[It was] necessary then that the figurative representations of the things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with sacrifices better than these.
Hebrews has just said that under the law blood cleanses almost everything. This verse draws the conclusion. If the copies needed cleansing, so did the realities they copied. That raises a startling question: how could anything in heaven need purifying at all?
The tabernacle Moses built was never the true sanctuary. It was a drawing of one, and a drawing cannot do the work of the thing itself.
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.
God's tent stood in the middle of a sinful camp. Their guilt made cleansing necessary. Sin never stops with the sinner.
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 surprise of the verse is that "the heavenly things themselves" are on the list. Writers point to two facts: who has been up there, and who is going up there.
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.
Notice what this verse cleanses: a place, not a person.
"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.
Christ died once. So why does the verse say "sacrifices"?
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.
Christ has gone into heaven itself for us. So a fear rises: when sinners enter, will they spoil it?
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!
One writer follows this cleansing all the way to its final scene.
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."
- Pattern. The tabernacle was a copy, and its blood was external and formal — a dress pattern can never replace the dress.
- Reach. Sin's stain went further than the sinner. It reached the tent God pitched among a guilty people, and the heavens where Satan and his angels had their place.
- Better. One death answers every offering the law commanded. The plural word "sacrifices" gathers them all into Christ's one sacrifice.
- House. Forgiveness clears the people; this purging clears the place. God will have His house cleansed as well as His people made righteous.
- Welcome. The same blood that fits heaven for us fits us for heaven. No worshipper who enters can defile it. One purification covers throne, temple, Priest and priests alike.
For the Christ is not entered into holy places made with hand, figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us
Hebrews 9:24 puts the tent Moses built beside the place where Christ now is. The first was only a copy of the second. The verse turns on three things: where He went, what He does there, and the words "on our behalf."
The earthly sanctuary was never the original.
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.
Two systems stand here. Each one carried its own message about the way to God.
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.
The words "in the presence of God" are literally "before the face of God." The last words of the verse say who He is there for.
"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.
Israel's high priest had a strict limit on his visit to God's presence. The difference is not only where He is, but how long He stays.
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.
The picture behind this comes from what Aaron wore.
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.
His presence there tells the believer something about heaven.
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.
This verse is one of three appearings in the passage.
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.
- Copy — Moses built the wilderness tabernacle to a pattern shown on the mountain. It was the figure; heaven is the true.
- Entry — Christ went into heaven itself. The old service said the way to God was closed. His entry says it is open.
- Face — "presence" is literally the face of God. There He appears as High Priest, representing His people in all the acceptance of His person and work.
- Continually — Aaron entered once a year and had to leave. Christ remains, and every believer's name stays before God's eye.
- Appearings — past for atonement, present in heaven for us, future in glory. We live in the middle one.
nor in order that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy places every year with blood not his own;
The verse holds up Israel's high priest as a contrast. He went into the holy place year after year, and the blood he carried was never his own. Those two details — the repeating, and the borrowed blood — show why Christ's entry into heaven could not work that way.
The wording turns on the blood itself. One commentator sets the Greek word used of Aaron beside the word used of Christ:
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).
Yet His own blood was not what gave Christ the right to enter. It was what set His entrance apart from Aaron's.
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.)
The verse does not just say that Christ chose not to repeat His offering. It says a repeated offering is impossible, and the reason lies in what the offering cost Him.
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.
Follow the logic back through the centuries, and the picture becomes unbearable.
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."
The yearly return of the day of atonement was not a strength of the old system. It was an admission.
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.
Because the verse rules out a repeated offering, any claim to offer Christ again runs straight against it.
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.
The same reasoning reaches the believer who keeps going back to the blood as if it had to be applied again each time he fails.
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".
- Borrowed blood. Aaron carried blood that had nothing to do with him. Christ entered by His own.
- Repeated blood. The yearly return of the day of atonement was the old system admitting it could not put away sin.
- Costly blood. A second offering would demand a second suffering. That is why repetition is impossible, not just unnecessary.
- Re-offered blood. Any claim to offer Christ again denies that His one offering was effective enough to stand.
- Shed blood. Forgiveness rests on blood shed once, not on blood applied again and again. The failing believer looks back to a finished work.
since he had [then] been obliged often to suffer from the foundation of the world. But now once in the consummation of the ages he has been manifested for [the] putting away of sin by his sacrifice.
Hebrews has just said the earthly sanctuary was only a copy; Christ has entered heaven itself. Verse 26 answers the two questions that follow: why did He not repeat His offering, and why did He come when He did?
The phrase older translations render "the end of the world" is not about the planet burning up. It marks the close of a long stretch of time in which God tested man.
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."
That timing is not only an ending. The same act that shut one period opened another.
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.
The verse opens with an impossible picture. If Christ's sacrifice had to be repeated, so would His suffering.
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 "once" runs through these chapters.
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.
Every other sacrifice needed three: the man who brought it, the animal, and the priest. Here all three meet in one person.
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.
Notice the wording: sin, singular. The reach of that is wider than it looks.
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!
If sin was put away, why is the world still full of it?
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.
Because the sacrifice cannot be repeated, the standing it gives cannot be revised.
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.
- Once — in time. He appeared at the close of the ages in which God tested man. That testing ended in judgment. His appearing opens new ages for glory.
- Once — not often. Repeating the offering would mean repeating the suffering. He has offered Himself once and for ever. "Once" is stamped seven times over these chapters.
- Once — by Himself. Offerer, offering and priest are one Person; He had no victim to bring but Himself.
- Once — for sin itself. Not our sins only, but sin at the root, on earth and in the heavens, in its totality.
- Once — therefore final. The full clearing waits for the new heavens and new earth. For the believer the account is already closed, since Christ cannot die again.
And forasmuch as it is the portion of men once to die, and after this judgment;
Hebrews 9 closes with two fixed appointments side by side: one for man, one for Christ. One line gives the lot of every human being — death once, then judgment — and the next verse answers it with a sacrifice offered once.
The word "appointed" points behind the fact of dying to the One who set it. One writer traces dying back to God's own decree. He also notes that death is not God's verdict on how a person lived:
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.
Everyone admits that death is certain. Not everyone admits what comes after it. Both rest on the same testimony:
"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.
Because judgment comes after death, death cannot be the extinction of the person:
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.
If judgment follows dying, the time to be saved is now. One writer puts it bluntly:
"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.
Christ faced the same two things as man, but in the opposite order:
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.
Since Christ absorbed both, the one who trusts Him no longer stands where verse 27 leaves the race:
"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.
These two verses name two different groups, and the contrast is the point:
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.
That contrast even touches dying itself. Death is not what the Christian waits for:
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?
- Appointed. Dying is not an accident of nature. God appointed it for the whole race "once" because of sin, not as His verdict on any one life.
- After. Judgment stands on the far side of death. So death is not the end of the person; he still must face God.
- Before. Judgment follows death, so you must decide in this life. Scripture offers no second chance afterwards.
- Reversed. Christ met the same two things in the opposite order. He bore judgment on the cross first, then death — taking what sinners deserved.
- Waiting. The verse describes "men" as they are. Those who wait for Christ have death and judgment behind them. They look for Him, not for death.
thus the Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear to those that look for him the second time without sin for salvation.
Hebrews 9 ends by placing two appointments side by side: one fixed for every person, and one Christ has already kept for His people. The verse then looks ahead to a second appearing where the question of sin never comes up.
The verse hangs on one small word: "so." It answers the "as" in the sentence before it. The two halves set out two very different futures.
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 already paid what man owes.
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 verse says Christ bore the sins of many, not of all. Writers treat that wording as deliberate. It marks the difference between what can be preached to everyone and what belongs to those who believe.
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.
Propitiation is a sacrifice the evangelist can preach to everyone. Substitution is one Person taking the place of another and carrying his sins.
Older translations read "without sin" and "look for Him" where the ESV has "not to deal with sin" and "eagerly waiting for him." The phrase does not describe Christ's sinless character. It describes what His return is about.
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 can He never reopen the subject? Because reopening it would have only one outcome.
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.
Some read the phrase as a filter, as though only watchful Christians qualify. Commentators reject that reading.
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.
Looking is not the entrance fee. It is what a cleared conscience does.
Salvation here is not forgiveness — that is already settled. It is the final step.
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.
Israel's worship gives the picture behind this waiting.
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.
For the Jewish readers of this letter, the idea itself was new.
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.
- Once — one offering covered both things appointed to man: death and judgment.
- Many — the wording is exact. The evangelist can preach propitiation to everyone, but Christ bore the sins of those who believe.
- Apart from sin — the second appearing does not reopen the sin question. Christ closed it at the first, and reopening it would mean ruin.
- Looking — every believer waits for Him; it is not a badge earned by a watchful few.
- Salvation — the High Priest steps out of the sanctuary at last, and what remains is not pardon but full deliverance, body and all.