable foundation unto faith to rest upon in its receiving of it. The faith of the church of old was resolved into the mere sovereign pleasure of God, as to the efficacy of their ordinances; nothing in the nature of the things themselves did tend unto their establishment. But in the dispensation of God by Christ, in the work of our redemption by him, there is such an evidence of the wisdom and righteousness of God in the things themselves, as gives the highest security unto faith. It is unbelief alone, made obstinate by prejudices insinuated by the devil, that hides these things from any, as the apostle declares, 2Co 4:3-4. And hence will arise the great aggravation of the sin, and condemnation of them that perish.

Secondly, We must consider the things themselves.

FIRST, The subject spoken of, and whereunto the effect mentioned is ascribed, is the blood of Christ. The person unto whom these things relate is Christ. I have given an account before, on sundry occasions, of the great variety used by the apostle in this epistle in the naming of him. And a peculiar reason of every one of them is to be taken from the place where it is used. Here he calls him Christ; for on his being Christ, the Messiah, depends the principal force of his present argument. It is the blood of him who was promised of old to be the high priest of the church, and the sacrifice for their sins; in whom was the faith of all the saints of old, that by him their sins should be expiated, that in him they should be justified and glorified; Christ, who is the Son of the living God, in whose person God purchased his church with his own blood. And we may observe, that,

Obs. 2. The efficacy of all the offices of Christ towards the church depends on the dignity of his person. The offering of his blood was prevalent for the expiation of sin, because it was his blood, and for no other reason. But this is a subject which I have handled at large elsewhere.

A late learned commentator on this epistle takes occasion in this place to reflect on Dr. Gouge, for affirming that Christ was a priest in both natures; which, as he says, cannot be true. I have not Dr. Gouges Exposition by me, and so know not in what sense it is affirmed by him; but that Christ is a priest in his entire person, and so in both natures, is true, and the constant opinion of all protestant divines. And the following words of this learned author, being well explained, will clear the difficulty. For he saith, That he that is a priest is God; yet as God he is not, he cannot be a priest. For that Christ is a priest in both natures, is no more but that in the discharge of his priestly office he acts as God and man in one person; from whence the dignity and efficacy of his sacerdotal actings do proceed. It is not hence required, that whatever he doth in the discharge of his office must be an immediate act of the divine as well as of the human nature. No more is required unto it, but that the person whose acts they are is God and man, and acts as God and man, in each nature suitably unto its essential properties. Hence, although God cannot die, that is, the divine nature cannot do so, yet God purchased his church with his own blood;and so also the Lord of glory was crucifiedfor us. The sum is, that the person of Christ is the principle of all his mediatory acts; although those acts be immediately performed in and by virtue of his distinct natures, some of one, some of another, according unto their distinct properties and powers. Hence are they all theandrical; which could not be if he were not a priest in both natures. Nor is this impeached by what ensues in the same author, namely, That a priest is an officer; and all officers, as officers, are made such by commission from the sovereign power, and are servants under them. For,

1. It may be this doth not hold among the divine persons; it may be no more is required, in the dispensation of God towards the church, unto an office in any o them, but their own infinite condescension, with respect unto the order of their subsistence. So the Holy Ghost is in particular the comforter of the church by the way of office, and is sent thereon by the Father and Son; yet is there no more required hereunto, but that the order of the operation of the persons in the blessed Trinity should answer the order of their subsistence: and so he who in his person proceedeth from the Father and the Son is sent unto his work by the Father and the Son; no new act of authority being required thereunto, but only the determination of the divine will to act suitably unto the order of their subsistence.

2. The divine nature considered in the abstract cannot serve in an office; yet he who was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, took upon him the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death. It was in the human nature that he was a servant; nevertheless it was the Son of God, he who in his divine nature was in the form of God, who so served in office and yielded that obedience. Wherefore he was so far a mediator and priest in both his natures, as that whatever he did in the discharge of those offices was the act of his entire person; whereon the dignity and efficacy of all that he did depend.

That which the effect intended is ascribed unto, is the blood of Christ. And two things are to be inquired hereon.

1. What is meant by the blood of Christ.

2. How this effect was wrought by it.

First, It is not only that material blood which he shed, absolutely considered, that is here and elsewhere called the blood of Christ, when the work of our redemption is ascribed unto it, that is intended; but there is a double consideration of it, with respect unto its efficacy unto this end:

1. That it was the pledge and the sign of all the internal obedience and sufferings of the soul of Christ, of his person. He became obedient unto death, the death of the cross, whereon his blood was shed. This was the great instance of his obedience and of his sufferings, whereby he made reconciliation and atonement for sin. Hence the effects of all his sufferings, and of all obedience in his sufferings, are ascribed unto his blood.

2. Respect is had unto the sacrifice and offering of blood under the law. The reason why God gave the people the blood to make atonement on the altar, was because the life of the flesh was in it, Lev 17:11; Lev 17:14. So was the life of Christ in his blood, by the shedding whereof he laid it down. And by his death it is, as he was the Son of God, that we are redeemed. Herein he made his soul an offering for sin, Isa 53:10. Wherefore this expression, the blood of Christ, in order unto our redemption, or the expiation of sin, is comprehensive of all that he did and suffered for those ends, inasmuch as the shedding of it was the way and means whereby he offered it, or himself (in and by it), unto God.

Secondly, The second inquiry is, how the effect here mentioned was wrought by the blood of Christ. And this we cannot determine without a general consideration of the effect itself; and this is, the purging of our conscience from dead works. , shall purge. That is, say some, shall purify and sanctify, by internal, inherent sanctification. But neither the sense of the word, nor the context, nor the exposition given by the apostle of this very expression, Heb 10:1-2, will admit of this restrained sense. I grant it is included herein, but there is somewhat else principally intended, namely, the expiation of sin, with our justification and peace with God thereon.

1. For the proper sense of the word here used, see our exposition on Heb 1:3. Expiation, lustration, carrying away punishment by making atonement, are expressed by it in all good authors.

2. The context requires this sense in the first place; for,

(1.) The argument here used is immediately applied to prove that Christ hath obtained for us eternal redemption; but redemption consists not in internal sanctification only, although that be a necessary consequent of it, but it is the pardon of sin through the atonement made, or a price paid: In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, Eph 1:7.

(2.) In the comparison insisted on there is distinct mention made of the blood of bulls and goats, as well as of the ashes of an heifer sprinkled; but the first and principal use of blood in sacrifice was to make atonement for sin, Lev 17:11.

(3.) The end of this purging is to give boldness in the service of God, and peace with him therein, that we may serve the living God; but this is done by the expiation and pardon of sin, with justification thereon.

(4.) It is conscience that is said to be purged. Now conscience is the proper seat of the guilt of sin; it is that which chargeth it on the soul, and which hinders all approach unto God in his service with liberty and boldness, unless it be removed: which,

(5.) Gives us the best consideration of the apostles exposition of this expression, Heb 10:1-2; for he there declares, that to have the conscience purged, is to have its condemning power for sin taken away and cease.

There is therefore, under the same name, a twofold effect here ascribed unto the blood of Christ; the one in answer and opposition unto the effect of the blood of bulls and goats being offered; the other in answer unto the effect of the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled: the first consisting in making atonement for our sins; the other in the sanctification of our persons. And there are two ways whereby these things are procured by the blood of Christ:

1. By its offering, whereby sin is expiated.

2. By its sprinkling, whereby our persons are sanctified.

The first ariseth from the satisfaction he made unto the justice of God, by undergoing in his death the punishment due to us, being made therein a curse for us, that the blessing might come upon us; therein, as his death was a sacrifice, as he offered himself unto God in the shedding of his blood, he made atonement: the other from the virtue of his sacrifice applied unto us by the Holy Spirit, which is the sprinkling of it; so doth the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanse us from all our sins.

The Socinian expositor on this place endeavors, by a long perplexed discourse, to evade the force of this testimony, wherein the expiation of sin is directly assigned unto the blood of Christ. His pretense is to show how many ways it may be so; but his design is to prove that really it can be so by none at all; for the assertion, as it lies in terms, is destructive of their heresy. Wherefore he proceeds on these suppositions:

1. That the expiation for sin is our deliverance from the punishment due unto sin, by the power of Christ in heaven. But as this is diametrically opposite unto the true nature of it, so is it unto its representation in the sacrifices of old, whereunto it is compared by the apostle, and from whence he argueth. Neither is this a tolerable exposition of the words: The blood of Christ, in answer unto what was represented by the blood of the sacrifices of the law, doth purge our consciences from dead works; that is, Christ, by his power in heaven, doth free us from the punishment due to sin.

2. That Christ was not a priest until after his ascension into heaven. That this supposition destroys the whole nature of that office, hath been sufficiently before declared.

3. That his offering himself unto God was the presenting of himself in heaven before God, as having done the will of God on the earth. But as this hath nothing in it of the nature of a sacrifice, so what is asserted to be done by it can, according to these men, be no way said to be done by his blood, seeing they affirm that when Christ doth this he hath neither flesh nor blood.

4. That the resurrection of Christ gave all efficacy unto his death. But the truth is, it was his death, and what he effected therein, that was the ground of his resurrection. He was brought again from the dead through the blood of the covenant. And the efficacy of his death depends on his resurrection only as the evidence of his acceptance with God therein.

5. That Christ confirmed his doctrine by his blood; that is, because he rose again.

All these principles I have at large refuted in the exercitations about the priesthood of Christ, and shall not here again insist on their examination. This is plain and evident in the words, unless violence be offered unto them, namely, that the blood of Christ, that is, his suffering in soul and body, and his obedience therein, testified and expressed in the shedding of his blood, was the procuring cause of the expiation of our sins, the purging of our consciences from dead works, our justification, sanctification, and acceptance with God thereon. And,

Obs. 3. There is nothing more destructive unto the whole faith of the gospel, than by any means to evacuate the immediate efficacy of the blood of Christ. Every opinion of that tendency breaks in upon the whole mystery of the wisdom and grace of God in him. It renders all the institutions and sacrifices of the law, whereby God instructed the church of old in the mystery of his grace, useless and unintelligible, and overthrows the foundation of the gospel.

The second thing in the words, is the means whereby the blood of Christ came to be of this efficacy, or to produce this effect. And that is, because in the shedding of it he offered himself unto God, through the eternal Spirit, without spot. Every word is of great importance, and the whole assertion filled with the mystery of the wisdom and grace of God, and must therefore be distinctly considered.

There is declared what Christ did unto the end mentioned, and that is expressed in the matter and manner of it:

1. He offered himself.

2. To whom; that is, to God.

3. How, or from what principle, by what means; through the eternal Spirit.

4. With what qualifications; without spot.

1. He offered himself. To prove that his blood purgeth away our-sins, he affirms that he offered himself. His whole human nature was the offering; the way of its offering was by the shedding of his blood. So the beast was the sacrifice, when the blood alone or principally was offered on the altar; for it was the blood that made atonement. So it was by his blood that Christ made atonement, but it was his person that gave it efficacy unto that end. Wherefore by himself, the whole human nature of Christ is intended. And that,

(1.) Not in distinction or separation from the divine. For although the human nature of Christ, his soul and body, only was offered, yet he offered himself through his own eternal Spirit. This offering of himself, therefore, was the act of his whole person, both natures concurred in the offering, though one alone was offered.

(2.) All that he did or suffered in his soul and body when his blood was shed, is comprised in this offering of himself. His obedience in suffering was that which rendered this offering of himself a sacrifice unto God of a sweet-smelling savor. And he is said thus to offer himself, in opposition unto the sacrifices of the high priests under the law. They offered goats and bulls, or their blood; but he offered himself. This, therefore, was the nature of the offering of Christ: It was a sacred act of the Lord Christ, as the high priest of the church, wherein, according unto the will of God, and what was required of him by virtue of the eternal compact between the Father and him concerning the redemption of the church, he gave up himself, in the way of most profound obedience, to do and suffer whatever the justice and law of God required unto the expiation of sin; expressing the whole by the shedding of his blood, in answer unto all the typical representations of this his sacrifice in all the institutions of the law.

And this offering of Christ was proper sacrifice,

(1.) From the office whereof it was an act. It was an act of his sacerdotal office; he was made a priest of God for this end, that he might thus offer himself, and that this offering of himself should be a sacrifice.

(2.) From the nature of it. For it consisted in the sacred giving up unto God the thing that was offered, in the present destruction or consumption of it. This was the nature of a sacrifice; it was the destruction and consumption by death and fire, by a sacred action, of what was dedicated and offered unto God. So was it in this sacrifice of Christ. As he suffered in it, so in the giving himself up unto God in it there was an effusion of his blood and the destruction of his life.

(3.) From the end of it, which was assigned unto it in the wisdom and sovereignty of God, and in his own intention; which was to make atonement for sin: which gives an offering the formal nature of an expiatory sacrifice.

(4.) From the way and manner of it. For therein,

[1.] He sanctified or dedicated himself unto God to be an offering, Joh 17:19.

[2.] He accompanied it with prayers and supplications, Heb 5:7.

[3.] There was an altar which sanctified the offering, which bore it up in its oblation; which was his own divine nature, as we shall see immediately.

[4.] He kindled the sacrifice with the fire of divine love, acting itself by zeal unto Gods glory and compassion unto the souls of men.

[5.] He tendered all this unto God as an atonement for sin, as we shall see in the next words.

This was the free, real, proper sacrifice of Christ, whereof those of old were only types and obscure representations; the prefiguration hereof was the sole cause of their institution. And what the Socinians pretend, namely, that the Lord Christ offered no real sacrifice, but only what he did was called so metaphorically, by the way of allusion unto the sacrifices of the law, is so far from truth, as that there never had been any such sacrifices of divine appointment but only to prefigure this, which alone was really and substantially so. The Holy Ghost doth not make a forced accommodation of what Christ did unto those sacrifices of old, by way of allusion, and by reason of some resemblances; but shows the uselessness and weakness of those sacrifices in themselves, any further but as they represented this of Christ.

The nature of this oblation and sacrifice of Christ is utterly overthrown by the Socinians. They deny that in all this there was any offering at all; they deny that his shedding of his blood, or any thing which he did or suffered therein, either actually or passively, his obedience, or giving himself up unto God therein, was his sacrifice, or any part of it, but only somewhat required previously thereunto, and that without any necessary cause or reason- But his sacrifice, his offering of himself, they say, is nothing but his appearance in heaven, and the presentation of himself before the throne of God, whereon he receiveth power to deliver them that believe in him from the punishment due to sin. But,

(1.) This appearance of Christ in heaven is nowhere called his oblation, his sacrifice, or his offering of himself. The places wherein some grant it may be so, do assert no such thing; as we shall see in the explanation of them, for they occur unto us in this chapter.

(2.) It no way answers the atonement that was made by the blood of the sacrifices at the altar, which was never carried into the holy place; yea, it overthrows all analogy, all resemblance and typical representation between those sacrifices and this of Christ, there being no similitude, nothing alike between them. And this renders all the reasoning of the apostle not only invalid, but altogether impertinent.

(3.) The supposition of it utterly overthrows the true nature of a proper and real sacrifice, substituting that in the room of it which is only metaphorical, and improperly so called. Nor can it be evidenced wherein the metaphor doth consist, or that there is any ground why it should be called an offering or a sacrifice; for all things belonging to it are distinct from, yea, contrary unto a true, real sacrifice.

(4.) It overthrows the nature of the priesthood of Christ, making it to consist in his actings from God towards us in a way of power; whereas the nature of the priesthood is to act with God for and on the behalf of the church.

(5.) It offers violence unto the text. For herein Christs offering of himself is expressive of the way whereby his blood purgeth our consciences; which in their sense is excluded. But we may observe, unto our purpose,

Obs. 4. This was the greatest expression of the inexpressible love of Christ; he offered himself. What was required thereunto, what he underwent therein, have on various occasions been spoken unto. His condescension and love in the undertaking and discharge of this work, we may, we ought to admire, but we cannot comprehend. And they do what lies in them to weaken the faith of the church in him, and its love towards him, who would change the nature of his sacrifice in the offering of himself; who would make less of difficulty or suffering in it, or ascribe less efficacy unto it. This is the foundation of our faith and boldness in approaching unto God, that Christ hath offered himself for us. Whatsoever might be effected by the glorious dignity of his divine person, by his profound obedience, by his unspeakable sufferings, all offered as a sacrifice unto God in our behalf, is really accomplished.

Obs. 5. It is hence evident how vain and insufficient are all other ways of the expiation of sin, with the purging of our consciences before God. The sum of all false religion consisteth always in contrivances for the expiation of sin; what is false in any religion hath respect principally thereunto. And as superstition is restless, so the inventions of men have been endless, in finding out means unto this end. But if any thing within the power or ability of men, any thing they could invent or accomplish, had been useful unto this end, there would have been no need that the Son of God should have offered himself. To this purpose, see Heb 10:5-8; Mic 6:6-7.

2. The next thing in the words, is unto whom he offered himself; that is, to God. He gave himself an offering and a sacrifice to God. A sacrifice is the highest and chiefest act of sacred worship; especially it must be so when one offereth himself, according unto the will of God. God as God, or the divine nature, is the proper object of all religious worship, unto whom as such alone any sacrifice may be offered. To offer sacrifice unto any, under any other notion but as he is God, is the highest idolatry. But an offering, an expiatory sacrifice for sin, is made to God as God, under a peculiar notion or consideration. For God is therein considered as the author of the law against which sin is committed, as the supreme ruler and governor of all, unto whom it belongs to inflict the punishment which is due unto sin. For the end of such sacrifices is averruncare malum, to avert displeasure and punishment, by making atonement for sin. With respect hereunto, the divine nature is considered as peculiarly subsisting in the person of the Father. For so is he constantly represented unto our faith, as the judge of all, Heb 12:23. With him, as such, the Lord Christ had to do in the offering of himself; concerning which, see our exposition on Heb 5:7. It is said, If Christ were God himself, how could he offer himself unto God? That one and the same person should be the offerer, the oblation, and he unto whom it is offered, seems not so much a mystery as a weak imagination.

Ans. (1.) If there were one nature only in the person of Christ, it may be this might seem impertinent. Howbeit there may be cases wherein the same individual person, under several capacities, as of a good man on the one hand, and a ruler or judge on the other, may, for the benefit of the public, and the preservation of the laws of the community, both give and take satisfaction himself. But whereas in the one person of Christ there are two natures so infinitely distinct as they are, both acting under such distinct capacities as they did, there is nothing unbecoming this mystery of God, that the one of them might be offered unto the other. But,

(2.) It is not the same person that offereth the sacrifice and unto whom it is offered. For it was the person of the Father, or the divine nature considered as acting itself in the person of the Father, unto whom the offering was made. And although the person of the Son is partaker of the same nature with the Father, yet that nature is not the object of this divine worship as in him, but as in the person of the Father. Wherefore the Son did not formally offer himself unto himself, but unto God, as acting supreme rule, government, and judgment, in the person of the Father. As these things are plainly and fully testified unto in the Scripture, so the way to come unto a blessed satisfaction in them, unto the due use and comfort of them, is not to consult the cavils of carnal wisdom, but to pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give unto us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that the eyes of our understandings being enlightened, we may come unto the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.

3. How he offered himself is also expressed; it was by the eternal Spirit. By, . It denotes a concurrent operation, when one works with another. Nor doth it always denote a subservient, instrumental cause, but sometimes that which is principally efficient, Joh 1:3; Rom 11:36; Heb 1:2. So it doth here; the eternal Spirit was not an interior instrument whereby Christ offered himself, but he was the principal efficient cause in the work.

The variety that is in the reading of this place is taken notice of by all. Some copies read, by the eternal Spirit; some, by the Holy Spirit; the latter is the reading of the Vulgar translation, and countenanced by sundry ancient copies of the original. The Syriac retains the eternal Spirit; which also is the reading of most ancient copies of the Greek. Hence follows a double interpretation of the words. Some say that the Lord Christ offered himself unto God in and by the acting of the Holy Ghost in his human nature; for by him were wrought in him that fervent zeal unto the glory of God, that love and compassion unto the souls of men, which both carried him through his sufferings and rendered his obedience therein acceptable unto God as a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor: which work of the Holy Spirit in the human nature of Christ I have elsewhere declared.[8] Others say that his own eternal Deity, which supported him in his sufferings and rendered the sacrifice of himself effectual, is intended. But this will not absolutely follow to be the sense of the place upon the common reading, by the eternal Spirit; for the Holy Spirit is no less an eternal Spirit than is the Deity of Christ himself.

[8] See vol. 3, p. 168, of the authors miscellaneous works. Ed.

The truth is, both these concurred in, and were absolutely necessary unto the offering of Christ. The acting of his own eternal Spirit was so, as unto the efficacy and effect; and the acting of the Holy Ghost in him was so, as unto the manner of it. Without the first, his offering of himself could not have purged our consciences from dead works. No sacrifice of any mere creature could have produced that effect. It would not have had in itself a worth and dignity whereby we might have been discharged of sin unto the glory of God. Nor without the subsistence of the human nature in the divine person of the Son of God, could it have undergone and passed through unto victory what it was to suffer in this offering of it.

Wherefore this sense of the words is true: Christ offered himself unto God, through or by his own eternal Spirit, the divine nature acting in the person of the Son. For,

(1.) It was an act of his entire person, wherein he discharged the office of a priest. And as his human nature was the sacrifice, so his person was the priest that offered it; which is the only distinction that was between the priest and sacrifice herein. As in all other acts of his mediation, the taking our nature upon him, and what he did therein, the divine person of the Son, the eternal Spirit in him, acted in love and condescension, so did it in this also of his offering himself.

(2.) As we observed before, hereby he gave dignity, worth, and efficacy unto the sacrifice of himself; for herein God was to purchase his church with his own blood. And this seems to be principally respected by the apostle; for he intends to declare herein the dignity and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ, in opposition unto those under the law. For it was in the will of man, and by material fire, that they were all offered; but he offered himself by the eternal Spirit, voluntarily giving up his human nature to be a sacrifice, in an act of his divine power.

(3.) The eternal Spirit is here opposed unto the material altar, as well as unto the fire. The altar was that whereon the sacrifice was laid, which bore it up in its oblation and ascension. But the eternal Spirit of Christ was the altar whereon he offered himself. This supported and bore it up under its sufferings, whereon it was presented unto God as an acceptable sacrifice. Wherefore this reading of the words gives a sense that is true and proper unto the matter treated of.

But on the other side, it is no less certain that he offered himself in his human nature by the Holy Ghost. All the gracious actings of his mind and will were required hereunto. The man Christ Jesus, in the gracious, voluntary acting of all the faculties of his soul, offered himself unto God. His human nature was not only the matter of the sacrifice, but therein and thereby, in the gracious actings of the faculties and powers of it, he offered himself unto God. Now all these things were wrought in him by the Holy Spirit, wherewith he was filled, which he received not by measure. By him was he filled with that love and compassion unto the church which acted him in his whole mediation, and which the Scripture so frequently proposeth unto our faith herein: He loved me, and gave himself for me. He loved the church, and gave himself for it. He loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. By him there was wrought in him that zeal unto the glory of God the fire whereof kindled his sacrifice in an eminent manner. For he designed, with ardency of love to God above his own life and present state of his soul, to declare his righteousness, to repair the diminution of his glory, and to make such way for the communication of his love and grace to sinners, as that he might be eternally glorified. He gave him such holy submission unto the will of God, under a prospect of the bitterness of that cup which he was to drink, as enabled him to say in the height of his conflict, Not my will, but thine be done. He filled him with that faith and trust in God, as unto his supportment, deliverance, and success, which carried him steadily and safely unto the issue of his trial, Isa 50:7-9. Through the actings of these graces of the Holy Spirit in the human nature, his offering of himself was a free, voluntary oblation and sacrifice.

I shall not positively determine on either of these senses unto the exclusion of the other. The latter hath much of spiritual light and comfort in it on many accounts; but yet I must acknowledge that there are two considerations that peculiarly urge the former interpretation:

(1.) The most, and most ancient copies of the original, read, by the eternal Spirit; and are followed by the Syriac, with all the Greek scholiasts. Now, although the Holy Spirit be also an eternal Spirit, in the unity of the same divine nature with the Father and the Son, yet where he is spoken of with respect unto his own personal actings, he is constantly called the Holy Spirit, and not as here, the eternal Spirit.

(2.) The design of the apostle is to prove the efficacy of the offering of Christ above those of the priests under the law. Now this arose from hence, partly that he offered himself, whereas they offered only the blood of bulls and goats; but principally from the dignity of his person in his offering, in that he offered himself by his own eternal Spirit, or divine nature. But I shall leave the reader to choose whether sense he judgeth suitable unto the scope of the place, either of them being so unto the analogy of faith. The Socinians, understanding that both these interpretations are equally destructive to their opinions, the one concerning the person of Christ, the other about the nature of the Holy Ghost, have invented a sense of these words never before heard of among Christians. For they say that by the eternal Spirit, a certain divine power is intended, whereby the Lord Christ was freed from mortality, and made eternal; that is, no more obnoxious unto death. By virtue of this power, they say, he offered himself unto God when he entered into heaven; than which nothing can be spoken more fond or impious, or contrary unto the design of the apostle. For,

(1.) Such a power as they pretend is nowhere called the Spirit, much less the eternal Spirit; and to feign significations of words, without any countenance from their use elsewhere, is to wrest them at our pleasure.

(2.) The apostle is so far from requiring a divine power rendering him immortal antecedently unto the offering of himself, as that he declares that he offered himself by the eternal Spirit in his death, when he shed his blood, whereby our consciences are purged from dead works.

(3.) This divine power, rendering Christ immortal, is not peculiar unto him, but shall be communicated unto all that are raised unto glory at the last day. And there is no color of an opposition herein unto what was done by the high priests of old.

(4.) It proceeds on their in this matter; which is, that the Lord Christ offered not himself unto God before he was made immortal: which is utterly to exclude his death and blood from any concernment therein; which is as contrary unto the truth and scope of the place as darkness is to light.

(5.) Wherever there is mention made elsewhere in the Scripture of the Holy Spirit, or the eternal Spirit, or the Spirit absolutely, with reference unto any actings of the person of Christ, or on it, either the Holy Spirit or his own divine nature is intended. See Isa 61:1-2; Rom 1:4; 1Pe 3:18.

Wherefore Grotius forsakes this notion, and otherwise explains the words: Spiritus Christi qui non tantum fuit vivus ut in vita terrena, sed in aeternum corpus sibi adjunctum vivificans. If there be any sense in these words, it is the rational soul of Christ that is intended. And it is most true, that the Lord Christ offered himself in and by the actings of it; for there are no other in the human nature as to any duties of obedience unto God. But that this should be here called the eternal Spirit, is a vain conjecture; for the spirits of all men are equally eternal, and do not only live here below, but shall quicken their bodies after the resurrection for ever. This, therefore, cannot be the ground of the especial efficacy of the blood of Christ.

This is the second thing wherein the apostle opposeth the offering of Christ unto the offerings of the priests under the law:

(1.) They offered bulls and goats; he offered himself.

(2.) They offered by a material altar and fire; he by the eternal Spirit.

That Christ should thus offer himself unto God, and that by the eternal Spirit, is the center of the mystery of the gospel. All attempts to corrupt, to pervert this glorious truth, are designs against the glory of God and faith of the church. The depth of this mystery we cannot dive into, the height we cannot comprehend. We cannot search out the greatness of it; of the wisdom, the love, the grace that is in it. And those who choose rather to reject it than to live by faith in a humble admiration of it, do it at the peril of their souls. Unto the reason of some men it may be folly, unto faith it is full of glory. In the consideration of the divine actings of the eternal Spirit of Christ in the offering of himself, of the holy exercise of all grace in the human nature that was offered, of the nature, dignity, and efficacy of this sacrifice, faith finds life, food, and refreshment. Herein doth it contemplate the wisdom, the righteousness, the holiness, and grace of God; herein doth it view the wonderful condescension and love of Christ; and from the whole is strengthened and encouraged.

4. It is added that he thus offered himself, without spot. This adjunct is descriptive not of the priest, but of the sacrifice; it is not a qualification of his person, but of the offering.

Schlichtingius would have it, that this word denotes not what Christ was in himself, but what he was freed from. For now in heaven, where he offered himself, he is freed from all infirmities, and from every spot of mortality; which the high priest was not when he entered into the holy place. Such irrational fancies do false opinions force men to take up withal. But,

(1.) There was no spot in the mortality of Christ, that he should be said to be freed from it when he was made immortal. A spot signifies not so much a defect as a fault; and there was no fault in Christ from which he was freed.

(2.) The allusion and respect herein unto the legal institutions is evident and manifest. The lamb that was to be slain and offered was antecedently thereunto to be without blemish; it was to be neither lame, nor blind, nor have any other defect. With express respect hereunto, the apostle Peter affirms that we were

redeemed …… with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, 1Pe 1:18.

And Christ is not only called the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, Joh 1:29, that is, by his being slain and offered, but is represented in the worship of the church as a Lamb slain, Rev 5:6. It is thereforeto offer violence unto the Scripture and common understanding, to seek for this qualification anywhere but in the human nature of Christ, antecedently unto his death and blood-shedding.

Wherefore this expression, without spot, respects in the first place the purity of his nature and the holiness of his life. For although these principally belonged unto the necessary qualifications of his person, yet were they required unto him as he was to be the sacrifice. He was the Holy One of God; holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; he was without spot. This is the moral sense and signification of the word. But there is a legal sense of it also. It is that which is meet and fit to be a sacrifice. For it respects all that was signified by the legal institutions concerning the integrity and perfection of the creatures, lambs or kids, that were to be sacrificed. Hence were all those laws fulfilled and accomplished. There was nothing in him, nothing wanting unto him, that should any way hinder his sacrifice from being accepted with God, and really expiatory of sin. And this was the church instructed to expect by all those legal institutions.

It may be not unuseful to give here a brief scheme of this great sacrifice of Christ, to fix the thoughts of faith the more distinctly upon it:

1. God herein, in the person of the Father, is considered as the lawgiver, the governor and judge of all; and that as on a throne of judgment, the throne of grace being not as yet erected. And two things are ascribed, or do belong unto him:

(1.) A denunciation of the sentence of the law against mankind: Dying, ye shall die; and, Cursed be every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

(2.) A refusal of all such ways of atonement, satisfaction, and reconciliation, as might be offered from any thing that all or any creatures could perform. Sacrifice and offering, and whole burnt-offerings for sin, he would not have, Heb 10:5-6. He rejected them as insufficient to make atonement for sin.

2. Satan appeared before this throne with his prisoners. He had the power of death, Heb 2:14; and entered into judgment as unto his right and title, and therein was judged, Joh 16:11. And he put forth all his power and policy in opposition unto the deliverance of his prisoners, and to the way or means of it. That was his hour, wherein he put forth the power of darkness, Luk 22:53.

3. The Lord Christ, the Son of God, out of his infinite love and compassion, appears in our nature before the throne of God, and takes it on himself to answer for the sins of all the elect, to make atonement for them, by doing and suffering whatever the holiness, righteousness, and wisdom of God required thereunto: Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt-offerings for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second, Heb 10:7-9.

4. This stipulation and engagement of his, God accepteth of, and withal, as the sovereign lord and ruler of all, prescribeth the way and means whereby he should make atonement for sin, and reconciliation with God thereon. And this was, that he should make his soul an offering for sin, and therein bear their iniquities, Isa 53:10-11.

5. The Lord Christ was prepared with a sacrifice to offer unto God, unto this end. For whereas every high priest was ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices, it was of necessity that he also should have somewhat to offer,

Heb 8:3. This was not to be the blood of bulls and goats, or such things as were offered according to the law, verse 4; but this was and was to be himself, his human nature, or his body. For,

(1.) This body or human nature was prepared for him and given unto him for this very end, that he might have somewhat of his own to offer, Heb 10:5.

(2.) He took it, he assumed it unto himself to be his own, for this very end, that he might be a sacrifice in it, Heb 2:14.

(3.) He had full power and authority over his own body, his whole human nature, to dispose of it in any way, and into any condition, unto the glory of God. No man, saith he, taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again, Joh 10:18.

6. This, therefore, he gave up to do and suffer according unto the will of God. And this he did,

(1.) In the will, grace, and love of his divine nature, he offered himself unto God through the eternal Spirit.

(2.) In the gracious, holy actings of his human nature, in the way of zeal, love, obedience, patience, and all other graces of the Holy Spirit, which dwelt in him without measure, acted unto their utmost glory and efficacy. Hereby he gave himself up unto God to be a sacrifice for sin; his own divine nature being the altar and fire whereby his offering was supported and consumed, or brought unto the ashes of death. This was the most glorious spectacle unto God, and all his holy angels. Hereby he set a crown of glory on the head of the law, fulfilling its precepts in matter and manner unto the uttermost, and undergoing its penalty or curse, establishing the truth and righteousness of God in it. Hereby he glorified the holiness and justice of God, in the demonstration of their nature and by compliance with their demands. Herein issued the eternal counsels of God for the salvation of the church, and way was made for the exercise of grace and mercy unto sinners. For,

7. Herewith God was well pleased, satisfied, and reconciled unto sinners. Thus was he in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing our trespasses unto us, in that he was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. For in this tender of himself a sacrifice to God,

(1.) God was well pleased with and delighted in his obedience; it was a sacrifice unto him of a sweet-smelling savor. He was more glorified in that one instance of the obedience of his only Son, than he was dishonored by the sin of Adam and all his posterity, as I have elsewhere declared.

(2.) All the demands of his justice were satisfied, unto his eternal glory. Wherefore,

8. Hereon Satan is judged, and destroyed as unto his power over sinners who receive this atonement; all the grounds and occasions of it are hereby removed, his kingdom is overthrown, his usurpation and unjust dominion defeated, his goods spoiled, and captivity led captive. For of the anger of the Lord against sin it was that he obtained his power over sinners, which he abused unto his own ends. This being atoned, the prince of this world was judged and cast out.

9. Hereon the poor condemned sinners are discharged. God says, Deliver them, for I have found a ransom. But we must return to the text.

SECONDLY, The effect of the blood of Christ, through the offering of himself, is the purging of our consciences from dead works. This was somewhat spoken unto in general before, especially as unto the nature of this purging; but the words require a more particular explication And,

The word is in the future tense, shall purge. The blood of Christ as offered hath a double respect and effect:

1. Towards God, in making atonement for sin. This was done once, and at once, and was now past. Herein by one offering he for ever perfected them that are sanctified.

2. Towards the consciences of men, in the application of the virtue of it unto them. This is here intended. And this is expressed as future; not as though it had not had this effect already on them that did believe, but upon a double account:

(1.) To declare the certainty of the event, or the infallible connection of these things, the blood of Christ, and the purging of the conscience; that is, in all that betake themselves thereunto. It shall do it;that is, effectually and infallibly.

(2.) Respect is had herein unto the generality of the Hebrews, whether already professing the gospel or now invited unto it. And he proposeth this unto them as the advantage they should be made partakers of, by the relinquishment of Mosaical ceremonies, and betaking themselves unto the faith of the gospel. For whereas before, by the best of legal ordinances, they attained no more but an outward sanctification, as unto the flesh, they should now have their conscience infallibly purged from dead works Hence it is said, your conscience. Some copies read , our. But there is no difference in the sense. I shall retain the common reading, as that which refers unto the Hebrews, who had been always exercised unto thoughts of purification and sanctification, by one means or another.

For the explication of the words we must inquire,

1. What is meant by dead works.

2. What is their relation unto conscience.

3. How conscience is purged of them by the blood of Christ.

First, By dead works, sins as unto their guilt and defilement are intended, as all acknowledge. And several reasons are given why they are so called; as,

1. Because they proceed from a principle of spiritual death, or are the works of them who have no vital principle of holiness in them, Eph 2:1; Eph 2:5; Col 2:13.

2. Because they are useless and fruitless, as all dead things are.

3. They deserve death, and tend thereunto. Hence they are like rotten bones in the grave, accompanied with worms and corruption.

And these things are true. Howbeit I judge there is a peculiar reason why the apostle calls them dead works in this place. For there is an allusion herein unto dead bodies, and legal defilement by them. For he hath respect unto purification by the ashes of the heifer; and this respected principally uncleanness by the dead, as is fully declared in the institution of that ordinance. As men were purified, by the sprinkling of the ashes of an heifer mingled with living water, from defilements contracted by the dead, without which they were separated from God and the church; so unless men are really purged from their moral defilements by the blood of Christ, they must perish for ever. Now this defilement from the dead, as we have showed, arose from hence, that death was the effect of the curse of the law; wherefore the guilt of sin with respect unto the curse of the law is here intended in the first place, and consequently its pollution. This gives us the state of all men who are not interested in the sacrifice of Christ, and the purging virtue thereof. As they are dead in themselves, dead in trespasses and sins, so all their works are dead works. Other works they have none. They are as a sepulcher filled with bones and corruption. Every thing they do is unclean in itself, and unclean unto them.

Unto them that are defiled nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled, Tit 1:15.

Their works come from spiritual death, and tend unto eternal death, and are dead in themselves. Let them deck and trim their carcasses whilst they please, let them rend their faces with painting, and multiply their ornaments with all excess of bravery; within they are full of dead bones, of rotten, defiled, polluting works. That world which appears with so much outward beauty, lustre, and glory, is all polluted and defiled under the eye of the Most Holy.

Secondly, These dead works are further described by their relation unto our persons, as unto what is peculiarly affected with them, where they have, as it were, their seat and residence: and this is the conscience. He doth not say, Purge your souls, or your minds, or your persons, but your conscience. And this he doth,

1. In general, in opposition unto the purification by the law. There it was the dead body that did defile; it was the body that was defiled; it was the body that was purified; those ordinances sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. But the defilements here intended are spiritual, internal, relating unto conscience; and therefore such is the purification also.

2. He mentions the respect of these dead works unto conscience in particular, because it is conscience which is concerned in peace with God and confidence of approach unto him. Sin variously affects all the faculties of the soul, and there is in it a peculiar defilement of conscience, Tit 1:15. But that wherein conscience in the first place is concerned, and wherein it is alone concerned, is a sense of guilt. This brings along with it fear and dread; whence the sinner dares not approach into the presence of God. It was conscience which reduced Adam unto the condition of hiding himself from God, his eyes being opened by a sense of the guilt of sin. So he that was unclean by the touching of a dead body was excluded from all approach unto God in his worship Hereunto the apostle alludes in the following words, That we may serve the living God; for the word properly denotes that service which consists in the observation and performance of solemn worship. As he who was unclean by a dead body might not approach unto the worship of God until he was purified; so a guilty sinner, whose conscience is affected with a sense of the guilt of sin, dares not to draw nigh unto or appear in the presence of God. It is by the working of conscience that sin deprives the soul of peace with God, of boldness or confidence before him, of all right to draw nigh unto him. Until this relation of sin unto the conscience be taken away, until there be no more conscience of sin, as the apostle speaks, Heb 10:2, that is, conscience absolutely judging and condemning the person of the sinner in the sight of God, there is no right, no liberty of access unto God in his service, nor any acceptance to be obtained with him. Wherefore the purging of conscience from dead works, doth first respect the guilt of sin, and the virtue of the blood of Christ in the removal of it. But, secondly, there is also an inherent defilement of conscience by sin, as of all other faculties of the soul. Hereby it is rendered unmeet for the discharge of its office in any particular duties. With respect hereunto conscience is here used synecdochically for the whole soul, and all the faculties of it, yea, our whole spirit, souls, and bodies, which are all to be cleansed and sanctified, 1Th 5:23. To purge our conscience, is to purge us in our whole persons.

Thirdly, This being the state of our conscience, this being the respect of dead works and their defilement to it and us, we may consider the relief that is necessary in this case, and what that is which is here proposed:

Unto a complete relief in this condition, two things are necessary:

1. A discharge of conscience from a sense of the guilt of sin, or the condemning power of it, whereby it deprives us of peace with God, and of boldness in access unto him.

2. The cleansing of the conscience, and consequently our whole persons, from the inherent defilement of sin.

The first of these was typified by the blood of bulls and goats offered on the altar to make atonement. The latter was represented by the sprinkling of the unclean with the ashes of the heifer unto their purification.

Both these the apostle here expressly ascribes unto the blood of Christ; and we may briefly inquire into three things concerning it:

1. On what ground it doth produce this blessed effect.

2. The way of its operation and efficacy unto this end.

3. The reason whence the apostle affirms that it shall much more do this than the legal ordinances could, sanctifying unto the purifying of the flesh:

1. The grounds of its efficacy unto this purpose are three:

(1.) That it was blood offered unto God. God had ordained that blood should be offered on the altar to make atonement for sin, or to purge conscience from dead works That this could not be really effected by the blood of bulls and goats is evident in the nature of the things themselves, and demonstrated in the event. Howbeit this must be done by blood, or all the institutions of legal sacrifices were nothing but means to deceive the minds of men, and ruin their souls. To say that at one time or other real atonement is not to be made for sin by blood, and conscience thereby to be purged and purified, is to make God a liar in all the institutions of the law. But this must be done by the blood of Christ, or not at all.

(2.) It was the blood of Christ, of Christ, the Son of the living God, Mat 16:16, whereby God purchased his church with his own blood, Act 20:28. The dignity of his person gave efficacy unto his office and offering. No other person, in the discharge of the same offices that were committed unto him, could have saved the church; and therefore all those by whom his divine person is denied do also evacuate his offices. By what they ascribe unto them, it is impossible the church should be either sanctified or saved. They resolve all into a mere act of sovereign power in God; which makes the cross of Christ of none effect.

(3.) He offered this blood, or himself, by the eternal Spirit. Though Christ in his divine person was the eternal Son of God, yet was it the human nature only that was offered in sacrifice. Howbeit it was offered by and with the concurrent actings of the divine nature, or eternal Spirit, as we have declared.

These things make the blood of Christ, as offered, meet and fit for the accomplishment of this great effect.

2. The second inquiry is concerning the way whereby the blood of Christ doth thus purge our conscience from dead works. Two things, as we have seen, are contained therein:

(1.) The expiation, or taking away the guilt of sin, that conscience should not be deterred thereby from an access unto God.

(2.) The cleansing of our souls from vicious, defiling habits, inclinations, and acts, or all inherent uncleanness

Wherefore, under two considerations doth the blood of Christ produce this double effect:

(1.) As it was offered; so it made atonement for sin, by giving satisfaction unto the justice and law of God. This all the expiatory sacrifices of the law did prefigure, this the prophets foretold, and this the gospel witnesseth unto. To deny it, is to deny any real efficacy in the blood of Christ unto this end, and so expressly to contradict the apostle. Sin is not purged from the conscience unless the guilt of it be so removed as that we may have peace with God and boldness in access unto him. This is given us by the blood of Christ as offered.

(2.) As it is sprinkled, it worketh the second part of this effect. And this sprinkling of the blood of Christ is the communication of its sanctifying virtue unto our souls. See Eph 5:26-27; Tit 2:14. So doth the blood of Jesus Christ, Gods Son, cleanse us from all sin, 1Jn 1:7; Zec 13:1.

3. The reason why the apostle affirms that this is much more to be expected from the blood of Christ than the purification of the flesh was from legal ordinances hath been before spoken unto.

The Socinians plead on this place, that this effect of the death of Christ doth as unto us depend on our own duty. If they intended no more but that there is duty required on our part unto an actual participation of it, namely, faith, whereby we receive the atonement, we should have no difference with them. But they are otherwise minded. This purging of the conscience from dead works, they would have to consist in two things:

1. Our own relinquishment of sin.

2. The freeing us from the punishment due to sin, by an act of power in Christ in heaven.

The first, they say, hath therein respect unto the blood of Christ, in that thereby his doctrine was confirmed, in obedience whereunto we forsake sin, and purge our minds from it. The latter also relates thereunto, in that the sufferings of Christ were antecedent unto his exaltation and power in heaven. Wherefore this effect of the blood of Christ, is what we do ourselves in obedience unto his doctrine, and what he doth thereon by his power; and therefore may well be said to depend on our duty. But all this while there is nothing ascribed unto the blood of Christ as it was offered in sacrifice unto God, or shed in the offering of himself, which alone the apostle speaks unto in this place.

Others choose thus to oppose it: This purging of our consciences from dead works is not an immediate effect of the death of Christ, but it is a benefit contained therein; which upon our faith and obedience we are made partakers of. But,

1. This is not, in my judgment, to interpret the apostles words with due reverence. He affirms expressly, that the blood of Christ doth purge our conscience from dead works; that is, it doth make such an atonement for sin, and expiation of it, as that conscience shall be no more pressed with it, nor condemn the sinner for it.

2. The blood of Christ is the immediate cause of every effect assigned unto it, where there is no concurrent nor intermediate cause of the same kind with it in the production of that effect.

3. It is granted that the actual communication of this effect of the death of Christ unto our souls is wrought according unto the method which God in his sovereign wisdom and pleasure hath designed. And herein,

(1.) The Lord Christ by his blood made actual and absolute atonement for the sins of all the elect.

(2.) This atonement is proposed unto us in the gospel, Rom 3:25.

(3.) It is required of us, unto an actual participation of the benefit of it, and peace with God thereby, that we receive this atonement by faith, Rom 5:11; but as wrought with God, it is the immediate elect of the blood of Christ.

THIRDLY, The last thing in these words, is the consequent of this purging of our consciences, or the advantage which we receive thereby: To serve the living God. The words should be rendered, that we may serve; that is, have right and liberty so to do, being no longer excluded from the privilege of it, as persons were under the law whilst they were defiled and unclean. And three things are required unto the opening of these words; that we consider,

1. Why God is here called the living God;

2. What it is to serve him;

3. What is required that we may do so.

First, God in the Scripture is called the living God,

1. Absolutely, and that,

(1.) As he alone hath life in himself and of himself;

(2.) As he is the only author and cause f life unto all others.

2. Comparatively, with respect unto idols and false gods, which are dead things, such as have neither life nor operation.

And this title is in the Scripture applied unto God,

1. To beget faith and trust in him, as the author of temporal, spiritual, and eternal life, with all things that depend thereon, 1Ti 4:10.

2. To beget a due fear and reverence of him, as him who lives and sees, who hath all life in his power; so it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And this epistle being written principally to warn the Hebrews of the danger of unbelief and apostasy from the gospel, the apostle in several places makes mention of God with whom they had to do under this title, as Heb 3:12; Heb 10:31, and in this place.

But there is something peculiar in the mention of it in this place. For,

1. The due consideration of God as the living God, will discover how necessary it is that we be purged from dead works, to serve him in a due manner.

2. The nature of gospel-worship and service is intimated to be such as becomes the living God, our reasonable service, Rom 12:1.

Secondly, What is it to serve the living God? I doubt not but that the whole life of faith in universal obedience is consequently required hereunto. That we may live unto the living God in all ways of holy obedience, not any one act or duty of it can be performed as it ought without the antecedent purging of our consciences from dead works. But yet it is sacred and solemn worship that is intended in the first place. They had of old sacred ordinances of worship, or of divine service. From all these those, that were unclean were excluded, and restored unto them upon their purification. There is a solemn spiritual worship of God under the new testament also, and ordinances for the due observance of it. This none have a right to approach unto God by, none can do so in a due manner, unless their conscience be purged by the blood of Christ. And the whole of our relation unto God depends hereon. For as we therein express or testify the subjection of our souls and consciences unto him, and solemnly engage into universal obedience, (for of these things all acts of outward worship are the solemn pledges,) so therein doth God testify his acceptance of us and delight in us by Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, What is required on our part hereunto is included in the manner of the expression of it, , that we may serve. And two things are required hereunto:

1. Liberty; 2. Ability.

The first includes right and boldness, and is expressed by : our holy worship is , an access with freedom and confidence. This we must treat of on Heb 10:19-21. The other respects all the supplies of the Holy Spirit, in grace and gifts. Both these we receive by the blood of Christ, that we may be meet and able in a due manner to serve the living God. We may yet take some observations from the words:

Obs. 6. Faith hath ground of triumph in the certain efficacy of the blood of Christ for the expiation of sin: How much more! The Holy Ghost here and elsewhere teacheth faith to argue itself into a full assurance. The reasonings which he proposeth and insisteth on unto this end are admirable, Rom 8:31-39. Many objections will arise against believing, many difficulties do lie in its way. By them are the generality of believers left under doubts, fears, and temptations, all their days. One great relief provided in this case, is a direction to argue a minore ad majus:If the blood of bulls and goats did so purify the unclean, how much more will the blood of Christ purge our consciences!How heavenly, how divine is that way of arguing unto this end which our blessed Savior proposeth unto us in the parable of the unjust judge and the widow, Luk 18:1-8; and in that other, of the man and his friend that came to seek bread by night, Heb 11:5-9. Who can read them, but his soul is surprised into some kind of confidence of being heard in his supplication, if in any measure compliant with the rule prescribed? And the argument here managed by the apostle leaves no room for doubt or objection. Would we be more diligent in the same way of the exercise of faith, by arguings and expostulations upon Scripture principles, we should be more firm in our assent unto the conclusions which arise from them, and be enabled more to triumph against the assaults of unbelief.

Obs. 7. Nothing could expiate sin and free conscience from dead works but the blood of Christ alone, and that in the offering himself to God through the eternal Spirit. The redemption of the souls of men is precious, and must have ceased for ever, had not infinite wisdom found out this way for its accomplishment. The work was too great for any other to undertake, or for any other means to effect. And the glory of God is hid herein only unto them that perish.

Obs. 8. It was God, as the supreme ruler and lawgiver, with whom atonement for sin was to be made: He offered himself unto God. It was he whose law was violated, whose justice was provoked, to whom it belonged to require and receive satisfaction. And who was meet to tender it unto him, but the man that was his fellow, who gave efficacy unto his oblation by the dignity of his person? In the contemplation of the glory of God herein the life of faith doth principally consist.

Obs. 9. The souls and consciences of men are wholly polluted, before they are purged by the blood of Christ. And this pollution is such as excludes them from all right of access unto God in his worship; as it was with them who were legally unclean.

Obs. 10. Even the best works of men, antecedently unto the purging of their consciences by the blood of Christ, are but dead works. However men may please themselves in them, perhaps think to merit by them, yet from death they come, and unto death they tend.

Obs. 11. Justification and sanctification are inseparably conjoined in the design of Gods grace by the blood of Christ: Purge our consciences, that we may serve the living God.

Obs. 12. Gospel-worship is such, in its spirituality and holiness, as becometh the living God; and our duty it is always to consider that with him we have to do in all that we perform therein.

Fuente: An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews

Inside The Ark

The Word of God has a scarlet thread running through it, like the cord Rahab hung out of her window. That scarlet thread, by which the 66 Books of Inspiration is bound together, which unifies everything written upon the pages of Inspiration, is the blood, the precious blood of Christ

The Scriptures speak constantly about the blood. It is written in the books of the law, The life of the flesh is in the blood. God told Moses, The blood shall be to you for a token. He said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you. When the high priest went into the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, he went in with blood. No man can come to God without blood atonement.

When our Lord instituted the Lords Supper, he took the cup of wine, held it before his disciples and said, This is the blood of the New Testament, shed for many for the remission of sins. In Heb 9:22, we read, Without shedding of blood is no remission. That makes the blood[1] a matter of immense, infinite importance.

[1] The blood represents the life. The blood of Christ speaks of Christs sacrifice of himself.

These days, it is common for preachers, churches, theologians, and hymn writers to say as little as possible about the blood. We have become so educated, refined, and sophisticated that talking about blood is considered improper, unsophisticated, and rude. But it is still true that without shedding of blood is no remission. Nothing is more important and nothing more precious than the blood of Christ (Heb 9:12; 1 Pet. 18-21). The shedding of his precious blood was and is absolutely essential to the saving of our souls. Let us ever cherish the blood of Christ as that which is precious above all things.

Effectual Blood

Heb 9:13-14 — “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: 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?”

The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin (Heb 10:4). That was never Gods purpose. The animal sacrifices were given as types and pictures to illustrate and point to the great, sin-atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. However those Old Testament sacrifices did purify the people in an external, ceremonial way. How much more shall the blood of Christ, God’s own dear Son, spotless, sinless blood of infinite value offered to God by the Holy Spirit, cleanse us, purify our souls, and deliver us from seeking acceptance through our dead works! The blood of Christ is effectual. It has satisfied the wrath and justice of God. By it our sins have been put away. Therefore the believers conscience condemns him no more (Rom 8:1; Rom 8:33-34; 1Jn 1:7-10; 1Jn 3:5).

The Cause

There was a cause, a necessity for the great sacrifice of Christ. The cause was just this: Gods covenant grace could not come to sinful men without blood atonement. We could not be made righteous apart from the sacrifice of Gods own Son in our room and stead at Calvary (Gal 2:21; Gal 3:21).

Heb 9:15-17 “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. 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.”

Here the Holy Spirit shows us that Old Testament believers were redeemed by the death of Christ in exactly the same way we are, and for the same reasons. Justice must be satisfied before mercy can be given; and the only One by whom redemption could come is the God-man Mediator, Christ Jesus, of whom all the prophets spoke (Act 10:43). The promise of eternal inheritance was made to Gods elect in and by Christ, the Mediator of the covenant (testament) (1Co 10:4; Luk 24:44-47).

However, that promise could not come without the death of Christ, the Testator, the Mediator of the covenant. Wherever there is a testament, there must be the death of the testator. No claim can be made by the heirs of the testament until the Testator dies (Joh 3:14-16; Rom 3:19-26). There was an absolute necessity for the death of Gods Son as our Substitute and the Testator of the covenant. Christ must suffer and die if we are to be redeemed (1Pe 1:18-21).

Promise Received

Those who are called (Heb 9:15) receive the promise of eternal salvation, our eternal inheritance of grace in Christ by faith. Our faith does not in any way secure the inheritance. It simply receives what God our Father secured for us by his purpose and promise in eternity and Christ secured for us by his death. In fact, faith in Christ is itself a part of the inheritance. We believe because God the Holy Spirit, the Blessing of the covenant has been sent into our hearts in saving power and grace (Gal 3:13-14; Gal 4:6).

The very heart of the gospel is the finished work of Christ at Calvary, particular, effectual redemption, — limited atonement. We believe, according to Holy Scripture, that the sin-atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ is of infinite merit, value and efficacy, and that the blessings and benefits of our Saviors great sacrifice are limited by the purpose of God to his elect. I know that this glorious gospel doctrine is offensive to unbelieving men, offensive to all who wish to make man a co-savior with Christ; but that only demonstrates the fact that the offense of the cross has not ceased.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

The Cleansing of the Conscience

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?Heb 9:13-14.

The whole power and meaning of these words depend on the contrast they express between the Jewish ceremony of purification and the purifying sacrifice of Christ. The Apostle implies that there is a resemblance between the two. The Hebrew worshipper needed cleansing before he could enter the sacred precincts of the Temple: the human soul needs cleansing before it can worship in the presence of the Holy God. The sacrifice of animals purified the Jew; the sacrifice of Christ purifies the Christian; and the one is the type of the other. But beneath that resemblance the author of the Epistle finds eternal difference. The one purifying cleansed the fleshthe outward manand freed it from the penalties of unhallowed worship; the other cleanses the consciencethe inner manand quickens it to serve the living God. And just on that difference he founds the triumphant question in which he asserts the power of the blood of Christ to cleanse the conscience of humanity.

1. The Apostle is alluding specially to the ceremonial by which the Jewish worshipper was cleansed from the defilement of contact with death. By the law of Moses, the touch of a human corpse, whether it lay sacredly guarded in the quiet death-chamber, or exposed on the field of battle; the touch of a human bone or the dust of a human grave were defiling, and on pain of being cut off from Israel no man dare enter the Temple until cleansed from such pollution. Through that exact and terrible demand for purity from the very associations of death, God trained the Jews for ages to feel the connexion between death and sin, and made them know that not one shadow of impurity must darken the man who ventured to approach the presence of Him whose name is Holy. Now all this could purify the flesh only: it could cleanse the outward man, and deliver the worshipper from the outward penalties of unhallowed service; but there was an inner man, defiled by death, which those sacrifices of purification had no power to make pure. Within the spirits temple there was a conscience, heavenly and sacred, which had been darkened by sin and which needed redemption before the worshipper could go in joy and freedom into the presence of the Most High. No blood of bulls or of goats, no sprinkling of ashes could touch itthey had only a fleshly ceremonial power; it needed a living, holy, spiritual sacrifice to purge it from its dark pollution. And herein lies the power of our authors argument. If the outward ceremonial cleansed the outward man from the defilement of death, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

2. This, then, is what is meant in the text, when it contrasts the atoning power of the blood of Christ with that of the blood of bulls and goats. The blood of the sacrificed animal had a certain value, because it was so intimately connected with the life or sensitive soul of the animal; as the writer puts it, it did, and by Divine appointment, sanctify to the purifying of the flesh. By the flesh is here meant the natural, outward, and earthly life of man; especially all that bore in the way of outward conduct and condition upon his membership of the commonwealth of Israel. The sacrifices on the Day of Atonement, and especially the sprinkling of the blood of the red heifer towards the tabernacle, signified the substitution of life for life, and were at any rate accepted as establishing the outward religious position of those for whom they were offered. That they could do more was impossible; the nature of things was opposed to it: it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. The blood of these animals could not operate in the proper sphere of spiritual natures. But then it foreshadowed nothing less than the blood of Christ. It was His blood, who through His Eternal Spiritual Being (it is not the Holy Ghost who is here meant, but the Divine Nature of the Incarnate Christ) offered Himself without spot to God. The eternal spiritual nature of Christ, vivifying the blood of Christ, is contrasted in the writers thought with the perishable life of the sacrificed animal resident in the blood of the animal; and so the value of the sacrifices, the power of the blood to cleanse or save, varies with the dignity of the life which it representsin one case, that of the creature, not even endowed with reason or immortality; in the other, that of the Infinite and Eternal Being who for us men, and for our salvation, has come down from heaven. How much more shall the blood of Christ!

At length we see what it is that the sacred writer really means. He says in effect to his readers, You have no doubt that, under the old Jewish dispensation, the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement, the blood of the slaughtered goat and red heifer, could restore the Israelite who had done wrong to his place and his privileges in the sacred nation. It sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. But here is the bloodnot of a sacrificial animal, not of a mere man, not even of the best of men, but of One who was God manifest in the flesh. Who shall calculate the effects of His self-sacrifice? Who shall limit the power of His voluntary death? Who shall say what His outpoured blood may or may not achieve on earth or elsewhere? Plainly we are here in the presence of an agency which altogether distances and rebukes the speculations of reason; we can but listen for some voice that shall speak with authority, and from beyond the veil: we can but be sure of this, that the blood of the Eternal Christ must infinitely transcend in its efficacy that of the victims slain on the Temple altars; it must be much more than equal to redress the woes, to efface the transgressions, of a guilty world.

I

The Conscience and its Works

1. The Conscience.It may seem a strange assertion that the conscience of man needs purifying from defilement, for, regard it in what light we may, it is the most sacred and Divine thing in humanity, and the source of all that is sacred and noble in mans nature. On it are founded the sanctities of home, the fellowships of brotherhood, and the emotions of religion. We speak of it as an eye of the spirit, which looks upwards to a law which varies not with our falls and failures, but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; as a voice that, in our moments of strong temptation, raises its cry amidst the storms of passion, and denounces the fascinating appearance of evil as a hollow lie; as a power that we feel we ought to obey even when we disobey ita power which makes us feel that we are bound to do right even when peril and suffering and death are the inevitable results of right action. And can that sacred and holy thing, the warning light by which we see the defilement of the will, itself need cleansing? This seems stranger still when we regard the conscience as it is regarded in this chapter. For after speaking of its purification, the author says in the 23rd verse, that, while the patterns of things in the heavens, that is, the symbols in the Temple, needed the cleansing of the Jewish sacrifices, the heavenly things themselves were purified with better sacrifices than these; therefore the conscience is among the heavenly things which needed purifying by the sacrifice of Christ. Hence he means by it not only the sense of right and wrong, but the whole inner nature which connects man with the heavenly. The sense of the Infinite which awakens in him a feeling of awe and wonder before the grandeur of God in earth and sky; the emotions of reverence that pour themselves forth in Temple worship before the felt presence of the Father; the belief in the invisible world which makes us feel that there are regions near us whose beauty and glory eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived: all in man from which his religion and worship rise are included in conscience, and implies that the spiritual, heavenly, aspiring nature needs purifying before we can serve the living God. It is very important that we should understand this necessity. We must realize the fact that the heavenly nature does need purifying; we must feel that our conscience, sacred though it be, does need cleansing, or we shall not feel the power and beauty of the doctrine that only the purified conscience can rise to spiritual worship of the Father.

(1) In that mysterious judgment chamber, where busy thoughts, like subtle and eager pleaders, accuse and excuse one another, a voice, whose authority we cannot dispute, declares us guilty, and the testimony of God, which is greater than our conscience, reveals to us more fully our sin and condemnation. But when we are convinced of our sin and helplessness, God is revealed as a just God, and the justifier of the guilty who believe in Jesus; the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, reveals to us the holy and perfect way in which all iniquity is pardoned and all transgression removed. And as that blood avails in heaven, so it delivers the conscience from the burden of guilt, and from the burden of all our own miserable attempts at pleasing God and lulling our fears: dead works which like a dead weight only increase our wretchedness. Now we truly turn from sin unto God. In Jesus Christ, God and the sinner meet; both behold the blood of the Lord Jesus, and in the high sanctuary above and in the inmost sanctuary of the conscience there is peace.

(2) Yet the conscience thus purged is more sensitive. We know now more of our sinfulness: for we behold sin in the light of Gods love. What then? Of sin we have no conscience; but of our sinfulness and constant sinning we have. We confess our sins; we pray, Forgive us our trespasses: we mourn over our unfaithfulness; we behold and abhor our vileness; we have no confidence in the flesh. But we confess to the Father as children; we confess before the throne of grace, and in the hearing of the merciful and compassionate High Priest. We learn the deepest and most self-abasing lesson; to go with sin and unworthiness to infinite love, to boundless compassion, to never-failing mercy, to the Father who loves us, to the Lord who always intercedes for us. We have been washed once for all when we came to Jesus. We need now to have our feet washed. Peter either refused to have his feet washed by Jesus (false humility) or wished Jesus to wash not merely his feet, but also his hands and his head (unbelief and false humility again); but when afterwards he understood the ways of God, he strengthened his brethren. For in his Epistle he teaches that if we forget that we have been purged from our sins we become unfruitful and blind: the knowledge of our perfect and complete acceptance is the strength of obedience.

Complete redemption involves deliverance from the sense of guilt, from the power of moral evil, and from religious legalism. These combined cover at once all ethical and all religious interests, both justification and sanctification in the Pauline sense. All these benefits flow from Christs sacrifice, viewed in the light of the spirit through which it was offered. Intelligent appreciation of the spirit by which Christ offered Himself inspires that full, joyful trust in God that gives peace to the guilty conscience. But its effect does not stop there. The same appreciation inevitably becomes a power of moral impulse. The mind of Christ flows into us through the various channels of admiration, sympathy, gratitude, and becomes our mind, the law of God written on the heart. And the law within emancipates from the law without, purges the conscience from the baleful influence of dead works, that we may serve the Father in heaven in the free yet devoted spirit of faith and love.1 [Note: A. B. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 358.]

2. Dead Works.We are separated from God the Holy One by sin, from God the living One by death. In order to bring us into communion with God, and to purge our consciences, we have to be delivered both from the guilt of sin and from the defilement and power of death. Now of the types which purified unto the (typical) service, the blood of Jesus is the antitype. By the blood of Christ we are brought into the presence of the holy and living God. This is our sanctification, in which we are separated and cleansed for the worship and service of God. We are separated from the world of sin and death, from dead works; by which we must understand everything that is not the manifestation of a divinely-given and divinely-wrought life; because nothing is fit to be brought before and unto the living God unless it be living, or spiritual, or unless it proceeds from communion with the living One.

Dead works: works that are not good, in that their motive is good, nor bad, in that their motive is bad, but dead in that they have no motive at all, in that they are merely outward and mechanicalaffairs of propriety, routine, and form, to which the heart and spirit contribute nothing. Dead works: to how much of our lives, ay, of the better and religious side of our lives, may not this vivid and stern expression justly apply! How many acts in the day are gone through without intention, without deliberation, without effort, to consecrate them to God, without any reflex effect upon the faith and love of the doer? How many prayers, and words, and deeds are of this character? and if so, how are they wrapping our spirits round with bandages of insincere habit, on which already the avenging angels may have traced the motto, Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead!1 [Note: H. P. Liddon, Passiontide Sermons, 80.]

3. Living Service.The effect of the ceremonial cleansing was to restore to the man his place in the congregation. So the effect of the cleansed conscience is to enable him to offer what St. Paul calls (Rom 12:1) reasonable service. Compare the Collect for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, that we may be cleansed from all our sins and serve thee with a quiet mind.

The phrase, to serve the living God, cuts in sunder a fallacy which has beguiled some and perplexed many. If our release comes to us, apart from works, by the efficacy of that sacrifice, long since completed, why should we work at all? Because it is the law of our new life; because we are alive and in the temple of a living God, whose temple-service attracts us; because we are cleansed for this very purpose from the coldness and apathy of the dead and brought to readiness and desire to serve. Ritual cleansing was toward the purifying of the flesh: this reaches unto the temple-service of the living God.

(1) The service is living in the reality of its spiritual emotions. The unpurged conscience is tempted to forget, to doubt, to deny God, or to regard Him simply as some awful and mysterious power. The purified spirit feels Him near and can bear the glance of the Eternal without shrinking; for the dead past has been cleansed away by the blood of the Saviour. Thus prayer becomes real; it is no longer a vain cry breathed into the air; for the Spirit through which He offered Himself abides in us, constraining our devotion.

(2) The service is living, for it pervades the whole life. The worship of fear is limited to time and place. But cleansed and inspired by Christ, we feel He is everywhere. In suffering we bear His will, and our sighs become prayers. In sorrow, when the heart is weary, we feel ourselves near to the Heavenly Friend who is leading us to find in Him rest for the restless and sad. In joys, He who hallowed social gladness by His first miracleand amid the friendships of life, He who made friendship holyis close to our hearts. In our falls and failures we hear His voice in the hope of rising out of the gloom to a higher and purer state beyond it. Thus not only in the service of the Temple, and in the presence of a worshipping multitude, but throughout lifein the silent hours of meditation, in the still sanctuary of prayer, in the dreary hours of toil, and drearier hours of doubt, amid the rush of temptation and the pressure of care, do we feel the presence of the Christ who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself to God.

Grievously do they mistake the design of the death of Christ who suppose that it was intended simply to deliver us from the penalty of sin and to leave us free to continue in transgression. The unclean were purified that they might enter the tabernacle and take part in its services; and the blood of Christ has been shed for us that we may have access to God. It does not render worship and obedience unnecessary; it is the means by which we are delivered from that which hindered both. Hence it is that whether we offer adoration and praise, or invoke the Divine blessing on ourselves or intercede for others, or venture to contemplate the Divine glory, and endeavour to enter into communion with the Divine blessedness, we do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. His sacrifice is the foundation on which our religious life is built; by His blood we are cleansed from impurity that we may serve the living God.1 [Note: R. W. Dale, The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church, 213.]

As to St. James assertion that faith without works profiteth nothing, which appears to contradict St. Pauls, who says that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, suppose I say, A tree cannot be struck without thunder, that is true, for there is never destructive lightning without thunder. But, again, if I say, The tree was struck by lightning without thunder, that is true, too, if I mean that the lightning alone struck it, without the thunder striking it. Yet read the two assertions together, and they seem contradictory. So, in the same way, St. Paul says, Faith justifies without worksthat is, faith only is that which justifies us, not works. But St. James says, Not a faith which is without works. There will be works with faith, as there is thunder with lightning; but just as it is not the thunder but the lightning, the lightning without the thunder, that strikes the tree, so it is not the works which justify. Put it in one sentenceFaith alone justifies; but not the faith which is alone. Lightning alone strikes, but not the lightning which is alone, without thunder; for that is only summer lightning, and harmless. You will see that there is an ambiguity in the words without and alone, and the two Apostles use them in different senses, just as I have used them in the above simile about the lightning.1 [Note: Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 334.]

II

The Way of Cleansing

How much more shall the blood of Christ. Here we have not to do with animal sacrifices, the validity of which was that they were appointed by God, but we have to do with a Person. What Person? The Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Son of Man. Stop to think of this! Who is this Christ? He is the Person that most of all has educated our conscience. How He has broken in on my being, investing with new vividness and sublime sanction the natural moral convictions of my soul! What a light He has thrown on the being of God! What a view of the heinousness of sin! Christ is the only educator of the conscience. He has thrown around my being a light of spiritual and moral obligation which made me live as a moral being even before I came to Him for salvation. But He does not rest there. He does not say, like great teachers of the world, I have come to teach you the right way. Christ says, I have come in another way: I have come to put myself in your place, come to answer to God for you; have offered myself to God in your stead. Remember that we are in the region of personality here, the region of free-will, the region of character; and this great moral and spiritual Agent, who is so much morethe Son of Godcomes forth and says, I am coming to take your place, and answer for you before the Eternal God. That means for me that I respond to this offer in the surrender of faith. We are now on a totally different level from the Old Testament offerer. Then an animal sacrifice was offered, the equivalent was paid for certain sins, a life for a life, and the offerer got freedom from ceremonial defilement, came again into covenant relations with God, and again essayed to obey. But here is a Person, willing to answer to God for me; and I come and give myself into the hands of this Person. For what? That He may see the whole thing through. Christ has taken the whole burden and responsibility, and I have given myself to Him. In this union of faith, Christ answers for me before God, and I receive in Him the whole fruit of His great sacrifice, and in Him am brought nigh to God. It is Christs work. I cannot go so far with Christ, and then proceed by myself. The whole conception of the atonement shuts me up to thisif I yield myself up to Christ, Christ must undertake all for me. He is to be the doer right through, and I am to receive from Him, in Him, and through Him.

Suppose that in the bright summer weather we were in Switzerland, and were planning to start on a mountain excursion. Going out early in the morning, we see the ostlers with lantern in hand moving about, harnessing the horses, bringing them out and yoking them, the lantern being held high so that the ostler can see how to strap them. This work goes on a little time, and presently, we enter the hotel and rouse our sleeping friends, that they may get breakfast and be ready for the journey. When we go out again, lo, there is a change! The sun has risen, and is pouring his radiance into this magnificent valley; and there is the lantern, so indispensable an hour ago, with its poor yellow guttering candlewhich you instinctively blow out! Like this guttering candle is this conscience of man in his dead works. What can reduce that to utter insignificance in your soul and mine? The contemplation of the sun! How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot unto God, purge your conscience from dead works!1 [Note: J. Smith, in Keswick Week, 1900, p. 105.]

1. The blood of Christ.That which must strike all careful readers of the Bible, in the passages which refer to the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, is the stress which is laid upon His blood. A long course of violent treatment, ending in such a death as that of crucifixion, must involve, we know from the nature of the case, the shedding of the blood of the sufferer. But our modern feeling would probably have led us to treat this as an accidental or subordinate feature of His death.

(1) This modern feeling is far from being mere unhealthy sentimentalism; it arises from that honourable sympathy with and respect for human nature which draws a veil over its miseries or its wounds. But the New Testament, in its treatment of the Passion of Christ is, we cannot but observe, strangely and strongly in contrast with such a feeling. The four Evangelists, who differ so much in their accounts of our Lords birth and public ministry, seem to meet around the foot of the cross, and to agree, if not in relating the same incidents, yet certainly in the minuteness and detail of their narratives. In the shortest of the Gospels, when we reach the Passion, the occurrences of a day take up as much space as had previously been assigned to years. From the Last Supper to the burial in the grave of Joseph of Arimathea we have a very complete account of what took place; each incident that added to pain or shame, each bitter word, each insulting act, each outrage upon justice or mercy, of which the Divine Sufferer was a victim, is carefully recorded. But especially the agony and bloody sweat, the public scourging, the crowning with thorns, the nailing to the wood of the cross, the opening of the side with a spear, are described by the Evangelistsincidents, each one of them, be it observed, which must have involved the shedding of Christs blood. And in the writings of the Apostles to their first converts more is said of the blood of Christ than of anything else connected with His deathmore even than of the cross. As we read them we might almost think that the shedding of His blood was not so much an accompaniment of His death as its main purpose. Thus St. Paul tells the Romans that Christ is set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood; that they are justified by Christs blood. He writes to the Ephesians that they have redemption through Christs blood; to the Colossians that our Lord has made peace through the blood of his cross; to the Corinthians that the Holy Sacrament is so solemn a rite because it is the communion of the blood of Christ. Thus St. Peter contrasts the slaves, whose freedom from captivity was purchased with corruptible things such as silver and gold, with the case of Christians redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish, and immaculate. Thus St. John exclaims that the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God cleanseth us from all sin. In the Epistle to the Hebrews this blood is referred to as the blood of the covenant wherewith Christians are sanctified, as the blood of the everlasting covenant, as the blood of sprinkling which pleads for mercy, and so is contrasted with the blood of Abel, which cries for vengeance. And in the last book of the New Testament the beloved disciple gives at the very outset thanks and praise to Him who has washed us from our sins in his own blood; and the blessed in heaven sing that He has redeemed them to God by his blood; and the saints have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; and they have overcome their foe, not in their own might, but by the blood of the Lamb; and He whose Name is called the Word of God, and who rides on a white horse, and on whose head are many crowns, is clothed in a vesture dipped in blood.

In all the languages of the world, blood is the proof and warrant of affection and of sacrifice. To shed blood voluntarily for another is to give the best that man can give; it is to give a sensible proof of, almost a bodily form to, love. This one human instinct is common to all ages, to all civilizations, to all religions. The blood of the soldier who dies for duty, the blood of the martyr who dies for truth, the blood of the man who dies that another may liveblood like this is the embodiment of the highest moral powers in human life, and those powers were all represented in the blood which flowed from the wounds of Christ on Calvary. And yet in saying this we have not altogether accounted for the Apostolic sayings about the blood of Christ. It involves something more than any of these moral triumphs; it is more than all of them taken together.1 [Note: H. P. Liddon.]

In those primal laws which were given to Noah after the Flood, man was authorized to eat the flesh, but not the blood of the animals around him. Why was this? Because the blood is the life or soul of the animal. Flesh, with the blood thereof, which is the life thereof, shall ye not eat. The Laws of Moses go further: the man, whether Israelite or stranger, who eats any manner of blood is to be destroyed; and the reason is repeated: The soul of the flesh, i.e. of the nature living in the flesh, is in the blood. This is why the blood of the sacrificial animals is shed by way of atonement for sin; the blood atonesthis is the strict import of the original languageby means of the soul that is in it. Once more, in the Fifth Book of Moses, permission is given to the Israelites to kill and eat the sacrificial animals just as freely as the roebuck or the hart, which were not used for sacrifice. But, again, there follows the caution: Only be sure that thou eat not the blood; and the reason for the caution: the blood is the soul: and thou mayest not eat the soul with the flesh. Thou shalt not eat of it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth like water.1 [Note: H. P. Liddon.]

(2) Now as the blood of the slain animal means the life of the animal, so the blood of Christ crucified means the life of ChristHis life who is eternal truth and eternal charity. And thus, when a Christian man feels its redemptive touch within him, he has a motivevarying in strength, but always powerfulfor being genuine. He means his deeds, his words, his prayers. He knows that life is a solemn thing, and has tremendous issues; he measures these issues by the value of the redeeming blood. If Christ has shed His blood, surely life is well worth living; it is worth saving. A new energy is thrown into everything; a new interest lights up all the surrounding circumstances; the incidents of life, its opportunities, its trials, its successes; the character and disposition of friends, the public occurrences of the time, and the details of the homeall are looked at with eyes which see nothing that is indifferent; and when all is meant for Gods glory, though there may and must be much weakness and inconsistency, the conscience is practically purged from dead works to serve the living God.

The blood of Christ. It was shed on Calvary eighteen hundred years ago: but it flows on throughout all time. It belongs now, not to the physical but to the spiritual world. It washes souls, not bodies; it is sprinkled not on altars but on consciences. But, although invisible, it is not for all that the less real and energetic; it is the secret power of all that purifies or that invigorates souls in Christendom. Do we believe in one Baptism for the remission of sins? It is because Christs blood tinges the waters of the font to the eyes of faith. Do we believe that God hath given power and commandment to His ministers to declare and pronounce to His people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins? It is because the blood of Christ, applied to the conscience by the Holy Spirit, makes this declaration an effective reality. Do we find in the Bible more than an ancient literaturein Christian instruction more than a mental exercisein the life of thought about the unseen and the future more than food for speculation? This is because we know that the deepest of all questions is that which touches our moral state before God; and that, as sinners, we are above all things interested in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness in the blood of Christ. Do we look to our successive Communions for the strengthening and refreshing of our souls? This is because the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for us of old, and is given us now, can preserve our bodies and souls unto everlasting life. Does even a single prayer, offered in entire sincerity of purpose, avail to save a despairing soul? It is because we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.1 [Note: H. P. Liddon, Passiontide Sermons, 81.]

Suppose that I, a sinner, be walking along yon golden street, passing by one angel after another. I can hear them say as I pass through their ranks, A sinner! a crimson sinner! Should my feet totter? Should my eye grow dim? No: I can say to them, Yes, a sinner, a crimson sinner, but a sinner brought near by a forsaken Saviour, and now a sinner who has boldness to enter into the Holiest through the blood of Jesus.2 [Note: Andrew A. Bonar, Heavenly Springs, 175.]

2. Who offered himself without blemish unto God.This brings out more than His personal holiness, His perfect obedience. It was a whole sacrifice. He took this life and laid it on the altar of God. He said: Lo, I come to do thy will; and God laid His yoke upon Him. Day by day as in providence the yoke of Divine command came, He met the will of God with perfect submission. As the clouds began to gather, and the opposition of men grew fiercer, Christ rose to the level of perfect obedience and every moment did the will of God. He stands before the judgment-seats of Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod, is at last brought out to the green hill beyond the city wall, and there He reaches the crown of His perfect obedience.

Obedience is not really separable from atonement. Obedience is atoning; and the atonement itself can be exhibited as one great consummation of obedience. Only in Christs death is the climax of obedience reached; while the life is a sacrifice from end to end. The life, as apart from the death, is characterized more immediately by the homage of perfect obedience than by the agony of extreme penitence. The death, viewed apart from the life, is characterized even more by the anguish which was requisite to perfect contrition than by the normal homage to the character of God which consists in being holy. Our thought is of the life of consummate obedience, as a perfect manifestation, and offering, of holiness: holiness in terms of human condition and character; yet a perfectly adequate holiness; a response worthy of the holiness of God. How, in this aspect, shall we chiefly characterize the picture of the life as a whole? The essential point of the truth, the truth which sums up all other and more partial truths, would seem to be this. It is a life of unreserved, unremitting, absolute, and clearly conscious, dependence. The centre of His life is never in Himself. He is always explicitly the manifestation, the reflection, the obedient Son and Servant, of another. There is no purpose of self; no element of self-will; no possibility, even for a moment, of the imagination of separateness; no such thing, we may even say, as a consciousness alone and apart. He is the representative agent of another, the Son of the Father, the Image of God.1 [Note: R. C. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 99.]

3. Through the eternal Spirit.The voluntary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was a Divine act. He assumed the nature of man, but even in His humiliation He was God still. When He laid aside His eternal glory, it was God who made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant, and assumed the likeness of men; and throughout the whole history of His sorrow and shame, although the majesty and splendour of His heavenly estate were obscured, it was still the everlasting Son of the Fatherthe Divine Word dwelling upon earththat was the object of the malignity of Satan and the cruelty of man. The sufferings of the sacrifices of the ancient law were not to be ascribed to any voluntary submission on their part; but it was through the eternal Spiritthe Divine personality and will which constituted the very centre and root of the life of the Lord Jesus Christthat He endured the cross, despising the shame. The mystery of the union between the Divinity and the humanity of our Lord cannot be penetrated; but the difficulties are metaphysical, not moral. They defy the power of the intellect, but do not trouble the conscience. On the other hand, if this union is forgotten, and if the sufferings of the Lord Jesus for human salvation are regarded as the sufferings of a third person intervening between God and man, to allay the wrath of the One and to secure the escape of the other, moral difficulties arise of the most portentous kind; and the conscience, instead of finding rest in the sacrifice, is tortured and discouraged. When God determined to have mercy upon man, He did not command or permit holy angels to endure the sufferings which men had deserved; nor did He command or permit an innocent man to sink under the awful burden of the iniquities of the race; but, since it belonged to Himself to maintain the eternal distinction between right and wrong, and He had resolved not to maintain it in this case by inflicting just penalties on those who had sinned, He came into the world Himself, in the person of the Son, assuming our nature that He might become capable of suffering, and the suffering of Christ was the act of the Eternal Spirit.

Offered himself through the Spirit; surely a strange mode of sacrifice. I would have expected it to have been said that Christ offered Himself through the pains of the flesh. Nay, but in Gods sight this was not His offering. The deepest part of His sacrifice was invisible; it was the surrender of His will. The gift which He presented to the Father was not His pain but HimselfHis willingness to suffer. What the Father loved was rather the painlessness than the pain. He delighted not so much in His sacrifice as in the joy of His sacrifice. It was offered through the Spirit. It was not wrung out from a reluctant soul through obedience to an outward law; it came from the inner heartfrom the impulse of undying love. It was a completed offering before Calvary began; it was seen by the Father before it was seen by the world. It was finished in the spirit ere it began in the fleshfinished in that hour in which the Son of man exclaimed, Not as I will, but as thou wilt. Man had to see the pain of His body; God was satisfied when he poured out his soul. Even so, my brother, is it with thee. There are times in which thou art impotent for all outward work, times in which thou canst offer no bodily sacrifice. Thine may be the path of obscurity; thine may be the season of penury; thine may be the road apart from the worlds highway. Thine may be the delicate frame that cannot run for God because it must rest for sustenance; there may be nothing for thee to do but to look on and wish that thou couldst serve. Yes, but canst thou do that? Is this wish indeed thine? Then thy Father sees thy sacrifice completed. It is not yet offered in the body, but it is offered through the eternal Spirit. Like the sacrifice of Abraham it is accepted in its inwardness. Thou hast brought up thy gift to Mount Moriah and hast laid it there before the Lordlaid it open in thy heart, uncovered on the front of thy bosom. Thy Father sees it there and holds it already given. He accepts the offering of thy will as an offering of thy gift. He asks not the blood of Isaac when He has seen the blood of Abraham. He counts thy faith unto thee for righteousness, thy devotion unto thee for deed, for He knows that the sacrifice which lags behind in the flesh has been offered already in the Eternal Spirit.1 [Note: G. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, 215.]

The Cleansing of the Conscience

Literature

Body (G.), The Guided Life, 103.

Dale (R. W.), The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church, 211.

Hickey (F. P.), Short Sermons, ii. 78.

Holland (C.), Gleanings from a Ministry of Fifty Years, 173.

Hopkins (W. M.), The Tabernacle and its Teaching, 168.

Hull (E. L.), Sermons, i. 192.

Ingram (A. F. W.), The Love of the Trinity, 145.

Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., ii. 21.

Liddon (H. P.), Passiontide Sermons, 69.

Lilley (A. L.), Nature and the Supernatural, 93.

Mabie (H. C.), The Meaning and Message of the Cross, 122.

Manning (H. E.), Sermons, i. 241.

Matheson (G.), Voices of the Spirit, 215.

Meyer (F. B.), The Way into the Holiest, 136.

Mortimer (A. G.), Lenten Preaching, 49.

Saphir (A.), Expository Lectures on the Hebrews, ii. 123.

Sauter (B.), The Sunday Epistles, 204.

Selby (T. G.), The Holy Spirit and Christian Privilege, 25.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxv. (1879), No. 1481; xxxi. (1885), No. 1846.

Temple (F.), Rugby Sermons, iii. 165.

Vaughan (C. J.), Epiphany, Lent and Easter, 195.

Williams (I.), Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels, iii. 136.

Cambridge Review, iv. Supplement No. 92 (A. Barry).

Christian World Pulpit, xlviii. 134 (W. Alexander); xlix. 185 (G. Body); lix. 192 (G. Body); lxvii. 225 (G. Body).

Church of England Pulpit, lxii. 292 (C. Wordsworth).

Churchmans Pulpit: Fifth Sunday in Lent, vi. 196 (G. E. L. Cotton), 198 (C. J. Vaughan), 201 (J. T. F. Farquhar).

Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., ix. 201 (W. P. Roberts).

Guardian, lxvi. 126 (W. Lock).

Keswick Week, 1900, p. 103 (J. Smith).

National Preacher, v. 65 (J. B. Woodford).

Sermon Year Book, ii. 237 (C. Gore).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

if: Lev 16:14, Lev 16:16

and: Num 19:2-21

the purifying: Num 8:7, Num 19:12, 2Ch 30:19, Psa 51:7, Act 15:9, 1Pe 1:22

Reciprocal: Exo 12:5 – be without Exo 12:7 – General Exo 29:12 – the blood Lev 5:16 – and the priest Lev 14:7 – sprinkle Lev 16:30 – General Num 19:4 – sprinkle Num 19:9 – clean Num 19:21 – General 2Ch 35:6 – sanctify Psa 51:2 – Wash Isa 6:7 – thine iniquity Isa 52:15 – sprinkle Eze 36:25 – will I Eze 37:23 – will cleanse Eze 44:26 – General Zec 13:1 – a fountain Joh 3:25 – about Joh 11:55 – to purify Joh 17:19 – I sanctify Joh 19:34 – came Act 11:9 – What Heb 9:9 – that could Heb 9:12 – by the Heb 10:2 – once Heb 10:4 – not Heb 10:22 – sprinkled Heb 10:29 – wherewith Heb 13:12 – sanctify

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE ATONEMENT

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: 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?

Heb 9:13-14

These verses bring before us, with singular comprehensiveness and vividness, the parallel which is presented by the sacred writer between the Jewish sacrifices and the sacrifice offered by our Lord, alike in their nature and in their effect.

I. The author accordingly is concerned to enforce in the deepest and most touching manner the profound and perfect character of the sacrifice offered by our Lord. For this purpose he depicts in few, but intensely affecting, words the supreme holiness and graciousness, the Divine perfection of our Saviours nature.

II. But pass from the value of that which was offered to the spirit and the manner in which the offering was made. Christ, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God. That is to say, it was by the deliberate action of His eternal spiritual nature, by His Divine, as well as human, will that He made Himself that offering.

III. If we would fully apply the argument to ourselves, we must endeavour to realise the fact that the whole Jewish Ritual we have presented to us, though arbitrary and positive in its particular prescriptions, did but serve to bring into prominence what is the central and most terrible reality of life. The rule that without shedding of blood is no remission is not merely a Jewish ceremonial prescription, but may be regarded as a statement of the chief condition of human progress and life. It is more than strange, it seems like childs play, that men should sometimes, and too often, be found seriously arguing whether human sin demands an expiation and involves such penalties as the Scriptures speak of. The Scriptures only interpret the penalties; the infliction of them is a mere matter of fact, of constant experience.

IV. But let us, in conclusion, take to heart the application to our own life of the Apostles appeal.How much more, he says, shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? In other words, he seems to say, could we but remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour, Jesus Christ, thus dying for us, could we bear always in mind the precious blood He shed, the fact that His very life blood is eternally sprinkled, as it were, upon all things that are true, just, and pure, then, but not till then, should we possess an adequate motive and an adequate power for resisting those evil desires, those corrupt affections, that lack of patience and humility which are our weakness and our shame, and then would our conscience be purged and stimulated to good works.

Dean Wace.

Illustration

According to the law, under which the Jews had lived, and which was to them the first principle of existence, they were dependent on the continual shedding of the blood of bulls and of goats to make atonement for their sins and to qualify them for the service of God. If they contracted any ceremonial defilement, especially by that contact with death which was unavoidable in the circumstances of daily life, they required to be sprinkled with water in which the ashes of a burnt heifer had been mixed before they could re-enter the congregation of Gods people. Artificial as, in some respects, these various ceremonial defilements seemed, they none the less corresponded with a deep natural sense of unworthiness in the presence of a God of perfect holiness; and they had succeeded in stamping upon the minds of the Jews, with extraordinary depth, the necessity for the most absolute and scrupulous purity and righteousness in approaching Him. It will be seen, in the light of these considerations, what an immense weight the sacred writers argument must needs attach to the sacrifice and bloodshedding of Christ.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE OFFERING OF CHRIST

Such is the irrefragable conclusion of a sublime argument. Christ had come in the flesh and had offered Himself to God.

I. The sacrifice.This is thus describedthe blood of Christ. Blood is the life of man. This life man had forfeited by violating the Divine law. Christ offered His own life which had fulfilled and honoured the law in all its inexorable requirements. More than that: He possessed the Divine natureHe was personally and really God; and it is this great fact that gives to His death its immortal significance. No mere human blood could atone for human sin. His sacrifice was that of Incarnate God!

II. Its voluntary nature.Christ offered Himself entirely through His own Divine personality, conjoined with His assumed humanity; and thus willingly submitted Himself to the full penalty of human sin in obedience to His Fathers will (Psa 40:6-8; Php 2:6-11). His consent, therefore, as an eternal omniscient Being constituted His sacrifice a Divine oblation of ineffable worth.

III. Its all-powerful character.It reconciles God to man and man to God (Eph 2:13-18; 2Co 5:18-19). But why is the conscience specially mentioned in this Scripture? Because it is the seat of guilt. How it condemns itself for dead works when it is made conscious of them by the Divine Spirit! And how wonderfully it is relieved and cleansed by the blood of Christ! Nor this only: when the conscience is thus blessed the purified one readily engages in the service of his reconciled Father. He enters within the veil, and with the precious blood sprinkled on him approaches the Divine throne, and presents himself a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.

Illustration

It is the privilege of Christiansa privilege to be exercised in fear and trembling, but not to be foregoneto sanctify every duty, however humble, to intensify every dictate of the conscience, however slight, to strengthen every spiritual aspiration and resolve, by viewing it as united with the Passion and the Death of Christ. The Apostles appeal thus imparts into our moral and spiritual life, into every act and every thought of that life, the most intense and vivid of all natural influences, immeasurably heightened by the Divine character and nature of the person by whom it is exercised. There are, indeed, innumerable influences ever around us, thank God, to recall us from evil and to inspire us to good works. Let us cherish them and be thankful for them all. But if we would realise our highest motives and our fullest powers let us never forget the appeal of the Apostle: 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?

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Heb 9:13. The cleansing of fleshly or bodily impurities (which might be either physical or “ceremonial” or both), is fully described in Numbers 19 which should be carefully read. With that ceremony as a background it will be easier to appreciate the argument of our verse and the next. one.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Heb 9:13. For if . . . and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling them that have been defiled, sanctifieth unto (i.e so as to secure; the full expression implies result, not purpose) the purity of the flesh. This case of the ashes of the heifer is one of the most suggestive symbols of the Law, and is well worth examination (see Numbers 19). The heifer without spot, slain by the priest without the camp, its blood sprinkled in the direction of the tabernacle, the animal itself burnt with solemn rites, its ashes laid up in a clean place to be used with water in cleansing those who had been defiled by contact with a dead body, itself a symbol and a result of sinall are instructive, and all was done to secure an outward purity only.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The Apostle had asserted, in the former verse, That eternal redemption was the fruit of Christ’s sacrifice; he proves it in these, and that by an argument drawn from the less to the greater: Thus, “If,” says he, “the blood of bulls and goats, and the water that was mixed with the ashes of the burnt heifer, (or red cow, mentioned, Numbers 19) purified from ceremonial uncleanness, and procured the external sanctification of the flesh, or outward man; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the eternal spirit, (that is, Godhead, his divine nature) offered up himself, his whole man, soul, and body, a sacrifice, without spot, to God the Father, be able to purge our consciences from all spiritual impurity and uncleaness of sin, (that dead, because deadly work), and render us fit to serve the living God in an holy course of christian obedience?

Note here, 1. That Christ’s offering himself to God was a special act, as High Priest of the church, wherein he gave up himself in a way of most profound obedience, to do and to suffer whatever the justice of God required unto the expiation of sin, even to the shedding of his blood.

Note, 2. That Christ’s Godhead it was, which rendered the suffering of his manhood infinitely meritorious; or that Christ’s blood was effectual, not simply, as it was material blood, but as offered by the eternal spirit; his blood, though not the blood of God, yet was the blood of him that was God.

Note, 3. That the purging of our consciences from dead works is and immediated effect of the death of Christ, and a benefit which, upon our faith and obedience, we are made partakers of.

Note, 4. That the best works of men, antecedently unto the purging of their consciences by the blood of Crist, are but dead works, unsuitable to the nature of the living God.

Lord help us to remember, that when we come to hear, to pray, or perform any act of worship, that we are doing it to the living God.

O how improper for, and unsuitable to, a living God, are dead services wihout life, wihout heart, without spirit!

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Heb 9:13-14. For, &c. The truth intended to be confirmed in these verses, is that which the apostle had asserted in the two preceding, namely, That Christ by his blood hath obtained for us eternal redemption. And his words contain both an argument and a comparison, to this effect: If that which is less can do that which is less, then that which is greater can do that which is greater; provided also that less, in what it did, was a type of what was greater in that greater thing which it was to effect. The apostle takes for granted, what he had proved before, namely, 1st, That the Levitical services and ordinances were in themselves carnal, and had only an obscure representation of things spiritual and eternal; and that the office and sacrifice of Christ were spiritual, and had their effects in eternal things. 2d, That those other carnal earthly things were divinely-appointed types and resemblances of those which were spiritual and eternal. From these suppositions the argument is firm: as the ordinances of old, being carnal, had an efficacy to their proper end, to purify the unclean as to the flesh; so the sacrifice of Christ hath a certain efficacy to its proper end, the purging of our consciences, &c. The force of the inference depends on the relation that was between them in the appointment of God. Nay, there was evidently a greater efficacy in the sacrifice of Christ, with respect to its proper end, than there was in those sacrifices, with respect to their proper end: the reason is, because all their efficacy depended on a mere arbitrary institution, having in their own nature neither worth nor efficacy; but in the sacrifice of Christ there is an innate glorious worth and efficacy, which, suitably to the rules of eternal reason and righteousness, will procure and accomplish its effects. Owen. Therefore the apostle says, How much more shall the blood of Christ, &c. These things being observed, the explication of the apostles words will not be difficult. As if the apostle had said, That Jesus, by his death, should procure an eternal pardon and deliverance from all the consequences of sin for us, is reasonable; for if the blood of bulls and of goats, of which I have just been speaking, when presented to God, with the appointed circumstances, on the day of general expiation by the high-priest, and, in cases of personal pollution, the ashes of a heifer, (namely, the red heifer, of which see Num 19:17-19,) consumed by fire, as a sin-offering, being sprinkled on them who were legally unclean, did sanctify to the purifying of the flesh Had so much efficacy in consequence of the divine institution, as to reconcile God to the whole Jewish people, in the former instance, and in the other to introduce persons legally unclean to the liberty of approaching him in his sanctuary, which would otherwise have been denied them; how much more reasonable is it to think that the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit Supporting the infirmities of his human nature, and animating him to the exercise of all those graces which shed such a lustre round all the infamy of his cross; offered himself voluntarily, without spot, a most acceptable sacrifice, to God How much more, I say, shall that blood of his avail to purge our consciences from dead works, (of which see on Heb 6:1,) that is, from the pollutions we have contracted by works of sin and death; to serve That is, that we may freely approach, and acceptably worship and serve the living God? How surely shall it appease that consciousness of guilt, which might otherwise be very distressing and discouraging to us, and introduce us to present our prayers, praises, and other services in the divine presence, with assurance of acceptance and regard. It is justly observed by Macknight here, that the ceremonial institutions mentioned, sanctified the bodies of the polluted, not by any natural efficacy, (for they rather defiled them,) but by the appointment of God, who, considering them as acts of obedience, was pleased, on their account, to remit the punishment, which, as their political ruler, he had a right to inflict on the polluted; but the shedding of the blood of Christ, both by the appointment of God, and by its own efficacy, availeth to the procuring an eternal pardon for penitent sinners. The sanctification effected by the legal rites being the sanctification of nothing but the body, it was, in a religious light, of little use, unless it was a representation and pledge of some real expiation. Now, what real expiation of sin is there in the whole universe, if the sacrifice of Christ is excluded? We must therefore acknowledge that the Levitical rites, which sanctified the flesh, derived their whole virtue from their being, as the apostle affirms, figurative representations of the real atonement which Christ [made upon the cross and] was to make in heaven, [by presenting his crucified body there,] for sanctifying the soul of the sinner. Christ is said to have offered himself through the eternal Spirit, because he was raised from the dead by the Spirit, (1Pe 3:18,) consequently he was enabled by the Spirit to offer himself to God.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

ARGUMENT 8

THE TWO SANCTIFICATIONS.

13, 14. The old dispensation gave prominence to materialities and the new to spiritualities. Under the former ceremonial, defilement must be sanctified from the body before they were allowed to enter the sanctuary and enjoy its privileges. We see in the thirteenth verse that the water of purification was sprinkled on the subject of ceremonial defilement. It is called the sanctifying of the flesh, and typifies the sprinkling of the blood upon the polluted conscience by the Holy Ghost. The effect of the blood of Christ sprinkled on the polluted conscience by the Holy Ghost is to sanctify it from dead works to serve the living God. The phrase dead works has a double meaning in the Scriptures. When it applies to sinners, it means wicked works producing spiritual death. When it applies to Christians, as in this passage, it simply means our religious works devoid of the Holy Ghost, the only vitalizer. The great trouble of unsanctified Christians is that they are forever doing dead works which do not know the Holy Ghost. They are frequently indefatigable church workers, e.g., in Sunday-school, prayer-meeting, and the innumerable ecclesiastical societies and institutions. But the great trouble with them is that all their works are dead. They sing dead songs, pray dead prayers, deliver dead testimonies and exhortations, preach dead sermons and conduct dead protracted meetings, thus losing their time and labor, as the people are not profited, neither is God glorified by all their arduous labors. The sanctification of their hearts by the precious blood of Jesus at once takes the graveyard wail out of their voices and floods them with hallelujahs, makes life a constant sunshine, and all duty transcendently delectable.

15-17. In these verses we have the words testament and testator. The Greek is the same word, diatheekee, covenant. It means the covenant of the worlds redemption through Christ. Since it is the most prominent institution in the Bible, it has given name to that wonderful book, Old and New Testament, or, as it should read, Old and New Covenant. Really there is but one covenant involving the worlds redemption, and that was inaugurated by the Son of God when He espoused the cause of lost humanity about the time of the fall. The old covenant was superadded in the days of Moses for didactic purposes. It is called old because it is reminiscent of the probationary covenant forfeited in Eden. A prominent and peculiar phase of the great redemptive scheme is involved in these verses, and that is the will peculiarity of the covenant. A will is neither irrevocable nor finally valid till after the death of the testator, from the simple fact that it is optionary with the testator during his life to revoke or cancel it ad libitum. Now, let us see the application of this fact to the covenant of redemption. While the Father gave the wondrous plan, the Son freely volunteered in its vicarious execution. He said, No man taketh my life from me, but I lay down my life for the sheep. Hence it was perfectly optionary with Jesus till the very arrival of Calvarys bloody tragedy. Of course. in case that He had declined to lay down His life for the world the plan of salvation must have hopelessly collapsed. Hence in the very nature of the transaction the covenant was not finally and irrevocably valid till sealed by the blood of the covenant. Hence the plan of salvation under the old dispensation was essentially initial and incomplete, issuing bills of pardon, redeemable by the blood of the great Archetype, typified by millions of dying animals. This explains the pertinency of the Intermediate Paradise, Abrahams bosom the receptacle of the Old Testament saints till the redemption of Calvary. See 1Pe 3:18.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 13

The ashes of a heifer, &c.; alluding to a ceremony described in Numbers 19:2-9.–Sanctifieth, &c.; is sufficient for the purposes of ceremonial purification.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

9:13 {9} For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the {k} purifying of the flesh:

(9) If the outward sprinkling of blood and ashes of beasts was a true and effectual sign of purifying and cleansing, how much more shall the thing itself and the truth being present which in times past was shadowed by those external sacraments do it? That is to say, his blood, which is man’s blood and also the blood of the Son of God, and therefore has an everlasting power of purifying and cleansing.

(k) He considers the signs separately, being separate from the thing itself.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Old Covenant sacrifices for sin on the Day of Atonement only provided temporary cleansing, but the sacrifice of Jesus Christ provided permanent cleansing. The reference to "the eternal Spirit" is unique in Scripture. The Holy Spirit had empowered and sustained Jesus in His office.

"It seems that the writer has chosen this unusual way of referring to the Holy Spirit to bring out the truth that there is an eternal aspect to Christ’s saving work." [Note: Morris, p. 87.]

All three persons of the Trinity had a part in redemption (Heb 9:14). The "dead works" in view are evidently those of the Mosaic Covenant (cf. Heb 6:1), though some commentators take them as referring to works that result in spiritual defilement. [Note: E.g., Bruce, The Epistle . . ., pp. 206-7.] They are dead in that they did not impart spiritual life but only removed sin. Thus there is a contrast between ceremonial and conscience cleansing as well as between temporary and permanent cleansing in these verses. We should not feel conscience-bound to follow the Old Covenant in view of Jesus Christ’s perfect sacrifice but should serve God under the terms of the New Covenant.

". . . for the author of Hebrews syneidesis [conscience] is the internal faculty within man that causes him to be painfully aware of his sinfulness and, as a result, to experience a sense of guilt." [Note: Gary S. Selby, "The Meaning and Function of Syneidesis in Hebrews 9, 10," Restoration Quarterly 28:3 (Third Quarter 1985/86):148.]

"The sacrifice that inaugurated the new covenant achieved the cleansing of the conscience that all worshipers lacked under the former covenant and that all had sought through prescribed gifts and offerings (Heb 10:1-2 . . .). [Note: Lane, Hebrews 9-13, p. 241.]

"The implication (which underlies all the epistle) is that even in his earthly life Jesus possessed eternal life. Hence what took place in time upon the cross, the writer means, took place really in the eternal, absolute order. Christ sacrificed himself ephapax [once for all], and the single sacrifice needed no repetition, since it possessed absolute, eternal value as the action of One who belonged to the eternal order. He died-he had to die-but only once (9¹⁵-10¹⁸), for his sacrifice, by its eternal significance, accomplished at a stroke what no amount of animal sacrifices could have secured, viz. the forgiveness of sins." [Note: Moffatt, p. 124.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)