9:11-14 All good things past, present, and to come, were and are founded upon the priestly office of Christ, and come to us from thence. Our High Priest entered into heaven once for all, and has obtained eternal redemption. The Holy Ghost further signified and showed that the Old Testament sacrifices only freed the outward man from ceremonial uncleanness, and fitted him for some outward privileges. What gave such power to the blood of Christ? It was Christ's offering himself without any sinful stain in his nature or life. This cleanses the most guilty conscience from dead, or deadly, works to serve the living God; from sinful works, such as pollute the soul, as dead bodies did the persons of the Jews who touched them; while the grace that seals pardon, new-creates the polluted soul. Nothing more destroys the faith of the gospel, than by any means to weaken the direct power of the blood of Christ. The depth of the mystery of the sacrifice of Christ, we cannot dive into, the height we cannot comprehend. We cannot search out the greatness of it, or the wisdom, the love, the grace that is in it. But in considering the sacrifice of Christ, faith finds life, food, and refreshment.

Heb 9:13-28. Proof of and Enlargement on, the "Eternal Redemption" Mentioned in Heb 9:12.

For His blood, offered by Himself, purifies not only outwardly, as the Levitical sacrifices on the day of atonement, but inwardly unto the service of the living God (Heb 9:13, 14). His death is the inaugurating act of the new covenant, and of the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 9:15-23). His entrance into the true Holy of Holies is the consummation of His once-for-all-offered sacrifice of atonement (Heb 9:24, 26); henceforth, His reappearance alone remains to complete our redemption (Heb 9:27, 28).

13. 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—(Nu 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; Nu 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 (Nu 19:19). So justification is followed by renewing.