Hebrews 9

Hebrews 9:1

But, to return to our comparison of the earthly and heavenly sanctuary,—the Sinai covenant of God’s peculiar headship over Israel, and the legal dispensation of the covenant of grace, therewith connected, had various typical ordinances of God’s appointment for religious worship, and a magnificent tent or temple for the celebration of those ordinances, formed by men out of earthly materials

Hebrews 9:2

In the first or eastern apartment of this tent or temple stood the golden candlestick, with its seven burning lamps, representing Christ, his Spirit, oracles, and ordinances, as the light of the church;—and the golden table, with its twelve loaves of shew-bread, which represented him as the abundant, suitable, and never-failing, provision of his people,—and them as in him, presented before God in their respective generations. 3, 4. Passing through this eastern apartment, called the sanctuary, you entered into the western, called the ORACLE, or HOLT OF HOLIES,—where was the golden censer, in which the high priest carried the burning coals from the altar of burnt-offering, to burn the incense before the ark on the day of expiation, as a representation of Jesus’ intercession, founded on, and deriving its virtue from, his atoning sacrifice;—and the ark, which contained the law of the covenant made with Israel, and represented Christ as the reconciler and rest of Jehovah, and end of the law for righteousness to believers;—and the golden pot of manna, which represented him as the true and ever-living bread which came down from heaven;—and the budding rod, with which Aaron and Moses had wrought many miracles, and which represented Jesus Christ as growing out of dry ground, but manifested to be our ever-glorious and flourishing High Priest;—and, in fine, the two tables on which God at Sinai wrote the ten commandments of the moral law, lodged in the midst of the ark, intimating their fulfilment in Christ, as a covenant, for the justification of his people, and their continuing an unchangeable and perpetual rule of holy obedience in his hand

Hebrews 9:5

And above the ark were two glorious cherubims of gold, which represented holy angels and gospel ministers as looking into, admiring, and ready to promote, our redemption to God through the righteousness of his Son.—But these things not being so directly to my purpose, I shall not insist upon them.—6. Now this sacred tent or temple being thoroughly prepared, according to the divine model given to Moses or David, the ordinary priests, in their turns, entered into it every day, to offer sacrifice, burn incense, and dress the lamps

Hebrews 9:7

But the high priest alone, and only upon the day of the great annual expiation, entered into the Holy of Holies, and that not without blood of expiatory sacrifices, one for himself and another for the Israelites’ sins of infirmity and ignorance: 8. By this restricted access to the Holy of Holies, the spirit of God plainly signifying, that the access of believers to the throne of grace, or heavenly state, was not, as now, clearly revealed, while the ceremonial tabernacle, temple, and services thereof, continued to be established and observed by divine institution

Hebrews 9:9

For these structures, and all the services pertaining to them, were, by the appointment of God, no more than temporary, imperfect, and figurative representations of those good things which have been manifested and fulfilled under the gospel:—None of their oblations, bloody and unbloody, having the smallest influence to remove the moral guilt of sin from their conscience, but only to remove the ceremonial defilement and prevent temporal punishments

Hebrews 9:10

Consisting in meat-offerings and drink-offerings, manifold washings and sprinklings, and numberless other ceremonies, which only removed external ceremonial pollutions, and consecrated to external service;—and which, because of their insufficiency to purify the conscience and perfect the state of the church, were appointed to continue no longer than till the Messiah, being come, should establish in the church a complete state of spirituality and holiness, light and grace

Hebrews 9:11

But he, having at last actually appeared in our nature as an High Priest, hath accomplished what had been long prefigured by ceremonial ordinances, and purchased and procured for his people the expected blessings of grace and glory, by officiating in his transcendently excellent manhood, and in the heavenly state, both of which were formed by the immediate operation of God himself

Hebrews 9:12

Nor did the sacrifice, by virtue of which he entered into the heavenly state, in dignity and excellency less transcend the Levitical sacrifices; for it was not, as in the case of the Jewish sacrifices, by the blood of mean, though useful animals, but by his own precious blood; that he, through the vail of his own flesh, entered into the heavenly oracle; to present himself God man, with the merit of his perfect and ever available sacrifice for us, before the immediate presence of God; having thereby purchased and secured for us, not a figurative pardon or annual reprieve, but a complete and everlasting forgiveness, and deliverance 3 from sin, Satan, and the broken law, the incensed wrath of God, a present evil world, and death,—and a full and unchangeable right and title to an eternal inheritance of all blessedness and glory: 13. For, if the blood of bulls and goats, and other mean and insignificant animals, or the ashes of an heifer, mingled with running water, were, by God’s appointment, effectual to purify men from the external ceremonial impurities from their bodies, and give them a re-admission to public worship in the tabernacle or temple, and into the congregation of the Lord, from which they had been excluded on account of the defilement, 14. How much more effectually and gloriously shall Jesus’ finished righteousness, his unblemished and infinitely valuable sacrifice of himself—which he, through the infinite dignity and supporting influence of his divine nature sanctifying his gift, and through the unmeasurable unction and inconceivable influence of the Holy Ghost, did, with the utmost readiness and submission to his Father’s will, with entire trust and confidence in him, with fervent zeal for his glory, and with the most amazing love and compassion to his people,—fulfil and offer up to God, as an offended Judge,—purge your consciences from all the guilt and defilement of your unprofitable, abominable, and destructive, works of wickedness, and free you from all dreadful apprehensions of condemnation and wrath on their account; and animate and enable you, with confidence and cheerfulness here, and in perfection hereafter, to believe in, worship, and obey, the only living and true God

Hebrews 9:15

And, for bringing about this great end, he undertook and executes the office of Mediator of the new and better covenant, and particularly of the New Testament dispensation of it; that by means, not of legal sacrifices, but of his own death, as an atonement for the sins of those under the Old as well as New Testament, who, in whatever period, have been or are effectually called into a state of union to, and fellowship with him,—they might, in a free and honourable manner, be made partakers of the blessings of grace here, and glory hereafter. 16, 17. And the new covenant, as dispensed to us, being of a testamentary nature, in which Jesus Christ, who purchased all possible blessings, and, as Trustee of the covenant, has them all lodged in his hand, actually bequeaths them to sinful men; his death was also necessary to render this testamentary disposition firm and irrevocable, and of full force to all them who by faith claim their title under him

Hebrews 9:18-20

And it was chiefly in order to prefigure this that the Sinai covenant and establishment of the legal dispensation was ratified and confirmed by the blood of typical sacrifices; and that Moses, the typical mediator, having recited to the Israelites the principal laws of the covenant respecting them as a church and nation, did, in a solemn manner, sprinkle the book in which those laws were written, and all the representatives of the people, with the blood of the sacrifices offered on that occasion,—solemnly intimating that that sprinkling of blood was a divinely instituted confirmation of the covenant between God and them, whereby his faithfulness for fulfilling his promises, and their obedience in performing the duties of it, were mutually engaged

Hebrews 9:21

Moreover, when the taberacle was first erected, and afterwards, once every year, on the great day of expiation, it, and all the vessels of service therein, were ceremonially purged from defilement, and consecrated to their sacred use, by a sprinkling of sacrificed blood

Hebrews 9:22

Nay, so important was the blood of sacrifices under that dispensation, that almost all purification from ceremonial defilement was effected by the offering and sprinkling of it; and without the bloodshedding of typical sacrifices no typical forgiveness of sin, or removal from temporal judgments, could be obtained

Hebrews 9:23

Now, if it was necessary that the book and the people, the tabernacle and its furniture, which were but figurative representations of spiritual and heavenly things, should be purified and consecrated to their sacred use by typical sacrifices and sprinklings, it was certainly proper that Jesus Christ and his people, and all the spiritual and heavenly things, places, and furniture, should be consecrated by the infinitely more excellent sacrifice and blood of God’s only begotten Son: 24. For Jesus Christ, the anointed High Priest of his church, has not, like the Jewish high priest, entered into holy places formed by the art and labour of men, which were but mere figures of the heavenly sanctuary, but has, in his human nature, ascended into heaven itself, that there, in the immediate presence of God, he might continually present himself as our Representative, and the merits of his blood as the price of our eternal salvation. 25, 26. Nor was it necessary that Christ, like the Jewish high priests, should repeat his atoning sacrifice, that he might again and again enter into the heavenly sanctuary; for, had that been the case, it had been necessary very often, since the fall of man, to have suffered unto death, that he might make atonement for one generation after another; but such is the infinite dignity, perfection, and virtue of his sacrifice, and such its extensive influence to former, present, and future, generations, that his single manifestation of himself in the end of the ceremonial dispensation, and beginning of the gospel period, to offer his soul and body as personally united to his divine nature, was absolutely sufficient and effectual to expiate the guilt and abolish the power and fruits of all the sins of his people

Hebrews 9:27

And as, by the righteous appointment of God, all sinful men must, in the ordinary course of nature, once die, and after that appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that a final and decisive sentence, relative to their eternal happiness or misery, may pass upon them, according to their qualities, thoughts, words, and actions: 28. So Christ, to fulfil the law of God as a broken covenant, and to abolish the curse and purchase eternal happiness, was once, and but once, offered in his sacrifice, to bear the imputed iniquities, and suffer the punishment, of all the unnumbered millions of his chosen people: and unto them, who, by faith, hope, desire, and love, expect, and patiently wait for, his coming again to judge the world, he will, at the last day, appear, not as formerly, charged with sin, or bearing the punishment of it, but in the most transcendent glory and majesty, to give them the complete enjoyment of that heavenly and eternal happiness which he purchased for them by his death

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. IX.—The great things concerning Jesus Christ, and salvation through him, were gradually, but for a long time obscurely, and by dark shadows, revealed to the church. But infinitely glorious and useful must he be, our great High Priest, to prefigure whom, in his person and service, so many ancient types were necessary. Ubboued is the value and efficacy of his atoning sacrifice, and extensive his virtue through time and through eternity. Full of blessings to sinful men, and infinitely free, firm, and irrevocable, are the promises of the new covenant, ratified by his death. And necessary for his honour, and for our salvation, is his intercession at his Father’s right hand—and how efficacious and successful! Certain and unavoidable are death and judgment. Happy are they who, having all their sins forgiven through his blood, are looking for his glorious appearance to judge and save them.—Quickly shall he, my soul, who bore the curse, hung on the cross, and lay in the grave, sit down on his great white throne to judge and save me