Hebrews 9:13

PROOF OF AND ENLARGEMENT ON, THE "ETERNAL REDEMPTION" MENTIONED IN Heb 9:12. (Heb. 9:13-28)

if--as we know is the case; so the Greek indicative means. Argument from the less to the greater. If the blood of mere brutes could purify in any, however small a degree, how much more shall inward purification, and complete and eternal salvation, be wrought by the blood of Christ, in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead?

ashes of an heifer-- (Num 19:16-18). The type is full of comfort for us. The water of separation, made of the ashes of the red heifer, was the provision for removing ceremonial defilement whenever incurred by contact with the dead. As she was slain without the camp, so Christ (compare Heb 13:11; Num 19:3-4). The ashes were laid by for constant use; so the continually cleansing effects of Christ's blood, once for all shed. In our wilderness journey we are continually contracting defilement by contact with the spiritually dead, and with dead works, and need therefore continual application to the antitypical life-giving cleansing blood of Christ, whereby we are afresh restored to peace and living communion with God in the heavenly holy place.

the unclean--Greek, "those defiled" on any particular occasion.

purifying--Greek, "purity."

the flesh--Their effect in themselves extended no further. The law had a carnal and a spiritual aspect; carnal, as an instrument of the Hebrew polity, God, their King, accepting, in minor offenses, expiatory victims instead of the sinner, otherwise doomed to death; spiritual, as the shadow of good things to come (Heb 10:1). The spiritual Israelite derived, in partaking of these legal rights, spiritual blessings not flowing from them, but from the great antitype. Ceremonial sacrifices released from temporal penalties and ceremonial disqualifications; Christ's sacrifice releases from everlasting penalties (Heb 9:12), and moral impurities on the conscience disqualifying from access to God (Heb 9:14). The purification of the flesh (the mere outward man) was by "sprinkling"; the washing followed by inseparable connection (Num 19:19). So justification is followed by renewing.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Heb_9:13-14

How much more shall the blood of Christ?

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ

The sacrifice of our Lord admits of being considered from many different points of view. We may consider it as making atonement for our sins, and ask how any such transference and application of His merits to us, as is involved in this thought, is possible; or we may consider why any such atonement should have been necessary at all to satisfy the requirements of the Divine Righteousness in the moral government of the world. Both of these questions are legitimate, and the New Testament does in fact suggest answers to them. But there is another consideration, simpler perhaps than either of these, which is yet full of importance, and comes first in the order of thought; and that is, the nature of Christs sacrifice, considered not in its effect on us, but simply in itself: of what sort was Christs sacrifice, and wherein lay its acceptableness?

I. HE OFFERED HIS SELF, HIS PERSON, HIS HUMAN LIFE TO GOD. This human life of ours is meant to move in various directions. It moves out to the interpretation and appropriation of nature; and so man gains in natural knowledge, and develops the resources of civilisation. It moves out again from each man towards his fellows, and so the bonds of humanity are knit, and society advances. It moves out also towards God, to present itself before Him, and enter into communion with Him. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. All the faculties of man are thus to be directed not only towards nature, towards his fellow men, but also deliberately Godward, and that first of all. It is the first and great commandment. This was the original law of mans being. This is his ultimate goal in Christianity (Rom_12:1). This reasonable service, which St. Paul calls a sacrifice, though there be no death involved in it, is what is supremely exemplified in the human life of Jesus. It looked manward in love and ministry. He went about doing good. But first of all it looked Godward in self-oblation. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. Aye, even before Thy will be done comes Thy name be hallowed. For to please God, to present himself before God, to know God, this is the highest privilege and the primary duty of man.

II. HE OFFERED HIMSELF WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH. The metaphor is from the inspection of the victims prepared for sacrifice. In the Lamb of God the scrutiny of the all-seeing eye can detect no disqualifying flaw. A will always vigorous, single, unflagging; an intellect wholly unclouded and unsophisticated, of perfect receptivity and exquisite penetration; a heart of incomparable tenderness and force, which yet never moved out in uncontrolled passion; a perfect humanity which yet showed its perfection in unresisting dependence upon the movement of the Divine Spirit which filled it and directed it; a humanity rich and full in experiences, passing through all sorts of vicissitudes of circumstance, yet found as perfect in one situation as in another, in failure as in success; a humanity in which nothing approaching to moral decadence is to be detected, glorious in its issue as in its inception. He offered Himself to God without blemish. He fulfilled the ideal of humanity. He was the beloved Son in whom the Father--the great Scrutiniser of human oblations--was well pleased.

III. THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS WAS A FULL, PERFECT, AND ADEQUATE SELF-OBLATION OF MAN TO GOD. It was perfectly spiritual. He, the pattern Man, gave to God an undivided allegiance, an absolute homage. When His mission on behalf of truth, and meekness, and righteousness involved the martyrs death--He accepted the condition, and offered the shedding of His blood. But in Gods sight the shedding of the blood had no value except as the symbol of obedience carried to an extreme. It is a great, a strange mistake to suppose that the death of Christ was, as it were, the act of God. It was the act in which (on the contrary) rebellion against God, the sin of man, showed itself in its true and horrible colours. What God does is to bear with this, as He has foreseen it, to spare not His only Son, to exempt Him by no miracle from the consequences of His loyalty to truth and meekness and righteousness--under the conditions of a sinful world, as things were, its inevitable consequences. God foresees, God bears with this, and He overrules it to the purposes of our redemption. But throughout, as St. Auselm says, in the greatest Christian treatise on the Atonement, what God the Father enjoined upon the Incarnate Son was, primarily simple obedience; only as obedience in fact involved death, then, secondarily, did He enjoin upon Him to die. There are splendid instances in actual history, or imaginative history, of acts in which men have poured out their blood as a sacrifice for their fellow men. It is the deep moral feeling of Euripides which converts the unwilling sacrifice of Iphigenia in Aulis into a freewill offering for her country. The whole of Greece, the truly great, is looking to me now, she cries to her mother,… for all the Greeks and not for thyself alone, didst thou bear me; therefore for Greece I offer my body. So she gives herself to be sacrificed by the priests knife, and the goddess Artemis accepts the freewill offering--but not the actual life; for as the knife is falling, the place of the maiden is, by the intervention of the goddess, taken by a doe. And of the maiden it is said that the same day beheld her dead and alive again. This is a splendid thought. But it is the nobility of the victim which is supposed to move the compassion of the goddess rather than the simple worth of a human life, and the atmosphere of religious conception as to the Divine nature is still far cloudier than among the Jews. On the Jewish stage a cognate but more truly historical scene is described in Maccabees, where the heroic martyrs for the honour and liberty of the chosen people offer up their lives to God. And I, cries the youngest of the seven martyred brothers, as nay brethren, offer up my body and life for the laws of our fathers, beseeching God that He would speedily be merciful unto our nation,… and that in me and my brethren the wrath of the Almighty which is justly brought upon all our nation may cease. This is a self-sacrifice which comes very near to Isaiahs conception of the vicarious self-oblation of Jehovahs righteous servant. But it has still accompanying it some ring of the false thought of God as demanding for sin some positive quantity of expiatory death. Now when we describe the sacrifice of our Lord as perfectly spiritual, we mean that it carries with it, in all its silent implications and in the spoken words in which it found expression, the perfect truth about God and about man, as the flawless homage of the self-surrendering will. Jesus taught the perfect truth in words--the truth about Gods pure Fatherhood; the truth that what God asks of man, who is made for sonship, is not mere isolated acts of obedience or sacrifice, but simply and altogether the homage of an unqualified submission and dependence. He taught the truth about mans sin, about his rebellion, about his need of conversion. He taught the truth about the unity of the human race--bidding men see that they may not live each for himself, but are bound to live each for all. He taught all this in words; He taught it in deeds, in His own human relation to the Father; in His own relation to mankind. He taught it most of all in His sacrifice. For when obedience was shown to involve death, tie spared not Himself, even as the Father spared Him not: He used no miraculous power to exempt Himself, though He declared that He possessed it. For us, in our manhood, before God He shed His blood. And this blood-shedding has, in Gods sight, a perfect value, because it is the expression of a flawless will, of truth unqualified--the truth about Gods claim on man, the truth about humanitys proper homage, the truth about sin. And the self sacrifice of Jesus lives for evermore, over against all our lawlessness, our wilfulness, our slackness, our blindness, our self-sparing, as the perfect recognition in mans name and nature of the righteous claim of God, and of the responsibility of man for man.

IV. As THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS WAS PERFECTLY SPIRITUAL SO IT WAS OFFERED, NOT ONLY IN THE POWER OF THE PERFECT HUMANITY, BUT IN THE POWER ALSO OF THE ETERNAL SPIRIT. Truly was He acting in manhood, really under conditions of manhood: the sacrifice was genuinely human in its moral effort, in its moral and physical pain, in its genuine human faith. It was the Son of Man who offered Himself. But the mind and will expressed was also Gods mind, Gods will, and therefore the meaning and value of the act is unchangeable. It is true of all human action at its best that it has an eternal element. The truly great have all one age. But the eternal element, the movement of God which lies hid at all times at the roots of humanity, is obscured and clouded by human independence of God, that is, human sin. In Jesus every human act is also the act of God. He who was acting under human conditions was very God; and the Divine Spirit which indwelt His humanity, indwelt Him perfectly, and found in Him a faultless organ in which His will could be done. Nothing, then, in the acts or sacrifice of Jesus is merely temporary, or imperfect, or inadequate. It belongs to all ages. It is eternal. (Chas. Gore, M. A.)

Gospel theology

I. THE GOD OF THE GOSPEL IS A LIVING PERSONALITY. This revelation of God as living stands opposed to

1. Heathen idolatry.

2. Secular philosophy.

3. Mere logical divinity.

II. THE CHIEF END OF MANS EXISTENCE IS TO SERVE THE LIVING GOD.

1. This implies

(1) That He has a will concerning our activities.

(2) A capacity on mans part to understand and obey the will of

God concerning him.

2. There are three facts in relation to the service of God which we should always bear in mind, and which marks it off from all other service.

(1) That acceptability does not depend either upon the kind, or the amount, or the results of our activity, but upon its principles.

(2) That to serve God does not require that we should confine ourselves to any particular department of action.

(3) That to serve God is the only way either to serve ourselves or others.

III. MANS MORAL NATURE IS GENERALLY IN A STATE WHICH DISQUALIFIES HIM FOR THIS SERVICE.

1. The conscience is polluted.

2. The conscience is polluted through dead works.

IV. THE GREAT END OF CHRISTS MEDIATION IS TO REMOVE THIS MORAL DISQUALIFICATION FOR THE SERVICE OF THE LIVING GOD.

1. By furnishing man with the most complete exhibition of what the service of the living God is.

(1) A personal consecration.

(2) A voluntary consecration.

(3) A virtuous consecration.

(4) A consecration Divinely inspired.

2. By supplying the most effective means to generate in the heart the principle of true service--supreme love to God.

3. By providing a medium which renders the service approvable to God.

V. CHRISTS MEDIATION FOR THIS PURPOSE IS MOST UNQUESTIONABLY EFFICACIOUS. If the blood, etc.

1. The object in the one case to be realised is of unspeakably greater importance than the other.

2. The means employed in the one case are immeasurably more costly than the other.

3. The agent employed in the one case to apply the means is infinitely greater than in the other. (Homilist.)

Christ the purifier of religion

I. MANS CONSCIENCE NEEDS PURIFYING. TO perceive this, contemplate the Jewish ceremonial, and that will shadow forth the spiritual truth. The man who had touched a corpse, or the grave dust, was regarded as defiled--he felt defiled, he trembled to enter the presence of God. Paul says thisis the symbol of an eternal fact. The conscience feels the touch of death. It trembles in worship. Therefore it needs purifying from its dead works to serve the living God. The more bright and keen the conscience, the deeper and more awful is the feeling of death that cleaves to us.

II. THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST THE PURIFYING POWER.

1. A perfect and holy sacrifice. That awful expenditure of sinless agony is the only purification. The voice of condemnation pursues us through every path of life until it is hushed before the Cross. Then the death-stains of past sin are cleansed away. Then the spectral forms of the past are laid for ever. Then prayer loses its tremor, aspiration its sadness, praise its undertone of fear. We no more wish to escape from God, for we are made pure by the blood of Christ.

2. A new spirit of devotion; for we need not only absolution but inspiration before we can serve God freely, lovingly, joyously. He offered Himself--not in fear, but voluntarily. Suffering, shame, death, stood in His path.He might have refused to endure them, and from the first turned aside: but daily He chose to bear the daily cross. Through the Eternal Spirit. His was not an offering from the human to avert the Divine anger, but an offering from Himself. There was the true spirit of worship when the Eternal Spirit became enshrined in Jesus. And through that Spirit He offered Himself.

III. THE PURIFIED CONSCIENCE RISES TO LIVING WORSHIP.

1. Living--in the reality of its spiritual emotions. The unpurged conscience is tempted to forget, to doubt, to deny God, or regard Him simply as some awful and mysterious power. The purified spirit feels Him near and can bear the glance of the Eternal without shrinking; for the dead past has been cleansed away by the blood of the Saviour. Thus prayer becomes real; it is no longer a vain cry breathed into the air; for the Spirit through which He offered Himself abides in us, constraining our devotion.

2. Living--for it pervades the whole life. The worship of fear is limited to time and place. But cleansed and inspired by Christ we feel He is everywhere. In suffering we bear His will, and our sighs become prayers. In sorrow, when the heart is weary, we feel ourselves near to the heavenly Friend who is leading us to find in Him rest for the restless and sad. In joys, He who hallowed social gladness by His first miracle--and amid the friendships of life, He who made friendship holy is close to our hearts. In our falls and failures we hear His voice in the hope of rising out of the gloom to a higher and purer slate beyond it. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)

The sacrifice of Christ

I. THE SPECIAL CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE, the grand atonement on which we all rest, is, that it is not the blood of the inferior animals, as in the former dispensation; but the blood of Christ.

1. It was the offering of a human being. The death of Christ, considering Him simply as a man, shows a justice in the visitation of sin, as much greater as human life is above the life of irrational animals.

2. He was an innocent and spotless man. Here the value is heightened. It was not the case of one offender selected from many to be an example. He had no part in the offence.

3. But that which carries the value of the offering to its true height, is, that it was the blood of Christ; of the whole and undivided Christ, who was both God and man. For, though a Divine nature could not bleed and die, a Divine person could.

II. ITS SPECIAL EFFICACY. It cleanses not the flesh, but purges the conscience from dead works, that we may serve the living God. Two benefits are here marked as the foundation of, and leading to, all others.

1. The purification of the conscience. The dead works, here mentioned, are sins; and the guilt from which we are purified is in another place termed the conscience of sins. Sins are dead works, because they expose us to present condemnation, and finally to eternal death. By conscience here is meant inward perception of such works as are chargeable upon us, with fearful apprehensions of the death they bring. But on this sacrifice you are to trust in order to salvation. To encourage you to this, think of the Fathers love. Think of the love of the Son. Can you doubt of that love while He is evidently set forth crucified before your eyes? Think of the value of this sacrifice. If you can conceive of anything more valuable, then doubt the efficacy of this, and fear to trust. Then trust in it. Venture in the same vessel which has carried so many over the stormy waves which now surround you, and who shout to you from the shore beyond, and bid you trust, and not be afraid.

2. The second blessed consequence is, that we may serve the living God. There is the service of worship. We have free access to God, and our services are acceptable. There is the service of obedience. We are delivered from the bondage of sin, and all our powers are consecrated to God.

Learn:

1. The infinite evil of sin. It could not be forgiven without a Divine atonement.

2. The awful character of Divine justice.

3. The fulness of the blessings purchased by this sacrifice. The salvation corresponds with the sacrifice by which it was purchased, and comprehends every spiritual blessing, both in time and eternity. (R. Watson.)

The character, agency, and efficacy of Christs sacrifice

I. THE AGENCY THROUGH WHICH CHRISTS SACRIFICE WAS PRESENTED, AND THE CHARACTER OF THAT SACRIFICE. Christ offered Himself to God, both in obedience and in suffering. His whole life was one season of oblation.

II. THE EFFECTS OF THIS SACRIFICE. St. Pauls representation rather embraces a point than extends itself to the whole of the effects of the atonement: the expression dead works, denotes sinfulness in general, by which all our consciences are polluted, in opposition to those things by which spiritual uncleanness was removed. We have, then, simply to inquire into the truth and meaning of the assertion, that the blood of Jesus cleanseth the soul of the believer from sin, and thus qualifies him for the service of the living God. And, first of all, we have full warrant for affirming that so soon as there is faith in the heart, binding a man to Christ as a member of the head, the sins of all men are swept completely away, being not only forgiven, but actually forgotten by God. It is membership with Christ which gives its might and its majesty to the gospel. Faith admits me into the invisible Church of Christ, and the members of the invisible Church make up one sinless body in the sight of the Father--the perfect righteousness of the Head being considered as belonging equally to the meanest of the members. So that when I have faith in Christ, I am literally one with Christ, and then where are my sins? The countless iniquities of my youth I the multiform transgressions of my riper years! where are they? I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgression, for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Oh! how unlike is His forgiveness to that of men, who may forgive but cannot forget! Oh! the word of the Lord is--the blood of Jesus Christ shall purge your conscience from dead works.

III. THIS PURGING OF THE CONSCIENCE IS PREPARATORY TO SERVING THE LORD. The man of whom much has been forgiven will love much, and loving without obeying is a paradox which never yet deformed practical Christianity. Like as Christ offered Himself through the Eternal Spirit unto God, so also must we through the same Spirit present ourselves as living sacrifices to the Most High. This is the service to which we are pledged; this is the consecration bound upon us by all that is most solemn in duty and glorious in hope. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

The red heifer

I. LET US DESCRIBE THE TYPE (see Num_19:1-22.). First, the type mentions ceremonial defilements, which were the symbols of the uncleanness caused by sin. The Israelites could very readily render themselves unclean, so as to be unfit to go up to the tabernacle of God. There were uncleannesses connected both with birth and with death, with meats and with drinks, with garments and with houses. A man might become unclean even in his sleep; so closely did the law track him into his most secret places, and surround his most unguarded hours. Even thus doth sin beset us. Like a dog at ones heels, it is always with us! Like our shadow, it follows us, go where we may. Yea, and when the sun shines not, and shadows are gone, sin is still there. Whither shall we flee from its presence, and where shall we hide from its power? When we would do good, evil is present with us. How humbled we ought to be at the recollection of this! The Israelite became unclean even in the act of doing good; for assuredly it was a good deed to bury the dead. Alas, there is sin even in our holy things. The evil of our nature clingeth to all that we do. The touching of the dead not only made the man unclean, but he became a fountain of defilement. Pollution went forth from the polluted. Do you and I sufficiently remember how much of evil we are spreading when we are out of communion with God? Every ungenerous temper creates the like in others. We never cast a proud look without exciting resentment and bad feelings in others. Somebody or other will follow our example if we be slothful; and thus we may be doing great mischief even when we are doing nothing. This uncleanness prevented the man from going up to the worship of God, and it separated him from that great, permanent congregation which was called to dwell in Gods house by residing all around the holy place. He was, so to speak, excommunicated, suspended, at any rate, in his communion: he could bring no offering, he could not stand among the multitude and view the solemn worship, he was unclean, and must regard himself so. Do the children of God ever get here? Ah, so far as our consciences are concerned we too often come among the unclean. Until the pardoning blood speaks peace within your spirit, you cannot draw near unto God. We tremble, we find communion impossible until we are made clean. This much about the defilements described in the chapter; now concerning the cleansing which it mentions. The defilement was frequent, but the cleansing was always ready.. At a certain time all the people of Israel brought a red heifer to be used in the expiation. It was not at the expense of one person, or tribe, but the whole congregation brought the red cow to be slain. It was to be their sacrifice, and it was brought for them all. It was not led, however, up to the holy place for sacrifice, but it was brought forth without the camp, and there it was slaughtered in the presence of the priest, and wholly burnt with fire, not as a sacrifice upon the altar, but as a polluted thing which was to be made an end of outside the camp. Even as our Lord, though in Himself without spot, was made sin for us, and suffered without the camp, feeling the withdrawings of God, while He cried, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Then the ashes were collected and laid in a clean place accessible to the camp. Everybody knew where the ashes were, and whenever there was any uncleanness they went to this ash-heap and took away a small portion. Whenever the ashes were spent they brought another red heifer, and did the same as they had done before, that always there might be this purification for the unclean, There was no other method of purification from uncleanness but this. It is so with us. To-day the living water of the Divine Spirits sacred influences must take up the result of our Lords substitution, and this must be applied to our consciences. That which remaineth of Christ after the fire hath passed upon Him, ever the eternal merits, the enduring virtue of our great sacrifice, must be sprinkled upon us through the Spirit of our God. Then are we clean in conscience, but not till then.

II. LET US MAGNIFY THE GREAT ANTITYPE. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ? How much more? He doth not give us the measure, but leaves it with a note of interrogation. We shall never be able to tell how much more, for the difference between the blood of bulls and of goats and the blood of Christ, the difference between the ashes of a red cow and the eternal merits of the Lord Jesus, must be infinite. Let us help your judgments while we set forth the exceeding greatness of our mighty Expiator, by whom we are reconciled to God.

1. First, then, our defilement is much greater, for the defilement spoken of in the text is on the conscience, We cannot have fellowship with God while there is a sense of unconfessed and unforgiven sin upon us. Be ye reconciled to God is a text for saints as well as for sinners: children may quarrel with a father as well as rebels with a king. There must be oneness of heart with God, or there is an end to communion, and therefore must the conscience be purged. The man who was unclean could have come up to the tabernacle if there had been no law to prevent it, and it is possible that he could have worshipped God in spirit, notwithstanding his ceremonial disqualification. The defilement was no barrier in itself except so far as it was typical; but sin on the conscience is a natural wall between God and the soul. You cannot get into loving communion until the conscience is at ease; therefore, I charge you, fly at once to Jesus for peace.

2. Secondly, our sacrifice is greater in itself. I will not dwell upon each point of its greatness, but just notice that in the slaughter of the heifer blood was presented and sprinkled towards the holy place seven times, though it came not actually into it; so in the atonement through which we find peace of conscience there is blood, for without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Death was our doom, and death for death did Christ render unto the eternal God. It is by a sense of our Lords substitutionary death that the conscience becomes purged from dead works. Furthermore, the heifer itself was offered. After the blood was sprinkled towards the tabernacle by the priestly hand, the victim itself was utterly consumed. Read now our text: Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered up Himself without spot unto God. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave not merely His death, but His whole person, with all that appertained unto it, to be our substitutionary sacrifice. Oh, what a sacrifice is this! It is added that our Lord did this by the eternal Spirit. The heifer was not a spiritual but a carnal offering. The creature knew nothing of what was being done, it was the involuntary victim; but Christ was under the impulses of the Holy Ghost, which was poured upon Him, and He was moved by Him to render up Himself a sacrifice for sin. Hence somewhat of the greater efficacy of His death, for the willinghood of the sacrifice greatly enhanced its value. To give you another, and probably a better, interpretation of the words, there was an eternal spirit linked with the manhood of Christ our Lord, and by it He gave Himself unto God. He was God as well as man, and that eternal Godhead of His lent an infinite value to the sufferings of His human frame, so that He offered Himself as a whole Christ, in the energy of His eternal power and Godhead. One who is both God and man has given Himself as a sacrifice for us. Is not the sacrifice inconceivably greater in the fact than it is in the type? Ought it not most effectually to purge our conscience? After they had burnt the heifer they swept up the ashes. All that could be burnt had been consumed. Our Lord was made a sacrifice for sin, what remains of Him? Not a few ashes, but the whole Christ, which still remaineth, to die no more, but to abide for ever unchanged. He came uninjured through the fires, and now He ever liveth to make intercession for us. It is the application of His eternal merit which makes us clean, and is not that eternal merit inconceivably greater than the ashes of an heifer ever can be?

3. As the defilement and the sacrifice were greater, so the purging is much greater. The purifying power of the blood of Christ must be much greater than the purging power of the water mixed with the ashes of the heifer. For that could not purge conscience from sin, but the application of the atonement can do it, and does do it. Now, what is all this business about? This slain heifer--I understand that, for it admitted the unclean Israelites to the courts of the Lord--but this Christ of God offering Himself without spot by the eternal Spirit--what is that for? The object of it is a service far higher: it is that we may be purged from dead works to serve the living God. The dead works are gone, God absolves you, you are clean, and you feel it. What then? Will you not abhor dead works for the future? Sin is death. Labour to keep from it. Inasmuch as you are delivered from the yoke of sin, go forth and serve God. Since He is the living God, and evidently hates death, and makes it to be an uncleanness to Him, get you to living things. Offer to God living prayers, and living tears, love Him with living love, trust Him with living faith, serve Him with living obedience. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Self-oblation the true idea of obedience:

Christ offered up Himself. He was both Priest and Sacrifice. The atoning oblation was His perfect obedience, both in life and death, to the will of His Father. From Heb_10:5-7 we learn that the mystery of atonement began from the first act of humiliation, when He laid aside His glory, and was made in the likeness of men. It contains, therefore, His incarnation, His hope of earthly obedience, His spiritual and bodily sufferings, His death and resurrection. He overcame sin by His holiness, by perfect and perpetual obedience, by a spotless life, by His mastery in the wilderness, by His agony in the garden. His whole life was a part of the one sacrifice which, through the eternal Spirit, He offered to His Father; namely, the reasonable and spiritual sacrifice of a crucified will.

I. First we may learn INTO WHAT RELATION TOWARDS GOD THE CHURCH HAS BEEN BROUGHT BY THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. The whole mystical body is offered up to the Father, as a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. Whatsoever was fulfilled by the Head is partaken of by the body. He was an oblation, and the Church is offered up in Him. Even now the Church is crucified, buried, raised and exalted to sit with Christ in heavenly places. In the same act of self-oblation He comprehended us, and offered us in Himself. And in this is our justification; namely, in our relation, as a living sacrifice, to God through Christ, for whose sake we, all fallen though we be, are accounted righteous in the court of heaven.

II. The next truth we may learn is, THE NATURE OF THE HOLY SACRAMENTS. Under one aspect they are gifts of spiritual grace from God to us; under another they are acts of self-oblation on our part to God. They are the emphatic expressions and the efficient means of realising the great mystery of atonement in us. The faithful in early times, in the very act of offering up the living sacrifice of themselves, saw in the bread and wine of the eucharist an expressive symbol of self-oblation, and a fulfilment of the prophets words (Mal_1:11). PRACTICAL INFERENCES:

1. We may learn from this view of the great act of atonement, what is the nature of the faith by which we become partakers of it, or, in other words, by which we are justified. Plainly it is not a faith which indolently terminates in a belief that Christ died for us; or which intrusively assumes to itself the office of applying to its own needs the justifying grace of the atonement. It is God that justifieth. All that faith does at the outset, in mans justification, is to receive Gods sovereign gift.

2. We may thus learn what is the true point of sight from which to look at all the trials of life. We hear people perpetually lamenting, uttering passionate expressions of grief at visitations which, they say, have come on them unlooked for, and stunned them by their suddenness: one has lost his possessions, another his health, another his powers of sight or hearing, another the desire of his eyes, parents, children, husbands, wives, friends; each sorrowing for their own, and all alike viewing their affliction from the narrow point of their own isolated being: they seem to be hostile invasions of their peace; mutilations of the integrity of their lot; untimely disruptions of their fondest ties, and the like. Now all this loose and faithless language arises from our not recognising the great law to which all these are to be referred. It is no more than this: that God is disposing of what has been offered up to Him in sacrifice: as, for instance, when a father or mother bewails the taking away of a child, have they not forgotten he was ,not their own? Did they not offer him at the font? Did not God promise to receive their oblation? What has He done more than take them at their word? And so likewise, when any true servants of Christ are taken away, what is it but a token of His favourable acceptance of their self-oblation? While they were with us they were not ours, but His: they were permitted to abide with us, and to gladden our hearts awhile; but they were living sacrifices, and ever at the point of being caught up to heaven. And so, lastly, in all that befalls ourselves, we too are not our own, but His; all that we call ours is His; and when He takes it from us--first one loved treasure, then another, till He makes us poor, and naked, and solitary--let us not sorrow that we are stripped of all we love, but rather rejoice for that God accepts us: let us not think that we are left here, as it were, unreasonably alone, but remember that, by our bereavements, we are in part translated to the world unseen. He is calling us away, and sending on our treasures. The great law of sacrifice is embracing us, and must have its perfect work. Let us pray Him, therefore, to shed abroad in us the mind that was in Christ; that, our will being crucified, we may offer up ourselves to be disposed of as He sees best. (Archdeacon H. E. Manning.)

The more excellent ministry:

Stress must be laid on each of three particulars: Christ offered Himself; in offering Himself He presented a spotless offering; He offered Himself through an eternal spirit.

I. First, then, Christs sacrifice possesses incomparable worth and virtue because the victim was HIMSELF. In this one fact is involved that Christs sacrifice possessed certain moral attributes altogether lacking in the Levitical sacrifices: voluntariness and beneficent intention, the freedom of a rational being with a mind of his own and capable of self-determination, the love of a gracious personality in whom the soul of goodness dwells. Christs sacrifice was an affair of mind and heart--in one word, of spirit.

II. Christs sacrifice possesses incomparable worth and virtue, secondly, because in Himself He presented to God a SPOTLESS sacrifice--spotless in the moral sense. He was a perfectly holy, righteous Man, and He showed His moral purity precisely by being loyal and obedient even to the point of enduring death for righteousness sake. The victims under the law were spotless also, but merely in a physical sense. Christs spotlessness, on the contrary, was ethical, a quality belonging not to His body, but to His spirit.

III. We are now prepared in some measure to understand the third ground of the value attached to Christs sacrifice; viz., that He offered Himself THROUGH AN ETERNAL SPIRIT. Putting aside for a moment the epithet eternal, we see that Christs sacrifice was one in which spirit was concerned, as opposed to the legal sacrifices in which flesh and blood only were concerned. It was a free, loving, holy spirit. But the writer, it is observable, omits mention of these moral qualities, and employs instead another epithet, which in the connection of thought it was more important to specify, and which there was little chance of his readers supplying for themselves. The epithet eternal suggests the thought: the act performed by Jesus in offering Himself may, as a historical event, become old with the lapse of ages; but the spirit in which the act was done can never become a thing of the past. The blood shed was corruptible; but the spirit which found expression in Christs self-sacrifice is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and in its eternal self-identity lends to the priestly deed imperishable merit and significance. This fitly chosen phrase thus makes the one sacrifice of Christ cover with its efficacy all prospective sin. But it does more than that. It is retrospective as well as prospective, and makes the sacrifice valid for the ages going before. For an eternal spirit is independent of time, and gives to acts done through its inspiration validity for all time. One virtue more must be ascribed to this magic phrase, through an eternal spirit. It helps us over the difficulty created by the fact that Christs real self-sacrifice took place on earth, and yet ideally belongs to the heavenly sanctuary. When we think of Christs sacrifice as offered through an eternal spirit, we see that we may place it where we please, in earth or in heaven, on Calvary or on high, as suits our purpose. Do you insist that Christs proper offering of Himself took place in the celestial sanctuary after the ascension, even as Aarons proper offering was the blood-sprinkling within the most holy place? I reply, Be it so; but it took place there through an eternal spirit which gave to it its value; and if we want to know what that spirit was, we must look to the earthly life of obedience and love culminating in the crucifixion, wherein it found its perfect manifestation. Through this eternal spirit Christ offered Himself before He came into the world, when He was in the world, after He left the world. It was as a spirit He offered Himself, as a self-conscious, free, moral personality; and His offering was a spirit revealed through a never-to-be-forgotten act of self-surrender, not the literal blood shed on Calvary, which in itself possessed no more intrinsic value than the blood of Levitical victims. Thus interpreted, the term spirit unfolds the implicit significance of Himself, and gives us the rationale of all real value in sacrifice. It can have no value, we learn therefrom, unless mind, spirit be revealed in it. Death, blood, in its own place, may have theological significance, but not apart from spirit. It goes without saying that the idea of spirit is essentially ethical in its import. Voluntariness and beneficent intention enter into the very substance of Christs sacrifice. Another remark still may be added. In the light of the foregoing discussion we can see the vital significance of the death of Christ in connection with His priestly work. The least priestly act of the Levitical system becomes here the most important, the humble, non-sacerdotal first step the essence of the whole matter. Through the death of the Victim His spirit finds its culminating expression, and it is that spirit which constitutes the acceptableness of His sacrifice in the sight of God. On the epithet eternal attached to spirit it is not necessary further to enlarge. As the term spirit guarantees the real worth of Christs offering as opposed to the putative value of Levitical sacrifices, so the term eternal vindicates for it absolute worth. It lifts that offering above all limiting conditions of space and time, so that viewed sub specie asternitatis it may, as to its efficacy, be located at will at any point of time, and either in earth or in heaven. Eternal expresses the speculative element in the writers system of thought, as spirit expresses the ethical. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

Purge your conscience

The purging of the conscience

I. First, consider THE SAD HINDRANCE WHICH LIES IN THE WAY OF THE SERVICE OF GOD. The apostle does not say, purge your conscience from evil works, because he wanted to turn our minds to the type of defilement by death, and therefore he said, dead works. I think he had a further motive; for he was not altogether indicating wilful transgressions of the law, but those acts which are faulty because they are not performed as the result of spiritual life. I see a difference between sinful works and dead works which we may perhaps be able to bring into light as we go on. Suffice it to say for the moment, that sin is the corruption which follows necessarily upon spiritual death. First, the work is dead, and soon it rots into actual sin.

1. Upon our consciences there rests, first of all, a sense of past sin. Even if a man wishes to serve God, yet until his conscience is purged, he feels a dread of God which prevents his doing so. He has sinned, and God is just, and therefore he is ill at ease.

2. On the back of this comes the consciousness that we ourselves are sinful, and inclined to evil. We say rightly, Who shall bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. We feel that we have not that perfect purity of heart and cleanness of hands which would fit us for the holy place; nor can we ever be saved from this fear, so as to take up our heavenly priesthood and serve God, till the precious blood of Christ shall be applied to the conscience, nor until we feel that in Christ we are accounted righteous.

3. But, besides this consciousness of sin and sinfulness, we are conscious of a measure of deficient life. About us there is a body of death. Dead works are the things we most require to be purged from. Without going into what the world calls actual sin, we carry death about us, from which we daily cry to be delivered. For instance, our prayer in its form and fashion may be right enough, bat if it lacks earnestness, it will be a dead work. An alms given to the poor is good as a work of humanity, but it will be only a dead work if a desire to be seen of men is found at the bottom of it. Are not the sins of our holy things glaring before our consciences this day? Unless we are purged therefrom by the blood of Christ, who offered up Himself without spot to God, how can we serve this living God, and be as priests and kings unto Him? Once more: I told you that the Israelites were defiled by even touching a dead bone, and this teaches us the easiness of being polluted. We have to come into contact with evil in our daily dealings with ungodly men. Can we think of them, can we speak to them, can we trade with them, without incurring defilement? Nay, I go further: do we, as Christian men washed by Christ, ever associate with one another without a measure of defilement? Can we meet together at our homes and feel, when we separate, that everything we have said was seasoned with salt and ministered to edification? Is there not some taint about our purest friends; and does not the touch of that corruption which still remaineth, even in the regenerate, tend to, defile us?

II. Now, I want to show, in the second place, WHAT IS THE TRUE PURGATION FROM THIS EVIL Under the law there were several methods of purification. These things did purify the flesh, so that the man who had formerly contracted impurity might mix with his fellow-men in the congregation of the Lord. Now, if these matters were so effectual for the purifying of the flesh, well does the apostle ask, How much more shall the blood of Christ purge our conscience from dead works? Why does he say, How much more?

1. First, because it is more truly purifying. There was not truly anything of purification about the blood of bulls and of goats. When the Lord Jesus gave His body, soul, and spirit a sacrifice for sin, then in that deed there was a real atonement made, a true and effectual expiation was offered. Therefore he says How much more? if the shadow cleansed the flesh, how much more shall the substance cleanse the spirit?

2. Moreover, our Lord Christ offered a much greater sacrifice. One reason why the precious blood has such power to put away sin is because it is the blood of Christ, that is, of Gods Anointed, Gods Messiah, the Sent One of the Most High. Notice, it is not put concerning Christ that His life is purifying, though it had a wonderful relation thereto; nor is it said that His prayers are purifying, albeit everything is ascribable unto the intercession of our risen Lord; nor is it said that His resurrection is purifying; but the whole stress is laid upon the blood of Christ, signifying thereby death, death as a victim, death with reference to sin. See in His agony and His death your joy and life. It is the blood of Christ that alone can make you fit to serve the living and true God. Note what it was that Christ offered, and be sure that you lay great stress upon it. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself? What a, splendid word that is! Did He offer His blood? yes, but He offered Himself. Did He offer His life? yes, but He specially offered Himself. Now, what is Christ? The anointed of God. In His wondrous complex nature He is God and man. He is Prophet, Priest, and King. He is--but time would fail me to tell you what He is; but whatever He is He offered Himself. The entire Christ was offered by Christ.

3. It is said in our text that this offering of Himself was without spot. The sacrificial act by which He presented Himself was a faultless cue, without spot. There was nothing in what Christ was Himself, and nothing in the way in which He offered Himself, that could be objected to of God: it was without spot.

4. Further, it is added that He did this by the eternal Spirit. His eternal Godhead gave to His offering of Himself an extreme value which otherwise could not have been attached to it. Observe, then, the sacrifice was a spiritual one. He entered with His whole heart into the substitution which involved obedience unto death. For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross. It was by His Spirit that He offered up a true and real sacrifice; for He says, I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart. But then you must not forget that this Spirit was Divine--by the eternal Spirit. The Spirit of Christ was an eternal Spirit, for itwas the Godhead. There was conjoined with His deity the natural life of a perfect Man; but the eternal Spirit was His highest Self. What limit can you set to the merit of One who by the eternal Spirit offered up Himself? What bound can there be to a sacrifice Divine? You can no more set a limit to our Lords sacrifice than to Godhead itself. Once more, I must call to your notice the use of that word eternal,--who by the eternal Spirit--for it gives to the offering of Christ an endless value. Now, all this tends to make us feel how clean are they who are purged by this sacrifice which our Lord offered once for all to God.

5. Once more upon this point: as I have shown you that the sacrifice of Christ was more real and greater, so I want you to notice that it was better applied; for the ashes of an heifer mixed with water were sprinkled on the bodies of the unclean; the blood of bulls and of goats was sprinkled upon the flesh, but neither of them could reach the heart. It is not possible for a material thing to touch that which is immaterial; but the sufferings of Christ, offered up through His eternal Spirit, were not only of a corporeal but of a spiritual kind, and they reach, therefore, to the cleansing of our spirit. That precious blood comes home to us in this way: first, we understand somewhat of it. The Israelite, when he was purged by the ashes of the red cow, could only say to himself, I am made clean by these ashes, because God has appointed that I shall be, but I do not know why. But you and I can say that we are made clean through the blood of Christ, because there is in that blood an inherent efficacy; there is in the vicarious suffering of Christ on our behalf an inherent power to honour the law of God, and to put away sin. Then again, we appreciate and approve of this way of cleansing. The Israelite could not tell why the ashes of a red heifer -purified him; he did not object to it, but he could not express any great appreciation of the method. We, as we see our Lord suffering in our stead, fall at His feet in reverent wonder. We love the method of salvation by substitution; we approve of expiation by the Mediator. Further, it comes home to us in this way: we read in the Word of God that he that believeth in Him hath everlasting life, and we say to ourselves, Then we have everlasting life, for we have believed in Him. We read, The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin, and our conscience whispers, We are cleansed from all sin. Conscience finds rest and peace, and our whole consciousness becomes that of a forgiven and accepted person, with whom God is well pleased.

III. Consider THE KIND OF SERVICE WHICH WE NOW RENDER. After so much preparing, how shall we behave ourselves in the house of God? You should present unto the Lord the constant worship of living men. You see it is written, Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Are you not under bonds to serve Him? From this time forth you should not have a pulse that does not beat to His praise, nor a hair on your head that is unconsecrated to His name, nor a single moment of your time which is not used for His glory. Should not our service be rendered in the full strength of our new life? Let us have no more dead works, no more dead singing, no more dead praying, no more dead preaching, no more dead hearing. Let our religion be as warm, and constant, and natural as the flow of the blood in our veins. A living God must be served in a living way. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The purification of the conscience:

The offerings in the temple could not have satisfied the conscience; the offerings of Christ do. There are two aspects of sin which trouble the conscience. Sin by religious teachers is thought of as disturbing our relations with God. It stops our convictions, and prevents His Fatherly grace from coming to us. Another aspect of sin takes a place among the forces in the life of man to swell the sum of evil examples, to make virtue more difficult, and vice more natural. No repentance can ever recall what we have done, or make it cease to be a source of evil in the world. There is danger in the other extreme, but Christ is able to deal with the conscience, and set us right in our relations with God. There are principally three proposals for setting the relation right. They are--by mans contribution, by Gods acceptance, and by Christs transforming power. In the early ages of religion, when outward circumstances were held to be an indication of the favour or disfavour of God, the idea of propitiation took shape. They brought Him what they prized most, and supposed that He would prize it the same, and continued in this until the return of sunshine assured them that the Deitys wrath was assuaged. On the other side, some imagine that sin lapses after a term of years, or that by a certain system disorder in some things is balanced by the order in others. It is not that twenty years ago a certain deed was done: it is that in your sin you disclosed something in you which remains in you still. Let the same circumstances recur and your weakness reappears. In a very different age there grew up another theory of setting man right with God. Man had received life and power from God, and had used them against Him, and so they thought on the principle of displaying compensation against that which has to be compensated for. Thus there grew up acceptation, a sort of diminutive of acceptation. God takes it as the best that can be given, and declares the account clear. But conscience will not accept such assurance. It still recognises sin clinging to it, and so long as that sin is there, conscience is not cleansed. The third proposal is in the transforming power of Christ. The blood of Christ cleanses the conscience. If any man be in Christ, says Paul, he is a new creature. Pauls writings are full of similar verses, in which he expresses the reasonable and joyful satisfaction of conscience. He says that sin is forgiven to all men in Christ Jesus. The relation that ought to exist between God and the soul is then restored. (W. M. Macgregor, M. A.)

Dead works

Dead works

1. Dead things stink. If we meet with a dead carcase by the way, we hold our noses: even so sins, blasphemy, profanations, pride, envy, hatred, malice, covetousness; these stink in the nostrils of God Almighty: therefore let them be detested by us.

2. Dead men are forgotten. I am as a dead man out of mind. So let not our minds run on these dead works, on the profits of the world, the pleasures of the flesh: let these dead things be no more remembered.

3. That which is dead must be buried: Give me a place to bury my dead out of my sight, as Abraham said to the sons of Heth (Gen_23:4). Idolatry, blasphemy, all sins, are dead things, therefore let them be buried.

4. Dead things are abhorred of us. We shun dead things by the way, we will not come near them: so let these dead works be abhorred of us.

5. Dead things are heavy: a dead man. So these lie heavy on our consciences. Cain, Judas: they were not able to bear that intolerable burden. (W. Jones, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 9:13-14. For, &c. — The truth intended to be confirmed in these verses, is that which the apostle had asserted in the two preceding, namely, That Christ by his blood hath obtained for us eternal redemption. And his words contain both an argument and a comparison, to this effect: “If that which is less can do that which is less, then that which is greater can do that which is greater; provided also that less, in what it did, was a type of what was greater in that greater thing which it was to effect. The apostle takes for granted, what he had proved before, namely, 1st, That the Levitical services and ordinances were in themselves carnal, and had only an obscure representation of things spiritual and eternal; and that the office and sacrifice of Christ were spiritual, and had their effects in eternal things. 2d, That those other carnal earthly things were divinely-appointed types and resemblances of those which were spiritual and eternal. From these suppositions the argument is firm: as the ordinances of old, being carnal, had an efficacy to their proper end, to purify the unclean as to the flesh; so the sacrifice of Christ hath a certain efficacy to its proper end, the purging of our consciences, &c. The force of the inference depends on the relation that was between them in the appointment of God. Nay, there was evidently a greater efficacy in the sacrifice of Christ, with respect to its proper end, than there was in those sacrifices, with respect to their proper end: the reason is, because all their efficacy depended on a mere arbitrary institution, having in their own nature neither worth nor efficacy; but in the sacrifice of Christ there is an innate glorious worth and efficacy, which, suitably to the rules of eternal reason and righteousness, will procure and accomplish its effects.” — Owen. Therefore the apostle says, How much more shall the blood of Christ, &c. These things being observed, the explication of the apostle’s words will not be difficult. As if the apostle had said, That Jesus, by his death, should procure an eternal pardon and deliverance from all the consequences of sin for us, is reasonable; for if the blood of bulls and of goats, of which I have just been speaking, when presented to God, with the appointed circumstances, on the day of general expiation by the high-priest, and, in cases of personal pollution, the ashes of a heifer, (namely, the red heifer, of which see Num 19:17-19,) consumed by fire, as a sin-offering, being sprinkled on them who were legally unclean, did sanctify to the purifying of the flesh — Had so much efficacy in consequence of the divine institution, as to reconcile God to the whole Jewish people, in the former instance, and in the other to introduce persons legally unclean to the liberty of approaching him in his sanctuary, which would otherwise have been denied them; how much more reasonable is it to think that the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit — Supporting the infirmities of his human nature, and animating him to the exercise of all those graces which shed such a lustre round all the infamy of his cross; offered himself voluntarily, without spot, a most acceptable sacrifice, to God — How much more, I say, shall that blood of his avail to purge our consciences from dead works, (of which see on Heb 6:1,) that is, from the pollutions we have contracted by works of sin and death; to serve — That is, that we may freely approach, and acceptably worship and serve the living God? — How surely shall it appease that consciousness of guilt, which might otherwise be very distressing and discouraging to us, and introduce us to present our prayers, praises, and other services in the divine presence, with assurance of acceptance and regard. It is justly observed by Macknight here, that “the ceremonial institutions mentioned, sanctified the bodies of the polluted, not by any natural efficacy, (for they rather defiled them,) but by the appointment of God, who, considering them as acts of obedience, was pleased, on their account, to remit the punishment, which, as their political ruler, he had a right to inflict on the polluted; but the shedding of the blood of Christ, both by the appointment of God, and by its own efficacy, availeth to the procuring an eternal pardon for penitent sinners. The sanctification effected by the legal rites being the sanctification of nothing but the body, it was, in a religious light, of little use, unless it was a representation and pledge of some real expiation. Now, what real expiation of sin is there in the whole universe, if the sacrifice of Christ is excluded? We must therefore acknowledge that the Levitical rites, which sanctified the flesh, derived their whole virtue from their being, as the apostle affirms, figurative representations of the real atonement which Christ [made upon the cross and] was to make in heaven, [by presenting his crucified body there,] for sanctifying the soul of the sinner. Christ is said to have offered himself through the eternal Spirit, because he was raised from the dead by the Spirit, (1Pe 3:18,) consequently he was enabled by the Spirit to offer himself to God.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9:13 The ashes of a heifer were used with water to cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity (see Num 19).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Heb 9:13. Γὰρ, for) He confirms the fact, that the power of the one sacrifice of Christ is as great as he intimated at Heb 9:12.—ταύρων καὶ τράγων) of bulls and goats, which are mere brutes. Extenuation.[50]—δαμάλεως, of a heifer) which was to be red, Numbers 19. Andr. Christ. Zellerus has enlarged the treatise of Maimonides on this subject, and compares with it this passage of the apostle, p. 504. It is a tradition among the Jews, that nine heifers of that sort were sacrificed from the time of Moses to the destruction of the second temple; see ibid., pp. 416, 417.—τοὺς κεκοινωμένους, those defiled or made unclean) A participle [defiled on some particular occasion]: less strong than κοινοὺς, [habitually] common or defiled. Construe with ἁγιάζει, sanctifies; compare what follows.—καθαρότητα, cleanness or purifying) Purifying was performed by sprinkling, not by washing; but washing followed by inseparable connection: Num 19:19. This fact is exceedingly useful for making a distinction between justification and renewing.

[50] See App. The same as Litotes. The blood of bulls, etc., a less forcible expression than is the meaning, viz. sacrifices.—ED.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb_9:13-14. Justification of αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὐράμενος, Heb_9:12, by an argument a minore ad majus. With the quantitative augmentation, however, expressed by εἰ … πόσῳ μᾶλλον, there is at the same time blended a qualitative augmentation by means of πρὸς τὴν τῆς σαρκὸς καθαρότητα and τὴν συνείδησιν ἡμ. κ.τ.λ., in such wise that the two following thoughts are enfolded the one in the other:(1) If even the blood of animals works cleansing … how much more the blood of Christ? (2) If that effects the purity of the flesh, this effects purity of conscience.

καὶ σπόδος δαμάλεως] and ashes of an heifer. According to Numbers 19, those who by contact with a dead body had become defiled, must be sprinkled with a mixture of water and the ashes of a spotless red heifer wholly consumed by fire, of which the ashes were preserved in a clean place without the camp (with the so-called מֵי־הַנִּדָּה, Num_19:9; Num_19:13; Num_19:20-21; LXX.: ὕδωρ ῥαντισμοῦ), in order to become clean again.

ῥαντίζουσα τοὺς κεκεοινωμένους] sprinkling those who have been defiled. Free mode of expression for: with which (ashes) those who have been defiled are sprinkled.

τοὺς κεκοινωμένους] belongs, since ῥαντίζουσα most requires an express addition of the object, to this verb (Erasmus, Beza, Jac. Cappellus, Grotius, Böhme, Bleek, de Wette, Bisping, Maier, Moll, Kurtz, Ewald, Hofmann, Woerner, al.), not to ἁγιάζει (Vulgate, Luther, Calvin, Bengel, Schulz, al.), which latter stands absolutely: works sanctification.

πρὸς τὴν τῆς σαρκὸς καθαρότητα] to the (producing of the) purity of the flesh. πρός, as v. 14. Indication of the result.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 9:13 . εἰ γὰρ τὸ αἷμα … “For if the blood of goats and bulls and an heifer’s ashes sprinkling the unclean purify as regards the cleanness of the flesh, how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who through eternal spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” The writer thus justifies the affirmation of Heb 9:12 that by offering His own blood Christ obtained eternal redemption. σποδὸς δαμάλεως , the law of purification with the ashes of the δάμαλις πυῤῥὰ ἄμωμος is given in Num 19 , where we find the characteristic words of this verse, σποδός , ἄμωμος , ἁγνίζω , ῥαντισμός , καθαρός , but κοινοῦν (not used in LXX) is replaced by ἀκάθαρτος . κεκοινωμένους , “made common,” i.e. , profane, ceremonially unclean. Defilement was contracted by touching a dead body, or entering into a house in which a corpse was lying, or touching a bone or a tomb; and to enter the Tabernacle while thus defiled was to incur the penalty of being cut off from Israel. The water in which lay the ashes of the burned heifer was therefore provided for purification ( ὕδωρ ῥαντισμοῦ ) and by using it the worshipper was again rendered fit for entrance to the worship of God. ῥαντίζουσα governs κεκοιν . and is not to be translated as if it were a passive; so Vulg., “aspersus inquinatos sanctificat” ( cf. Calvin and Bengel). ἁγιάζει , the meaning is determined by its use in Num 19 , where it signifies the removal of ceremonial defilement: the taking away of that which rendered the person “common” or “profane,” and the qualifying him for again worshipping God. This ἁγιασμός extended πρὸς τὴν τῆν σαρκὸς καθαρότητα , “in the direction of” (Heb 6:11 ) or “in relation to” (Heb 2:17 , Heb 5:1 ) ( cf. Weiss). The flesh is here opposed to “the conscience” of Heb 9:14 . It was only the flesh that was defiled by attending to the dead; and only the flesh that was cleansed by the prescribed sprinkling. Defilement and cleansing were alike symbolic. It was within a well-defined ceremonial limit these sacrifices and washings availed. What kind of water, no matter how mixed with heifer’s ashes, could reach and wash the soul?

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He considereth the signs apart, being separate from the thing itself.

If the outward sprinkling of blood and ashes of beasts, was a true and effectual sign of purifying and cleansing, how much more shall the thing itself and the truth being present, which in times past was shadowed by those external Sacraments, that is to say, his blood which is in such sort man’s blood, that is also the blood of the Son of God, and therefore hath an everlasting virtue of purifying and cleansing, does it?

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 13. Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh] Answers the end proposed by the law; namely, to remove legal disabilities and punishments, having the body and its interests particularly in view, though adumbrating or typifying the soul and its concerns.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. For if the blood of bulls, etc. This passage has given to many all occasion to go astray, because they did not consider that sacraments are spoken of, which had a spiritual import. The cleansing of the flesh they leave explained of what avails among men, as the heathens had their expiations to blot out the infamy of crimes. But this explanation is indeed very heathenish; for wrong is done to God’s promises, if we restrict the effect to civil matters only. Often does this declaration occur in the writings of Moses, that iniquity was expiated when a sacrifice was duly offered. This is no doubt the spiritual teaching of faith. Besides, all the sacrifices were destined for this end, that they might lead men to Christ; as the eternal salvation of the soul is through Christ, so these were true witnesses of this salvation.

What then does the Apostle mean when he speaks of the purgations of the flesh? He means what is symbolical or sacramental, as follows, — If the blood of beasts was a true symbol of purgation, so that it cleansed in a sacramental manner, how much more shall Christ who is himself the truth, not only bear witness to a purgation by an external rite, but also really perform this for consciences? The argument then is from the signs to the thing signified; for the effect by a long time preceded the reality of the signs.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(13) For if the blood of bulls and of goats.—This verse connects itself with the last words of Heb_9:12, “having won eternal redemption,” showing why our hope may rise so high. The sacrifice is mentioned here in words slightly different from those of Heb_9:11; but in each case the writer’s thought is resting on the sin offering of the Day of Atonement, a bullock for the high priest himself, a goat for the people. (There is no distinct reference in this Epistle to the “scapegoat” sent into the wilderness.)

And the ashes of an heifer.—The nineteenth chapter of Numbers is wholly occupied with the remarkable institution here referred to. A red heifer without spot was slain and wholly burnt, “with cedar-wood and hyssop and scarlet,” and the ashes were laid up in a clean place without the camp. “And for the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin-offering, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel: and a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle . . . . upon the unclean” (Heb_9:17-19). The “unclean” are those that have been defiled by touching the dead body of a man, or by being in any way brought into connection with death. It is said that on the third and seventh days of the high priest’s week of preparation for the Day of Atonement (see Note on Heb_7:26), he was sprinkled with this water of purification, lest he should inadvertently have contracted such defilement.

Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh.—Better, sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh. As we have seen already (Heb_9:10), the writer is looking at the intrinsic character of the sacrifices (Heb_10:4) and rites of purification, apart from their importance as marks of obedience or their value to those who were able to discern their spiritual lessons. They could not cleanse the conscience (Heb_9:9); but they could and did remove what the Law accounted “uncleanness,” and disabilities connected with the outward life and religious worship of the commonwealth.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean] The writer has designedly chosen the two most striking sacrifices and ceremonials of the Levitical Law, namely the calf and the goat offered for the sins of people and priest on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) and “the water of separation,” or rather “of impurity,” i.e. “to remove impurity” “as a sin-offering” described in Num_19:1-12 (comp. Heb_7:26).

of a heifer] The Jews have the interesting legend that nine such red heifers had been slain between the time of Moses and the destruction of the Temple.

the unclean] Those that have become ceremonially defiled, especially by having touched a corpse.

sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh] i.e. if these things are adequate to restore a man to ceremonial cleanness which was a type of moral purity. So much efficacy they had; they did make the worshipper ceremonially pure before God: their further and deeper efficacy depended on the faith and sincerity with which they were offered, and was derived from the one offering of which they were a type.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For if the blood of bulls and of goats,.... Shed either on the day of atonement, or at any other time: the former of thee, Pausanias (y) relates, was drank by certain priestesses among the Grecians, whereby they were tried, whether they spoke truth or no if not, they were immediately punished; and the latter, he says (z), will dissolve an adamant stone; but neither of them can purge from sin:

and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean; the apostle refers to the red heifer, Num 19:1 which being burnt, its ashes were gathered up and put into a vessel, and water poured upon them, which was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop on unclean persons; the ashes and the water mixed together made the water of separation, or of sprinkling; for so it is called by the Septuagint, "the water of sprinkling", and in the Targum in a following citation: this was the purification for sin, though it only

sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; the body, or only in an external and typical way, but did not really sanctify the heart, or purify and cleanse the soul from sin. The Jews say, that the waters of purification for sin were not waters of purification for sin, without the ashes (a); and to this the Targumist, on Eze 36:25 and on Zac 13:1 refers, paraphrasing both texts thus;

"I will forgive their sins as they are cleansed with the water of sprinkling, and with the ashes of the heifer, which is a purification for sin.''

(y) Achaica, sive l. 7. p. 450. (z) Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 485. (a) Misn. Temura, c. 1. sect. 5. Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:

Ver. 13. The ashes of a heifer] Gr. Ashes and cinders mixt together, as a monument of Christ’s most base and utmost afflictions, and of our justification and sanctification through faith in his name. σποδος. Sordidus cinis, et cum carbones extincti permisti sunt.

Sprinkling the unclean] With a hyssop bunch, to note that none can have comfort either by the merit or Spirit of Christ, without true mortification.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For if the blood of bulls and of goats - Referring still to the great day of atonement, when the offering made was the sacrifice of a bullock and a goat.

And the ashes of an heifer - For an account of this, see Num 19:2-10. In ver. 9, it is said that the ashes of the heifer, after it was burnt, should be kept “for a water of separation; it is a purification for sin.” That is, the ashes were to be carefully preserved, and being mixed with water were sprinkled on those who were from any cause ceremonially impure. The “reason” for this appears to have been that the heifer was considered as a sacrifice whose blood has been offered, and the application of the ashes to which she had been burnt was regarded as an evidence of participation in that sacrifice. It was needful, where the laws were so numerous respecting external pollutions, or where the members of the Jewish community were regarded as so frequently “unclean” by contact with dead bodies, and in various other ways, that there should be some method in which they could be declared to be cleansed from their “uncleanness.” The nature of these institutions also required that this should be in connection with “sacrifice,” and in order to this, it was arranged that there should be this “permanent sacrifice” - the ashes of the heifer that had been sacrificed - of which they could avail themselves at any time, without the expense and delay of making a bloody offering specifically for the occasion. It was, therefore, a provision of convenience, and at the same time was designed to keep up the idea, that all purification was somehow connected with the shedding of blood.

Sprinkling the unclean - Mingled with water, and sprinkled on the unclean. The word “unclean” here refers to such as had been defiled by contact with dead bodies, or when one had died in the family, etc.; see Num 19:11-22.

Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh - Makes holy so far as the flesh or body is concerned. The uncleanness here referred to related to the body only, and of course the means of cleansing extended only to that. It was not designed to give peace to the conscience, or to expiate moral offences. The offering thus made removed the obstructions to the worship of God so far as to allow him who had been defiled to approach him in a regular manner. Thus, much the apostle allows was accomplished by the Jewish rites. They had an efficacy in removing ceremonial uncleanness, and in rendering it proper that he who had been polluted should be permitted again to approach and worship God. The apostle goes on to argue that if they had such an efficacy, it was fair to presume that the blood of Christ would have far greater efficacy, and would reach to the conscience itself, and make that pure.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

For if the blood of goats, &c. Another main difference betwixt the sacrifices in the old, and that of Christ in the new law. Those imperfect carnal sacrifices could only make the priests and the people reputed clean, so that they were no longer to be treated as transgressors, and liable to punishments, prescribed and inflicted by the law: but the sacrifice of Christ has made our consciences interiorly clean, and sanctified them even in the sight of God. Having offered himself unspotted to God by the Holy Ghost, the divine Spirit of the Holy Ghost moving Christ as man to make this oblation of himself, though free from all sin, and incapable of sinning. And being this oblation, made by him, who was God as well as man, it was an oblation of infinite value, which repaired the injury done to God by sin, and redeemed mankind from the slavery of sin. (Witham) --- Here we have an abstract of the passion of Jesus Christ, or of the sacrifice of the cross. We see who is the priest, and who is the victim; we seethe virtue and efficacy of this sacrifice, and why it was offered; also by what signs we may know whether we partake of it, viz. if dying to sin and to the world, we live to God, and serve him in spirit and truth. Calvin makes Jesus Christ a priest and mediator, according to his divinity; but in that case Christ would be inferior to his Father, not only as man, but according to his divinity: for the priest is inferior to the God to whom he offers sacrifice, which is an expression of supreme excellence. See Dr. Kellison’s survey of the Protestant religion.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This service of Christ in his sanctuary exceeds the Aaronical, not only for reconciling souls to God, but purifying of them, as cleared in this and Heb 9:14.

For if the blood of bulls and of goats: the blood is the same as spoken of Heb 9:12.

Bulls, here put for calves, are but to distinguish the sex; and it is to be noted, where our translators read oxen, as to sacrifices in the Old Testament, as particularly Num 7:87, they mean bulls, for no oxen were by the law to be offered to God at all as sacrifices; see Lev 22:17-23; because they could not be true types of the true sacrifice, which was to perfect them. This blood was sprinkled on the mercy-seat and before it, and on the altar, Lev 16:14,19, &c., expiating sins, and taking away the guilt and legal punishment.

And the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean: the rite of preparing it, read in Num 19:1-10. A red heifer was by the people given to the priest; he was to bring her without the camp, and order her to be slain, and then take the blood with his finger, and sprinkle it towards the tabernacle seven times; after which she was to be wholly burnt in his sight, with cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet, the ashes of which were reserved; when they used them, they took them in a vessel, and put running water to them, and then sprinkled them with a bunch of hyssop on persons legally unclean, Heb 9:18-20, and so they purified them from their ceremonial filth and pollution; but none of these could purify an unclean soul, that was left unholy and unclean still.

Sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; these sprinklings did sanctify those who were legally unclean, and did procure a legal purity and acceptance of them the service of the sanctuary, from which else they were excluded; by this they were looked on as externally holy with the congregation, their flesh and outward man being made pure by it for their external worship.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. For—An argument in these two verses for the divine efficiency of the atonement, drawn from three comparative points; thus—1. The blood of animals—the blood of Christ. 2. The purifying of the flesh—the purifying of the conscience. 3. Through animal life—through eternal Spirit. If—Not implying a doubt, but assuming a fundamental certainty as basis of the momentous inference.

Ashes of a heifer—Num_19:2-6. Under Jewish law a corpse, as a memento of death and sin, was unclean; and its contact rendered a man unclean, excluding him from the congregation of Israel until purified. A red heifer—red as the ruddy colour of life—was burned, and its ashes, mixed with water, were reserved as a purifier to be sprinkled on every person who was unclean by the death-touch. The solemn awe of sin and death was impressed by several additional points. The heifer was burned without the camp. All the persons performing the rite were unclean until evening, and not only the unclean man, but the tent in which was the corpse, must be purified by the ashes and water. In all this was impressed upon Israel the divine antithesis of God, purity, and life, on one side, and Satan, sin, and death, on the other.

Purifying of the flesh—Producing a typical purity, and deriving all the power for that from the antitype it represented. Hence, even though it made the conscience quiet, it received not that benefit from the mere material character of the substances used in the rite.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those that have been defiled, (kekoinwmenouv , cf. Mat_15:11, etc.; Act_21:28) sanctifieth to the purifying (literally, unto the purity, kayarothta) of the flesh. In addition to the sin offerings of the Day of Atonement, mention is here made of the red heifer, whose ashes were to be mixed with water for the purification of such as had been ceremonially defiled by contact with dead bodies. (for account of which see Nu 19) They are classed together because both were general sin offerings for the whole congregation, representing the idea of continual and unavoidable defilements notwithstanding all the daily sacrifices; the difference between them being that the ashes were reserved for use in known cases of constantly recurring defilement, the sin offerings on the Day of Atonement were for general sin and defilement, known or unknown. But neither, in themselves, could from their very nature avail for more than outward ceremonial cleansing the purity of the flesh." This, however, they did avail for; and, if so, what -must the cleansing power of Christ"s offering be? Its deeper efficacy shall appear from consideration of what it was.

Vers. 13, 14. Ceremonial and spiritual cleansing. "For if the blood of bulls and of goats," etc.

I THE HUMAN NEED OF CLEANSING. By implication our text teaches the moral defilement of man. Both under the Mosaic and under the Christian dispensation the impurity was moral. But in the earlier dispensation the external and ceremonial uncleanness was made most conspicuous. A very small thing led to this defilement. If a man unwittingly walked over a grave, or touched a dead human body, he was accounted unclean seven days. (cf. Num_19:11-22) This was designed as a parable of spiritual uncleanness. It was intended to lead men to feel the contamination of sin. So in the Christian economy it is the internal and moral impurity that is exhibited, and the need of spiritual cleansing that is insisted upon. Sin is the corrupting, defiling, separating thing. The great need is a clean heart and a right spirit.

II THE DIVINE METHODS OF CLEANSING. Our text brings before us two methods, that of the Mosaic economy and that of the Christian, the ceremonial and the spiritual.

(1) Both were of Divine origin.

(2) Both involved sacrifice as an essential element.

But in other respects these methods were widely different. Let us notice the method:

1. In the earlier dispensation.

(1) The sacrifices were of animal life. "The blood of goats and of bulls, and the ashes of a heifer.

(2) The application of the sacrifices was external or corporeal. The use of the blood of goats and bulls was external and visible. (Le 16) The use of the ashes of the red heifer was external and corporeal. (Nu 19) Both the sacrifices themselves and the application of them came within the region of the senses.

2. In the Christian dispensation.

(1) As to the sacrifice.

(a) It was the sacrifice of a human life. "The blood of Christ, who... offered himself.

(b) It was the sacrifice of a holy human life. "Christ offered himself without blemish unto God". (cf. Heb_7:26, 27 1Pe_1:18, 1Pe_1:19)

(c) It was the sacrifice of the holy human life of a Divine Person. "The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God." By "the eternal Spirit" we understand, "not the Spirit of the Father dwelling in Christ, nor the Holy Spirit given without measure to Christ, but the Divine Spirit of the Godhead which Christ himself had, and was in his inner personality" (Alford, in loco). Our Lord"s Divine nature acquiesced in the redemptive plan and purpose, and contributed to its fulfillment. "It was "the blood of Christ; "of the whole and undivided Christ," as Richard Watson observes, "who was both God and man. For though a Divine nature could not bleed and die, a Divine person could. This distinction is to be kept in mind: for, the person being one, the acts and sufferings of each nature are the acts and sufferings of the same person, and are spoken of interchangeably." "His blood, though not the blood of God, yet was the blood of him that was God." The chief value of our Savior"s sacrifice was not in the physical life which was offered, although that was perfect, but in the spirit in which it was offered, tie shed his blood for us in the spirit of uttermost and perfect obedience to the Divine Father, and of willing sacrifice for the accomplishment of human salvation. And this spirit of obedience and self-sacrificing love was eternal; not a transient mood or a temporary feeling, but his eternal disposition. "The sacrifice of Christ," says Ebrard, "could only be offered in the power of eternal spirit. Only the eternal spirit of absolute love, holiness, wisdom, and compassion was capable of enduring that sacrificial death.

(2) The application of this sacrifice is spiritual. Its efficacy can be realized only by faith. Not literally has the Christ carried his blood into the true holy of holies. Not literally is it sprinkled upon the consciences of men for their purification. The redemptive power of the death of Christ is a spiritual force, and must be spiritually appropriated. We realize it by the exercise of faith in him. (Rom_3:24-26)

III THE EFFICACY OF THESE METHODS OF CLEANSING.

1. The sacrifices of the Jewish ritual were efficacious in producing ritualistic purity. Doubtless there were persons who, regarding these sacrifices as types of a far higher sacrifice, and these cleansings as figures of a spiritual cleansing, derived spiritual and saving benefits through them. To these benefits the text does not refer, but to the national and ceremonial use of these institutions. They "sanctified unto the cleanness of the flesh." By means of them ceremonial impurity was removed, the separation consequent upon that impurity was brought to an end, and the cleansed person was restored to the congregation of Israel.

2. The sacrifice of Christ is far more efficacious in producing spiritual purity. "How much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse your conscience?" etc. By "conscience" in this place we do not understand any one faculty of our spiritual nature, but our entire moral consciousness in relation to God, our religious soul. "Dead works" are those which are regarded as meritorious in themselves, and apart from the disposition and motive which prompted them. They do not proceed from a heart alive by faith and love. No living spiritual sentiment breathes through them. And their influence on the soul is not inspiring, but depressing. They have no fitness for quickening spiritual affections and powers, but for crushing and killing them. They, moreover, tend to defile man"s religious nature. As the touching of a corpse, or the bone of a dead body, or treading upon a grave, defiled a man under the Mosaic Law, so the contact of these dead works with man"s soul contaminates it. The moral influence of the blood of Christ cleanses away this contamination. (cf. 1Jn_1:6-9) The holy and infinite love of God manifested in the death of Christ for us, when it is realized by us, burns up base passions and impure human affections and unholy desires. It acts within us as a fervent and purifying fire. And it inspires the soul for true spiritual service. It "cleanses the conscience from dead works to serve the living God." The word used to express this service indicates its religiousness. It "denotes in the New Testament the priestly consecration and offering up of the whole man to the service of God...the willing priestly offering of one"s self to God." It does not signify service which is limited to religious duties, but the performance of every duty and all duties in a religious spirit. The whole life is consecrated to the living God, and all its occupations become exalted into a Divine service. (cf. 1Co_10:31Co 1Co_3:17) "How much more," then, "shall the blood of Christ?" etc. In the ceremonial cleansings the connection between the means and the end was merely symbolical and arbitrary; but in the redemptive influences of the gospel there is a beautiful and sublime fitness for the accomplishment of their end. The infinite righteousness and love manifested in the great self-sacrifice of the Savior are eminently adapted to redeem and purify man"s soul from sin, and to inspire and invigorate him for the willing service of the living God. Our text corrects two errors concerning the sacrifice of Christ.

1. It corrects the error of those who make the essence of that sacrifice to consist in the physical sufferings and death of our Lord. God has no delight in mere pain, or blood-shedding, or death. In themselves these things cannot be pleasing to God. It was the spirit in which Christ suffered and died that made his death a Divine sacrifice and a mighty power of spiritual redemption.

2. It corrects the error of those who depreciate the expression of the Divine spirit of self-sacrifice in the life and death of our Lord. It was morally necessary that he should give himself as a sacrifice for us, in order that the mighty influence of the Divine righteousness and love might be brought to bear upon us and redeem us. "Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things?" "Thus it behooved the Christ to suffer," etc.. W.J. (Luk_24:26, Luk_24:46, Luk_24:47)

Vers. 13, 14. Ceremonial and spiritual purification.

There are here

I THE ARRANGEMENTS FOR CEREMONIAL PURIFICATION. A red heifer the color of red signifying the inflaming nature of sin was to be slain by a priest; but not the high priest, who was to abstain from all contact with death. And the body and the blood were to be burnt outside the comp. Some of the blood was sprinkled towards the tabernacle, and during the process of burning, cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool were thrown into the fire. The ashes were laid up for use by those who had become ceremonially unclean by touching the dead, and for the purification of the house, furniture, and utensils where a death had occurred. Being mixed with water and sprinkled upon such persons and homes, on the third and seventh day the defilement was removed. This was the Divine arrangement for the purity of Israel, and those who complied with the will of God enjoyed liberty of approach to his courts, and a share in the blessings of the tabernacle and priesthood.

II THE SUPERIOR GLORY AND EFFECT OF THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. The writer had previously noticed the inferior nature and limited effect of animal sacrifices; and here he rises from the blood of slain beasts, and the bodily cleansing they secured, to the Divine nature of our Lord, which gives an untold importance to his death, and ensures the highest spiritual results in the purification of the conscience. By the "eternal Spirit" is commonly understood that glory which is described in the commencement of the Gospel of John. It is probable that the writer looked back to the passage in which he declares that Jesus is "the Brightness of the Father"s glory, and express Image of his person." It reminds us of his transfiguration, and the glimpses of his superhuman dignity and power which lighted up his earthly ministry. It is a thought before which we stand in silent and essential wonder, and feel that it lifts the sacrifice of our Lord to a height of glory which transcends our clearest vision. This sacrifice cleanses the conscience from "dead works." Death in the Old Testament always suggests pollution. The conscience which is defiled by dead works sheds a clear and penetrating light on the disqualifying nature of sin, and the exclusion from the service of God which it produces. The precious blood of Christ, which cleanses the conscience, makes it full of the life of love, gratitude, and filial service. The fruit which comes from life is holiness now, and hereafter it is everlasting fire. It opens the prospect of fellowship with God, who is the "living God," and communes with his people from off the mercy-seat. The life of those who are forgiven turns to God, and the living God holds fellowship with them, which is the high privilege of believers now, and the pledge of its continuance in the world to come. B.

Vers. 13, 14. Christ a self-presented offering to purify the consciences of men.

I AN ARGUMENT FROM THE LESS TO THE GREATER. The writer reminds his readers of a kind of cleansing already practiced by them, and believed to be efficacious for its purpose. From their point of view, they had no difficulty in believing that something was really done when defiled people were sprinkled with the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer. Whatever had communicated the defilement was thus removed in a mysterious way, it is true, and so that there might be no visible sign; but still there was the feeling and the faith that things were really made different. If, then, it was so easy to believe that the sacrifice of brute-life produced such results, what profound and permanent results might not be expected to flow from the cleansing application of the blood of Christ? For in the one, case it was the blood of a brute beast poured out and then done with for ever, available for only one occasion, and needing for the next occasion that another beast should be slain. But here is the shedding of the blood of Christ, the continuous and accurate presentation of the Christ"s own life by Christ himself. Surely the writer here is thinking of something more than the shedding of the blood of Christ"s natural life on the cross. He is thinking of what Christ is doing behind the veil, on the eternal, invisible scene. The work, whatever it is, is the work done by Christ through an eternal Spirit. He is continually pouring forth his life to cleanse the consciences of believers. Christ"s death was a passing into the holy of holies, to go on with the deep realities of which the holiest offerings of the old covenant were only feeble symbols. The writer of the Epistle, therefore, wanted his readers to appropriate the ineffably great results of what Christ was doing.

II THE MEANS OF APPROPROATION. Clearly the appropriation was by faith. Indeed, all the good that could come through any cleansing ceremony of the old covenant came by faith often superstitious enough, no doubt, and having little or no result in the improvement of character; but still it was faith. Faith was the element keeping these ceremonials in existence from generation to generation. If nothing more, there was at least the faith that something dreadful would happen if the ceremonials were discontinued. If, then, men will only labor to keep themselves in living connection with the ever-loving Christ, whose life is all the more fruitful since he vanished from the eye of sense, what great things they may expect! Belief in Christ is Christ"s own instrument for cleansing the heart, so that there may not any more go out of it the things that defile a man. What wonder that before he closes his Epistle the writer should be so copious in extolling the triumphs of faith, and enforcing the need of it in all the relations of Christian life! Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If the ashes of an heifer - Consumed by fire as a sin-offering, being sprinkled on them who were legally unclean. Purified the flesh - Removed that legal uncleanness, and re-admitted them to the temple and the congregation. Num. xix, 17, 18, 19.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The Apostle had asserted, in the former verse, That eternal redemption was the fruit of Christ’s sacrifice; he proves it in these, and that by an argument drawn from the less to the greater: Thus, "If," says he, "the blood of bulls and goats, and the water that was mixed with the ashes of the burnt heifer, (or red cow, mentioned, Numbers 19) purified from ceremonial uncleanness, and procured the external sanctification of the flesh, or outward man; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the eternal spirit, (that is, Godhead, his divine nature) offered up himself, his whole man, soul, and body, a sacrifice, without spot, to God the Father, be able to purge our consciences from all spiritual impurity and uncleaness of sin, (that dead, because deadly work), and render us fit to serve the living God in an holy course of christian obedience?

Note here, 1. That Christ’s offering himself to God was a special act, as High Priest of the church, wherein he gave up himself in a way of most profound obedience, to do and to suffer whatever the justice of God required unto the expiation of sin, even to the shedding of his blood.

Note, 2. That Christ’s Godhead it was, which rendered the suffering of his manhood infinitely meritorious; or that Christ’s blood was effectual, not simply, as it was material blood, but as offered by the eternal spirit; his blood, though not the blood of God, yet was the blood of him that was God.

Note, 3. That the purging of our consciences from dead works is and immediated effect of the death of Christ, and a benefit which, upon our faith and obedience, we are made partakers of.

Note, 4. That the best works of men, antecedently unto the purging of their consciences by the blood of Crist, are but dead works, unsuitable to the nature of the living God.

Lord help us to remember, that when we come to hear, to pray, or perform any act of worship, that we are doing it to the living God.

O how improper for, and unsuitable to, a living God, are dead services wihout life, wihout heart, without spirit!

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ARGUMENT 8

THE TWO SANCTIFICATIONS.

13, 14. The old dispensation gave prominence to materialities and the new to spiritualities. Under the former ceremonial, defilement must be sanctified from the body before they were allowed to enter the sanctuary and enjoy its privileges. We see in the thirteenth verse that the water of purification was sprinkled on the subject of ceremonial defilement. It is called the sanctifying of the flesh, and typifies the sprinkling of the blood upon the polluted conscience by the Holy Ghost. The effect of the blood of Christ sprinkled on the polluted conscience by the Holy Ghost is to sanctify it from dead works to serve the living God. The phrase “dead works” has a double meaning in the Scriptures. When it applies to sinners, it means wicked works producing spiritual death. When it applies to Christians, as in this passage, it simply means our religious works devoid of the Holy Ghost, the only vitalizer. The great trouble of unsanctified Christians is that they are forever doing dead works which do not know the Holy Ghost. They are frequently indefatigable church workers, e.g., in Sunday-school, prayer-meeting, and the innumerable ecclesiastical societies and institutions. But the great trouble with them is that all their works are dead. They sing dead songs, pray dead prayers, deliver dead testimonies and exhortations, preach dead sermons and conduct dead protracted meetings, thus losing their time and labor, as the people are not profited, neither is God glorified by all their arduous labors. The sanctification of their hearts by the precious blood of Jesus at once takes the graveyard wail out of their voices and floods them with hallelujahs, makes life a constant sunshine, and all duty transcendently delectable.

15-17. In these verses we have the words “testament” and “ testator.” The Greek is the same word, diatheekee, covenant. It means the covenant of the world’s redemption through Christ. Since it is the most prominent institution in the Bible, it has given name to that wonderful book, Old and New Testament, or, as it should read, Old and New Covenant. Really there is but one covenant involving the world’s redemption, and that was inaugurated by the Son of God when He espoused the cause of lost humanity about the time of the fall. The old covenant was superadded in the days of Moses for didactic purposes. It is called old because it is reminiscent of the probationary covenant forfeited in Eden. A prominent and peculiar phase of the great redemptive scheme is involved in these verses, and that is the will peculiarity of the covenant. A will is neither irrevocable nor finally valid till after the death of the testator, from the simple fact that it is optionary with the testator during his life to revoke or cancel it ad libitum. Now, let us see the application of this fact to the covenant of redemption. While the Father gave the wondrous plan, the Son freely volunteered in its vicarious execution. He said, “No man taketh my life from me, but I lay down my life for the sheep.” Hence it was perfectly optionary with Jesus till the very arrival of Calvary’s bloody tragedy. Of course. in case that He had declined to lay down His life for the world the plan of salvation must have hopelessly collapsed. Hence in the very nature of the transaction the covenant was not finally and irrevocably valid till sealed by the blood of the covenant. Hence the plan of salvation under the old dispensation was essentially initial and incomplete, issuing bills of pardon, redeemable by the blood of the great Archetype, typified by millions of dying animals. This explains the pertinency of the Intermediate Paradise, — Abraham’s bosom — the receptacle of the Old Testament saints till the redemption of Calvary. See 1Pe 3:18.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. For if the blood of bulls and goats. This was shed for the purification of the people on the day of atonement. The ashes of an heifer. See Num. 19:21. The red heifer was burned, the ashes were put in water, and this water sprinkled on the people for their ceremonial purification.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

sprinkling of a heifer's ashes on those who have become unclean

The priest would drop small amounts of the ashes on the unclean people.

for the cleansing of their flesh

Here "flesh" refers to the entire body. AT: "for the cleansing of their bodies" (See: Metonymy)

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

The author uses this question to emphasize that Christ's sacrifice was the most powerful. AT: "then certainly Christ's blood will cleanse our conscience even more from dead works to serve the living God! Because, through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself without blemish to God." (See: Rhetorical Question)

the blood of Christ

The "blood" of Christ stands for his death. (See: Metonymy)

blemish

This is a small sin or moral fault spoken of here as if it were a small, unusual spot or defect on Christ's body. (See: Metaphor)

cleanse our conscience

Here "conscience" refers to a person's feeling of guilt. Believers no longer have to feel guilty for the sins they have committed because Jesus sacrificed himself and has forgiven them. (See: Metonymy)

cleanse

Here "cleanse" stands for the action of relieving our consciences from guilt for the sins we have committed. (See: Metaphor)

dead works

Sinful deeds are spoken of as if they belonged to the world of the dead. (See: Metaphor)

For this reason

"As a result" or "Because of this"

he is the mediator of a new covenant

This means Christ caused the new covenant between God and humans to exist.

first covenant

See how you translated this in Hebrews 8:7.

to free those under the first covenant from their sins

"to take away the sins of those who were under the first covenant." Possible meanings are 1) here "their sins" is a metonym for the guilt of their sins. AT: "to take away the guilt of those who were under the first covenant" or 2) here "their sins" is a metonym for the punishment for their sins. AT: "to take away the punisment for sins of those who were under the first covenant" (See: Metonymy)

those who are called

This can be stated in active form. AT: "those whom God has chosen to be his children" (See: Active or Passive)

inheritance

Receiving what God has promised believers is spoken of as if it were inheriting property and wealth from a family member. (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

cow

clean

set apart

clean

flesh

blemish

conscience

works

servant

life

mediator

covenant

free

sin

call

promise

inherit

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

13. εἰ γὰρ τὸ αἶμα κ.τ.λ. The writer has designedly chosen the two most striking sacrifices and ceremonials of the Levitical Law, namely the calf and the goat offered for the sins of people and priest on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), and “the water of separation,” or rather “of impurity,” i.e. “to remove impurity” “as a sin-offering,” described in Num 19:1-22 (comp. Heb 7:26). The blood of Christ is described as having at once a cleansing (1Jn 1:7, Rev 7:14) and an atoning efficacy, and by blending the two distinct types of the great yearly Atonement and of the Red Heifer, the writer here combines this twofold efficacy of expiation and purification into one.

δαμάλεως. The Jews have the interesting legend that nine such red heifers had been slain between the time of Moses and the destruction of the Temple.

τοὺς κεκοινωμένους. Those that have become ceremonially defiled, especially by having touched a corpse.

πρὸς τὴν τῆς σαρκὸς καθαρότητα, i.e. if these things are adequate to restore a man to ceremonial cleanness which was a type of moral purity. So much efficacy they had; they did make the worshipper ceremonially pure before God: their further and deeper efficacy depended on the faith and sincerity with which they were offered, and was derived from the one offering of which they were a type.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13-10:18.] Enlargement upon, and substantiation of, αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος: on which then follows, 10:19 ff., the third or directly hortatory part of the Epistle. “For the blood of His self-offering purifies inwardly unto the living service of the living God (vv. 13, 14): His redeeming death is the inaugurating act of a new covenant and of the heavenly sanctuary (vv. 15-23): His entrance into the antitypical holiest place is the conclusion of his all-sufficing atonement for sin (vv. 24-26), after which only remains His reappearance to complete the realization of Redemption (vv. 27, 28). In distinction from the legal offerings which were constantly repeated, He has, by his offering of Himself, performed the actual will of God which willed salvation (ch. 10:1-10): our Sanctification is now for ever accomplished, and the exalted Saviour reigns in expectation of ultimate victory (10:11-14): and the promised new covenant has come in, resting on an eternal forgiveness of sins which requires no further offering (10:15-18).” Delitzsch.

13,

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ashes of a heifer [σποδος δαμαλεως] . Spodov ashes, only here, Mt 11:21; Luk 10:13, in both instances in the phrase sackcloth and ashes. Often in LXX Damaliv heifer, N. T. o. The two examples selected cover the entire legal provision for removing uncleanness, whether contracted by sin or by contact with death. "The blood of bulls and goats" refers to the sin - offerings, perhaps especially to the annual atonement (Leviticus 16); "the ashes of a heifer" to the occasional sacrifice of the red heifer (Numbers 19) for purification from uncleanness contracted by contact with the dead. The Levitical law required two remedies : the Christian economy furnishes one for all phases of defilement.

Sprinkling the unclean [ραντιζουσα τους κεκοινωμενους] . For sprinkling see on 1Pe 1:2. The verb only in Hebrews, except Mr 7:4. For the unclean rend. them that have been defiled. The literal rendering of the participle brings out better the incidental or occasional character of the defilement.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.