Hebrews 9:13, 14 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh:… 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. Parallel Verses KJV: 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: |
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