But Christ being come high priest of the good things to come, by the better and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, (that is, not of this creation,)
Chapter 9 has just described the earthly tent and its closed inner room. Now Christ appears, and everything turns: a new Priest, a new sanctuary, a new sacrifice — and fresh questions about the "good things," the greater tent, and how He came.
The verse does not swap one part of the old system for a better one. It replaces the whole arrangement.
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".
The ESV reads "the good things that have come." Older translations read "good things to come," and the writers quoted here work from that older wording. They differ over the timing. Some read the phrase from where Israel stood under the law, and hold that the good things are still ahead.
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.
Others start from the same point and land somewhere else — the blessings believers enjoy now.
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.
The ESV's "tent" is what older translations call the tabernacle. "Not made with hands" tells us where His ministry is, and rules out any earthly building raised in His honour.
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.
Writers do not agree on how far this tent reaches. Some take it as heaven itself. Others see something wider:
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 placement of one small phrase changes the sense of the passage.
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."
On that reading, His own blood was not something He needed to gain entry. It marked His entrance — and that had never been heard of before.
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.
The sanctuary is heavenly and the offering is finished. So a class of men still offering sacrifices on earth denies what this verse says.
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 came. One arrival replaced three things at once: the priest, the sanctuary, and the sacrifice.
- Came as Priest. Aaron served the things of this present world. Christ is High Priest of good things to come.
- Came by blood. His own blood marks the character of His coming. It was not the blood of animals, and it was not something He needed to gain entry.
- Came into heaven. His tent was never built by hands, so no earthly structure or human priesthood can house His ministry.
- Come to us. Writers differ. Are the good things still ahead, when the Messiah reigns, or ours by faith now? Either way, their High Priest is already in His place.
nor by blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, has entered in once for all into the [holy of] holies, having found an eternal redemption.
This verse is the turning point of the letter's argument. It sets one High Priest, one entrance and one sacrifice against a ritual Israel repeated every year. Three questions follow: what "by His own blood" means, where Christ obtained that redemption, and why it is called eternal.
Every phrase looks back to Israel's yearly ceremony. On that day the high priest carried animal blood into the innermost room of the tabernacle, Israel's tent of worship. The contrast is not only in the blood, but in how long the result lasts:
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.
One writer draws out what Christ's own blood was not for:
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.
Commentators differ in emphasis. Some say Christ entered "by virtue of" His blood. Others say the blood marked His entrance, and was not something He needed for Himself. But they agree on why a representative must carry blood at all:
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.
Some read this verse as though the atonement happened when Christ arrived in heaven. One writer meets that head-on:
"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.
He quotes an older translation of the verse here; the ESV reads "thus securing an eternal redemption."
The word for "obtained" can also read "found." One writer asks what the finding cost:
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.
The word "eternal" runs like a thread through this letter. It stands against a background of things that ran out:
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.
That puts the believer's standing beyond the reach of his own behaviour:
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?
The word "once" is not a small detail. The letter drives it home again and again:
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.
- Blood — Christ entered heaven with His own blood, not with the blood of animals. That is the difference between a yearly ceremony and a finished work.
- Cross — Christ obtained the redemption at the cross, not on arrival in heaven. "It is finished," said the One who poured out His soul to death.
- Once — Aaron entered each year and came out again. Christ entered once and stays, with no change and no repeat.
- Eternal — the word stands against everything temporary in the old system. It covers salvation, inheritance and covenant too.
- Secure — a redemption that lasts forever cannot be held for a year at a time or made to depend on good behaviour.