Hebrews 9–10

The first what? we may ask. The common Greek text, backed by the later copies, answers by supplying the word tabernacle. The better text, backed by all the oldest copies, supplies no noun after "first." So the Authorised Version and the Revised Version reject "tabernacle" and supply in italics "covenant." This fits the last verse of chapter 8, where God "makes the first one obsolete." So the "first" in 9:1 points back to the "first" in 8:13.

Lower down in our chapter (verse 11) we read of the heavenly tabernacle, "not made with hands, that is, not of this creation." Set beside that, the name "worldly," given to the earthly one, was meant to express its connection with things down here. By place, material, construction and use it belonged to the present passing world. For each sanctuary must of course be in character with the sphere in which it is found.

Remember that God once said to the children of Israel, "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst." This was a "worldly sanctuary." It suited God's dwelling place in the world. It suited also the worship of a people of the world. God had made Israel to be His worldly people. He had fenced them off from the nations around them by statutes and rules and ordinances. He had also prescribed "ordinances of divine service," fitted to their sanctuary and to their standing.

Ordinances of divine service the first covenant had in abundance, and most instructive; yet the sanctuary was and could not but be a worldly one. For God had not yet appeared in flesh here below, and man had not yet been received up in glory. The infinite sacrifice for sin had yet to be offered. In that sacrifice God is glorified. Through it He can bless the believer to the uttermost, for sin was fully judged in the cross. So the veil was still not torn, and the way into the holy places was neither open nor shown.

The aim of Judaism was to tie religion to this world, to the earth. So God tested whether earthly things linked with Him could draw man to God Himself. For this He gave them a magnificent temple, gorgeous robes, splendid ceremonies, music and singing. His purpose was to mix the tastes and feelings of nature with Himself. But note: all this needed a priesthood between them and God. It was not the presence of God as light in heaven, and it was not peaceful communion with Himself.

Of old, any neglect of the worldly sanctuary dishonoured God. Now, copying it or setting it up again dishonours Him. This helps us judge the character of things now done in the professing church. Take, for example, an altar on the earth, repeated sacrifice, the burning of incense, and the consecrating of buildings, ground and people by outward ceremony.

We have such a world-sanctuary: a place where we can meet God and enter by faith into heavenly things. And we know all the while that we are only passing through a world where we are pilgrims and strangers. This is the sweetest grace, that such a sanctuary is open to us even here.

"The first what?" it may be asked. The common Greek text settles the question by supplying the word "tabernacle." The better text supplies no noun after "first." So the Authorised Version and the Revised reject "tabernacle" and supply in italics "covenant." This fits the last verse of chapter 8, where we read, "He has made the first [that is, covenant] old." Then it naturally follows that "the first" in 9:1 refers to "the first" in 8:13... All was appointed by God.

The writer draws attention here to the two divisions of the first covenant: the Holy place (verse 2) and the Holy of Holies. Each was shut off by a door or veil; of the holiest of all we read, "after the second veil." Door and veil barred the entrance of man as such... How different from the bold access by faith we have as a settled title into this grace in which we stand! For now the veil is torn in two from top to bottom, ever since Jesus gave up His spirit on the cross.

The lampstand gave its light inside the holy place; it was the only light there. I do not think the lampstand pictures testimony in the world, but rather light in the circle where priestly service goes on... We need to move in the light the Spirit sheds in the divine circle if there is to be any response from our hearts for the pleasure of God.

He is the spiritual food that sustains the new life. John 6:31-58. This was pictured in Israel by the showbread, the twelve loaves placed on the table in the holy place, new every Sabbath day: it was holy and was eaten by the priests only. Leviticus 24:5-9. It is literally "face or presence bread" (Exodus 25:30), and in the New Testament "bread of presentation." Matthew 12:4; Hebrews 9:2. It pictured the food God would provide for Israel in Christ, as well as the ordering of the twelve tribes before Him.

The table speaks of Christ in the perfection of His human and divine natures, as the One through whom we have communion with God. The life is given, but it needs to be sustained. The table suggests Christ, the food which the people of God enjoy. The showbread also reminds us how perfectly His people are presented in Him.

The first covenant had many ordinances of divine service, and they were most instructive. Yet the sanctuary was, and could not help being, a worldly one. For God was not yet manifested in flesh here below, nor was man received up in glory... The veil therefore was still unrent, and the way into the holies was neither available nor made known. All was of the first creation, shadowy and provisional, at best the witness of good things to come.

People have made a difficulty of this last expression. But it seems clearly to refer to what the sanctuary was: a picture of heavenly things that went with the people all the way through the wilderness... We have such a world-sanctuary. It is a place where we can meet God and so enter by faith into heavenly things, while we know we are only passing through a world where we are pilgrims and strangers. This is the sweetest grace, that such a sanctuary is open to us even here.

In Hebrews 9:3 the veil of the Temple is called the "second veil," the curtains at the entrance being counted as the first.

The first entrance-curtain, the wide Gate of the Court, seemed to say "Come" to everyone. The second entrance-curtain, the Door of the Holy Place, seemed to say "Come" to any priest whose hands and feet had been washed at the basin. But the third entrance-curtain, the Veil of the Holiest of all, seemed to say "Not yet". The Holy Spirit taught men, by that excluding Veil, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made known. That Veil shut out every man except one. But the yearly entrance of that one man was "a shadow of good things to come". It pointed forward to the end of the "not yet" period, and pictured how the way into the Holiest would one day be shown.

Within the second veil no one could enter. God gives His reason: the Holy Spirit was showing by this "that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made known." The purpose of the veil was to show that the people could not come to God. He could give them laws, punish them if they broke them, enable them to look to Him; but they could not come near.

In the outer sanctuary the lampstand was pure gold, and the table of showbread was overlaid with gold. Yet the gold is not mentioned in connection with these, while verse 4 mentions it three times in connection with the holiest… Gold is a picture of the glory of God. That glory was bound up with Judaism, yet God could not reveal it in any full measure under law and its shadows. So the Spirit of God would direct our attention to the greater revelation connected with the holiest. This is a picture of Heaven itself, while the outer sanctuary is a picture of the sphere of Judaism and the earthly priesthood.

In general the tabernacle was where God dwelt and revealed Himself. The veil was, as we know on the same divine authority, the flesh of Christ. It concealed God in His holiness of judgment — in His perfectness as sovereign justice itself. But it showed Him in perfect grace to those to whom His presence revealed itself.

On the death of Christ the veil was torn from top to bottom, and God has come out in fullest light. In Christianity the believer has boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

The veil is torn in Hebrews; and that is why, as has been said, it is not really "having boldness to enter into the holiest," but into the "holy places," because the two are now joined. Yet that does not mean, as it often seems to be taken to mean, that the veil is removed. "Torn" and "removed" are different things. If the veil is Christ's flesh, that is not removed, nor do we want it removed. By Him we draw near to God; but He had to die that it might be so.

The first covenant had many ordinances of divine service, and very instructive ones. Yet the sanctuary was a worldly one, and it could not be anything else. The infinite sacrifice for sin had yet to be offered... So the veil was still not torn, and the way into the holiest was neither open nor revealed... all was of the first creation, shadowy and provisional, at best the witness of good things to come.

The reason for leaving out the incense altar is significant: true worship must really be in the presence of God. Unless we are in His presence we cannot be worshippers... But when we come to the holiest of all, the first thing mentioned is the golden censer. That, we might say, is really the altar of incense. It was not the piece of furniture itself. But when Aaron entered the holiest on the day of atonement, he carried this golden censer and offered incense before God on it. So worship is priestly in character, based on atonement, and in the presence of God.

Normally the censer was in the holy place; but the holiest was its true place... Now that Christ has entered the presence of God as our Great High Priest, the censer is there with Him... Aaron stood in the holiest and had to come out again; Christ has forever sat down, having offered "a single sacrifice for sins."

If Israel loathed the manna, God told Moses to fill a golden pot with it and put it in the ark of the covenant, to be before Him forever. This means that God will never forget, nor will He allow to be forgotten, that lowly life of Jesus here... God has taken the One whom men despised and loathed and set Him in the very midst of His glory... As a diamond is put into a golden setting because it is the only setting worthy to receive it, so God has set Christ there above every ruler and power, above every name that is named.

There was also Aaron's rod that budded, the witness that God had really called him to the priesthood. It was a rod cut off, its life taken away. Then, in the presence of God, it budded and brought forth fruit. This is a beautiful picture of how Christ, cut off in death, brings forth much fruit in resurrection, and is so marked out as the true Priest.

In Psalm 40 the Lord comes into view saying, "I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." This is the true answer to the tablets of stone in the ark. 2 Corinthians 3 calls those same tablets a ministry of death. Remember that, and we see the infinite moral distance between Christ as man and the whole human race. What was a ministry of death to man, even under divine training, was in Him the delight of His heart...

These were the contents of the ark on its wilderness journeys: the pot of manna, the record of the Lord's faithfulness in providing for His redeemed in the desert, and Aaron's rod, "a token against the rebels," to "take away their murmurings." Then the moment came for the poles to be drawn out. Israel's wanderings and wars were over. The records of wilderness need and wilderness failure went unnoticed. Nothing remained except what formed the eternal foundation of the throne of the God of Israel and of all the earth. Nothing was left in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb.

It is remarkable that Paul uses a different word from the one used in John's Epistle... In John's Epistle, Christ is called the hilasmos, but in the Epistle to the Romans He is called the hilasterion. The New Testament uses this second word in only one other place, and that use settles its meaning beyond fair question. When the apostle lists the furniture of the holy of holies in the ancient tabernacle, he speaks of the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy-seat (hilasterion, Heb. 9:5). From these two passages, then, there can be no doubt that Christ is the reality the mercy-seat, or propitiatory, pointed to, just as He is also the hilasmos, the propitiatory sacrifice.

The cherubim also, shadowing the mercy-seat are called "cherubim of glory." ... Jehovah appeared in the cloud upon the mercy-seat — the cloud of glory — and this may be the reason why the cherubim are called "cherubim of glory."

Scripture gives no hint of what the cherubim looked like... but it notes their position and posture with care... They looked down on the covering — the covering that once a year was sprinkled with the blood of atonement. Inside the ark lay the tablets of the law. Yet the ones who carry out God's judgment gazed at God's work of atonement for man, and not at His commands of obedience from man. Their wings — for they did not walk on this earth, they were heaven's swift messengers — stretched up high, covering the mercy-seat; God's throne must be guarded by His heavenly servants. Because they were made of gold, they showed that God's glory in carrying out judgment always keeps His glory in mercy in view!

The capporeth, the seat of atonement, truly became the mercy-seat — the throne of righteousness became a throne of grace. The faces of the cherubim, always symbols of judicial power and so tied to the throne, bent toward the mercy-seat to look at the blood. That blood declared God's righteousness and satisfied it. In Israel all this was still only a picture and a shadow. As yet there was no real way into His presence.

He thought the cherubim of glory guarded the way into God's presence just as completely as the cherubim with the flaming sword guarded the way to the tree of life at the entrance to the garden of Eden. He thought God was to be kept at a distance. Faith's thought is that through Christ we can draw near with boldness to a throne of grace.

The whole priestly family went into the first, or holy place, accomplishing the service of God daily. They went in and out, cared for and trimmed the lights on the lampstand, placed the showbread on the table week by week, the fresh witness of Israel's perfect presentation to God. But here their service stopped.

It is also applied to the services connected with the first covenant — Luke 2:37; Acts 26:7; Romans 9:4; and Hebrews 9:1, 6 (latreia). The original leaves out "divine" and "of God", as if this service was no longer to be recognised as such; the older English version put those words in each time.

What could show more strongly that the way into the holiest was not yet open? Only priests could enter the holy place. Those same priests, serving there day after day, could never pass on into the holiest. And the high priest himself must not enter the holiest "at all times", but only "once a year". … That tabernacle always told the people who worshipped in it that it was only a picture for the time then present, and that it knew of no service that could make their conscience perfect.

The priests could always enter the holy place, but they could go no further. The beautiful veil hid the most holy place from their eyes. They could see the veil itself — blue, purple and scarlet, with finely twisted linen and skilled needlework of cherubim — and it might tell them of the glories hidden behind it. But the golden altar, the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold, the golden pot of manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant were all hidden from their sight.

How busy Aaron was! He had the yearly sacrifices on the great day of atonement. He also had much to do every day, so that the appointed worshippers could worship. There were the morning and evening sacrifices, besides the occasional ones. At any time he might be called on to offer a trespass offering. So he never could have sat down as a man who had finished his work and could look at it with satisfaction.

Still, the law made nothing perfect, whatever shadows of heavenly things it gave. You can see it here. The priests keep entering, but go no further than the first tabernacle, or holy place. Into the holiest goes only the high priest, once in the year, and never without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people. How far this is from the gospel, which goes out to the ungodly and lost, reconciling to God all who believe by virtue of the death of His Son!

Hebrews 9:6, 8 shows that access to the Holiest under the law of Moses was a very rare privilege indeed. But Hebrews 10:19-20 reveals the precious truth that in the favoured day in which we live, we have "confidence to enter the holy places." To this the Holy Spirit adds the deeply important words "by the blood of Jesus." The immensity of this privilege is beyond all human thought.

Nothing showed more forcefully that the way into the holiest was not yet made known than facts like these. None but priests could enter the holy place. Those very priests, serving there day after day, could never pass on into the holiest. And the high priest himself must not enter the holiest "at all times", but only "once a year". ... Its holy places were not open even to those who had services to do there. No one was free to go in and out. There was no way to the mercy seat that was open to all, or open at any time.

In all the earth there was not one man fit to come into the presence of the holy God without the blood of a slain victim. No, not one; not even the high priest of Israel. Once a year the people of God stood as one nation out of all the nations of the earth. Out of that nation stood one man. Yet even that one man must not come into the presence of God without blood.

And why not without blood? Because nothing else shelters sinful man from the wrath of God but the blood; for nothing else remits sin. It would have been death to Aaron to enter the holiest of all without blood.

He put it on the throne of God. The cherubim, the supporters of His throne, looked down to the mercy seat, so they could see it and gaze on it. And he left it there. This was enough for God. The moment He saw it, the throne held back. Otherwise its action would have gone out in righteous judgment... No one ever wiped off the blood of the sin offering placed on the mercy seat in this way. It stayed there all year, always before God.

In Aaron's case he was "obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people." Here again we find contrast, not comparison... There is all the difference in the world between Aaron offering FOR himself and Christ offering HIMSELF.

Under the law the only sins that were provided for were those of ignorance. If a man sinned presumptuously, he was to die without mercy. The law gave no sacrifice for that. In Psalm 19 David says, "Keep back your servant from presumptuous sins" — that is, sins done knowingly. "Who can discern his errors?" There are sins of ignorance. "Declare me innocent from hidden faults" — that is, faults I know nothing about, and yet they are there all the same.

The very nature of the sacrifices shut out the thought of one eternal redemption. Repeating them showed that sin was still there, or there would have been no need to repeat them. The one sacrifice for sins has now been made, and that shows the sins are entirely carried away.

What was forbidden to Aaron, apart from a little on one day in the year, is now granted always to every Christian... We are ever welcome there, and welcome in that way.

What then are we to learn from the tabernacle and its services? We are not left to work out our own interpretation. We are told outright that the Holy Spirit has signified their true meaning. First, the services of the tabernacle showed plainly that, under the law, the way into the presence of God was not yet opened.

Here we have the Spirit again spoken of as Author, though the human instrument is in this case well known. Moses gave exact directions for building the tabernacle and for the worship in it. He committed it all to writing, which we have to this day. But here we see Who made use of Moses — the Holy Spirit.

The first entrance-curtain, the wide Gate of the Court, seemed to say, "Come", to all. The second entrance-curtain, the Door of the Holy Place, seemed to say, "Come", to any priest who had washed his hands and feet at the basin. But the third entrance-curtain, the Veil of the Holiest of all, seemed to say, "Not yet". By that Veil, which shut them out, the Holy Spirit taught men that the way into the holy places was not yet opened.

What did it all mean? No doubt it pointed forward to the blood of Christ as the only ground of approach to God. Yet in the whole arrangement the Holy Spirit was saying that under the old order there was no real approach to God at all. The way in was not yet opened… But as long as the first tabernacle had a standing before God, the rule was: no admittance.

The high priest could not go into the holiest of all whenever he liked, as the priests could go into the holy place. And he did not enter as a worshipper purged once for all. He went in on the very ground that sin had not been put away for ever.

Here "the first tabernacle" means Judaism as a system. It is identified with the first part of the tabernacle, and that part was open only to the priests of the nation. The second part — that is, the sanctuary — only showed, by everything connected with it, that there was no access to God.

Having the two rooms, and keeping them, put the worshipper at a distance from God… As long as God recognised the two, the way into the Holiest was not opened… The present tense reminds us that the Temple service was still going on when the letter was written.

Second, if the way into the Holiest was not yet open, that was clear proof that the sacrifices were not enough. They could not make the offerer perfect in conscience… Under such a system God was shut in and man was shut out. The Jewish system could neither open heaven to us nor fit us for heaven.

Hebrews 9 declares that Christ has come and His blood has been shed to make atonement. So blessing is now for faith, and it lasts for ever. What was forbidden to Aaron, except a little on one day in the year, is now granted always to every Christian. The way into the holy places has been opened, and it stays open.

The tearing of the veil is what makes both tabernacles one. So the first tabernacle has no standing — no existence as such. If we have come into the true tabernacle at all, we have come into the holiest… There is only one entrance, by the blood of Jesus.

The provisions of the law were admirable as a witness to man's sinfulness and to a coming Redeemer. But they were only surface-level and temporary. They went no further than outward "meats and drinks and various washings." In keeping with that, they touched no deeper needs than "the errors of the people" (verse 7). They were called here "ordinances of flesh imposed until a time of setting right."

Thirdly, these things during their existence were a figure of things to come. The figures, however, could never satisfy God nor meet the need of man. Under such a system God was shut in and man was shut out. The Jewish system could neither open heaven to us nor fit us for heaven.

The former could never give a perfect conscience, simply because they were imperfect in themselves. It was impossible that the blood of a bull or of a goat could ever give a perfect conscience. It might do for a day, a month, or a year, but no longer. So the conscience of a Jewish worshipper was never perfect. He could never say that his conscience was perfectly purged, because he had not yet reached a perfect sacrifice.

Here is a poor Israelite. He brings his sacrifice, lays his hands on it and kills it. He sees the priest take the blood, sprinkle it on the altar, and burn the victim. He sees the smoke rise, and the priest says, Your trespass is forgiven. And yet on the day of atonement those trespasses, and all the others, were mentioned all over again. He had to conclude they were not really forgiven at all. In other words, his conscience was not perfect, he did not yet have perfect assurance of acceptance, or forgiveness.

First, the sacrifices offered under the law could never put those who came to them in the place of constant worshippers. That is clearly what "perfect" means in this passage. They failed both because they were ineffective in themselves and because they had to be repeated... Now note, to be perfected as a worshipper is to have no more conscience of sins. Surely this exalts worship very highly, because worship is not at all the means of our justification, but that for which we are already justified.

The purged conscience is one that, being "once purged", has no more conscience of sins (Hebrews 10:2). It assumes a conscience that has been exercised about its sins. That exercise is then met: the believer learns that the precious blood of Christ cleanses him from all sins, and that he will never come under judgment. A good conscience is a conscience free of offence in practical ways and walk.

No conscience can be at ease before God where anything depends on what the person himself is doing or has to do. Yes, I would say, not even if it now had to depend on what Christ has to do, instead of resting on what He has already done... Christ does not have to enter in again, He has no more sacrifice for sin to offer — no other blood to carry in; for where could any be found of like preciousness? All is done once, and once for all.

Christendom, instead of seeing in the tabernacle a figure, has used it as a pattern for its religious services. In doing so, it has lost the "good things" the figures speak of. So the mass of people in Christendom have again set up magnificent buildings. They have again railed off one part of those buildings as more holy than the rest. And they have again set up a priestly class distinct from the ordinary people, who perform religious services on their behalf. So Christendom has adopted a system modelled on the Jewish camp. It keeps people at a distance from God and can never make the conscience perfect.

They were external things. They consisted only of meats and drinks and various washings. An Israelite had to be very careful about what food he ate. The law prescribed everything he ate or drank. All of it had to be clean, or else he was defiled... There was a washing at the basin. There was the sprinkling of blood to sanctify the unclean. It went on the bronze altar too, sometimes on the horns of the altar of incense, and once a year on the mercy seat. These could not make the conscience perfect, or give real peace. They were carnal, or fleshly, ordinances. They dealt with the outward man, and with a relationship to God that was outward only. A man might be a good Israelite, clean by the ritual, and yet be a complete stranger to peace with God, to any sense of His love, or to access into His holy presence.

In Hebrews 6:2 the Hebrew believers were told to leave "the doctrine of baptisms." In Hebrews 9:10 we read of "various baptisms or washings." The words that follow are "imposed until the time of reformation," and that "time" is "Christ being come." So these baptisms were part of the Jewish ritual, which had many washings and bathings. None of them fully signified the baptism of the New Testament, which as the ordinance of entry places the baptised in a new position.

Judaism's great failure, as the apostle shows, was that it could not really purify the conscience and set the soul at rest in the presence of God. In the tabernacle of old, he says, gifts and sacrifices were offered that "cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper." Why not? Because they consisted only of "meats and drinks, and various baptisms," or purifications — "carnal ordinances." They were ordinances which could not in their very nature affect the condition of the soul.

Meats and drinks too were only pictures of the food and refreshment found in the sacrifice of Christ — both for God and for the believer. Various washings and carnal ordinances pictured how the truth of Christ is applied to the soul, with cleansing and sustaining power. Such things were pictures, so of course they were temporary. They were imposed only until the time of reformation, when God would set things in proper relationship and perspective, bringing in a change to end all changes.

Those ordinances were there until the "time of reformation" (verse 10). That term means "setting things right." The time for setting things right has come. Verse 11 turns our thoughts from the carnal ordinances to the work of Christ. There He is, the new High Priest in relation to this new spiritual system, the answer to the parable.

Nothing is more empty and pointless than a ritual whose time has passed. Verse 10 says this sharply. Things that once carried all the weight of Jehovah's name are, looking back, powerless and empty... But once the time of reformation has arrived, Truth is no longer hidden under figures. It stands out in its own glory and life. Then the former things are no longer truth, nor even a likeness of truth. To approach Him now through such a channel is to come before His presence with a contradiction of the glory of His Christ.

The coming of Christ changes everything. At once we have a new High Priest, a greater and more perfect tabernacle and a new sacrifice. Aaron was high priest in relation to the things of this present world. Christ is our "High Priest of good things to come".

In saying "things to come," the starting-point is Israel under the law before our Lord came. But suppose these good things were already obtained. Suppose you could say, "we have them," because Christianity had fulfilled them. Then, once Christianity was established, they could hardly still be called "good things to come." They are yet to come. These "good things" consist of all that the Messiah will enjoy when He reigns.

Remember, we are looking at things from the standpoint of Judaism. To a Jew, in the time of the law, the good things were not there. They were still to come. They were not shown until Christ's work opened the way into God's presence — into that treasury from which God pours out all the riches of His grace for us. The good things to come are the good things of Christianity... the things which we are now enjoying by faith.

Christ has passed through the heavens. Man's hands did not make these; they are the handiwork of God Himself. Christ has gone into heaven itself; there, in the immediate presence of God, He appears for us. On earth He was not a priest; no tabernacle ever existed on earth suited to so great a High Priest as Jesus the Son of God... To try to honour Him with costly things made by hands is to forget the dignity of our High Priest, and the heavenly order of His priesthood.

The greater and more perfect tabernacle is the one that is eternal. It stands in contrast to the earthly system of Judaism, which was put into men's hands. It would speak of the universe as it stands in the counsels of God — God's eternal building.

The point is whether the words "by His own blood" belong with "being come" in verse 11, or with "entered" in verse 12. In our judgment, a careful look shows that "being come," and not "entered," governs the words "by His own blood." Another writer says of the phrase: "dia [that is, "by"] here is, I have no doubt at all, characteristic of His coming. He came in that way. His coming was in the power of these things and marked by them. The tabernacle is not the place He came through, nor His blood the means by which He came."

A high priest to enter the Holiest with the blood of animals on behalf of Israel was nothing new. But for a High Priest to enter by His own blood — that marking His entrance — was new and unheard of... Aaron entered the Holiest on earth. The Lord has entered the Holiest in heaven... In the Lord's case it was by His own blood. It was not on the strength of it, as if He could not have entered God's presence without it.

A special priestly caste — a certain class of men set apart as priests — is not only unknown in Christianity. It is utterly hostile to the spirit and principles of it... a sacrificing priest on the earth is a direct denial of the truth of scripture. It completely sets aside the glorious fact on which Christianity rests: accomplished redemption.

Christ has entered the Holiest of all by virtue of His own blood. He has gone in to stay. When Aaron entered the Holiest of all in the tabernacle in the wilderness, it was only for a time, and it happened only once a year... What a beautiful contrast with "His own blood," by which He has entered "once," never to be repeated. And with it He obtained an "eternal redemption." The Old Testament had no thought of an eternal redemption.

He entered the holy place once for all, the curtain now being torn. There He stays, without change and without any need of repetition — in clear contrast with anything of that kind. And His own blood was not for Himself, as if He needed some sacrifice to let Him in. With that blood He found an eternal redemption.

He had a personal right to enter because of who He was. But He could not enter that way as our representative. If He is to appear for us, He must come with the witness of the blood. The priest, who appeared for the people and for himself, had to carry the blood into the holiest.

"With His own blood He entered into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12) — the very text people misuse to support the error that propitiation was made only then and there. He obtained that redemption neither in heaven nor on earth, but "lifted up" on the cross. There God made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin. And once atonement was made in that way, its power reached inside the holiest at that very moment. "It is finished," said the One who poured out His soul to death.

But where did He have to go to find it? He had to go to the cross. It meant He had to shed His blood and give up His life to get redemption for us.

His sacrifice works forever, in the strictest sense of the word. The word "eternal" comes up often, and with special stress, in the letter to the Hebrews. Why eternal? Because it stands against the temporary character of everything like it among the sons of Israel. So we find not only eternal redemption, but eternal salvation, eternal inheritance and eternal covenant. Each of these words points the same way: it lifts the believing Hebrews up to feel at home with what lies beyond time.

He has found a redemption that seals our relationship with God forever! — not for a year, and not on condition of our good behaviour. Who would dare to let his relationship with God depend on his own good behaviour?

Notice too how the letter says again and again that the sacrifice of Christ is one sacrifice, offered once and for ever. It sets this fact before us six times, in the passage that begins at Hebrews 9:12 and ends at Hebrews 10:14. Search that passage and see for yourself.

Israel's law had almost countless rites, yet only these two are mentioned here: the day of atonement, and the cleansing by the ashes of the heifer. They are named because it is by them that the complete process of sanctification was carried out. The two parts of this sanctification are clearly distinct, though as a whole it is described as a "purifying of the flesh." First comes the cleansing of the worshipper himself by the accepted offering on the day of atonement. By the yearly forgiveness of his sins, God restored him each year to an acceptable standing. Second, he is sanctified in his way by the later provision of the water of purification.

The ashes of a heifer sprinkled on the unclean remind us of the service in Numbers 19 — the provision against defilements along the way. The heifer was offered without blemish. The priest laid his hands on it, and then it was killed and completely burnt. Its ashes were kept in a clean place outside the camp. Whenever an Israelite was unclean because of some defilement that had come on him — contact with the dead, or anything of that sort — the priest took the ashes, mixed them with water, and sprinkled the unclean person on the third and seventh days. He then came back into outward fellowship with the people of God. In other words, it worked for the purifying of the flesh. This had to do, not with access to God, but with communion.

They were kept simply and solely with a view to communion — that is, to restore it when it was broken. It is not at all a question of establishing relationships; that was already done. But on the ground of the relationship that already exists, the Israelite must allow nothing along the way that would stain the holiness that suits the sanctuary of the Lord.

These formal ordinances accomplished a formal result. "The purifying of the flesh" was merely an outward, public setting apart from the sin for which the sacrifice was offered. The very fact of the sacrifice was a public condemnation of the sin, and the offerer publicly linked himself with that rejection of the sin. But there was no vital, eternal value in it.

Suppose you fall into some defilement of soul through contact with anything in this chamber of death — this world where we are living — and the ashes of a heifer are sprinkled on you. What effect could it possibly have? Absolutely none.

The whole question hinges, not on the character or condition of the offerer, but on the value of the offering. The question is not at all whether a Christian is a better man than a Jew. It is whether the blood of Christ is better than the blood of a bullock. It certainly is better. How much better? Infinitely better. The Son of God gives all the dignity of His own divine Person to the sacrifice He offered. If the blood of a bullock purified the flesh for a year, "how much more" shall the blood of the Son of God purge the conscience for ever? If that took away some sin, how much more shall this take away all?

The ordinance of the red heifer was an exceptional form of sin offering. It did not have atonement in view. It was for the cleansing by water of people who had their home and place in the camp, where the Lord's sanctuary was, and who had become defiled along the way. By the word, the Holy Spirit applies the truth of the condemnation of sin in the cross of Christ to the heart and conscience. He purifies the believer, without applying the blood again.

If these things sanctified "to the cleanness of the flesh," how much more shall the blood of the Christ cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve a living God in worship? Only consider the Christ, glorious in Himself, in the character of His offering, "who by an eternal Spirit offered Himself spotless to God." As He stands alone, so does that offering of Himself. Here the Holy Spirit's part in it carries the title "an Eternal Spirit": eternity marks this letter all through.

In Aaron's case he had, "as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins." In this we again find contrast and not comparison... There is all the difference in the world between Aaron offering FOR himself and Christ offering HIMSELF.

Hebrews 9:14 says, "Christ … through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God." Here we are told the Spirit of God is eternal. Now that ascribes Deity to Him. Only Deity can be from eternity, without beginning and without end.

He offered Himself to God — but as moved by the power, and according to the perfection of the eternal Spirit. All the motives that governed this action, and the carrying out of it according to those motives, were purely and perfectly those of the Holy Spirit. They were absolutely divine in their perfection, yet they were of the Holy Spirit acting in a man... so that it is the Man Christ who offers Himself. This had to be so.

He was without blemish. He in whom all these holy excellencies dwelt offered Himself to be a sacrifice for sin. The inward devotion of His life to God that made Him altogether pleasing to God in life carried Him into death for the accomplishment of the will of God.

Notice, moreover, the majesty which characterizes the one offering of Christ. All three Persons of the Godhead stand related to it. The spotless Son of God offered Himself. It was to God that He offered Himself; and it was by the eternal Spirit He did it. No wonder that all sin comes within its scope, and that its results abide for eternity.

Dead works are those done by a man who has no divine life, no true relationship with God... The apostle does not say sinful works merely; it is dead works, whatever they may have been. They may have been mere religious rituals, or acts of charity — works that look blameless and kind. There may be much that is commendable in the eye of man, yet God may write "dead works" upon it all.

Christ has offered Himself without spot to God. God has accepted the great sacrifice and is infinitely satisfied with Christ and His shed blood. So the conscience of the believer is relieved of all thought of working to secure the blessing. Such works, however good in themselves, would only be dead works. So, set free in conscience,, the believer becomes a worshipper of God.

The man who thinks lightly of sin, thinks lightly of the blood of Christ... No, we are purged from all our dead works in order that, in blessed contrast, we might serve the living and true God. Christ has introduced us into the presence of that living God, and our service is to Him now.

The blood which Jesus has shed gives Him a title to be the Mediator of the new covenant. This blood could not belong to the first covenant. Under that covenant, purification only applied to defilements of the flesh. This blood belongs to the second. It is the foundation of this covenant, under which sin is no more before God.

To be a mediator (or, as people say today, to "broker a deal") you need to have access to both parties and be able to relate to both. Moses was the mediator of the old covenant… He alone was allowed to draw near to God (Ex. 24:1–2)… But Christ is mediator of "a better covenant, which is established on the footing of better promises" (8:6). These promises are better because they are unconditional. They include the blessing of forgiveness… He alone could establish that covenant. He was ready and able to lay the foundation for its blessings — on the cross.

"First" what? "Testament" is said here, but it is clearly wrong. How can you speak of "the transgressions of the first will"?… A second will always cancels the first. But here the first was painfully effective, because it produced transgressions… Besides, what have transgressions to do with a will? The moment you bring in "first covenant," everything is easy, plain and forcible. The first covenant was the law, and what the law brought in was transgressions.

His death had a twofold bearing. It brought redemption for the transgressions under the old covenant. It also became the basis for the promise linked with the new. Something had to remove the mighty mountain of transgressions piled up under the law. And something was needed if God was to call people with an eternal inheritance in view. Both these great ends come "by means of death" — the death of Christ.

Because of His death the Lord said, through the prophet, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." That is the voice of the new covenant. The old covenant could only demand obedience, and when a man failed, sentence him to die. But now His death has taken place. It upheld the law's authority to the utmost. So grace can act freely and grant remission of sins, instead of keeping the memory of them alive. More than that: it can righteously vindicate God's patience in the past. That is "for the redemption of the transgressions" committed under that legal system, with its penalty of death for the offender.

It reaches backwards, applying itself to transgressions committed beforehand. It applies now to the state of those who are called… Everything in this present period happens by calling. Calling opens the door of the new covenant to those who found themselves under the grave consequences of the first. It opens the same door to those who never belonged to it at all.

This stands in marked contrast with the law. If Israel had kept it, they would have retained the earthly inheritance. But those who share the heavenly calling receive their inheritance by divine promise. It does not rest on their responsibility, so it cannot be lost.

On the question of "covenant" or "testament": "covenant" is always right, except in Hebrews 9:16-17. Even here some have disputed it, but it seems simpler to take it as "testament" — an observation made in passing. The Greek word means covenant, or testament, or disposition.

Where men make a covenant, is it in the least necessary that either of the contracting parties should die? Jacob and Laban made a covenant between them. But did it need Jacob or Laban to die before it was valid? If either had died, that would have been the end of it. But when the man who makes a testament dies, the will takes effect. Then, and only then, can his children — or whoever he left his property to — receive the benefit.

How does anybody usually get an inheritance? By a testament, of course, as everyone knows... So no picture could be more natural. If God meant certain people He had called to have an inheritance, there should be a testament about it. That the word here means "testator" is to me beyond question. As far as I know, it is never used to mean "covenanting victim," as some argue — and I do not believe it ever could be.

The Lord became a man so that He could die, and so give us an everlasting inheritance — and a great deal more besides. He who had spoken at Sinai is the very same One who came to die. The figure of a testator therefore applies in all its force. He was pleased to die like this, though in His divine nature He could not die. So in His infinite grace He stooped to share in blood and flesh, so that He might die.

The second meaning of the word comes in to show that death is necessary — and not just any death, but the death of the testator, the one who gives the blessing. Without this the testament would have no validity at all. No one could enforce it, and no benefit could pass to anyone. And in this sense the reality goes beyond even this God-given illustration. In the normal run of things death is unavoidable, and the will coming into force is a consequence. But our blessed Lord endured death so that He could give the blessing.

You might say the will was drawn up in eternity... But does that secure the inheritance to us? Something has to come in so that the will of the Testator may be made good — the death of the Testator... And this does not only look forward to the eternal inheritance. It also looks back over all our blessings. So everything we have had, even our daily mercies, is part of those purchased and bequeathed blessings.

The death of the Testator had taken place, and the testament had been placed into the Father's hands. He has answered the perfect trust of His beloved Son. He raised Him from the dead and made Him the Trustee and Administrator of the Will of God... So the Will will be carried out not only according to the letter of it, but according to the spirit of it too, and not one detail of it shall fail.

The end of verse 15 is what suggests "testament": "those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance." How does anybody normally get an inheritance? By a testament, of course, as everyone knows. That has been the usual arrangement in every settled country, in every age. So nothing could be a more natural picture. If God intended certain called persons to have an inheritance, there should be a testament about the matter.

As to the question of "covenant" or "testament": "covenant" is always right, except in Hebrews 9:16-17. Some have argued against it even here, but it seems simpler to take it as "testament." In Greek the word can mean covenant, testament, or disposition.

When people make a covenant, is it in any way necessary that either side should die? Jacob and Laban made a covenant with each other. Did it need Jacob or Laban to die to be valid? If either had died, that would have ended it. But when the man who makes a testament dies, then and only then can his children receive the benefit through the will. The same is true for anyone else he has left his property to.

Some try to slip in the death of sacrifices here. But the word means a testator, not a victim killed to seal a covenant. The Lord became a man so that He might die, to give us (a great deal more, but also) an everlasting inheritance. The One who had spoken at Sinai is the very same One who came to die. So the figure of a testator applies in all its force. He was pleased to die in this way, though in His divine nature He could not die. He therefore stooped, in the infiniteness of His grace, to share in blood and flesh so that He might die.

Without the death of the testator the testament would have no validity at all (it would not be enforceable) and no benefit could pass to anyone. And in this sense the reality goes beyond even this God-given illustration. In the usual course of things death cannot be avoided, and the testament coming into force follows from it. But our blessed Lord endured death so that He could give the blessing!

You might say God drew up the will in eternity. Ephesians says He "blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world." But does that secure the inheritance to us? Something has to happen before the Testator's will can take effect — the death of the Testator... This looks forward to the eternal inheritance, and it also looks back over all our blessings. So everything we have had, even our daily mercies, is part of what He purchased and left to us.

The death of the Testator had taken place, and the testament had been placed in the Father's hands. He has answered the perfect trust of His beloved Son by raising Him from the dead and making Him the Trustee and Administrator of the Will of God. This means the Will will be carried out not just according to its letter, but according to its spirit too. Not one detail of it shall fail.

He left us all the blessing in dying — it came into complete force at once. We are freed once for all through His death. There is no altering it.

The first covenant did not forget this need: a covenant must rest on the blood of a victim. Everything was sprinkled with blood. Only, in this case, it was the solemn sanction of death attached to the obligation of the covenant. The types always spoke of the necessity of death coming in before men could be in relationship with God. Sin had brought in death and judgment. We must either face that judgment ourselves, or see our sins blotted out because another has faced it for us.

We have read of a covenant, the word for which in the original also bears the meaning of testament. We are to be reminded how the first covenant was ratified: by blood, the blood of the sacrifices. Before he comes to that, the writer recalls to his readers how in ordinary life there is the need of death — the death of the one who made the testament — before a testament can be valid. We can see why the thought of a testament comes in at verses 16 and 17: the Lord had to die for the new covenant to be made. To ratify the first covenant, Moses shed the blood of animals. The Lord gave His own.

The blood is sprinkled, as though calling God to witness. Sprinkled on the altar it was a witness that the law, if broken, called for the shedding of blood, the execution of judgment. Sprinkled on the people, it declared that if they broke that law they would be the objects of God's wrath, on the terms of the covenant. In other words, they would not merely be condemned like the rest of the world for general sinfulness. They would be condemned specifically as people who had entered a covenant relationship with God and broken it.

It is a great mistake to suppose that the blood there is used as a sign of the putting away of sin. The meaning here, I take it, is this: the people formally pledged themselves to legal obedience, and bound themselves in this solemn way to obey. The blood sprinkled came from the animals killed in view of the old covenant. In the same way, they did not shrink from that dreadful and extreme penalty if they failed to obey the will of God. It was calling down death on themselves from God if they violated His commandments.

Sprinkling the people seems to have reminded them that death was the penalty of disobedience. Any breach of its demands meant the death penalty on them. Sprinkling the book, on the other hand, would show that death was necessary as the basis of everything. So even the law system was not dedicated without blood. The inspired writer adds this fact here, because it is exactly the point of the argument in this letter.

A testament is only valid once a death has taken place. The connecting word "whence" shows that this general principle also applied to the old covenant, which was likewise inaugurated with blood. This is a clear parallel between both covenants, and yet what a contrast! The blood of the first covenant testified that anyone breaking it deserved death. The blood of the new covenant tells us that the mediator has paid the price: His blood was shed.

The first covenant was inaugurated with blood, as we read in Exodus 24. This is not redemption, but in the strongest contrast with it. The picture of redemption had already been given (Exodus 12, 14). It was the blood of the Passover lamb, followed by the crossing of the Red Sea. That blood sheltered them from the judgment of God. The power that came next set the people free from their enemies, destroyed for ever. But now Israel, far from God, had agreed to stand on the condition of their own obedience (Exodus 19). God had spoken those ten words that would test the people.

It is of interest to note that when this is referred to in Hebrews we are given details not given to us in Exodus. He took "water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop," and further, he sprinkled not only the people but also the book that he had written.

It cannot be atonement, because the people and the book are sprinkled equally with the altar; nor, for the same reason, could it be cleansing. The life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11). So the blood, and the shedding of it, stands for death. And death, when it is joined to sacrifice, stands for the penalty of sin. So here the sprinkling of the blood means death as the punishment the law lays down. The people promised obedience. Then Moses sprinkled them, and the book as well, to teach that death would be the penalty for breaking the law.

The sprinkling of the people seems to have reminded them that death was the penalty of disobedience. Any breach of the law's demands meant the death penalty for them. The sprinkling of the book, on the other hand, shows that death was necessary as the basis of everything.

The blood is sprinkled, as though calling God to witness. Sprinkled on the altar, it was a witness that the law, if broken, called for the shedding of blood and the carrying out of judgment. Sprinkled on the people, it declared that if they broke that law they would be the objects of God's wrath, according to the terms of the covenant. In other words, they would not just be condemned like the rest of the world for their general sinfulness. They would be condemned as people who had entered the covenant relationship with God and then broken it.

Here we are told that the medium through which he did this was "water, scarlet wool, and hyssop"... These details suggest the two kinds of atoning work, if I may put it that way. One had to do with the sanctuary: the blood of the sacrifice carried in and sprinkled on the mercy seat. The other was the ashes of the red heifer, which was burned whole, with cedar and hyssop and scarlet wool.

The hyssop is in contrast to the stately cedar, and is symbolic of man's littleness.

This is a clear parallel between both covenants — and yet what a contrast! The blood of the first covenant testified that anyone breaking it would deserve death. The blood of the new covenant tells us that the mediator paid the price; His blood was shed.

The first covenant was inaugurated with blood, as we read in Exodus 24. This is not redemption, but stands in the strongest contrast with it. God had already given the picture of redemption in the blood of the Passover lamb, followed by the crossing of the Red Sea. The blood sheltered them from the judgment of God. The power that came next set the people free from enemies destroyed for ever. But now Israel, far from God, had agreed to stand on the condition of their own obedience... This letter says Moses sprinkled that blood on the book and on all the people. It showed one thing only: death as the penalty of disobedience. So it was in no way propitiatory but penal.

In the former covenant the people were contracting parties. So the blood Moses sprinkled stood as a witness against them: the slightest failure to keep its terms would cost them their life... For the people, the Lawgiver's own words declared what it meant. He had just read out the commandments of the Lord in their hearing. "This is the blood of the covenant which God has enjoined to you." It was the solemn and significant fastening of that yoke of bondage, from which only the blood of a human life could set them free.

The blood is sprinkled, as though calling God to witness. On the altar, it was a witness that the law, if broken, called for the shedding of blood and the carrying out of judgment. On the people, it declared that if they broke that law they would be the objects of God's wrath, on the terms of the covenant. In other words, they would not just be condemned like the rest of the world for general sinfulness. They would be condemned as people who had entered a covenant relationship with God and broken it.

If you turn to the Old Testament passage, you will find no mention there of the things that went with this sprinkling. Exodus only tells us that he sprinkled half the blood on the altar and the other half on the book and the people. Here we learn the means he used: "water, scarlet wool, and hyssop"... These details suggest the two kinds of atoning work. One had to do with the sanctuary: the blood of the sacrifice carried in and sprinkled on the mercy seat. The other was the ashes of the red heifer, burned whole with cedar, hyssop and scarlet wool.

There is a clear parallel between the two covenants, and yet what a contrast! The blood of the first covenant testified that anyone breaking it deserved death. The blood of the new covenant tells us that the mediator has paid the price: His blood was shed.

The Lord's supper refers both to the Passover and to Sinai. "Do this in remembrance of me" points to Egypt, and so does the occasion itself; "the new covenant in my blood" points to Sinai. As Passover, it is the memory of deliverance through One broken for us — deliverance from judgment and wrath. As blood of the covenant, it puts us in a new relationship, on the ground of grace through the forgiveness of sins.

Moses sprinkled the tabernacle too, and all the vessels of the ministry, in the same way with the blood. This must be a different occasion from the inauguration of the law. One fact alone makes it clear: neither the tabernacle nor the vessels belonging to it existed yet.

The connection with Sinai (Hebrews 9:19) tends to show that it was then, and not recorded in the Old Testament. Still, Hebrews 9:21 does not settle whether it happened when the tabernacle was set up. Verse 22 clearly makes the statement general, so we may suppose he was already past Sinai.

This provision was needed to guard the meeting place with God, and the vessels for service, from defilement. Without the sprinkling of the blood, everything would have become defiled. A sinful people were involved, and God was holy.

What do you mean by these marks of blood on that glorious veil, on the sides of the Tabernacle, on the table and the altar and the lampstand? Everything is marked with blood. Why do you not remove these stains that spoil their beauty? And the priest could reply, That blood gives true beauty to it all. It is a pledge that we, a sinful people, have a right to enjoy the privileges these precious things bring us. Without the blood, a holy God could not live among us or serve us, and we could not offer Him our worship.

In this chapter of Leviticus we also learn that Moses applied both blood and oil to the tabernacle, the altar and the other vessels of the sanctuary. Hebrews 9:21 refers to this, as far as the blood is concerned. It shows that the whole of this earthly system stood before God on that basis. For us it pictured that the cross of Christ, together with the gift of the Spirit, forms the foundation of all our blessing.

Under the Old Testament order, blood purged and sanctified everything in the tabernacle, the priests and their clothing. Everything was sprinkled with blood, including the book of the law and the people (Heb. 9:18, 21). This was a picture of the blood of the Lord Jesus, which has done everything for the Christian. With His blood He "purchased" us (Acts 20:28), "justified" us (Rom. 5:9), "redeemed" us (Eph. 1:7) and "sanctified" us (Heb. 13:12), and it "cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

On the day of atonement the blood had to be sprinkled on the mercy seat to meet the holy claims of God's throne. It was also sprinkled seven times in front of the mercy seat, so that Aaron the priest could stand in God's presence. The whole tabernacle system was sprinkled with blood. It pointed forward to the time when God would secure the whole universe, and all the redeemed in it, by the precious blood of His own Son, shed while He hung on the cross.

This was so true that the text adds a further fact: with blood almost all things are purified under the law. Yet it is not said of everything, for water was used in some cases and fire in others. Both picture death, and fire pictures death in its most extreme form, as divine judgment. How blessed for us is the gift of grace, where the judgment was felt in a perfection known and possible nowhere else! He expiates as well as purifies, and He does both by His death.

As regards forgiveness: it can never be obtained without the shedding of blood. Notice that the verse does not say "application" here. It speaks of the accomplishment of the work of true propitiation.

The point here is not sprinkling with blood, but shedding of blood, and without it there can be no forgiveness. The power of that blood, shed once for all, is presented to God and brings forgiveness to man. It is the ground of divine righteousness, at a time when human righteousness had proved wholly at fault. It is the righteousness of God to all, and on all who believe. It sweeps away every distinction, so that God may bless anyone — and He does bless all who believe.

Sin is an offence against God. It is an insult to His supreme power and authority. That is why we need forgiveness. And when we have offended the Creator of heaven and earth, forgiveness is impossible without a true basis for it. That fully satisfactory basis is "the precious blood of Christ." In Him "we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace" (Eph. 1:7). But "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Heb. 9:22). God forgives because He sees perfect virtue in the blood of Christ.

Think of all the tears of sorrow that ever poured out of broken hearts, from the days of Joseph's brothers to the day of Acts 3 and to this present moment. Not one of them could form the just foundation of a sinner's acceptance and peace with God. Not one could wash away a single stain from the human conscience. The blood of the divine Victim, and that alone — nothing except that precious blood, that atoning death, that matchless sacrifice — could justify a holy God in forgiving one sin.

Many people think that Christ's keeping of the law is put to the believer's account, so that God counts him righteous. But it was the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat that spoke of righteousness being met. True, if the Lord had not kept the law perfectly He could never have been the Saviour. But we must always insist on this: His death alone secured righteousness for the believing sinner.

Come testing, come trial, come what may, the ground of my peace is never touched. If it were not already settled and done, it never could be. Why? Because God says that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." So if the work were not fully done, Christ would have to die again and shed His blood again. But it is finished.

That purification was only formal: it cleansed the patterns, and everything about it was outward. The pattern by itself did nothing real, no more than a dress pattern could take the place of the dress. But the pattern must still show, in its measure, the shape the dress is to take. So the heavenly things need a sacrifice of real, living value, not a merely formal one.

The tabernacle itself would have been a defiled place, because it stood among a guilty and defiled people. God plainly declares that blood was the only ground on which He could dwell among them. If God is to dwell with a people who are guilty and defiled, His house must be purged from the sin that has reached into it.

The blood of goats and calves was enough to purify the tabernacle and its furniture, which were only patterns. The heavenly things themselves needed a better sacrifice. We might be surprised that heavenly things should need a sacrifice at all. But remember two things. Satan and the fallen angels have had their seat in the heavens, and they have brought the taint of sin there. And we, who are sinners and had our place here, are destined, as the fruit of redemption, to take our seat in the heavens. So the work of Christ will bring purification not only on earth but in the heavens too.

"The heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices." Satan and his angels are there and cleansing is needed. This purging is not remission. God must have His house cleansed as well as His people made righteous.

This is the only place that uses the plural word sacrifices when speaking of the death of the Lord Jesus. It is most likely plural to express that His one sacrifice takes in every different aspect of the many sacrifices offered under the law.

It is His going there to appear for us that has made this purification of the heavenly places necessary. God is jealous of His own holiness, so He provides for the cleanness of everyone He brings into His presence. He is also jealous of the purity of heaven, His dwelling-place. So blood purifies heaven as well, and the entrance of sinners can in no way defile it. It is a great reassurance to worshipping priests to find that the same blood has purified them — the blood that keeps God's own dwelling-place and throne pure. One purification is enough for all — God's throne, God's temple, God's High Priest, and God's priests!

So, in Hebrews 9:23, "the things in the heavens must be purified." The work needed for this is done. We are only waiting for the power that will make it good. In the millennium, righteousness will reign; but in the new heaven and the new earth it will dwell. In them we will see the full results of the cross: all things reconciled, and sin driven out for ever from those new scenes and that new creation where "all things are of God."

Remember that the tabernacle in the wilderness was a revelation of heavenly things. It was made after the pattern shown to Moses on the mountain. Then we grasp at once that the "true tabernacle" means the place and scene where the Lord exercises His heavenly priesthood. So everywhere in this letter the earthly tabernacle stands as the antitype of the heavenly: the copy that matches the real thing.

Christ comes, accomplishes the sacrifice, makes the conscience perfect, goes into heaven itself; and we draw near to God in the light. To mix the service of the first tabernacle, or holy place, with Christian service is to deny it. The reason is this: the meaning of the first was that the way to God was not yet open; the meaning of the second is that it is open.

"Heaven itself" is the place Christ has entered. The presence — literally the "face" — of God teaches us that in that place He appears before God as the great High Priest, the representative of His people. This is clear from the words "for us," or "on our behalf," at the end of the verse. Aaron was to bear the names of the twelve tribes on his shoulders and on his heart before the Lord. In a more excellent way, Christ presents and represents all His people before God as He exercises His priesthood. He does this in all the acceptance of His own person, and in the perfect efficacy of His work.

For the cleansing of the heavenly things, Christ has entered heaven itself, not the holy places made with hands. He entered to appear in the presence of God for us, and He is there still. Aaron entered the Holiest on earth for a brief moment year by year. He could not remain there. Our High Priest remains in the presence of God. Israel could boast to other nations of a high priest who entered behind the veil, though he could not stay there. Christians can say that their High Priest remains inside for them. Again it was plain how different the substance is from the shadow.

When Aaron appeared before the Lord in his garments of glory and beauty, he represented the children of Israel. Their names were engraved in precious stones in the beautiful breastplate. What a picture of our real and everlasting place in the heart of Christ! He appears in the presence of God for us, not once a year like Aaron of old, but continually. The name of each believer is kept continually before the eye of God, in all the glory and beauty of Christ, His beloved Son.

Christ appearing in heaven before the face of God "for us" is the everlasting witness that heaven is secured and thrown open to the believer.

The passage sets before us three great facts in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. It speaks of what we may venture to call three distinct appearings: an appearing in the past, an appearing in the present, and an appearing in the future. He has appeared in this world to do a certain work; He does appear in heaven to carry on a certain ministry; and He shall appear in glory. The first is Atonement; the second is Advocacy; the third is the Advent.

It was said of the high priest in Aaron's line that he "enters the holy places every year with blood not his own" (Heb. 9:25). The word could also be rendered strange or foreign blood (allotrios), since there was no connection between the blood of a bull, or a goat, and himself, a human being. Scripture says of Christ that "by His own (idiou) blood He entered in once into the holy places" (Heb. 9:12), and the word "His own" is repeated again (Heb. 13:12).

He did not enter because of His blood, as if He had no right to enter otherwise. What marked Him out was that He entered by His own blood, just as what marked Aaron out was that he entered by the blood of others. (Heb. 9:25.)

Notice also the pointed contrast with Jewish sacrifice in verses 25, 26. Repetition could not be avoided even in Israel's most solemn rites, such as the great day of atonement. It is the blessed truth of the gospel that Christ's one offering is complete and everlasting in its effect for everyone who believes. The Holy Spirit even goes so far as to show that a repeated offering on His part is impossible, because it would also mean His suffering often. Any thought of His suffering again must be intolerable even to weak believers, who long for a fresh work for each fresh failure.

If that were the case, think of the centuries of suffering for the blessed Lord Jesus! "Then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world." The old sacrifices came over and over again, naming the same sins every year, and they could not really take away sin. What do we have instead? That blessed word: "once for all at the end of the ages."

What is more, one sacrifice, effective for ever, has righteously met and removed every barrier that kept the believer out of heaven. The yearly repetition of the sacrifices under the law proved that they could not put away sin.

God has said that Christ's offering of Himself was a work so perfect and so effective that it never needed repeating. Indeed it could not be repeated, because such an effect required Christ to suffer. He has declared that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. So if the offering of Christ had to be repeated, Christ would have had to suffer often. Now if I claim to offer this sacrifice again, and say that such an offering is necessary and right, I deny the effectiveness of Christ's one offering of Himself on the cross.

To think of the blood of Christ as needing to be applied again and again dishonours His work. It lowers His work to the level of what was only its shadow... It also separates the offering from the infinite suffering that gave it all its value. (Heb. 9:25-26) If He had to keep presenting His blood for us, as the high priest did for Israel, then He would have to suffer often. See also verse 22. It does not say "without the application of blood", but "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins".

This closes the first Adam's history — the history of man responsible in the flesh. It was the end of the world; that is, in moral terms the world had ended and stood judged. So the apostle speaks in Hebrews 9:26: "Now once in the end of the world." Literally that is "in the end, or consummation, of the ages" — the ages in which God was testing man in responsibility, as a sinner who might still be won back. "He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

Until Christ, the question of sin was not settled. God was still making every trial of man under responsibility. Whether man had no law or lived under law, sin had come to full growth. Besides, there was no more reason for an age to run on with man under the same responsibility as before. The ages were complete. Christ appears. He closes the earlier period by abolishing sin, and opens new ages for the glory... He appeared (the verb here is in the perfect tense); the fact is past and still stands.

Continual repetition was part of the ritual system. Christianity stands in contrast with it. He has offered Himself once and for ever. If He had to offer Himself repeatedly, He must also suffer often. The two things cannot be separated. For then, we read, "he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world." A fresh offering of Christ to God without fresh suffering is not merely a mistake. It is in direct opposition to His word and to the foundation of Christianity.

The word which characterises these chapters is "one," "once" (see Heb. 9:12, 26, 28; Heb. 10:2, 10, 12, 14). It comes seven times over, so that we do not miss how sufficient the precious blood of Christ is, and how unique its glory.

The offerer first identified himself with his offering and killed it. Only then did the priest act. So the Lord offered Himself... The offerer, for whom the sacrifice was brought, killed the animal. But the true sacrifice offered up Himself (Heb. 7:27). In reality the offerer, the offering, and the priest are one and the same person. We see Him in three different characters.

Let us mark that phrase, "to put away sin." How comprehensive it is! The payment for our sins is of course included, but it is not limited to that. The judgment of sin is included, but it is not limited to that. It takes in sin in all its branches and bearings. Sin the root, and all the sins that are its fruit. Sin as it has affected man and the earth. Sin as it has affected the heavens. Sin in its totality — all put away by His sacrifice. And His sacrifice was the sacrifice of Himself!

What is the meaning of Hebrews 9:26, "Christ put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself"? I believe it extends to the new heavens and new earth, where righteousness dwells... The work that accomplishes it is done, but the power is not yet put forth. In Hebrews 9:26, 28 we get two things: "to put away sin" and "sins borne." We get the same two on the Day of Atonement — the sin offering and the scapegoat.

If all our sins had not been cancelled by this one offering, they could never be, for Christ cannot die again... When a person believes, he comes into this blessing. He is for ever perfected in Christ before God. Sin cannot be charged to him, because Christ, who has borne and paid for it, is always in God's presence for him — a witness that his sins are already put away.

Death is a judicial ordinance of God. It entered at His bidding as the unwelcome consequence of sin. Yet it is not in this natural end of life that God declares His judgment on the ways of men. For death is the end and limit of corrupted human life, and it has no reference to a person's own sins. People are born to die because of sinful origin and birth. By a general appointment men die once.

"It is appointed for man to die once" — that is only half the solemn truth. Equally appointed, equally certain: "after that comes judgment." Death, instead of being the end of all, is rather the beginning. This present time is only the waiting-room of eternity. The same God declares death and witnesses to it in countless deaths. He declares just as surely that the judgment is coming.

If there is judgment after death, then men do live after death. Death does not mean ceasing to exist. It means ceasing to exist soul and body together in this world. … The judgment brings on men the whole extent of the consequences of sin from the wrath of God, and it comes after death. … Note, this is not something peculiar to those who have heard of Christ, though they are doubtless far more guilty and will be beaten with many stripes. It is appointed for man. Death and judgment are the common natural portion of all as sinners.

"After that comes judgment," Scripture says. The Bible knows no such thing as a further time of testing after death. That idea is a falsehood — twin to the lie that those who reject Christ get another chance after Jesus comes. … The Scriptures testify that you must be saved before you die, if you are saved at all.

Man gets death first, and after death the judgment. Christ, our blessed Lord, bore the judgment first, going to the cross, bearing wrath. Look at that scene on Calvary. Think about the cries that came from the cross. You will never fully understand the reality of the cross until you have entered into the meaning of those words: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That is the very thing the ungodly will realise in the judgment.

"As" what? "Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" — that is, to die and bear God's judgment of sin is the lot of man by nature. "So" what? "So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many" — that is, Christ has taken on the cross these two consequences of sin, death and judgment. … The believer knows now that he has death and judgment behind him at the cross, instead of before him.

There is a striking contrast between "men" as such and believers. … If you miss the opposition between "men" as they are now by nature and "those who await Him," you have missed the context completely. For it puts the portion of "men," who have death and judgment before them, in the strongest possible comparison with those who have Christ once for all offered to bear the sins of many.

1 Corinthians 15:51 clearly reveals that "we shall not all sleep," or die. Death and the Lord's coming are in no sense the same thing… No! I look not for death, but for Christ, and Christ is not death, but life — our life. Can a contrast be more definite?

Here you have the two portions. Man's portion is death and judgment. The Christian's portion is Christ, the one offering for sins, who is about to return in glory for their full salvation, not judgment. Christ settled the question of sin so completely at His first coming that no one will ever raise it again.

Christ has taken on the cross these two consequences of sin, death and judgment. What is the result? The believer is delivered from the common lot of man… the believer knows now that he has death and judgment behind him at the cross, instead of before him.

The evangelist cannot go and tell every person that Christ died as his substitute. But he can tell him that He died as a propitiation. And when, through grace, the soul believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, he can learn the further calming truth: He died as a substitute and bore all his sins in His own body on the tree.

He appears apart from sin. He is not only without sin in His blessed Person — that was true at His first coming as well — but, for those who look for Him, He appears outside all question of sin, for their final deliverance.

Why does He not raise the question of sin at His second coming? Because He settled it at His first. To raise this question again would mean certain doom for us, for Christ will suffer and die no more.

The words "look for Him" do not carry the meaning so often read into them — the idea that only watchful believers will find salvation when the Lord comes again. The force of the whole passage is this: sin has been so perfectly put away, and believers so perfectly cleared in conscience and from all liability to judgment, that they are left waiting for their High Priest to come out of the heavenly sanctuary.

Judgment is past. So His coming will be "unto salvation" — full salvation for the body as well, the believer delivered entirely from the very presence of sin… This is the first part of the second coming. Here He appears only to believers. Later "every eye will see him," when He must deal out judgment to those who have refused His mercy.

Until the high priest came out, Israel could not know that God had accepted the sacrifice. They waited as a people who could not draw near to God in any way until the sacrifice was accepted. But for us who believe, the Holy Spirit has come out while He is still hidden within. So we know His work is accepted, and that He sits at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.

A second appearing of the Messiah was a thought foreign to Judaism. Christians look for that second appearing — an important and comforting part of their faith… and the Christian can look with hope for that return, since he knows that atonement settled the question of his guilt.

Only a substance can cast a shadow. An image presents the thing itself. The word translated "perfection" here really means "completion." The whole "law" system was only a shadow, not the substance. Christ and the heavenly system of which He is the centre form the substance. An earthly, material system could not present these heavenly, spiritual things.

A shadow gives us very little in the way of detail. We get an outline. We can tell whether a shadow is that of a house or a tree, but not where the windows are in the one or the branches in the other. If we recognise this limit in the types, we will not force meanings into the small details of the person or incident that forms the type. That effort so often ends in what is fanciful and imaginary.

Suppose we could wipe from memory the knowledge of Himself, and all the truths the Holy Spirit has made known to us in this present age. Then we would find that the law was indeed a shadow. There was only an outline, a sketch of divine truth. This does not slight the perfect word of God. It is perfect in its place, as it surely is. The point is that until our blessed Lord came, everything was still waiting.

We need to remember what the apostle says: the law has only "a shadow." "The very image" could only be found in that work itself, in its unapproachable excellence. What we have here is a shadow that God alone could give in advance, to witness how many-sided and full that work is.

This does not mean perfection of the person, of course. It means perfection in his standing and relation to God. It is the same perfection spoken of later about the work of Christ: "By a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." The sacrifices under the law could not give that perfection — perfection as to one's present and eternal acceptance.

He shows that the law had neither the power nor the aim to make a person perfect as far as conscience goes... Could the law make that conscience perfect? It could not. It never did, with anybody... "The law … can never … make perfect those who draw near." Set that against what Christ has done: "By a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" — that is, those set apart by His blood.

It is not that the law sacrifices did not perfect anyone as to the conscience, but that they could not. Their very repetition showed this. Suppose they had been able to cleanse the conscience, giving the offerer complete relief on the whole question of sin. Then those sacrifices would have stopped. We never go on doing what is already done.

Whatever the nature of the sacrifice, bloody or unbloody as people say, its repetition proclaims that it failed in the past and cannot help in the future. It cannot settle the question of the offerer's guilt. It cannot secure his acceptance before God. To repeat a sacrifice is wasted labour. More than that, it despises the one perfect sacrifice God has provided.

The law had only "a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things" (Heb. 10:1). The good things have come, and Christians enjoy them today. Christ has established them (Heb. 9:24; Heb. 10:12), the Spirit has revealed them (1 Cor. 2:9-10), and the believer may gaze upon them with the eye of faith (2 Cor. 4:18).

The man, or the woman, with the weakest mind might grasp this solemn fact. The repetition of a sacrifice declares as clearly as possible that it has not done what was needed in the past. And it cannot do it by any repetition in the future. There must of necessity be an inherent lack in all such sacrifices.

In Hebrews 10 this principle applies to the sacrifice. Its repetition proved that sin was there. Christ's sacrifice was offered only once, and that proved its eternal efficacy. Had the Jewish sacrifices made the worshippers really perfect before God, they would have ceased to be offered.

First, the sacrifices offered under the law could never put those who came to them in the place of constant worshippers. This is clearly what "perfect" means in this passage. And they failed not only because of their inherent ineffectiveness, but also because of their repetition... Now note, to be perfected as a worshipper is to have no more conscience of sins. This exalts worship very highly. In this way worship is not at all the means of our justification, but that for which we are already justified.

It simply means this. The conscience of the worshipper who approaches God has been thoroughly purged — made perfect through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses from all sin. So the worshipper, in drawing near, can appear there without any consciousness of guilt upon him. He is justified, fearless; indeed, he comes with holy boldness and perfect confidence and liberty... The blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat in the sight of God. He looks at the blood, and not at the sin that the blood has put away. It was also sprinkled in front of the mercy seat, in the sight of the approaching worshipper, as proof that God will no more remember his sins and transgressions.

People often find it hard to see how a person can have "no more conscience of sins" while he is at the same time conscious of failure and of sin. But it is when the soul is fully purged that there will be the most consciousness of sin, and of past and present failure. Yet there is no sense of being charged with them before God...

A purged conscience does not therefore imply that we never sin, or that we never have the consciousness of failure, past or present. But it does imply that all dread of a future judgment because of our sins is entirely removed. So a purged conscience is not the same thing as what we call a good conscience. If a true believer fails through careless walk, his conscience will be troubled. Only by confession to God will he regain a good conscience. But this does not touch the eternal forgiveness of his sins, which gives him a purged conscience.

Is the child of God sprinkled with blood several times? No. The sprinkling of the blood on the believer answers to the shedding of blood accomplished once for all before God, and neither is repeated. The Christian must hold firmly to a true sense of the value of the blood of Christ offered once. Otherwise we sink back into Jewish elements, and for every failure we look for a fresh sprinkling.

How else could he charge the men of Israel with denying Jesus? Had he not denied Him notoriously, recently, and repeatedly with oaths? Now he was so completely cleansed by the Saviour's blood that he boldly charged them with that sin! Had it not been wiped out, he would have been ashamed to whisper the words.

That shadow of an atonement never set the conscience free for good. It was itself a yearly reminder of unforgiven sins (verse 3). Every year, when Israel gathered on the tenth day of the seventh month, they admitted their defilement and their own unfitness for the Lord's presence. So the Law showed a shadow of good things to come. At the same time it testified to something solid and never-ending: sin unpurged and always growing.

If they could have cleansed the conscience, giving the offerer complete relief about sin, no one would have gone on offering them. We never go on doing what is done. In fact their effect ran the opposite way. Instead of removing sins from the conscience so that they were no longer to be remembered, the sacrifices brought them to mind at least once every year.

The repetition of the offering only proved that the question of sins was not yet settled. It was like a great debt: paying the interest year by year never reduces it. So each year only brought back to mind that sins had not yet been taken away.

In these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. What happened was that God, in His forbearance, "passed over" the sins committed before Christ died. So the word used again and again in the Old Testament is "atonement," and its literal meaning is "covering." The word for "remission" means "a sending away," not merely a covering. … In the Old Testament, then, we find sin covered for the time being, because God bore with it, while the full sending away of sin still lay ahead. Only the death and resurrection of Christ accomplished it.

The worshipper might indeed feel, up to a point, that the sins he had already committed were gone. But as soon as he had offered his sacrifice, he began to sin again, and every fresh sin needed another sacrifice. So he was never free from guilt before God or in his own conscience. … The burden of sin was therefore never wholly removed from the conscience of a Jewish saint.

God's holiness has been fully met in the one Sacrifice! So He can say of us, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds NO MORE"! — the opposite of "a reminder of sins every year" (Heb. 10:3). Worshippers today, "having once been cleansed," have NO MORE "consciousness of sins" (v. 2)! The work for which Jesus sat down is so completely done that the Holy Spirit declares there is NO LONGER "any offering for sin"! No more remembrance of sins on God's side! No more conscience of sins on the worshippers' side! No more offering to be made on Christ's side!

It is a remembrance, not of sins, like the legal sacrifices (Heb. 10:3), but a remembrance of "Me," says Jesus, and therefore of sins put away. … To pray about the forgiveness of sins would clash with the table. It would be a reproach on the Sacrifice of the Son of God, even if no one meant it that way. It would be building again the things Christ had destroyed. It would make His blood, like the blood of bulls and goats, only the reminder of sins and not the remover of sins.

The benefit was impossible because the work was inadequate. Animal sacrifice, as an atonement for human sin, is both unequal and untrue. There was nothing acceptable to the God of judgment in the blood of animals. Man owed God obedience and had robbed Him of it. The life of a creature that by nature cannot know His will could never make that up. So pouring out such a life in death had no power to redeem from sin. God had no quarrel with the animals that perish. He had laid the law of His commandments on His people. Its curse could never fall in their place on an unthinking animal that never knew the voice of truth.

The repetition of the offering only proved that the question of sins was not yet settled. Like a great debt owed, it was never reduced by the paying of the interest year by year. Each year thus only brought to remembrance the fact that sins had not yet actually been taken away. The blood of animals could not possibly accomplish such a result.

It is not that the sacrifices under the law did not perfect anyone's conscience. They could not. Their very repetition showed this. Suppose they had been able to cleanse the conscience, so that the person who brought them got complete relief about the whole question of sin. Then they would have stopped being offered. We never go on doing what is already done.

In His forbearance God "passed over" the sins people committed before Christ died. That is the word set in the margin against Romans 3:25. So the word used so often in the Old Testament is "atonement," which literally means "covering." … The word for "remission" means "a sending away," and not just a covering. So in the Old Testament we find sin covered for a time by the forbearance of God, while it waited for the complete sending away of sin. Only the death and resurrection of Christ did that.

The forgivenesses of Old Testament times were like promissory notes with a distant due date. The due date came when Christ died, and turned the notes into the pure gold of a redemption God Himself accomplished.

The worshipper might indeed feel, to some degree, that the sins he had already committed were removed. But as soon as he had offered his sacrifice, he began to sin again, and every fresh sin needed another sacrifice. So he was never free from guilt before God or in his own conscience. … God passed over the sins of His people, because these sacrifices pointed forward to the sacrifice of Christ.

It is summed up in verse 4 in the words, "take away sins". The blood of bulls and goats could not do this, but the work of Christ has. So we read in verse 5, "Therefore (that is, since this is so), when He comes into the world He says, Sacrifice and offering You did not want, but a body You have prepared for Me". He came to do what other sacrifices could not do, and took a body so that the question of sins might be settled for ever.

There is still consciousness of sins, but there is no conscience of sins. That is, sin is not resting on the conscience as something that affects our relationship with God, or our standing before Him. The work of Christ has settled that question completely. So despite the sin of the past life, despite the sinfulness of the heart, despite failures, nothing remains on the conscience between the soul and God.

This is a quotation (an adaptation) from the fortieth psalm — the burnt-offering psalm, as the twenty-second is the sin-offering one. In this we see our blessed Lord looking at the whole array of sacrifices provided under the legal covenant. There are the peace-offerings, the meat-offerings, the burnt-offerings, and the sin-offerings. He looks at them all, and, "when He comes into the world, He says, Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired."

The Old Testament itself bore clearest witness to the fact that animal sacrifices were of no real value in the eyes of God, and this Psalm is like the light breaking through the mist, declaring that at least Someone would take the place of all such offerings.

This shows the freedom with which the Spirit of God enlarges on the thought He first gave under His inspiration. The psalm is prophetic, so it speaks of the opening or forming of the ears. That suggests the obedience of our Lord, since the ear receives the instruction to be obeyed. But the New Testament passage comes after His holy person is fully revealed. There the Spirit teaches us that His body was one specially prepared for this obedience.

Other ears were deaf through sin. His ears alone God dug open, since He alone ever heard and obeyed... Then comes the prophet who speaks of the Messiah wakened morning by morning to hear... It is not only holy humanity given Him at the start, but His habit of daily dependence as "the Servant." The picture given in the law completes the case. At the end of faithful service, when He might have gone out free, He submits to have His ear bored through with an awl, as the sign of serving for ever. It is His death for the glory of God, and the life and blessing of all who believe.

This exactly suits what is revealed about His coming as man. He was to be born of a woman, and in this way He was more fully man than Adam. Yet He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, as neither Adam nor anyone else was. God fitted a body for the Son so truly that even in human nature He alone should be the Holy One of God.

But who was He, this One for whom the body was prepared? Before He came into the world — before there was a world to come into — He bound Himself by a solemn oath to do the will of God. Who in the wide universe could take up that will and complete it? Surely only the uncreated Son, whose eternal home is at the Father's side.

In Him we have one fit to be the sacrifice. He took on Himself the form of a servant, and became obedient to the commands of Jehovah. It was His will to do it, and He was able to do it... To bring sinners into God's presence, He must not only keep the law Himself, but become obedient to death, even the death of the cross. He might preach righteousness in the congregation, but men hated it. He might do every work of blessing, but they envied Him and mocked Him. All the expressions of righteousness in Him were of no use alone. He must also become a sacrifice; He must shed His blood.

The apostle repeats this quotation in verses 8 and 9 to show that "the first" must be taken away, so that "the second" may be established. The law itself bore witness that its own terms were unsatisfactory. So it had to give way to One who would do the will of God.

"In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you took no pleasure." The last words are still the forceful wording of the Septuagint. They do not exactly reflect the Hebrew, which reads, "You did not ask." Men easily satisfied themselves. When they prospered, and no obvious evil called for sacrifices for sin, they trusted that God was satisfied with freewill offerings. But God was always looking for His will to be done.

When an Israelite brought an offering, God was pleased with the offerer; it was a movement of heart toward God. But He could not take pleasure in the offering. It could not do for the offerer what God wanted to do for him. This is why the wording is "did not desire." Many Scriptures show us that the pleasure of God is bound up with the doing of His will. Nothing could secure the pleasure of God until Christ came. The offerings were imperfect; how could God take pleasure in them?

The worshipper once cleansed has no more conscience of sins. The blood of bulls and goats clearly could not put away sins in this way. Everyone grants that this is impossible. So — and this is very precious to our souls — God had no pleasure in sacrifices that could not put away our sins. What a God we have to deal with! He says, as it were, "My love to you is eternal. So I cannot have pleasure in sacrifices that fail to present you in holiness, free from any conscience of sins." He took away completely what could not take away our sins.

Those animal sacrifices had no lasting value in themselves, and they never could have. Far from cleansing guilt, they had to be repeated again and again. That very repetition showed that the sins were still there, always coming back into remembrance before God. But God had in His purpose a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than these. Yes, in the middle of the whole system of sacrifices He had already voiced His dissatisfaction with what fell so far short of His own nature and of His people's need.

Going into more detail, He names burnt offerings and offerings for sin. These sacrifices had less of the character of communion, and so had a deeper meaning. But God had no pleasure in them. In a word, the Spirit had already declared the Jewish service unacceptable to God... In their place He had prepared a body for His Son — a vast and important truth! For the place of man is obedience. So, in taking this place, the Son of God put Himself into the position to obey perfectly.

Our Lord always found delight in doing the will of the Father along His path. But He found no delight in being made sin. We would gather that is why the Spirit leaves out "I delight" here.

Ritual religion today slavishly copies the shadows. That copying marks its poverty and blindness. The more elaborate the ritual, the feebler the spiritual life. How can anyone who truly knows the glorious reality go back to "the weak and worthless elementary principles" (Gal. 4:9)? God Himself declared that He "had no pleasure" in them.

This is what the Son of God says in this most solemn passage (v. 5-9). By the grace of God we are allowed to know what passed between God the Father and Himself when He undertook to fulfil the will of God. We hear what He said, and the eternal purposes of God which He carried out. He takes the place of submission and obedience, of performing the will of another. God would no longer accept the sacrifices offered under the law — the passage points out four kinds of them. He had no pleasure in them. In their place He had prepared a body for His Son — a vast and important truth, for the place of man is obedience. So, in taking this place, the Son of God put Himself in the position to obey perfectly... Notice that before He was in the place of obedience, He offers Himself to accomplish the will of God. He does this out of free love, for the glory of God, as One who had the power. He must be God to do it, and to undertake all that God could will.

"In the scroll of the book it is written of me." Books at that time were rolls of parchment. A label on the outside showed the contents. That helped you find the roll when it stood on the shelf with others. So the spiritual label of the sacred roll — the summary of the Scriptures — is that Jesus Christ would come to do the will of God.

Here again some have suggested it is the book of God's eternal purposes, the records of heaven, as you might say. That is a very precious thought, and I would not rule it out. But is it not rather the volume of the Old Testament — the book of Leviticus, for instance, the book of all those rules for sacrifice? Once you have this thought, you can go back to Leviticus. You read there of the burnt offering and the sin offering, and you say: in the scroll of the book it is written, not of the offering, but of Christ Himself.

Notice how Psalm 40 includes the words "I delight," while the quotation in Hebrews 10 leaves them out. The reason is that Psalm 40 has mainly the burnt offering in view, while Hebrews 10 also has the sin offering in view. The Son always delighted to do the Father's will as the burnt offering. But it was no delight to Him to be made sin as the sin offering. So the words "I delight" do not appear when sin is in view.

He had to endure the cross, in all its terrible depths of sorrow and suffering, if God's will was to be done. His love for His God and Father carried Him into those unfathomed depths. To the natural eye His path looked all wrong, but in devotion to God's will He went on. He looked into the dark cup He had to drink. Sweat like blood fell from Him, yet He took the cup and drank it. "Your will be done," He said.

Here is the source of all blessing: it comes from the divine will. "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God." It comes from the will of God, not from the will of man: that is only sin... God's will was His; and that will alone brought salvation and life where man's will had brought only sin and death. This gives stability and perfection to everything — to find its source and origin in the will of God. If it had been the result of my will, everything would be as unsteady and changeable as man's will is.

A Man comes on the scene. People looked on Him as a carpenter's son, and He never spoke against the temple services. But when the Holy Spirit comes to explain His mind, we learn that the whole ritual of services was now all in vain, and that He had come to set it all aside. And who was He? The One who was the Word of God. Here we see what His thoughts were before He came into the world: "I come to do Your will; I set aside all sacrifices and establish Your will."

In verses 8 and 9 the apostle repeats this quotation. His aim is to show that "the first" must be taken away, so that "the second" can be established. The law itself testified that its own terms fell short. So it had to give way to One who would do the will of God.

So it is said here, "Lo, I come to do your will, O God. He takes away the first" (that is, the law), "that He may establish the second" (that is, God's will). People often confuse God's will with the law, without understanding that the two are set here in the sharpest contrast.

So, broadly, the "first" means Judaism and the "second" means Christianity. By that we mean the whole system of grace, revealed and established in Christ, which runs on to the completion of all God's purposes in new creation. Every feature of this system is "new," and will remain "new" for ever. It could not grow old. The "first" is old, and has disappeared; the "second" abides eternally.

Then we read "He takes away the first, that He may establish the second." It does not say that He established the first, but He has established the second. We saw in chapter 9 that first and second there referred to place; but here it is the first and second orders that are in mind; the material displaced by the spiritual of which it was the type. It has ever been so in the ways of God; the first goes, it is taken away; but the second abides, it is established.

We thus see that the new covenant was not an afterthought, brought in when the old covenant failed. God knew the end from the beginning. The new covenant was in His mind from the very first. "He takes away the first that He might establish the second." Again, "In that He says, A new covenant, He has made the first old. Now that which decays and grows old is ready to vanish away." So the word new does not just mean new instead of old. It means that the new displaced the old — the two cannot stand side by side!

Again and again, we come across firstborn sons who fail, and the blessing goes to another who has no claim to it. Cain was the firstborn, but Seth displaced him. Isaac displaced Ishmael, Jacob displaced Esau, and Joseph displaced Reuben. The underlying principle is clear: the firstborn speaks of man in his natural strength... And, this is the point, natural man acting in his own strength always leads to failure. In order for blessing to happen, God has to provide the "second."

He is "the last Adam." The contrast here is between the first and the last, not the first and the second. Why last? Because that word rules out any idea that a third or later race could ever be needed, or come on the scene. "He takes away the first that He may establish the second," is what Hebrews 10:9 says. He never takes away the second in favour of a third! The second is established.

Giving up all hope of blessing on the ground of law, and turning the flesh out of its place, does not please us by nature. It is the opposite. Still it is the course that is according to God... If Christ the Second Man fills our vision, the first man and the covenant of law that applied to him are set aside.

So it is said here, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God. He does away with the first" (that is, the law), "in order to establish the second" (that is, God's will). People often confuse God's will with the law without realising it, but here the two stand in the sharpest contrast.

He came to do the will of the LORD. Now faith understands that it is by this will of God that those He has called to Himself for salvation are set apart to God — in other words, are sanctified. This is the will of Him who, in His eternal wisdom, prepared a body for His Son. It is by the will of God that we are set apart for Him, not by our own will, and that by means of the sacrifice offered to God.

Many believers have very mistaken thoughts about sanctification, because they have not searched the Scriptures on the subject. Many who would say they are justified would hesitate to say they are sanctified. Why? They hold the false notion that being sanctified means being holy in nature. They do not find this true of themselves. So they go on hoping to be sanctified, and can never say they are. But sanctification is not to be understood that way. The vessels of the sanctuary were sanctified; but did the gold of those vessels differ from ordinary gold? Certainly not. They were set apart for God according to His will. The sprinkling of blood and the anointing with oil made them vessels for His service.

There is no hint of "creation" here. In this important passage the Spirit's purpose is to teach us the unique nature of that body. It was suited to become the sacrificial offering to God "once for all" (v. 10). So the word "created" is avoided, and "prepared" is used. Because of how it came into being, this "body" had its own special feature: a holiness that belonged to it and had no equal. The Holy Spirit secured that holiness, so that the Son's obedience "to the point of death, even death on a cross" might be shown in it.

The offering is offered, never to be repeated. He is not busy with continual sacrifice as the priests under the law were. He has sat down at the right hand of God, not needing to rise again on this account. Nothing more remains to be offered: "by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." There is never a moment when they are not in the full value of that work before God.

Is it not a sacrifice going on day by day, with the same proof of ineffectiveness as in the Jewish sacrifices? The letter to the Hebrews sets those sacrifices against the offering of Christ's body once for all (Heb. 9, 10), and against its result now to the believer. For where there is forgiveness of sins, "there is no longer any offering for sin."

It is useless and unnecessary to look within. Our faith, our repentance, our experiences and our feelings hold nothing that will bring relief or peace to a burdened conscience. This Scripture takes our thoughts right away from ourselves and fills them with the will of God and the work of Christ.

Under the law, the priest stood. In the tabernacle there was a table, a lampstand, an altar; but there was no seat. The priest kept standing, because his work was never finished — always doing, never done. How like that is much of the work today, where there is no rest for the soul. Provision is made for doing, but never for knowing that a work is done forever.

Under the law, the priest of Israel offered up the daily sacrifice, and the blood of it was good for the day on which it was shed. It neither covered past sins nor future sins. Fresh sins called for fresh blood. There was no lasting value in the blood that was shed. God required constant sacrifices, and the sins of the people required constant offerings. Daily sins had to be met by the sacrifice of that day; but the conscience of the one coming to God was never at rest.

Suppose they could have cleansed the conscience, giving the offerer complete relief about the whole question of sin. Then they would have stopped being offered. We never go on doing what is already done. In fact their effect ran in exactly the opposite direction. They did not clear sins from the conscience for good. Instead, by set ceremony, they brought sins to mind again at least once every year.

Every day the priest stood at his post at the altar, ministering there. He only repeated the same service the next day, or at the next occasion for which that sacrifice was commanded. But all of it was useless when it came to taking away sins. Daily offering — then there was no lack of devoted service at the altar. The same sacrifices — then they did not fail through any neglect of the ritual. So where did they fail? The failure was built into them. For the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sins.

The Apostle spoke of a powerlessness that belonged to the very day he wrote — one that neither time nor repetition could remove. Still, the daily sacrifices were being offered up. If the case rested for eternity on those sacrifices, it was hopeless. How completely and decisively the sinner is driven to the one perfect sacrifice of Christ! It is that, or nothing.

In the Old Testament order of things every priest stands, and never sits down. He never sat down, because his work of sacrifice was never done. Day after day he was ministering and offering, often the same sacrifices, bulls and goats — we read of it in the book of Leviticus. Those sacrifices can never, never take away sins. There is a difference of only one letter between the work of a priest of Aaron's line and such a high priest as ours. It is the difference between "never" and "ever." He sits forever because the work He does is done forever.

The priest under the Levitical system could never sit down, for the obvious reason that his work was never done. There is remarkable force and meaning in the way the inspired writer puts this. "Every priest" — "stands daily" — "offering repeatedly" — "the same sacrifices" — "which can never take away sins." No human language could set out more vividly the dreary monotony and complete uselessness of the Levitical ceremony. How strange that the Christian world, with such a passage of holy Scripture in front of it, has set up a human priesthood with its daily sacrifice!

Under the law, the priest stood. There was in the tabernacle a table, a lampstand, an altar; but there was no seat. The priest stood all the time, because his work was never finished — always doing, never done. Much of the work we see today is like that: the soul gets no rest. There is provision for doing, but never for knowing that a work is done for ever. In contrast with that, our Lord, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down. We know He is at work for us — praying for His people's needs, and all that. But as for the sacrifice, He has offered it — it is finished. What could add to the value of that sacrifice? He offered one sacrifice for sins; there it stands alone in its grandeur, and nothing can add to it.

"After He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sat down." Remove the comma, if it is in your Bible. It does not say He offered a sacrifice for ever, because that would suggest an offering that never ends. It says that when He had offered it once, then He for ever sat down. His seat is eternal, as far as His work goes.

"By one offering He has perfected for ever those who are sanctified." That phrase "for ever" means more than eternally; it means without a break. It carries permanence before God, with no interruption. It is not the word that speaks of eternity, though of course it is that too; but it is permanently perfect before God. Christ is always sitting at the right hand of God — "always" here is the same word — and so our conscience is for ever perfect. Scripture uses it in Hebrews 10:12 to show He has nothing more to do.

The offering made to God on the cross was such that God can say of those who come to Him, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." And the One who made that offering for us pleases God so much that He is now sitting at God's right hand. As for the sacrifice, He has "sat down in perpetuity": there is no repeating it. And as for those He made that perfect offering for, Scripture says, "By one offering He has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified." The sacrifice is perfect, and so is the result. The worshippers, once purged, can stand before a holy God with no more conscience of sins. In this way they honour the work of Christ, and show their faith in what God says about it.

"For ever perfected." No man who understands this can talk of fresh applications of the blood of Christ, or of repeated or continued sacrifices for sins. This takes away the whole system of repetitions and fresh applications. This one sacrifice stands alone, and for ever perfects.

In Hebrews 1:3 the Son has set Himself down "at the right hand of the Majesty on high" because of who He is as Son of God. He did this after having "by Himself" made purification for sins. In Hebrews 10:12 the Lord Jesus again sets Himself down "at the right hand of God." This time it is because of the greatness of His finished work, in that He "offered one sacrifice for sins." That sacrifice never needs repeating, because its effect is infinite and eternal.

The contrast in priesthood is also very striking. The high priest descended from Aaron was weak himself. He needed a sacrifice for himself. He always stood and could never sit down, because he could never present to God a finished work. But the holy, innocent, unstained Son of God offered one sacrifice for sins and sat down — and that forever — at the right hand of God. He has nothing more to do about atonement for sins. He is only "waiting from that time until His enemies should be made a footstool for His feet."

Hebrews 10 uses His seat at God's right hand to show that the work is perfect and finished. It is not always in progress, as with the Jewish priest. If anything, it proves that Christ is not ruling among His enemies. He is waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. In Hebrews 10 He has completed His offering for His friends. From now on He waits for another thing: vengeance on His enemies. "The kingdom," in the full and literal sense of the word, will witness that.

Christ is not yet sitting on His own throne. When He had finished the work on the cross, God said to Him, "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." But the day is coming when He will put down His enemies and sit on His throne. According to the Scriptures, the present state of things is this: Christ is sitting at the right hand of God — until He makes His enemies His footstool. Look at all the wars and uproar and misery and wretchedness and superstition around us. Do you think that Christ is sitting on His throne?

In Hebrews 10:13 we find a remarkable break in the flow. Verse 12 gives the work of the Lord Jesus and its effect, and verse 14 gives the glories of His work in contrast with the many sacrifices of the law. But in between come these words about waiting. ... "Sit at my right hand." Scripture does not present the Lord as now sitting on His own throne, but soon He will. He is now on the Father's throne, but when He sits on His own throne we shall sit with Him (Revelation 3:21, and see Matthew 25:31).

And the Lord Jesus Christ, rejected by man, is sitting at God's right hand as Man, waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. Patient grace is working in the meantime to call sinners to the knowledge of the salvation He has accomplished.

They are not made His footstool yet. If they were, He would not allow matters to go on in the world as they do now. It is another thing that God is doing now. He is gathering out His joint-heirs, and, having this purpose, He says, Sit at my right hand until the time when your enemies shall be made your footstool.

We may well wait if Christ is waiting; but we wait in suffering and conflict. He is waiting to reign. Then He will cause full blessing to flow out for His own, whether in heaven or on earth, and He will banish evil from both.

Christ is waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. We must wait for it, to see the world set right... The idea that goodness is to have its rights in this world is to forget the cross and Christ. We cannot have our rights until He has His, for we have none except His.

Whenever the Holy Spirit teaches this subject fully, His special theme is "once," "once for all." That rules out a sacrifice that continues, as well as one that is repeated… He was not standing and offering repeatedly, like the Jewish priests. When He had offered one sacrifice, He sat down for ever. That is, He did not have to get up and offer anything more. The reason was that by that one offering He had perfected the sanctified for ever.

I am perfected for ever (the words "for ever" meaning not merely for eternity, but what is uninterrupted). As Christ is always at the right hand of God, so we are uninterruptedly before God. There is never a moment when the believer is not the righteousness of God, as standing in Christ… He is my witness that I am perfect — a perfection that never changes.

The precious blood of Christ has settled the whole question of guilt, and settled it for ever. So the believer is perfect as to his conscience (9:9). He could never reach that under Judaism. He knows that all his sins are forgiven (10:14, 17). He has reached the goal that was in view. In this sense he is perfected, though he still has sin in him and, if he is careless, may fall into it. He is not yet perfected as to his person. But he is perfected as to his condition before God — pardoned, and pardoned for ever, by the offering of God's Son.

Those sanctified by His blood are "perfected in perpetuity" by it. Once purged, they have "no more conscience of sins." But this does not mean "no more consciousness of sins" — that is, of committing them. It means we are conscious of the power of that work, which stays before God for us always. There is never a moment's break in this.

Scripture looks at sanctification in two ways. It can be something still going on (1 Thessalonians 5:23). It can also be a settled condition (1 Corinthians 6:11). In Hebrews, apart from one verse, it means a settled condition (2:11; 10:10, 14).

"Sanctified," in the letter to the Hebrews, never means inward sanctification by the Spirit of God… "Sanctify" means "to set apart." When a person believes, God sets him apart from the rest of the world. He puts all the value of the precious blood of Christ upon him… So everyone who believes is sanctified in this sense, and is therefore "perfected forever" by the one offering (v. 14).

The one glorious sacrifice of Christ is of infinite value to God. In righteousness it lets Him bring even the weakest believer into His presence as PERFECTED FOREVER. God says you are perfected forever. It is not because of the amount of your faith or service or walk. It is only because of the infinite value to Him of the one offering of Christ for your sins.

He may be conscious of sin and failure, and there will surely be repentance and confession. This is God's way of restoring the soul when communion has been interrupted… But as to the conscience, Jesus has judged and borne all sins. He has put them away, so that they can be remembered no more… No one who understands this can speak of fresh applications of the blood of Christ, or of repeated or continued sacrifices for sins.

Verses 15-18 give the testimony of the Holy Spirit. It confirms the standing that the sanctified have through the offering of Jesus Christ. The point here is not the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. It is the testimony He gives to the work of Christ, finished down here. Three things about grace stand out in what comes before. First, the will of God decided on the work to be done for us. Second, the sacrifice of Christ carried out this divine will. Third, the Holy Spirit gave His testimony to this will of God, accomplished by Christ.

Now the Apostle presents the witness of the Spirit as the One who brings us the knowledge of the truth with divine authority, so that we may hold it with divine certainty.

But the Holy Spirit stoops to take the place of Witness, and He is completely reliable. It is not here His witness in us as in Romans 8:16. In our passage He is seen as testifying to us from outside, and at once we are pointed to what is written in Jeremiah 31. The words of Jeremiah were the words of the Spirit; his writings the writings of the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit to us is found in the written Word of God.

Here in Hebrews 10 the witness of the Spirit is the Old Testament Scripture, Jeremiah 31. The Spirit of God had dictated those words long before. To a Jewish reader they were therefore a conclusive witness. Under the terms of this covenant, the Spirit of God had promised the whole inward work in people's hearts and minds — the new birth. He had also promised complete forgiveness of sins. This being so, then the Old Testament itself indicated that offerings for sin would cease. This is inescapable. Had the Jews ever considered so plain a fact, set down in their own Scriptures?

God does not say, "I will not remember their sins and their lawless deeds," but "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." The simple statement that God would not remember our sins might imply that He passed them over. But when God says He will remember them "no more", it implies that they have all been remembered, confessed, borne and dealt with in judgment. Because they have been dealt with, God can justly say He will remember them "no more".

And here is the secret of settled peace. If I think that God will ever remember sin, I am denying the will, the work, and the testimony of God. In short, if a believer in Jesus, it comes to being a sin to have the least thought of God's ever imputing a sin to me. It is just as much a work of the flesh as to commit the sin.

We have the witness in us when we believe the witness to us. We have then received the Word into our hearts — and, remember, the Word is the witness.

People often look for the witness of the Holy Spirit in them while they have not believed the witness of the Holy Spirit to them.

But the Holy Spirit stoops to take the place of Witness, and He is completely reliable. This is not His witness in us, as in Romans 8:16. In our passage He is seen testifying to us from outside, and we are sent at once to what is written in Jeremiah 31. The words of Jeremiah were the words of the Spirit; his writings the writings of the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit to us is found in the written Word of God.

The witness of the Holy Spirit is nothing vague, mysterious, or hard to explain. It is a spoken witness and a written witness. Thank God, it is not written in the uncertain, shifting script of moods and feelings, which take one shape today and another tomorrow. The witness of the Spirit is fixed and unchanging.

God does not say, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will not remember." He says, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." A simple statement that God would not remember our sins might suggest He passed them over. But "no more" implies that they have all been remembered, confessed, borne and dealt with in judgment. Because they have been dealt with, God can rightly say He will remember them no more.

These words show that the question of sin had to be settled. God does not say, "I will not remember," but, "I will remember no more." He saw our sins and remembered them, for He decided on the death of Christ to do away with them. And now that they are done away with, He remembers them neither today, tomorrow, nor ever.

It is not that God forgot the things. He does not remember them — hold them in His mind — against them in any way. When I say I forget as well as forgive, that only speaks of how complete the forgiveness is. It does not mean that, if the matter is brought up, my memory no longer knows it as a fact. If I give an account of myself to God, I must do it fully, or I would lose something of the goodness of Him who has called and saved me.

Grace meets those who were once guilty but are now renewed. It comforts those who feel and admit their sinfulness with the assurance of divine forgiveness.

Suppose a believer comes to God today and says, "O God, pardon my sins." Might God not well ask, "What about the work of Christ?" Might He not well say, "I remembered your sins and lawless deeds when My beloved Son was bearing them on the cross, and they are to be remembered no more"?

Here the teaching about the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus comes to an end. Hebrews 2:17-18 touched briefly on His two lines of service, and both have now been opened out. His present high priestly service of intercession fills Hebrews 4:14 — 7:25. His sacrificial service fills Hebrews 7:26 — 10:18. As the writer usually does, he now turns to exhortation for the rest of the letter.

The word used so often in the Old Testament is "atonement," which literally means "covering." ... We read in Hebrews 10:18, "Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin." The word translated "forgiveness" (older versions say "remission") means "a sending away," not just a covering. So in the Old Testament we find a temporary covering of sin while God held back His judgment. It was waiting for the full sending away of sin. Only the death and resurrection of Christ accomplished that.

Then comes the conclusion that must follow (verse 18): "Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin." The very principle that made repetition necessary in the first sacrifice rules it out in the second. Forgiveness follows the shedding of blood that God accepts. The worshippers have been purged once for all, so they have no more conscience of their sins (Hebrews 9:22; 10:2).

There may indeed be a remembrance of this one sacrifice, whatever form it takes. But there cannot be a sacrifice to take away sins that are already taken away. So we stand on completely new ground: by the sacrifice of Christ our sins are entirely put away.

God does not say, "I will not remember their sins and their lawless deeds." He says, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." Simply saying He would not remember our sins might suggest He passed them over. But "no more" means He has already remembered them all, and they have been confessed, borne and dealt with in judgment. Because they have been dealt with, God can justly say He will remember them no more.

When these words were written, Jewish sacrifices were still going on at Jerusalem. But they were worthless as offerings for sin, and soon they were all swept away... And yet a very large part of the Christian world still bows down before what they call "the sacrifice of the mass." What a great sin this is! It is worse than keeping up the Jewish sacrifices would have been, if that had been possible.

The Jews will have the forgiveness of their sins, but they will also have sacrifices appointed as reminders of the one effective sacrifice of Christ, offered and accepted once for all.

Do you ask, Does that mean I will never again be aware of failure and sin? No, not at all. The nearer we are to God, the more aware we are of failure. It means this: all your sins were laid on Jesus and purged by His atoning death, so God never charges one of them to you again... There is no question of repeated offerings, repeated sprinklings, or fresh applications. All that is Jewish, and has now vanished away.

Under the Old Testament the Jews did not know this full forgiveness. They received a kind of pardon for each sin they committed. But the veil shut them out of the holiest. It hung in front of the place where God revealed Himself... Then came the real work that all these things pictured: the death of the Saviour. The veil of the temple tore in two from top to bottom. Now, on the strength of the work of Christ and the forgiveness of our sins, we are urged to draw near.

What did it all mean? It certainly pointed forward to the blood of Christ as the only ground of approach to God. Yet through the whole arrangement the Holy Spirit was saying something else: in the old system there was no real approach to God at all. The way in was not yet made known... as long as the first tabernacle still had its standing before God, the rule was: no admittance.

The word for boldness means "all speech" — speaking everything, no concealment, perfect liberty. We do not come as people who hold something back in mind or heart. We do not come hiding things we have never brought into the light of His presence, things we would be afraid to have brought out... What possibility of concealment is there in His holy presence? Yet we have boldness, we have all speech, to enter His sanctuary by Christ's precious blood!

Suppose we claimed boldness to enter there because of our love or holiness, our new nature, or even a ceremony God Himself gave. That would be sheer and shameless presumption. Yet here it is calmly claimed for Christians. They are urged in the strongest terms to approach God's presence by faith, without a doubt or a cloud, now that their sins are gone. Boldness to enter there is due to the blood of Jesus. Only unbelief hinders.

Do I have boldness to draw near to God on the ground that I have known Him for many years? Or that I have had a happy past experience? Or that I have been serving the Lord faithfully and have honoured Him? No — by the blood of Jesus. That precious blood, which has glorified God, is our only title to enter there.

Remember, this is not about entering a place or temple of worship on earth. It is really the holiest of all, the very presence of God in heaven. Now then, reader, does the blood of Jesus give you boldness to enter? Or do you need something else? Whatever it is, it would deny the eternal value of that one sacrifice. It is not that we hope to have it. We have it now: "since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus."

No Jew, not even the high priest, had boldness to enter the holiest made with hands. We have boldness to enter the holiest not made with hands — in spirit now, and in actual presence when the Lord comes. A converted Hebrew reading this would say to himself at once: we are made priests, in a far higher sense than Aaron's family ever were. He would be right!

This chapter also ruled out the idea of a sacrificing priesthood down here, standing between me and God. The work of Christ has given us our position: direct access to God in full confidence.

The verse calls it "a new and living way." Literally it means "a newly slaughtered way." It rests on the offering of a recent sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ. In that way He has opened a way in for us "through the veil, that is to say His flesh." Even now, so long after that sacrifice, it still holds its power, still "a newly slaughtered way."

Under the law, for anyone to draw near to the presence of God was death; under Christ, it is death to stay away. What a wonderful contrast! Under the law, fire came out from the sanctuary and struck down anyone who dared to draw near. Through the work of Christ we now draw near, and the way is a way of life. The nearer we live to our blessed God, the more we will know the strength, freshness and energy of that life. We draw it from a divine source.

The veil separated the two holy places, and it is explained for us here: "that is to say, His flesh." His perfect Manhood was an absolute barrier to man's entrance into God's presence. In that blessed Manhood of Christ, God had shown that only perfection satisfied Him. But the death of Christ — the tearing of the veil from top to bottom — is the wonderful work that opens the way into God's presence for sinners.

A crucified Christ is the torn veil through which we draw near to God. The marks of the tearing will always remain. In the risen Lord we have the memorial of His finished work and the witness of His perfect humanity, all there — not as a barrier to the soul, but as the very way of access to God.

In the tabernacle God was shut up within the veil. On His part there was no coming out, and on man's part there was no going in… On the cross this veil was torn. The death of Christ was the tearing of the veil… God has come out to man in perfect love, and now man can go in to God by that way which has been dedicated through the veil… So not only are our consciences purged; our hearts are won too. God's presence, which we so much dreaded, has become our eternal home, and nowhere in the universe are we so welcome.

The verse says the way is "through the veil, that is, His flesh," meaning His Manhood. It is by becoming man He has opened the way for us into the presence of God. Both revelation and approach are complete in Him… The tearing of the veil of the Temple when He died pictures God coming out in revelation in Him. The veil of the Tabernacle shows more of our going in to God. That is the building this letter has in view, not the Temple.

The other reference is in Hebrews 10:20, where it is rendered in the Authorised Version as "consecrated," but is actually the word "dedicated," and is so translated by J. N. Darby.

The death of our Substitute has become the way of life and blessing to us, the way to God. It has removed our sins and met the question of our sinful nature… We can draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, by a new and living way, which He has dedicated for us. What a word that is! Shall we be indifferent to, and despise, a way that He has dedicated for us at such a cost?

It is literally a great Priest over the house of God, or "great High Priest," as we have it in the fourth chapter. The worshippers themselves now enter the privileged place of the High Priest. In this respect they take the standing of high priests, not simply of priests entering the holy place. So they need a great Priest — one who is over the house, even over them. This must not be forgotten. We are not priests in our own right, and we have no right of our own to move freely in the house — everything hangs on the great Priest.

We next read of the One who represents us in the sanctuary before God — a great Priest, as He is called. He is Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and so far surpasses Aaron or any of his line.

In verse 21 He is called, not a High Priest, but a "Great Priest over the house of God." Earlier in the letter we read of Him as both Priest and Son, and then it added, "and we are His house" (Hebrews 3:6). We are God's house, God's priestly family. Over us is this Great Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we have full access to God.

Moses was faithful in God's house in the wilderness as a servant. Christ is over God's House — made up of God's people — as Son. So presenting the people of God as the House of God shows where Christ exercises His priesthood.

Verse 21 gives a third encouragement to enjoy this access in practice. Without it all the rest would be in vain. We could never feel at ease in God's most holy presence without knowing one thing. He who is the living way of our access is Himself in that presence for ever as the ministering Priest. His constant intercession is the power that sustains His people's hope.

His finished work on the Cross gives us boldness to draw near. His unfinished work, His present priestly service, lets us stand with confidence before our God and Father as glad worshippers. So even now our offerings of praise through Him may be more and more abundant, though the darkness deepens in the Christian world.

In heaven itself Christ now appears before the face of God for us. Through His sacrifice we no longer have any consciousness of sins, and He is there as the proof that we are perfected without a break. He is above to maintain us, despite our weakness and exposure here, according to the cleansing of His blood and the nearness it gives to those who believe.

To draw near through any man-appointed leader or priest is to ignore the priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ… It is true that all who are living stones in the spiritual house, of which Christ is the Cornerstone, are also "a holy priesthood." He has washed them from their sins in His blood and made them "priests to His God and Father" (Rev. 1:6). But there is no other High Priest but Himself.

This is the first exhortation founded on the teaching about the sacrificial service of our High Priest, and it is a most significant one. For we have read nothing of what Christians have done, or could do, to entitle them to such an invitation. The whole teaching of the section (7:26 — 10:18) has been about the Lord Jesus, and what He has done and has suffered. Now the blessed consequence to believers is that they have boldness to enter the Holiest by His blood. They have done nothing towards this. They could do nothing... All boasting is for ever silenced as we read that we have this boldness only by (or in virtue of) the blood of Jesus.

Aaron entered the holiest with fear and trembling. God gave Moses the words "that he die not" (Lev. 16:2, 13) to pass on to Aaron. How different it is now! We have "boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Answering to the picture of the consecration of the priests, we have "our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." We are not shut out of the holiest, the immediate presence of God. We are urged to "draw near with a true heart, and in full assurance of faith."

And what is a true heart? A heart that knows and believes that in itself it is utterly untrue and not to be trusted. In Luke 8:15 we read of the "honest and good heart." That is a heart which believes what God says about the heart of man: it is "deceitful above all things, and desperately sick" (Jer. 17:9). It comes to God without trying to shield itself.

These two things are what we may call the necessary moral qualifications which we ought to have. We may be converted. But full assurance in our minds comes from a simple faith in the work of Christ, and in the witness of the Holy Spirit that the question of our sins is fully settled. Without that assurance we cannot enjoy the presence of God. Nor can we enjoy it unless our hearts are true — that is, marked by sincerity under the influence of the truth, and without deceit.

This scripture holds two things — the qualification, and the condition for "drawing near"; that is, for entering the holiest to worship... Our hearts, in the first place, must be sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. This clearly points to the power of the blood of Christ, which leaves the believer with no more conscience of sins (v. 2). By His one offering He has perfected for ever those who are sanctified (v. 14).

The "body washed with pure water" refers to what was done at the consecration of the priests (Ex. 29:4). It answers to "the washing of regeneration" (Titus 3:5): the word of God brings us out of a world in open rebellion against God, and into whole-hearted allegiance to the Son of His love. Baptism expresses this spiritual reality outwardly. But "the washing of regeneration" is not baptism. Baptism is the mere shadow, and not the substance.

They had the shadow, we have the substance — THE DEATH OF CHRIST. It works in two directions. As BLOOD it cleanses us judicially and gives us a perfect standing before God. As WATER it cleanses us morally, cutting us off from the old life we once lived and bringing us into the new.

Now he urges, "Let us consider one another to stir up love and good works." All this time the eye has been on Christ… Notice it comes at the close, not at the beginning. You cannot get your salvation from your fellow Christians, or your assurance. You cannot get your freedom to worship from them, or your perseverance to the end. Keep your eye fixed on Christ alone for all these things. Once you have all that in your soul, settled there by the Spirit of God, you can turn your eye to your fellow believers.

Provoking to love and good works is done by showing such character cheerfully in our own lives, and encouraging others in such things. But let us notice that good works are not considered until after the great work of the Lord Jesus is seen to be the only resting place of the soul, the only real foundation of blessing. After that, good works have their true, real value, as a proper result of the knowledge of eternal salvation.

The grace of God has so richly met all our personal need… an opened heaven — a torn curtain — a crowned and seated Saviour — a great High Priest — a perfectly cleansed conscience — boldness to enter — a hearty welcome. We have all these marvellous blessings in full possession. So what have we got to do? Consider ourselves? No indeed; that would be unnecessary and sinfully selfish. We could not possibly do as well for ourselves as God has done for us… What remains? Simply to "consider one another"… to be on the lookout for opportunities of doing good; to seek in a thousand little ways to make hearts glad.

Sadly, too often we provoke one another to hard and bitter thoughts, by fault-finding and unkind, perhaps even unfair, criticism. It is so easy to find fault with fellow believers. But spirituality and the love of Christ in our hearts will see their graces and good points. Then we will think of them as loved by the Father and given by Him to Christ, as accepted and beautiful in His sight. And let us remember there are some unlovely things in ourselves.

You may be able to see very little of Christ in me, but you are told to provoke me to greater devotion. How can you do this? You must lavish your love on me. How would you fix a pump if it were dry? Pour a few buckets of water into it. Soon the sparkling water will flow out in refreshing, continuous streams. Now this is how you are to deal with the sleepy, half-dead brother or sister. Let such a person see in you what you long to find in him. Then by your love you will provoke him to renewed energy in the divine way.

The expression is remarkable — "consider one another." Only One, the Lord Himself, stands in the authoritative place of Priest to the saints; therefore we are to consider one another… We can only do this as we stand in grace ourselves, and recognise others as standing in the same grace and the same nearness to God… There is no room for rivalry now — all are priests. But there is plenty of room for love. The love that has brought us where we stand is the measure of our love for each other.

The more carefully we consider Him, the more we shall be fitted and inclined to consider all who belong to Him, whoever and wherever they may be. Show us a man full of Christ, and we will show you a man full of love, and care, and interest for every member of the body of Christ. It must be so.

Exhortations often fall flat because we do not know each other. How seldom are we near enough to each other in our inner lives to encourage or urge one another on! Yet as children of God and members of Christ, we are in a relationship to one another that is nearer and more lasting than any other can be.

It is a serious thing to read "not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some," so close to apostasy. But so it is. The habit is not only unworthy of Christians but dangerous... Little as the beginning seems to some, it is the beginning of a great and possibly fatal evil.

The deliberate sin is turning away from the Christian faith. The Apostle is not speaking of a backslider who may go back into the world, like Demas, of whom we read in another letter. Such a person can be recovered. The apostate does more than give up Christianity. After professing it, he takes up some human religion. In effect he says, "I have tried Christianity, but I find Judaism, or Buddhism, or some other religion, better."

For Israel under the law, deliberate sin had no remedy. The law allowed none. Under grace there is a perfect resource for all sins — "the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." Only one deliberate sin is now without resource: turning away from Christianity. That is, giving up Christ and His sacrifice.

If they left Christianity, what other divine provision was there that could help them before the throne of God?... "There no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." That solemn statement shuts the door against everything besides the sacrifice of Christ... The language is decisive, so no one should mistake what lies ahead. No sacrifice remains. So a sacrifice was needed. Why speak of none remaining, if men could get to heaven without one?

The sacrifices were still going on at Jerusalem, but there was no reality any more in anything there. They are not failing saints but adversaries. As such, they must expect a worse judgment than under the law of Moses — worse in proportion to the greatness of what they despised.

No sacrifice then remains. At the close of the ninth chapter we saw the believer waiting for the Saviour from heaven. In place of that there is nothing but "a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries." The future is one of terror. Nothing can soften the dreadful doom awaiting those who have lined up on the side of the adversaries of God.

We do live in a day when the good news of God's grace is preached. But it is just that fact which increases the severity of the judgment... Grace makes known to us things of infinite greatness. To despise them is a sin of infinite greatness — far graver than despising the law of Moses with its holy demands.

Their state is wholly in contrast with the apostate boldness described in this chapter as well as in Hebrews 6. There is nothing really in common. The apostate is as self-satisfied as he is scornful toward Christ. He hates the truth all the more because he once professed it. The tried and shaken believer condemns himself without sparing, and wants faithfulness to Christ above all things. The great remedy, valued by few, is confidence in His grace — a fuller sense of His work in judging sinful flesh, not forgiveness of sins only. He is also the believer's advocate when he fails.

Curse me and kill me on the spot! Is there no mercy? Not in the law! There is no mercy at Mount Sinai. If a man stands before that fiery mount, the terrible choice is duty or damnation. There is no middle ground.

When God set up this offering, the sins in view were those committed "through ignorance." Here we see the compassion of our God shining out. He knew well the weakness, ignorance and forgetfulness that mark poor, fallen humanity, and so He made this provision. Sin committed deliberately, in cold-blooded defiance of God, is not in view here... God is a God of mercy, but the law itself has no mercy in it. So the merciful provision of the sin and trespass offerings only took effect where the root of the sin was ignorance, not wilfulness.

The Law dealt only with outward acts. It condemned men for their deeds. So its punishments fell on what people could see and hear. Witnesses were therefore necessary to establish legal judgment... The Law thus worked effectively as a ministry of death.

The point pressed is not "before," or "in the presence of" witnesses... but at the agreeing testimony of two or three... The sense is that the despising transgressor died without mercy, but on the testimony of two or three.

What was to be handed out to one who despised Moses' law? Death without pity was the penalty appointed there (Deuteronomy 13:1-11; 17:2-13).

Clearly then, despising God's commandments shows deeper opposition to His will than setting them aside.

Those who despised the law of Moses died without mercy. What then must those deserve at the hand of God who trampled the Son of God underfoot? They counted the blood of the covenant, by which they had been set apart, a common thing, and they insulted the Spirit of grace. It was not simple disobedience, however evil that might be. It was contempt of the grace of God, and of what He had done in the Person of Jesus, to deliver us from the consequences of disobedience.

Is God less holy under grace than He is under law? Does He think less of denial of His holy, spotless Son than of dishonour done to the commandments written and engraved in stone?

The state of such believers is wholly in contrast with the apostate boldness described in this chapter and in Hebrews 6. There is nothing in common. The apostate is as pleased with himself as he is proud toward Christ, and hates the truth the more because he once professed it. The tried and shaken believer condemns himself without excuse and wants faithfulness to Christ above all things.

The Jews knew Moses' law well. It demanded death for anyone who rebelled against it, once qualified witnesses established the case. But God's glory revealed in the Person of His Son goes infinitely beyond God's speaking by the law of Moses. If judgment under the law was that severe, then the far greater evil of the crime against the Son of God demands a far greater judgment.

The gospel presents to us, first, the Son of God; second, His precious blood, as the blood of the new covenant; third, the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of grace. Now what does the man who abandons the faith do — especially the Jew who professed Christianity, gives it up, and goes back to Judaism? He tramples the first under foot. He counts the second an unholy thing. He utterly despises the third. He treats the very things that bring salvation with the utmost scorn and contempt. There is nothing beyond them, nothing but judgment. He will deserve every bit of judgment he gets. All this, note well, is a vastly different thing from a true believer growing cold and careless and so falling into sin.

It was not simple disobedience, however evil that might be. It was contempt for the grace of God, and for what He had done in the Person of Jesus to deliver us from the consequences of disobedience. On the one hand, if they knew what it was and still renounced it, what was left for them? On the other hand, how could they escape judgment?

If they now abandoned the infinite sacrifice of the Saviour which they had confessed up to that point, there was no other that could avail for their sins. None had real and everlasting efficacy but that one; and those who gave it up, after owning it, were absolutely without resource… Of course in their case it had been mere profession, and the sanctification only outward, separating them from their Jewish fellows.

As we have already seen, "sanctification" in Hebrews is outward — a matter of position. It is not the work of the Spirit of God in the soul by new birth… Nowhere does Scripture mean that a single sheep of Christ can ever perish. Our Lord's own words put the seal on this: "I give them eternal life," and "no one will snatch them out of My hand."

Here it speaks of a person with a Jewish background who has professed to be a Christian but then abandons that profession… The Holy Spirit does not use the present participle, for sanctification is not characteristic of this person. He does not use the perfect tense either, for no sanctification has been accomplished for him. He uses the aorist, which simply means that an event happened in the past, without implying a lasting consequence.

The Spirit of grace has testified to the value of that blood of the covenant. So to deny its value is a direct insult to the Holy Spirit… How true it is, also, that sin against one Person of the Godhead is sin against all. If a man tramples the Son of God under foot, he has also insulted the Holy Spirit, and denied God the Father, the giver of the Son.

Such passages hold no terror for those who judge themselves. Knowing they are utterly unworthy in themselves, they rejoice in Jesus as their sure salvation… The heart that grieves in deep dismay over how little good it has done is in no mood to reject the ministry of grace, or to count the blood of Christ a common thing.

It was not simple disobedience, however evil that might be. It was contempt of the grace of God, and of what He had done in the Person of Jesus to deliver us from the consequences of disobedience. On the one hand, what was there left, if with the knowledge of what it was, they renounced this? On the other hand, how could they escape judgment? For they know a God who had said that vengeance belonged to Him, and that He would repay. And again: the Lord would judge His people.

"The Lord will judge — vindicate, defend or avenge — His people. He will have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining." Precious grace for Israel in the days to come — and for each and all now who feel and admit their need!

The Lord does of course judge His saints today, and 1 Corinthians 11:30-32 makes this plain enough. But this passage is limited to Israel. The quotation comes from Deuteronomy 32.

The writer adds two quotations from Deuteronomy 32:35-36 to confirm the teaching of a special judgment on the one who contradicts God and the one who abandons the faith. The Lord will judge His people. He is already standing at the door, ready to visit the great house that claims His name and to deal with it justly, according to what it really is. It is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, when He comes armed for vengeance to destroy His enemies.

If He punished the vile practices of the doomed nations that had pushed into His land, He chastens His own people far more strictly. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2).

The Lord may, and does, chastise His people when they turn aside from His ways. But however hard His rod falls on them, they will still confess with David that His mercies are great. Sooner or later He will also deal with those who merely profess His name and then abandon it. For them His rod will be one of vengeance and "recompense" for their defiant rebellion.

If we keep silent when insulted, it is not that there is no answer to evil and malice. It is that the answer is left with God. We are never to try to take vengeance on the wrongdoer. God retains all vengeance in His own hands... Our part then is to follow in the steps of the Lord Jesus. When insulted, we commit ourselves to Him who judges justly. We remember the word that says, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'" (Rom. 12:19).

In verse 32 we again see that, though these warnings were given for the sake of some, the writer had every confidence that most of the people he wrote to were true believers. He remembered the earlier days when they suffered much persecution for their faith, and he called on them to remember those days too. He appealed to them not to throw away their confidence at this late point in their history.

But most people know the moment when the light first came to them. If there is one moment of moral energy in the history of a soul, it is the day that soul was made alive. Why do you and I not carry the strength of that moment with us? Is the Jesus we have now a different Jesus? I know there was a day when all was over between God and me. Now the day has come when all is over between the world and me. That is practical Christianity.

There is always the danger of drawing back from the path of faith because of the shame and suffering it brings. These believers had begun well. The truth had enlightened them, and at once they found themselves in conflict for the truth.

"Call to mind the former days," the time of their first love, when they were first enlightened. These truths of God first flashed into their souls and brought peace and joy and comfort. Then they endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Their own relatives, perhaps members of their own family, handed them over to the council. When they confessed Christ, they found that their own parents had turned their backs on them! Those who had once held them in regard now looked at them with suspicion. They were branded as blasphemers "against Moses" "and this holy place and the law," because they declared for Jesus and the resurrection.

This appeal would have real effect on those souls who were genuine. They could not easily overturn the reality of what they had suffered for the Lord's sake in their first stand for Him, and for identifying themselves with the believers who were suffering. Only a hard, untrue heart could renounce all this.

What better way could there be to keep those who truly loved the Lord from dishonouring Him, than to remind them of what they had already endured for His sake, by His grace? This would not feed pride. It would stir them up to endure still more for Him, who had endured so much for them... Perhaps what tempted them most at this time was not so much outward persecution, the enduring of a hard struggle with sufferings. The greater pull was something more subtle and deadly: a sleepiness of soul that makes turning away from the Lord possible.

Slackening off is always a danger for soldiers on active service, and Christians here below always are on service... Still, the great safeguard is against throwing away their confidence, their boldness of soul, which is the inner root of outward suffering and of service.

They were made a public spectacle, held up to the scorn and mockery of others. It was like Stephen. They brought him before the council. His face was lit up with the light of heaven itself, yet they insulted him, threw him out of the city and stoned him. So these Hebrew Christians had tasted similar sufferings in some degree.

Christ Himself did not stand alone; He was the friend of tax collectors and sinners. There may be a harder trial than standing alone for the truth. In some cases, joining yourself to others calls for a higher quality. The first position needs courage; the second needs grace. You may not fear blows: do you fear being laughed at?

They were either persecuted like this themselves, or they were companions of those who suffered. See how the Spirit of God dwells on any faithfulness there had been to the name of the Lord Jesus, however small! It counted even when it showed itself only by standing with those who were the direct targets of persecution.

In verse 32 we see again that the writer gave these warnings for the sake of some. Even so, he was fully confident that most of his readers were true believers. He remembered the earlier days when they suffered much persecution for their faith, and he called on them to remember as well. He urged them not to throw away their confidence so late in their history.

This appeal would have real effect on those who were genuine. They could not easily throw away what they had truly suffered for the Lord's sake when they first stood for Him, and when they identified themselves with the believers who were suffering. Only a hard, untrue heart could disown all this.

The Apostle also warns us not to be discouraged by suffering, reproach and affliction. There is always the danger of shrinking back from the path of faith because it brings reproach and suffering. These believers had begun well. The truth had opened their eyes, and at once they found themselves in conflict for the truth. But they held out in that conflict, and they joined themselves with all their heart to those who were suffering for Christ's Name.

The one cleansed by the blood will find that he is called to share the Lord's reproach and shame, as he seeks to walk a path that follows His Word… No one has ever tasted reproach and shame as deeply as He has. But you and I, dear fellow-believer, have the privilege of carrying some measure of His reproach. May He grant us to count it greater riches than this poor world can offer!

He now urges them to remember those in prison. They are not to feel mere pity, but to share in spirit with those in affliction, even though they themselves may be free. What a lovely identification of faith with the suffering people of God! "If one member suffers, all suffer together" — "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

Instead of "me in my bonds," read "prisoners"; for "in yourselves," substitute "for yourselves"; and omit the words "in heaven."… It was a time of persecution. The saints courageously, in faithfulness to Christ, showed their sympathy with those imprisoned for Christ's sake and identified themselves with them. This exposed them to the hostility of their opponents, and so they lost their earthly possessions.

The Hebrew believers had begun well. The letter urges them here to keep on enduring the fierce conflict with the enemy… To some of feeble faith such sympathy is no small trial; to others, the plunder of their property. These saints had shone in both respects.

It was no small matter to have linked themselves with prisoners who suffered for Christ. It left them exposed to the ungodly persecutor. He thought he had every right to plunder their possessions, since everyone held them in contempt. But faith could rise above grieving over passing loss: they had what was their own, a better and enduring substance.

An opposing mob smashed up some of their homes. It would have been a great thing if they had faced that loss with resignation and meekness — but in fact they faced it with joyfulness. This underlined a glorious fact in their minds. Their real portion lay outside earth and in heaven, far beyond the reach of all their opponents.

Their faith was so active, and Christ was so real to their hearts as their treasure, that they joyfully accepted the plundering of their property… They willingly suffered the loss of all things for the sake of Christ. It is a blessed record, and a powerful testimony to what Christ is for His people in the fires of persecution.

In the later verses of that chapter we learn that we therefore possess "substance" of an eternal kind. It is "better" than anything promised to Israel under the law. If they had obeyed, they would have prospered and increased in their families and all earthly possessions. The Hebrew Christian had substance lying outside earthly things.

And what made the heavenly portion that was theirs so real to them? The answer is in the first verse of Hebrews 11. In Darby's New Translation it reads, "Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Faith substantiated the better and enduring substance to the early Hebrew Christian.

This repeating of such searching warnings within one letter plainly shows that the believers he addressed had lost some of their former love… They needed waking from this dream. Leading them to look again at the rich blessings of their heavenly inheritance would restore them to themselves… They had lost the things people naturally prize, without a murmur — indeed, with joy. They were firmly persuaded that the love of Christ had won for them in heaven a better and more enduring substance.

We must know the better thing by experience, and hold dear the hope of "good things to come." Only then can we gain full victory over present things and our own worldly desires… If we are really waiting for the appearing of the glory, we will stand apart from everything that will be judged in that day.

The apostle urges them not to throw away or cast off their confidence, because a great reward is laid up for them in heaven… It is the same word that is translated "boldness" earlier in this chapter: "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus." They were not to cast away this boldness. They were to hold fast the joy of their hope and keep their confidence firm to the end.

In all they did and suffered then, the moving spring was hopeful confidence in Jesus. They were to keep that firmly (verse 35). For Jesus had not changed. Suppose they compared their first love and its effects with the reduced zeal that had since made the apostle's heart sad. If that made them question their own sincerity, they were wrong. What they did earlier was rightly done. And God was not unrighteous to forget their work. They must not cast away their confidence, because He was faithful to preserve the trust they had once placed in Jesus.

If someone casts away confidence in the living God, that confidence proves to be very deficient, for God Himself has not changed. Persecution tests it, no doubt, and the apostle would strengthen souls to stand by true, living faith.

The great guard is against casting away their confidence or boldness of soul, the root within of outward suffering as of service. Patient endurance is needed as ever. The love of Christ is its spring, glory with Him is its only hope, and the road is doing the will of God as He did it perfectly. The reward He assures cannot be separated from His coming, which here, as elsewhere, is kept right in front of the Christian.

They are called not to cast away their confidence and its great recompense. True, they needed endurance. But let them remember that the end of everlasting joy is near. He who is coming will come and will not delay, and it is yet a very little while. What blessed grounds to persevere in faith! They had long walked in Christ's path: a few trials more might be theirs. All above is glorious, and He is coming quickly.

He remembered, and he called on them to remember, the earlier days when they suffered much persecution for their faith, and he appealed to them not to cast away their confidence at this late hour in their history. An abundant recompense was coming for any loss they had suffered here.

"Do not throw away your confidence," for it thus shows that it has "a great reward." Faith is a principle that grasps two different things about God. It views Him as one who justifies the ungodly, as in Romans 4. But here it grasps God as "a rewarder of those who seek Him." The moment you grasp God by a faith that does not work, you enter on a faith that does work. And while we rightly value a faith that saves our souls, let us not be indifferent to a faith that serves our Saviour. How boldly we sometimes assert our title, but do we value our inheritance?

He reminds them that they need patience, as we all do — or, as the word really is, "endurance." And it is tribulation that "produces endurance, and endurance produces character." Character and endurance do not come from an unexercised life. They needed that endurance which stayed under every stress, so that after they had done the will of God, they would still hold to Him, and so obtain the promise laid up for them in heaven.

The word for endurance comes from a verb meaning "to sustain." It is translated "enduring" in one place (2 Cor. 1:6), and "patient continuance" in another (Rom. 2:7), and that sense is fully part of the word. It is a "patient endurance" that does not give way under trial and suffering… It is never applied to God directly, because there could be no such testing or pressure in regard to Him. But the Lord Jesus, in the place He has taken as Man, is our perfect example in it, Heb. 12:2-3.

When He was here He did God's will only, and that is why the apostle Paul says, "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done (what Jesus did) the will of God you may receive what is promised" (Heb. 10:36)… A man who is doing the will of God is not living for himself. His only thought is to do what God wishes. And that is exactly what the blessed Lord did here.

If someone throws away confidence in the living God, that confidence is shown to be badly lacking, for God Himself has not changed. Persecution tests it, no doubt, and the apostle would strengthen souls to stand by true, living faith. Patient endurance would gain its reward. God's will for every believer is that hard experience should prove his trust is really in the living God.

As Jews, they might associate with the Christ freedom from suffering and promotion to high honour; but as Christians, their portion is to share His sufferings for righteousness and love and truth. No mistake is more common in Christendom than looking for present reward and distinction and ease through the gospel and the church… It is through suffering in faith and patience that we are disciplined and bear fruit to Him who chooses in this way to prune the branches of the vine.

One thing only was necessary: that they should continue with endurance doing the will of God. Then without fail all that had been promised would be fulfilled to them. Their very position was that they had "fled for refuge" to "hold fast to the hope set before us" (6:18). That hope was abundantly sure, but its fulfilment can only be at the coming of the Lord, as verse 37 shows.

Finally, the apostle gives them the cheer that it is only a little while that there will be need for this endurance… At any moment the welcome shout, with the voice of the trumpet, may be heard from heaven, and saints snatched from their place of trial will enter into the joy of the Lord. This very inducement is held out for perseverance. This sharp trial may be the last. This temptation to turn into an easier path may be followed by the coming of the Lord.

There is nothing that the soul of the believer is more brought to feel than that he has "need of endurance" (Heb. 10:36); but if he is hindered by anything from finding God to be "the God of peace," if sorrow and trial hinder this, there is the will of the flesh at work. There cannot be the quiet doing of God's will if the mind is troubled and unsettled about a thousand things.

Jewish believers, when disheartened, might naturally look back at their old setting of visible splendour. If so, the danger is pressed on them with great seriousness: the danger of abandoning all God had now done in Christ and given to faith. They are called not to throw away their confidence and its great reward. True, they needed endurance. But let them remember that the end of everlasting joy is at hand; for He that comes (and it is yet a very little while) will come and will not delay. What blessed grounds to persevere in faith! They had long walked in Christ's path: a few trials more might be theirs.

A modern preacher would say: "Yet a little while, and this scene will close. Death will put an end to your troubles. You will depart to be with Jesus, which is far better." But this is not the language of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the Holy Spirit, knowing the mind of God, always puts the Lord's coming, and not death, as the expectation of the Christian.

From this quotation we learn that the vision which will surely come is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the centre of every vision, and without Him there is no vision.

What a wonderful hope is before us — nothing short of our blessed Lord Himself... In Hebrews 10:37 the word that qualifies "little" comes twice over. That gives the force of "ever so little." What follows makes it stronger still: "will come and will not delay." Very remarkable words, are they not?

Near the end of his life the apostle Paul comforts the Hebrew believers. He assures them that in a very little while the Coming One will come, and will not delay. "The very little while" in the one passage matches the delay of the bridegroom in the other. Once that delay is over, He will come and "will not delay." The two are in full harmony. When the apostle wrote, the Lord had already delayed. He did not know the hour of His return. He was inspired to announce only that it would be sure and soon.

Hebrews 10:37 does not deal with His coming (parousia) for the Church, to take up all saints. It deals with His appearing (epiphania) as King. That appearing, just as much as His coming, is what we expect. For then Christ's reign on earth will begin — the subject of nearly every Old Testament prophecy — and the faithful ones will receive their crowns.

How happy it is that before that time arrives Christ will come for His Church... How sweet and happy is our prospect.

In contrast to the wicked, the godly will find in this delay an occasion for the exercise of faith... So the people of God, in the prophet's day or in ours, are urged to run with spiritual energy, to wait with patience, and to live by faith.

Do not miss the contrast in the last verse of our chapter. It lies between drawing back to ruin and believing to the salvation of the soul. This is more proof, if any were needed, that the contrast in Hebrews is not between believers who do well and believers who do badly and so (as some suppose) may perish. It is between those who truly believe to salvation and those who only profess, and who draw back to their eternal ruin.

Men could not be saved while giving up this faith. Drawing back from Christ would be drawing back to ruin. Yet in the same letter this apostle puts those who had believed to salvation in a completely different class from those who could fall away. He writes, "we are not of those who shrink back" — not simply, "who have shrunk back," which there would be no need to say, but "who shrink back." We are not the kind of people who do that. We are "of those who have faith and preserve their souls." That is the class we belong to.

Like all the strong warnings of that letter, this one goes first to a body of professing Christians. They had been trained in Judaism, and they were in danger of being pulled back under its influence... Yet while the letter warns a body of professors, it shows the fullest confidence about individual believers... It is always good to distrust ourselves; but we can never go too far in trusting God. The worst of it is that those who really need the warning do not heed it. They go on in a light and careless way. Meanwhile the warnings frighten those who seek to walk with a tender conscience and an honest heart, though they do not apply to them at all.

But the apostle, as he always does, cannot leave the subject with those solemn words. True faith must have a word of cheer, and so in the last verse he puts himself alongside them, alongside all true believers... We are of those who believe. Our faith is not the short-lived kind — like the seed on rocky ground, which lasts a season and then withers away under pressure.

Soul-salvation in these scriptures must include the salvation from judgment that is ours when we believe, when we receive the forgiveness of sins and God justifies us on the principle of faith. But on its positive side it takes in the present enjoyment in the soul of that salvation which, in its fullness, is ready to be revealed. It is ours in this world now, because it is "in Christ."

After the appeals and encouragements that close chapter 10, we find in chapter 11 a review of the great lives of the Old Testament. The aim is to put before the Hebrews all the resources of faith... Now this is what faith is.

Christendom has drawn back by way of imitation. It has copied the Jewish system. Once again it puts up magnificent temples with visible altars, and appoints official priests to conduct elaborate ceremonies. These appeal to the eye and to the natural man, and they raise no question of conversion or new birth. So Christendom has not given up the profession of Christianity to go back to Judaism. Instead it has tried to attach Judaism to Christianity. The result is that Christendom is losing the vital truths of Christianity, which only a true believer can enter. At the same time it keeps the outward things of Judaism that the natural man can appreciate.