the which [is] an image for the present time, according to which both gifts and sacrifices, unable to perfect as to conscience him that worshipped, are offered,
The verse pauses the description of the tabernacle to say what the whole arrangement meant. It was a picture for its own time, and its offerings had a fixed limit: they could not settle the worshipper's conscience. So why could animal sacrifices not reach that deep, and what makes a conscience perfect?
The tabernacle was a teaching picture. Its offerings dealt with outward things, and they came with an end date.
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."
The arrangement pictured something, but the picture itself could satisfy no one — neither God nor the worshipper.
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 problem lay in the value of what the worshipper brought. A conscience can never rise higher than the sacrifice it rests on.
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.
The yearly repetition proved the point in the worshipper's own experience.
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.
"Perfect" is not about a flawless character. It describes a person fit to stand before God and stay there.
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.
This purged conscience is not the same as a good conscience.
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.
What the old offerings could not do, one finished work has done. Ease comes because nothing is left for us to do.
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.
The tabernacle was a picture. Copying it as a model for worship turns its lesson upside down.
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.
- Figure — The tabernacle was a picture with an end date. Its rules touched only outward things, and they lasted only until God set things right.
- Ceiling — A conscience can never rise above its sacrifice. Imperfect blood gives an imperfect conscience, and the yearly repeat proved the forgiveness was never final.
- Perfect — "Perfect" here means fit to stand as a constant worshipper, with no more conscience of sins. It is not the means of justification but the fruit of it.
- Once — There is no ease before God while anything still depends on what we, or even Christ, have yet to do. Rest lies in what is already finished.
- Warning — Treat this picture as a model — special buildings, holier zones, a priestly class — and you rebuild the very distance that could never perfect anyone.
[consisting] only of meats and drinks and divers washings, ordinances of flesh, imposed until [the] time of setting things right.
The verse ends the description of the old tabernacle system by naming what it amounted to and how long it would last. So why could rules given by God never reach the conscience, and what is the "time of reformation" that closed them?
The verse gathers the whole system under things that touch the body only.
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.
These washings are the "baptisms" the letter mentioned earlier. One dictionary explains what they were, and what they were not.
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.
Verse 9 says the gifts and sacrifices could not perfect the worshipper's conscience. One writer traces that failure to what the offerings were made of.
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.
Weak as they were, these rules were not pointless. They were pictures, and that is why they had to end.
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.
When did that time arrive? One writer answers from the very next verse:
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.
If the ordinances had a fixed end date, going back to them now is worse than being out of date.
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.
- Outward — Food rules, drink rules and washings governed the body. A man could keep them all and still be a stranger to peace with God.
- Powerless — The offerings consisted only of these fleshly things, so by their very nature they could not touch the soul.
- Pictorial — They were not meaningless. Meats and drinks pictured the food found in Christ's sacrifice; the washings pictured its cleansing power on the soul.
- Provisional — "Imposed until" fixed a limit. The "time of reformation" means setting everything right, and that time came with Christ, the new High Priest.
- Past — The real thing has come. Going back to the ritual is not old-fashioned devotion but a contradiction of the glory of Christ.
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.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and a heifer's ashes sprinkling the defiled, sanctifies for the purity of the flesh,
The verse looks back at two rituals from Israel's law. One is the blood of the yearly day of atonement. The other is water mixed with the ashes of a burnt heifer. Both really did something. The question is how far that "something" reached — and what it proves about a better sacrifice.
Israel's law had many ceremonies. Why does the verse name only these two?
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 second rite is less familiar than the first.
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.
So what were the ashes for?
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.
The verse admits these rites worked. But look at the words it uses for the result: "for the purification of the flesh."
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.
The same writer asks what such a sprinkling could do about real moral failure.
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 verse begins with "if." Verse 14 finishes the sentence with "how much more." So where should our confidence rest?
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?
One writer applies the heifer to the believer today. Notice what is not repeated.
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.
- Flesh — the old rites reached the body and the outward standing. They truly "sanctify," but only "for the purification of the flesh."
- Flesh restored — the heifer's ashes did not make an Israelite one of God's people. They brought back a member whose fellowship had been broken along the way.
- Flesh exposed — a formal ordinance gives a formal result. Sprinkled ashes could do nothing for a soul that was truly defiled.
- Conscience — the worth of the offering decides everything, not the worth of the offerer. A bullock's blood purified the flesh for a year; Christ's blood purges the conscience for ever.
- Conscience kept — the pattern holds for the believer. The Spirit applies the truth of the cross by the word, and never applies the blood a second time.
how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God, purify your conscience from dead works to worship [the] living God?
If the old sacrifices could clean an unclean body, what must the blood of Christ reach? Everything in the verse turns on who the Offerer is, by what power He offered, and what that offering does to a guilty conscience.
Those sacrifices only reached the body. Christ's blood goes deeper, and the reason lies in the One who offered it.
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.
Israel's high priest brought a victim other than himself, and he needed one for his own sins first. Here priest and sacrifice are the same Person.
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.
The Spirit carries an unusual title here. One writer draws a conclusion from that single word.
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.
The same phrase also tells us what moved Him to make that offering.
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.
The words "without spot" (ESV: "without blemish") describe more than a clean record at the cross. They gather up the whole life that led there.
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.
Three names stand together in this one sentence: Christ, the Spirit, and God. That shapes how far the offering reaches.
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" is not another word for scandalous sin. It covers respectable religion and decent effort where there is no life toward God.
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.
Nothing we do clears the conscience. God's satisfaction with the sacrifice already made does it, and that turns a worker into a worshipper.
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.
But that freedom is not carelessness about sin:
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.
- Eternal Offerer — Aaron offered for himself; Christ offered Himself. Priest and victim are one Person, and He stands alone.
- Eternal Spirit — a Man made the offering, but through the eternal Spirit, so the motives behind it were God's own.
- Eternal reach — all three Persons of the Godhead stand related to this one offering. So all sin comes within its scope.
- Eternal cleansing — the blood reaches past the body to the conscience. It clears away "dead works": not just wicked deeds, but blameless, lifeless religion.
- Eternal service — a cleared conscience stops working to earn blessing and starts to worship. Freedom from dead works is freedom for the living God.