Verses 1-28
Chapter 9
9:1-5 So, then, the
first tabernacle, too, had its ordinances of worship and its holy place,
which was an earthly symbol of the divine realities. For the first
tabernacle was constructed and in it there was the lampstand and the
table with the shewbread, and it was called the Holy Place. Behind the
second curtain there was that part of the tabernacle which was called
the Holy of Holies. It was approached by means of the golden altar of
incense, and it had in it the ark of the covenant, which was covered all
over with gold. In the ark there was the golden pot with the manna and
Aaron's rod which budded and the tables of the covenant. Above it there
were the cherubim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat; but this is
not the place to speak about all these things in detail.
The writer to the Hebrews has just been thinking of Jesus as
the one who leads us into reality. He has been using the idea that in
this world we have only pale copies of what is truly real. The worship
that men can offer is only a ghost-like shadow of the real worship which
Jesus, the real High Priest, alone can offer. But even as he thinks of
that his mind goes back to the Tabernacle (the Tabernacle, remember, not
the Temple). Lovingly he remembers its beauty; lovingly he lingers on
its priceless possessions. And the thought in his mind is this--if
earthly worship was as beautiful as this, what must the true worship be
like? If all the loveliness of the Tabernacle was only a shadow of
reality, how surpassingly lovely the reality must be. He does not tell
of the Tabernacle in detail; he only alludes to certain of its
treasures. This was all he needed to do because his readers knew its
glories and had them printed on their memories. But we do not know them;
therefore, let us see what the beauty of the earthly Tabernacle was
like, always remembering that it was only a pale copy of reality.
The main description of the Tabernacle in the wilderness is in Exodus 25:1-40; Exodus 26:1-37; Exodus 27:1-21; Exodus 28:1-43; Exodus 29:1-46; Exodus 30:1-38; Exodus 31:1-18 and Exodus 35:1-35; Exodus 36:1-38; Exodus 37:1-29; Exodus 38:1-31; Exodus 39:1-43; Exodus 40:1-38. God said to Moses: "Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst" (Exodus 25:8). It was constructed out of the freewill offerings of the people (Exodus 25:1-7), who gave with such lavish generosity that a halt had to be called to their giving (Exodus 36:5-7).
The Court of the Tabernacle was 150 feet long and 75 feet wide.
It was surrounded by a curtain-like fence of fine, twined linen 7 1/2
feet high. The white linen stood for the wall of holiness that surrounds
the presence of God. The curtain was supported by twenty pillars on the
north and south sides, and by ten on the east and west sides; and the
pillars were set in sockets of brass and had tops of silver. There was
only one gate. It was on the east side and it was 30 feet wide and 7 1/2
feet high. It was made of fine, twined linen wrought with blue and
purple and scarlet. In the court there were two things. There was the
Brazen Altar, 7 1/2 feet square and 4 1/2 feet high and made of acacia
wood sheathed in brass. Its top was a brazen grating on which the
sacrifice was laid; and it had four horns to which the offering was
bound. There was The Laver. The laver was made from the brass mirrors of
the women (glass mirrors did not exist at that time) but its dimensions
are not given. The priests bathed themselves in the water in it before
they carried out their sacred duties.
The Tabernacle itself was constructed of forty-eight acacia
beams, 15 feet high and 2 feet 3 inches wide. They were overlaid with
pure gold and rested in sockets of silver. They were bound together by
outside connecting rods and by a wooden tie-beam which ran through their
centre. The Tabernacle was divided into two parts. The
first--two-thirds of the whole--was The Holy Place; the inner
part--one-third of the whole--a cube 15 feet on each side, was The Holy
of Holies. The curtain which hung in front of The Holy Place was
supported on five brass pillars and made of fine linen wrought in blue,
purple and scarlet.
The Holy Place contained three things. (i) There was The Golden
Lampstand. It stood on the south side; it was beaten out of a talent of
solid gold; the lamps were fed with pure olive oil, and were always lit.
(ii) On the north side stood The Table of the Shewbread. It was made of
acacia wood covered with gold; it was 3 feet long, 1 1/2 feet wide and 2
feet 3 inches high. On it there were laid every Sabbath twelve loaves
made of the finest flour, in two rows of six. Only the priests could eat
these loaves when they were removed. They were changed every Sabbath.
(iii) There was The Altar of Incense. It was of acacia wood sheathed in
gold; it was 1 1/2 feet square and 3 feet high. On it incense,
symbolising the prayers of the people rising to God, was burned every
morning and evening.
In front of The Holy of Holies there was The Veil which was made
of fine, twined linen, embroidered in scarlet and purple and blue, and
with the cherubim upon it. Into The Holy of Holies no one but the High
Priest might enter, and he only once a year, on the Day of Atonement,
and only after the most elaborate preparations. Within The Holy of
Holies stood The Ark of the Covenant. It contained three things--the
golden pot of the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the
law. It was made of acacia wood sheathed outside and lined inside with
gold. It was 3 feet 9 inches long, 2 feet 3 inches wide, and 2 feet 3
inches high. Its lid was called The Mercy Seat. On The Mercy Seat there
were two cherubim of solid gold with overarching wings. It was there
that the very presence of God rested, for he had said: "There I will
meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two
cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony" (Exodus 25:22).
It was of all this beauty that the writer to the Hebrews was
thinking--and yet it was only a shadow of reality. In his mind there was
another thing of which he was to speak again--the ordinary Israelite
could come only to the gate of the Tabernacle court; the priests and the
Levites might enter the court; the priests alone might enter the Holy
Place; and none but the High Priest might enter the Holy of Holies.
There was beauty but it was a beauty in which the common man was barred
from the inner presence of God. Jesus Christ took the barrier away and
opened wide the way to God's presence for every man.
9:6-10 Since these
preparations have been made, the priests continually enter into the
first tabernacle as they perform the various acts of worship. But into
the second tabernacle the High Priest alone enters, and that once a year
and not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors
of the people. By this the Holy Spirit is showing that the way into the
Holy Place was not yet opened up so long as the first tabernacle stood.
Now the first tabernacle stands for this present age, and according to
its services sacrifices are offered which cannot perfect the conscience
of the worshipper but which, since they are based on food and drink and
various kinds of washings, are human regulations, laid down until the
time of the new order should come.
Only the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies and
that only on The Day of Atonement. It is of the ceremonies of that day
that the writer to the Hebrews is here thinking. He did not need to
describe them to his readers for they knew them. To them they were the
most sacred religious ceremonies in all the world. If we are to
understand the thought of the writer to the Hebrews we must have a
picture of them in our minds. The main description is in Leviticus 16:1-34 .
First, we must ask, what was the idea behind The Day of
Atonement? As we have seen, the relationship between Israel and God was a
covenant relationship. Sin on Israel's part broke that relationship,
and the whole system of sacrifice existed to make atonement for sin and
to restore the broken relationship. But what if there were some sins
still not atoned for? What if there were some sins of which a man was
not conscious? What if by some chance the altar itself had become
defiled? That is to say, what if the sacrificial system was not
performing the function it should?
The summary of the Day of Atonement is given in Leviticus 16:33 :
And he shall make atonement for the sanctuary; and he shall
make atonement for the tent of meeting, and for the altar,
and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the
people of the assembly.
It was one great comprehensive act of atonement for all sin. It
was one grand day in which all things and all people were cleansed, so
that the relationship between Israel and God should continue unbroken.
To that end it was a day of humiliation. "You shall afflict yourselves" (Leviticus 16:29).
It was not a feast but a fast. The whole nation fasted all day, even
the boys and girls; and the really devout Jew prepared himself for it by
fasting for the ten days which went before. The Day of Atonement comes
ten days after the opening of the Jewish New Year, about the beginning
of September in our calendar. It was the greatest of all days in the
life of the High Priest.
Let us then see what happened. Very early in the morning the
High Priest cleansed himself by washing. He donned his gorgeous robes of
office, worn only on that day. There were the white linen breeches and
the long white undergarment reaching down to the feet, woven in one
piece. There was The Robe of the Ephod. It was dark blue and was a long
robe with at the foot a fringe of blue, purple and scarlet tassels made
in the form of pomegranates, interspersed with an equal number of little
golden bells. Over this robe he put The Ephod itself The Ephod was
probably a kind of linen tunic, embroidered in scarlet and purple and
gold, with an elaborate girdle. On its shoulders were two onyx stones.
The names of six of the tribes were engraved on one and six on the
other. On the tunic was The Breastplate, a span square. On it were
twelve precious stones with the names of the twelve tribes engraved upon
them. So the High Priest carried the people to God on his shoulders and
on his heart. In the breastplate there was the Urim and the Thummim,
which means lights and perfections (Exodus 28:30).
What exactly the Urim and the Thummim was is not known. It is known
that the High Priest consulted it when he wished to know the will of
God. It may be that it was a precious diamond inscribed with the
consonants Y-H-W-H which are the consonants of Yahweh (Hebrew #3068 and Hebrew #3069),
the name of God. On his head the High Priest put the tall mitre, of
fine linen; and on the mitre there was a gold plate bound by a band of
blue ribbon, and on the plate were the words: "Holiness unto the Lord."
It is easy to imagine what a dazzling figure the High Priest must have
presented on this his greatest day.
The High Priest began by doing the things that were done every
day. He burned the morning incense, made the morning sacrifice, and
attended to the trimming of the lamps on the seven-branched lampstand.
Then came the first part of the special ritual of the day. Still dressed
in his gorgeous robes, he sacrificed a bullock and seven lambs and one
ram (Numbers 29:7).
Then he removed his gorgeous robes, cleansed himself again in water,
and dressed himself in the simple purity of white linen. There was
brought to him a bullock bought with his own resources. He placed his
hands on its head and, standing there in the full sight of the people,
confessed his own sin and the sin of his house:
"Ah, Lord God, I have committed iniquity: I have transgressed: I
have sinned--I and my house. O Lord, I entreat thee, cover over (atone
for) the iniquities, the transgressions, and the sins, which I have
committed, transgressed, and sinned before thee, I and my house, even as
it is written in the law of Moses, thy servant, 'For in that day, he
will cover over (atone) for you to make you clean. From all your
transgressions before the Lord you shall be cleansed.'"
For the moment the bullock was left before the altar. And then
followed one of the unique ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. Two goats
were standing by, and beside the goats an urn with two lots in it. One
lot was marked For Jehovah; the other was marked For Azazel, which is
the phrase the King James Version translates The Scapegoat. The lots
were drawn and laid one on the head of each goat. A tongue-shaped piece
of scarlet was tied to the horn of the scapegoat. And for the moment the
goats were left. Then the High Priest turned to the bullock which was
beside the altar and killed it. its throat was slit and the blood caught
by a priest in a basin. The basin was kept in motion so that the blood
would not coagulate for soon it was to be used. Then came the first of
the great moments. The High Priest took coals from the altar and put
them in a censer; he took incense and put it in a special dish; and then
he walked into the Holy of Holies to burn incense in the very presence
of God. It was laid down that he must not stay too long "lest he put
Israel in terror." The people literally watched with bated breath; and
when he came out from the presence of God still alive, there went up a
sigh of relief like a gust of wind.
When the High Priest came out from the Holy of Holies, he took
the basin of the bullock's blood, went back into the Holy of Holies and
sprinkled it seven times up and seven times down. He came out, killed
the goat that was marked For Jehovah, with its blood re-entered the Holy
of Holies and sprinkled again. Then he came out and mingled together
the blood of the bullock and the goat and seven times sprinkled the
horns of the altar of the incense and the altar itself. What remained of
the blood was laid at the foot of the altar of the burnt offering. Thus
the Holy of Holies and the altar were cleansed by blood from any
defilement that might be on them.
Then came the most vivid ceremony. The scapegoat was brought
forward. The High Priest laid his hands on it and confessed his own sin
and the sin of the people; and the goat was led forth into the desert,
"into a land not inhabited," laden with the sins of the people and there
it was killed.
The priest turned to the slain bullock and goat and prepared
them for sacrifice. Still in his linen garments he read scripture--Leviticus 16:1-34 ; Leviticus 23:27-32, and repeated by heart Numbers 29:7-11.
He then prayed for the priesthood and the people. Once again he
cleansed himself in water and rearrayed himself in his gorgeous robes.
He sacrificed, first, a kid of the goats for the sins of the people;
then he made the normal evening sacrifice; then he sacrificed the
already prepared parts of the bullock and the goat. Then once again he
cleansed himself, took off his robes, and put on the white linen; and
for the fourth and last time he entered the Holy of Holies to remove the
censer of incense which still burned there. Once again he cleansed
himself in water; once again he put on his vivid robes; then he burned
the evening offering of incense, trimmed the lamps on the golden
lampstand, and his work was done. In the evening he held a feast because
he had been in the presence of God and had come out alive.
Such was the ritual of the Day of Atonement, the day designed to
cleanse all things and all people from sin. That was the picture in the
mind of the writer to the Hebrews and he was to make much of it. But
there were certain things of which he was thinking at the moment.
Every year this ceremony had to be gone through again. Everyone
but the High Priest was barred from the presence and even he entered in
terror. The cleansing was a purely external one by baths of water. The
sacrifice was that of bulls and goats and animal blood. The whole thing
failed because such things cannot atone for sin. In it all the writer to
the Hebrews sees a pale copy of the reality, a ghostly pattern of the
one true sacrifice--the sacrifice of Christ. It was a noble ritual, a
thing of dignity and beauty; but it was only an unavailing shadow. The
only priest and the only sacrifice which can open the way to God for all
men is Jesus Christ.
9:11-14 But when
Christ arrived upon the scene, a high priest of the good things which
are to come, by means of a tabernacle which was greater and better able
to produce the results for which it was meant, a tabernacle not made by
the hands of men--that is, a tabernacle which did not belong to this
world order--and not by the blood of goats and bullocks but by his own
blood, he entered once and for all into the Holy Place because he had
secured for us an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and
bulls and the ashes of a heifer could by sprinkling cleanse those that
were unclean so that their bodies became pure, how much more will the
blood of Christ who, through the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless
to God, cleanse your conscience so that you will be able to leave the
deeds that make for death in order to become the servants of the living
God?
When we try to understand this passage, we must remember three
things which are basic to the thought of the writer to the Hebrews. (i)
Religion is access to God. Its function is to bring a man into God's
presence. (ii) This is a world of pale shadows and imperfect copies;
beyond is the world of realities. The function of all worship is to
bring men into contact with the eternal realities. That was what the
worship of the Tabernacle was meant to do; but the earthly Tabernacle
and its worship are pale copies of the real Tabernacle and its worship;
and only the real Tabernacle and the real worship can give access to
reality. (iii) There can be no religion without sacrifice. Purity is a
costly thing; access to God demands purity; somehow man's sin must be
atoned for and his uncleanness cleansed. With these ideas in his mind
the writer to the Hebrews goes on to show that Jesus is the only High
Priest who brings a sacrifice that can open the way to God and that that
sacrifice is himself.
To begin with, he refers to certain of the great sacrifices
which the Jews were in the habit of making under the old covenant with
God. (i) There was the sacrifice of bullocks and of goats. In this he is
referring to two of the great sacrifices on The Day of Atonement--of
the bullock which the High Priest offered for his own sins and of the
scapegoat which was led away to the wilderness bearing the sins of the
people (Leviticus 16:15; Leviticus 16:21-22). (ii) There was the sacrifice of the red heifer. This strange ritual is described in Numbers 19:1-22
. Under Jewish ceremonial law, if a man touched a dead body, he was
unclean. He was barred from the worship of God, and everything and
everyone he touched also became unclean. To deal with this there was a
prescribed method of cleansing. A red heifer was slaughtered outside the
camp. The priest sprinkled the blood of the heifer before the
Tabernacle seven times. The body of the beast was then burned, together
with cedar and hyssop and a piece of red cloth. The resulting ashes were
laid up outside the camp in a clean place and constituted a
purification for sin. This ritual must have been very ancient for both
its origin and its meaning are wrapped in obscurity. The Jews themselves
told that once a Gentile questioned Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai on the
meaning of this rite, declaring that it sounded like pure superstition.
The Rabbi's answer was that it had been appointed by the Holy One and
that men must not enquire into his reasons but should leave the matter
there without explanation. In any event, the fact remains that it was
one of the great rites of the Jews.
The writer to the Hebrews tells of these sacrifices and then
declares that the sacrifice that Jesus brings is far greater and far
more effective. We must first ask what he means by the greater and more
effective tabernacle not made with hands? That is a question to which no
one can give an answer which is beyond dispute. But the ancient
scholars nearly all took it in one way and said that this new tabernacle
which brought men into the very presence of God was nothing else than
the body of Jesus. It would be another way of saying what John said: "He
who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).
The worship of the ancient tabernacle was designed to bring men into
the presence of God. That it could do only in the most shadowy and
imperfect way. The coming of Jesus really brought men into the presence
of God, because in him God entered this world of space and time in a
human form and to see Jesus is to see what God is like.
The great superiority of the sacrifice Jesus brought lay in
three things. (i) The ancient sacrifices cleansed a man's body from
ceremonial uncleanness; the sacrifice of Jesus cleansed his soul. We
must always remember this--in theory all sacrifice cleansed from
transgressions of the ritual law; it did not cleanse from sins of the
presumptuous heart and the high hand. Take the case of the red heifer.
It was not moral uncleanness that its sacrifice wiped out but the
ceremonial uncleanness consequent upon touching a dead body. A man's
body might be clean ceremonially and yet his heart be torn with remorse.
He might feel able to enter the tabernacle and yet far away from the
presence of God. The sacrifice of Jesus takes the load of guilt from a
man's conscience. The animal sacrifices of the old covenant might well
leave a man in estrangement from God; the sacrifice of Jesus shows us a
God whose arms are always outstretched and in whose heart is only love.
(ii) The sacrifice of Jesus brought eternal redemption. The idea
was that men were under the dominion of sin; and just as the purchase
price had to be paid to free a man from slavery, so the purchase price
had to be paid to free a man from sin.
(iii) The sacrifice of Christ enabled a man to leave the deeds
of death and to become the servant of the living God. That is to say, he
did not only win forgiveness for a man's past sin, he enabled him in
the future to live a godly life. The sacrifice of Jesus was not only the
paying of a debt; it was the giving of a victory. What Jesus did puts a
man right with God and what he does enables a man to stay right with
God. The act of the Cross brings to men the love of God in a way that
takes their terror of him away; the presence of the living Christ brings
to them the power of God so that they can win a daily victory over sin.
Westcott outlines four ways in which Jesus' sacrifice of himself differs from the animal sacrifices of the old covenant.
(i) The sacrifice of Jesus was voluntary. The animal's life was
taken from it; Jesus gave his life. He willingly laid it down for his
friends.
(ii) The sacrifice of Jesus was spontaneous. Animal sacrifice
was entirely the product of law; the sacrifice of Jesus was entirely the
product of love. We pay our debts to a tradesman because we have to; we
give a gift to our loved ones because we want to. It was not law but
love that lay behind the sacrifice of Christ.
(iii) The sacrifice of Jesus was rational. The animal victim did
not know what was happening; Jesus all the time knew what he was doing.
He died, not as an ignorant victim caught up in circumstances over
which he had no control and did not understand but with eyes wide open.
(iv) The sacrifice of Jesus was moral. Animal sacrifice was
mechanical; but Jesus' sacrifice was made, through the eternal Spirit.
This thing on Calvary was not a matter of prescribed ritual mechanically
carried out; it was a matter of Jesus obeying the will of God for the
sake of men. Behind it there was not the mechanism of law but the choice
of love.
9:15-22 It is through
him that there emerges a new covenant between God and man; and the
purpose behind this new covenant is that those who have been called
might receive the eternal inheritance which has been promised to them;
but this could happen only after a death had taken place, the purpose of
which was to rescue them from the consequences of the transgressions
which had been committed under the conditions of the old covenant. For
where there is a will, it is necessary that there should be evidence of
the death of the testator before the will is valid. It is in the case of
dead people that a will is confirmed, since surely it cannot be
operative when the testator is still alive. That is why even the first
covenant was not inaugurated without blood. For, after every commandment
which the law lays down had been announced by Moses to all the people,
he took the blood of calves and goats, together with water and scarlet
and hyssop, and sprinkled the book itself and all the people. And as he
did so, he said: "This is the blood of the covenant whose conditions God
commanded you to observe." In like manner he sprinkled with blood the
tabernacle also and all the instruments used in its worship. Under the
conditions which the law lays down it is true to say that almost
everything is cleansed by blood. Without the shedding of blood there is
no forgiveness.
This is one of the most difficult passages in the whole letter,
although it would not be difficult to those who read the letter for the
first time, for its methods of argument and expression and categories
of thought would be familiar to them.
As we have seen, the idea of the covenant is basic to the
thought of the writer, by which he meant a relationship between God and
man. The first covenant was dependent on man's keeping of the law; as
soon as he broke the law the covenant became ineffective. Let us
remember that to our writer religion means access to God. Therefore, the
basic meaning of the new covenant, which Jesus inaugurated, is that men
should have access to God or, to put it another way, have fellowship
with him. But here is the difficulty. Men come to the new covenant
already stained with the sins committed under the old covenant, for
which the old sacrificial system was powerless to atone. So, the writer
to the Hebrews has a tremendous thought and says that the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ is retroactive. That is to say, it is effective to wipe out
the sins of men committed under the old covenant and to inaugurate the
fellowship promised under the new.
All that seems very complicated but at the back of it there are
two great eternal truths. First, the sacrifice of Jesus gains
forgiveness for past sins. We ought to be punished for what we have done
and shut out from God; but because of what Jesus did the debt is wiped
out, the breach is forgiven and the barrier is taken away. Second, the
sacrifice of Jesus opens a new life for the future. It opens the way to
fellowship with God. The God whom our sins had made a stranger, the
sacrifice of Christ has made a friend. Because of what he did the burden
of the past is rolled away and life becomes life with God.
It is the next step in the argument which appears to us a
fantastic way in which to argue. The question in the mind of the writer
is why this new relationship with God should involve the death of
Christ. He answers it in two ways.
(i) His first answer is--to us almost incredibly--founded on
nothing other than a play on words. We have seen that the use of the
word diatheke (Greek #1242)
in the sense of covenant is characteristically Christian, and that its
normal secular use was in the sense of will or testament. Up to Hebrews 9:16 the writer to the Hebrews has been using diatheke (Greek #1242)
in the normal Christian sense of covenant; then, suddenly and without
warning or explanation, he switches to the sense of will. Now a will
does not become operative until the testator dies; so the writer to the
Hebrews says that no diatheke (Greek #1242), will, can be operative until the death of the testator so that the new diatheke (Greek #1242),
covenant, cannot become operative apart from the death of Christ. That
is a merely verbal argument and is quite unconvincing to a modern mind;
but it must be remembered that this founding of an argument on a play
between two meanings of a word was a favourite method of the Alexandrian
scholars in the time when this letter was written. In fact this very
argument would have been considered in the days when the letter to the
Hebrews was written an exceedingly clever piece of exposition.
(ii) His second answer goes back to the Hebrew sacrificial system and to Leviticus 17:11
: "The life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you
upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood
that makes atonement." "Without the shedding of blood there can be no
atonement for sin," was actually a well-known Hebrew principle. So the
writer to the Hebrews goes back to the inauguration of the first
covenant under Moses, the occasion when the people accepted the law as
the condition of their special relationship with God. We are told how
sacrifice was made and how Moses "took half of the blood and put it in
basins; and half of the blood he threw against the altar." After the
book of the law had been read and the people had signified their
acceptance of it, Moses "took the blood and threw it upon the people,
and said, 'Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with
you in accordance with all these words'" (Exodus 24:1-8).
It is true that the memory of the writer to the Hebrews of that passage
is not strictly accurate. He introduces calves and goats and scarlet
and hyssop which come from the ritual of The Day of Atonement and he
talks about the sprinkling of the Tabernacle, which at that time had not
yet been built; but the reason is that these things are so much in his
mind. His basic idea is that there can be no cleansing and no
ratification of any covenant without the shedding of blood. Why that
should be so he does not need to know. Scripture says it is so and that
is enough for him. The probable reason is that blood is life, as the
Hebrew saw it, and life is the most precious thing in the world; and man
must offer his most precious thing to God.
All that goes back to a ritual which is only of antiquarian
interest. But behind it there is an eternal principle--Forgiveness is a
costly thing. Human forgiveness is costly. A son or a daughter may go
wrong and a father or a mother may forgive; but that forgiveness brings
tears, whiteness to the hair, lines to the face, a cutting anguish and
then a long dull ache to the heart. It does not cost nothing. Divine
forgiveness is costly. God is love but he is also holiness. He least of
all can break the great moral laws on which the universe is built. Sin
must have its punishment or the very structure of life disintegrates.
And God alone can pay the terrible price that is necessary before men
can be forgiven. Forgiveness is never a case of saying: "It's all right;
it doesn't matter." It is the most costly thing in the world. Without
the shedding of heart's blood there can be no forgiveness of sins.
Nothing brings a man to his senses with such arresting violence as to
see the effect of his sin on someone who loves him in this world or on
the God who loves him for ever, and to say to himself: "It cost that to
forgive my sin." Where there is forgiveness someone must be crucified.
9:23-28 So, then, if
it was necessary that the things which are copies of the heavenly
realities should be cleansed by processes like these, it is necessary
that the heavenly realities themselves should be cleansed by finer
sacrifices than those of which we have been thinking. It is not into a
man-made sanctuary that Christ has entered--that would be a mere symbol
of the things which are real. It is into heaven itself that he entered,
now to appear on our behalf before the presence of God. It is not that
he has to offer himself repeatedly, as the High Priest year by year
enters into the Holy Place with a blood that is not his own. Were that
so he would have had to suffer again and again since the world was
founded. But now, as things are, once and for all, at the end of the
ages, he has appeared with his sacrifice of himself so that our sins
should be cancelled. And just as it is laid down for men to die once and
for kill and then to face the judgment, so Christ, after being once and
for all sacrificed to bear the burden of the sins of many, will appear a
second time, not this time to deal with sin, but for the salvation of
those who are waiting for him.
The writer to the Hebrews, still thinking of the supreme
efficacy of the sacrifice which Jesus made, begins with a flight of
thought which, even for so adventurous a writer as he, is amazing. Let
us remember again the letter's basic thought that the worship of this
world is a pale copy of the real worship. The writer to the Hebrews says
that in this world the Levitical sacrifices were designed to purify the
means of worship. For instance, the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement
purified the tabernacle and the altar and the Holy Place. Now he goes on
to say that the work of Christ purifies not only earth but heaven. He
has the tremendous thought of a kind of cosmic redemption that purified
the whole universe, seen and unseen.
So he goes on to stress again the way in which the work and the sacrifice of Christ are supreme.
(i) Christ entered into no man-made Holy Place; he entered into
the presence of God. We are to think of Christianity not in terms of
Church membership but in terms of intimate fellowship with God.
(ii) Christ entered into the presence of God not only for his
own sake but for ours. It was to open the way for us and plead our
cause. In Christ there is the greatest paradox in the world, the paradox
of the greatest glory and the greatest service, the paradox of one for
whom the world exists and who exists for the world, the paradox of the
eternal King and the eternal Servant.
(iii) The sacrifice of Christ never needs to be made again. Year
after year the ritual of the Day of Atonement had to go on and the
things that blocked the road to God had to be atoned for; but through
Christ's sacrifice the road to God is for ever open. Men were always
sinners and always will be but that does not mean that Christ must go on
offering himself again and again. The road is open once and for all. We
can have a faint analogy of that. For long a certain surgical operation
may be impossible. Then some surgeon finds a way round the
difficulties. From that day that same road is open to all surgeons. We
may put it this way--nothing need ever be added to what Jesus Christ has
done to keep open the way to God's love for sinning men.
Finally, the writer to the Hebrews draws a parallel between the life of man and the life of Christ.
(i) Man dies and then comes the judgment. That itself was a
shock to the Greek for he tended to believe that death was final. "When
earth once drinks the blood of a man," said Aeschylus, "there is death
once and for all and there is no resurrection." Euripides says: "It
cannot be the dead to light shall come." "For the one loss is this that
never mortal maketh good again the life of man--though wealth may be
re-won." Homer makes Achilles say when he reaches the shades: "Rather
would I live upon the soil as the hireling of another, with a landless
man whose livelihood was small, than bear sway among all the dead who
are no more." Mimnermus writes with a kind of despair:
"O Golden love, what life, what joy but thine?
Come death, when thou art gone, and make an end!"
There is a simple Greek epitaph:
"Farewell, tomb of Melite; the best of women lies here, who loved
her loving husband, Onesimus; thou wert most excellent, wherefore
he longs for thee after thy death, for thou wert the best of
wives. Farewell thou too, dearest husband, only love my children."
As G. Lowes Dickinson points out, in the Greek, the first and
the last word of that epitaph is "Farewell!" Death was the end. When
Tacitus is writing the tribute of biography to the great Agricola all he
can finish with is an "if."
"If there be any habitation for the spirits of just men, if, as the
sages will have it, great souls perish not with the body, mayest
thou rest in peace."
"If" is the only word. Marcus Aurelius can say that when a man
dies and his spark goes back to be lost in God, all that is left is
"dust, ashes, bones, and stench." The significant thing about this
passage of Hebrews is its basic assumption that a man will rise again.
That is part of the certainty of the Christian creed; and the basic
warning is that he rises to judgment.
(ii) With Christ it is different--he dies and rises and comes
again, and he comes not to be judged but to judge. The early Church
never forgot the hope of the Second Coming. It throbbed through their
belief. But for the unbeliever that was a day of terror. As Enoch had it
of the Day of the Lord, before Christ came: "For all you who are
sinners there is no salvation, but upon you all will come destruction
and a curse." In some way the consummation must come. If in that day
Christ comes as a friend, it can be only a day of glory; if he comes as a
stranger or as one whom we have regarded as an enemy, it can be only a
day of judgment. A man may look to the end of things with joyous
expectation or with shuddering terror. What makes the difference is how
his heart is with Christ.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)