Lesson 15: A Better Sacrifice
Hebrews 9:11-28
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant. Where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been told to all the people by Moses in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
This is the preacher’s story line in Hebrews, and it is the backdrop for this particular text (Hebrews 9:11-28).
The incarnate Son of God lived a sinless human life in obedience to God and in dying bore the sins of Israel to renew God’s covenant with Israel. Then God raised him from the dead and appointed him as Israel’s Messianic High Priest. As High Priest he entered heaven itself to present his body as a sacrificial offering in the Holy of Holies. In response, God exalted him to the right hand of authority and power as the royal Son of God. He also continues as High Priest to intercede for Israel until he returns a second time to finally and fully save Israel from its enslavement to the powers, particularly the power of death.
Jesus, the exalted and anointed Messiah (“Christ”), has become “the mediator of a new covenant” because he suffered death for everyone and offered himself in the heavenly sanctuary for our sakes. In death, he suffered the consequences of Israel’s faithlessness who broke covenant with God at Sinai, in the wilderness, and beyond as he bore the sins of those who broke the covenant (Hebrews 9:28). However, through resurrection—an indestructible life (Hebrews 7:16)—the Messiah presented his own resurrected body and life to secure this covenant with God in the heavenly sanctuary as our great, living, and perfected High Priest. By offering himself through “the eternal Spirit” (Hebrews 9:14), he effected “eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12) for Israel that they might receive an “eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:15) effected “by the blood of the eternal covenant” (Hebrews 13:20).
In the Heavenly Sanctuary (Hebrews 9:11-14)
The Messiah—who is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek—cannot be a priest upon the earth according to Mosaic legislation. This Messiah is a priest in heaven, not on the earth.
For the first time, the preacher identifies Jesus as the Messiah (“Christ”). As the exalted Messiah, Jesus is also our High Priest. The official acts of the Messianic High Priest take place in the heavenly sanctuary, which is “greater and (more) perfect” than the tent made with hands. The heavenly sanctuary was not erected by human beings. On the contrary, it is God’s own dwelling place and does not belong to the temporality and finitude of creation.
The perfected human being—our high priestly Messiah—entered the perfect sanctuary in heaven. This act is itself the reality of the “good things that have come,” and which were promised by the type of the earthly sanctuary. Eternal redemption has arrived through the offering and intercession of the Messiah, and this happened when the Messiah entered the heavenly sanctuary “once for all” and offered himself in God’s presence.
Earlier sacrifices were ineffectual. They were offered by sinful, mortal, and imperfect human priests. The people continually broke the covenant and thus sacrifices had to be offered again and again. Every year the Levitical high priest annually presented sacrificial blood in the Most Holy Place (Holiest of Holies) because of the broken relationship between God and Israel. The Levitical high priest took the blood of goats and bulls into earthly sanctuary as an atonement offering, but these were ultimately ineffective because the people continued to break the covenant and thus only purified their flesh but not their conscience.
In contrast, the Messianic High Priest offered himself. The Messiah offered himself (“blood of the Messiah”) in the heavenly sanctuary through the “eternal Spirit.” But when did this happen? Some suggest that the Messiah offered himself on the cross and the Spirit meditated this offering by presenting it in the heavenly sanctuary. But the preacher seems to argue that the Messiah offered himself when he entered the heavenly sanctuary himself. The “eternal Spirit” probably refers to the resurrected Messiah—one who lives by the power of the Spirit through resurrection by the Spirit (cf., for example, the parallel with Romans 1:3-4; 8:11). The Messiah is not a priest upon the earth. Rather, he becomes Messiah and High Priest through his resurrection, and by the power of an indestructible life (Hebrews 7:16) he lives forever to act as Israel’s high priest.
His first act is to offer himself. He died, shed his blood, and bore the weight of Israel’s covenant unfaithfulness. He suffered death as he faithfully obeyed God and the powers killed him. But he was raised from the dead to live as Israel’s high priest who presented himself to God in the heavenly sanctuary. He entered heaven to offer himself in his living, resurrected body as sacrifice once dead but now alive. In this way, the Messianic High Priest perfects others by destroying death and providing an eternal inheritance through resurrection. The eternal redemption secures an eternal inheritance through the eternal Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
Inauguration of a New Covenant (Hebrews 9:15-22)
This eternal inheritance is effected through the inauguration of a new covenant, and the Messiah is mediator of this new covenant. This, of course, recalls the quotation of Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews 8, and Jeremiah 31 will be quoted again at the end of this major section in Hebrews 10:18. The theology of “new covenant” frames the present discussion.
The “new covenant” is not a replacement of the “first covenant” but its renewal. Yet, it is a renewal in the light of eternal consequences, that is, the new covenant effects eternal realities or eschatological realities, as I noted in a previous lesson on Hebrews 8. The first covenant could not do this because its priests died, its covenantal members sinned, and the sacrifices could not perfect humanity.
Before more fully entering the argument of the preacher, we must note how different translations approach this text. Some, as quoted above, render the Greek word for “covenant” as “will” or “testament” (Hebrews 9:16-17). However, it is the same Greek word: diatheke. Actually, “will” does not work well here because Jesus’s death is not a transfer of his inheritance to others but rather the means by which he entered his own inheritance. Moreover, wills in the ancient world could go into effect while the testator lived; the person did not have to die before the will went into effect.
Instead of will, it seems that the preacher is paralleling the inauguration of the first covenant with the inauguration of the new covenant. In a 2004 article (“A Broken Covenant and the Curse of Death: A Study of Hebrews 19-22,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 66 [2004], 416-36), Scott Hahn suggests that Isaiah 53 lies in the background and the point is that death is not about establishing a covenant in this context but rather suffering the consequences of the broken covenant. Israel has broken the first covenant, and thus deserves death as covenant-breakers. Death is born by the covenant-breakers. Hebrews 9:16 more likely reads, “For where there is a [broken] covenant, the death of the covenant-maker must be borne,” where the idea is that “For a [broken] covenant becomes valid on the basis of deaths” (Cockerill, NICNT on Hebrews 9:16). In this way, the validity of the covenant is threatened until the death of the covenant-breakers. Thus, as Hahn writes, the covenant “is not in force until it is enforced” (quoting Ezekiel 17:15).
In this way, Jesus bore the sins of many, as Isaiah 53:12 and Hebrews 9:28 call it. He suffered the consequences of covenant-breaking for Israel. He died. He bore the sins of the covenant-breakers under the first covenant, and thus redeemed them from the curse of their sin. Though, however, Jesus died, God raised him from the dead to serve as the Messianic high priest.
The first covenant was inaugurated with death. The quotation from Exodus 24:8 signals this point: “this is blood of the covenant.” The first covenant was ratified with the death of sacrificial animals, and these deaths represented the curse upon covenant-breakers. The sprinkled blood ratified the first covenant.
In the same way, the death of Jesus inaugurates the new covenant. The covenant with Israel is renewed through the death of Jesus who bears the covenant curse for Israel; he suffers the consequences of the broken covenant. In this sense, Jesus serves as a substitute for Israel and receives the consequences of the broken covenant in their place. He tastes death not only for Israel but also for everyone (Hebrews 2:9) and thus releases Israel (and ultimately everyone) from the condemnation of the covenant stipulations.
The Offering (Hebrews 9:23-28)
While the first covenant was inaugurated by the deaths of animals, the new covenant is inaugurated by the death of Jesus. This new covenant, we must remember, is a renewal of the first covenant but with “better sacrifices” which are able to perfect humanity beyond the capacity of the sacrifices of the first covenant. Perfecting requires “heavenly things,” which is to say, it needs to ground the eternal nature of our salvation (Hebrews 5:9), redemption (Hebrews 9:12), and inheritance (Hebrews 9:15) in the work of an eternal High Priest and his offering (which is the resurrected and perfected human, Jesus).
The Messiah, therefore, does not enter the earthly sanctuary which is only a replica of the heavenly one. Rather, he enters “heaven itself” where he appears “in the presence of God on our behalf.” In contrast to the earthly sanctuary, the Messianic high priest enters the heavenly sanctuary once for all with his own life blood. Jesus, our high priest, entered only once into the Most Holy Place.
He appeared “once for all at the end of the age” upon earth “to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.” He died so that through his resurrection (“eternal Spirit”) he might present himself to God in the Most Holy Place, the heavenly sanctuary. He appeared first to “bear sins,” but when he appears again (or “second time”), he will “save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Salvation is ultimately eschatological; it is the perfection of humanity (and renewal of creation as well). We “inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14); it is a “great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3); Jesus is the “pioneer” of our “salvation” (Hebrews 2:10); and it is “eternal salvation” (Hebrews 5:9).
In Hebrews, salvation is the goal, the result. It is not yet fully present. Salvation is eternal inheritance and eternal redemption. It is to share the status and reality of our high priest who is already perfected. As such, our salvation is following Jesus, who is our forerunner or pioneer, into the eternal inheritance that he shares with us as people who obey him (Hebrews 5:9).
The story the preacher lays out is something like this:
- God became human as Jesus of Nazareth.
- Jesus lived a sinless life.
- Jesus died bearing the consequences for covenant-breakers.
- God raised Jesus through the eternal Spirit into eternal life.
- The resurrected Jesus entered heaven itself.
- Jesus offered his life (blood, body) to God as high priest.
- Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God as royal priest.
- Jesus remains in heaven to intercede for us as high priest.
- Jesus will emerge from heaven to save his people.