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.
Death by appointment
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.
The half that men forget
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.
The line drawn at death
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.
The order reversed at the cross
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.
What changes for the believer
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.
"Men" and "those who wait for 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?
Summary
- 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.