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Hebrews

Hebrewschapter 9

28 verses · BSBHebrews book hub →

Speaks with:Hebrews 9×11Leviticus 16×41 Peter 1×4Exodus 24×3Hebrews 10×3Exodus 25×2

Summary

Chapter summary

The old sanctuary is walked through room by room, candlestick, table and showbread; behind the second veil the ark, the golden pot of manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat, entered once a year 'not without blood.' But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come, entering once for all 'through his own blood… having obtained eternal redemption' (9:12), for 'apart from shedding of blood there is no remission' (9:22). 'It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment', so Christ, once offered, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him.

Context

Epistle · Unknown — Hebrews overview

  • A. 1–10 The First Tent and Its Unfinished Work
  • B. 11–14 Better Blood: A Conscience Made Clean
  • C. 15–22 A Testament Takes Force Only by Death
  • D. 23–28 Once for All — and Once Again to Appear

The outline

  1. A.The First Tent and Its Unfinished Workvv. 1 to 10

    Read vv. 1 to 10 →

  2. B.Better Blood: A Conscience Made Cleanvv. 11 to 14

    Read vv. 11 to 14 →

  3. C.A Testament Takes Force Only by Deathvv. 15 to 22

    Read vv. 15 to 22 →

  4. D.Once for All — and Once Again to Appearvv. 23 to 28

    Read vv. 23 to 28 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Once for all

Pattern

Against the daily and yearly repetitions of the old sacrifices, Hebrews sets a single word: once. He offered up himself once, entered in once into the holy place, once in the end of the world put away sin, and by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

Repetition was the old system's confession that it could not finish the work; a sacrifice that must be offered again has not taken sin away. The finished, unrepeatable offering is the letter's ground of assurance, and the church's.

  1. Hebrews 7:27

    This he did once

    He needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice; he offered up himself.

  2. Hebrews 9:12 you are here

    In once into the holy place

    By his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

  3. Hebrews 9:26 you are here

    Once in the end of the world

    He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

  4. Hebrews 10:10

    The body offered once for all

  5. Hebrews 10:14

    One offering, perfected for ever

    By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

Them that love his appearing

Pattern

The last letters of the canon give the church one posture toward the future: loving, looking, longing. The crown of righteousness goes to all them that love his appearing, the blessed hope is looked for, and the Bible's final prayer is come, Lord Jesus.

Prophecy in these letters is never curiosity about dates; it is affection for a person. Each beat ties conduct to expectation: Paul's finished course, the sober life grace teaches, the salvation waiting for them that look for him.

  1. 2 Timothy 4:8

    The crown for them that love his appearing

    Not to Paul only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

  2. Titus 2:13

    Looking for that blessed hope

    The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

  3. Hebrews 9:28 you are here

    Unto them that look for him

    He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

  4. Revelation 22:20

    Even so, come, Lord Jesus

    The canon closes with the church answering the promise of his coming.

The better things

Pattern

Hebrews argues its whole case with one word: better. The Son is better than the angels, surety of a better testament, mediator of a better covenant upon better promises, purifying with better sacrifices, and his blood speaketh better things than that of Abel.

The word falls a dozen times across the letter, and the beats show the ladder: person, covenant, sacrifice, country, blood. Readers pressed to drift back to the old order are answered by comparison rather than scolding; everything they would return to has been surpassed.

  1. Hebrews 1:4

    Better than the angels

    The Son has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

  2. Hebrews 7:22

    Surety of a better testament

  3. Hebrews 8:6

    A better covenant upon better promises

  4. Hebrews 9:23 you are here

    Better sacrifices than these

    The heavenly things themselves are purified with better sacrifices than the patterns required.

  5. Hebrews 11:16

    A better country

    They desire a better country, that is, an heavenly, and God hath prepared for them a city.

  6. Hebrews 12:24

    Blood that speaketh better things

    The blood of sprinkling speaketh better things than that of Abel.

The world behind this chapter

Hebrews 9
When
The last years before the fall of Jerusalem · c. AD 64–68
Where
A tour of the tabernacle's furnishings and of the Day of Atonement ritual
Who first heard it
Hearers who knew the annual ritual and knew that the inner room was still off limits

The history

The chapter walks the tent room by room: the lampstand and the bread of the Presence in the first room, and behind a heavy curtain the inner room holding the ark with the manna jar, Aaron's rod, and the stone tablets, covered by the mercy seat between two carved cherubim.

The Day of Atonement was the one day of the year the curtain was passed. The Mishnah preserves the procedure in detail: the high priest bathed and changed garments repeatedly, offered a bull for himself and his household, filled the inner room with incense smoke, and sprinkled blood inside — and then came out. Only him, only that day, and never without blood.

The ashes of a red heifer, mentioned in passing, were the ingredient in the water used to cleanse anyone who had touched a corpse. The whole system dealt with outward defilement, which is exactly the limit the chapter is pointing at: it could not clear a conscience.

The Greek word for covenant also meant a person's will. The chapter uses both senses at once — a will takes effect only when the one who made it has died — a wordplay that works in Greek and needs explaining in English.

What it meant to them

Every hearer had lived through Days of Atonement, year after year, watching a man go behind a curtain on their behalf and come back out. The chapter says one has gone in and not come back out — he is still there, in the real sanctuary, appearing for them.

And the sacrifices repeating every year were themselves the evidence that nothing had been finished. Once, at the end of the ages, is the word the chapter keeps returning to.

Sources cited

  • The Mishnah, tractate Yoma (Danby translation)
  • Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Hebrews 9. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 4 · A picture of Christ

The ark bearing the law and the mercy seat prefigures Christ in whom law and mercy meet.

Exodus 25:10→

And they are to construct an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high.

Exod 25:10-22; Heb 9:4; Habershon 1898

v. 4 · A picture of Christ

Aaron's rod that budded (dead wood bearing life), kept in the ark, prefigures the resurrection vindicating Christ's priesthood.

Numbers 17:8→

The next day Moses entered the Tent of the Testimony and saw that Aaron’s staff, representing the house of Levi, had sprouted, put forth buds, blossomed, and produced almonds.

Num 17:8; Heb 9:4; Habershon 1898

v. 5 · A rare word, used again

hilasterion (G2435, 2x in NT): Christ set forth as the propitiation / the golden mercy seat over the ark.

Romans 3:25→

God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand.

STEPBible TAGNT

v. 12 · Scripture reading Scripture

'Through his own blood... once for all' -> blood that cleanses the conscience; own-blood vs animal blood.

Hebrews 9:14→

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from works of death, so that we may serve the living God!

Hebrews 9 argument

v. 12 · A picture of Christ

The high priest's yearly entry with blood -> Christ once with his own blood into the greater tabernacle.

Leviticus 16:15→

Aaron shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and bring its blood behind the veil, and with its blood he must do as he did with the bull’s blood: He is to sprinkle it against…

Read the whole verse

Aaron shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and bring its blood behind the veil, and with its blood he must do as he did with the bull’s blood: He is to sprinkle it against the mercy seat and in front of it.

Heb 9:7-12

v. 19 · Scripture reading Scripture

Hyssop applies Passover blood -> hyssop in Hebrews' covenant sprinkling (Lev 14; Num 19; Ps 51:7). The applicator motif.

Exodus 12:22→

Take a cluster of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and brush the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out the door of his house until morning.

shared vocabulary; TSK

v. 19 · A picture of Christ

KEYSTONE: purification triad (scarlet, kokkinos) -> Hebrews binds blood + water + scarlet wool + hyssop into one rite. The canon's own knot.

Numbers 19:6→

The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool and throw them onto the burning heifer.

Heb 9:19-22

v. 20 · A picture of Christ · Quoted here

Hebrews quotes 'the blood of the covenant' (Exod 24:8) verbatim as the shadow of Christ's covenant-inaugurating blood (Heb 9:18-20).

Exodus 24:8→

So Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

v. 22 · A picture of Christ

Rahab hangs a scarlet cord in her window and everyone inside the house is spared (Josh 2:18–21): a house marked with scarlet, standing untouched in a doomed city. First Clement already reads it of the blood of Christ, and Hebrews says “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22).

Joshua 2:18→

unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother and brothers and all your family into your house.

Josh 2:18-21; Heb 9:22; 1 Clement 12 (PD); Origen

v. 22 · Quoted, with an echo

'The life of the flesh is in the blood... it maketh atonement' -> 'apart from shedding of blood there is no remission.' The theological hinge.

Leviticus 17:11→

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.

TSK; Heb 9:22 as NT summary of Lev 17:11

v. 24 · A picture of Christ

The holy places made with hands are antitypa of the true heaven.

Exodus 26:33→

And hang the veil from the clasps and place the ark of the Testimony behind the veil. So the veil will separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place.

Heb 9:24

Where scholars push back(1)

Joshua 2:18. The New Testament never links the cord to the blood, and by the classic rule for types this reading is allegory drawn by the interpreter rather than a picture Scripture itself points out.

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary and Sir Robert Anderson, Types in Hebrews.

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