Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:15-28 ESV

Yahweh’s relationship to Israel at Sinai was always one of great tension. On one hand, He called Israel his firstborn son and even slew every firstborn in Egypt whenever Pharaoh refused to let them go. On the other hand, they were a people just as sinful as the Egyptians and the other pagan nations. Thus, while God beckoned them to come to Him, He also had to warn them to stay away at the same time. We find a profound scene of this tension in action in Exodus 24:1-8, which describes the inauguration of the Mosaic Covenant. For context, Exodus 20-23 is the list of commandments that Yahweh gave to be Israel’s guide into keeping fellowship with Him, and those chapters conclude with God’s promise to give them their promised inheritance of Canaan as the children of Abraham. We then read:

Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the LORD, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.”

Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.” And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

As this text shows and our passage in Hebrews as well, it is bloody affair for the holy God to covenant Himself with a sinful and unholy people.

A DEATH HAS OCCURRED // VERSES 15-17

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. As is so often the case in Hebrews, this is a transitional verse. Therefore links it, of course, to our previous text, but it also serves as a kind of thesis statement for the following passage. Again, we find the author of Hebrews linking Jesus’ ministry as our great high priest to His mediation of the new covenant, for they both go hand-in-hand. Therefore, since Jesus entered the true and heavenly tabernacle as our high priest, He has also become the mediator of the new covenant. Through His priestly mediation, He has ensured that, by his redeeming death, all whom God has called to Himself will receive their promised eternal inheritance.

For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. If you have a bit of whiplash from wondering where these verses are coming from, you are not alone. Charles Hodge began his comments on these two verses by admitting, “These are difficult verses.” And he concludes by saying again, “The whole passage is very difficult.”[1] The principal difficulty surrounds the word will, which in Greek is the same word that the author has been using for covenant. Thus, two broad interpretive choices lie before us as readers: should the word be translated as will or as covenant?

Sticking with covenant would seem to be more consistent with the author’s usage and emphasis upon God’s covenants with His people; however, a difficulty comes in attempting to understand why this covenant only took effect after the death of the one who made. Although ancient covenants were inaugurated with sacrifice and blood, that was often used as a visible picture of the curses that were invoked upon either party that might break the covenant. We see this in Genesis 15, where God Himself passed through the split sacrifices.

Viewing these verses as describing a last will and testament, Hodge says, makes “the two verses make good sense in themselves but have no connection with the previous as they should have as indicated by ‘gar’ [for].”[2] With the utmost respect, I disagree with Hodge.

I believe the ESV’s translation is likely the best for a couple of reasons. First, the idea of a last will and testament does indeed link to verse 15 through the word inheritance, that is, clarifying inheritances is typically the main concern of a will. Second, I think we should read these verses as a kind of parenthetical statement, which the author is no stranger to. After all, 5:11-6:20 was essentially one gigantic parenthetical exhortation. Finally, the idea of inheritance and adopted sonship has already been established and will be brought up again. In Hebrews 1:14, we were called “those who are to inherit salvation,” and in 2:10-17 we were told that Christ made us into His brothers. This theme will come up again in 12:5-11, where the author reminds us that discipline is a marker of sonship. Thus, the topic of inheritances and wills is not coming out of thin air.

Indeed, I think Richard Phillips is right to note that the author is capitalizing on the Greek word diatheke being able to mean both covenant and will because “the writer of Hebrews capitalizes on this word play… The writer’s point is that the new covenant may be viewed as a last will and testament, particularly in that its benefits are disbursed only in the event of the death of the one who made it.”[3]

Just as a person’s death makes their will go into effect and whatever they have left as an inheritance is then distributed to their heirs, so too did Jesus’ death initiate the distribution of our inheritance, which as 1:14 said is our salvation. Our inheritance is being restored to communion with God and having that communion now be a familial bond: God is now our Father and we are now His sons and daughters. This is partly what our baptism symbolizes. In being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we essentially experience our adoption ceremony with the triune name of the Holy One becoming our family name.

WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD THERE IS NO FORGIVENESS OF SINS // VERSES 18-26

Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

In these verses, the author clearly returns to speaking of the covenant, but even here he is not jumping onto an entirely new train of thought. Instead, he is making the connection of the importance of death in both a will and a covenant. As we have already seen, a will does not go into effect until the person who made the will is deceased. But death is also a key factor in a covenant, which was represented through blood. Most commonly sacrifices and blood were used as a visible picture of the curse that would befall anyone who broke the covenant.

However, God’s covenant with Israel was a bit unique. The blood that was splattered upon nearly everything under the old covenant was tangible reminder of sin, its consequences, and the high cost of restoring communion with God. From humanity’s very beginning in the garden, God warned Adam that disobedience would lead to death, and Paul later called death sin’s wages (Romans 6:23). Death is the paycheck that our sins rightfully earn. Thus, the great question that runs throughout the Bible is: how can sinful men be rescued from their justly deserved punishment for sin and be brought back into communion with God? And the answer was blood. Lots of blood.

We read from Exodus 24 in the introduction because the author of Hebrews now references that inauguration ceremony. Multiple oxen were brought to be sacrificed, which would yield a great deal of blood. Half of those basins full of blood were thrown upon the altar, while the other half was thrown on the people of Israel. Since blood is the life of a creature, its removal from a creature makes it into a symbol of death. If we were to look at the basins of blood from Exodus 24 without having seen the sacrifice made, we would still immediately assume that something or someone was dead. So they made covenant with Yahweh drenched in blood. R. Kent Hughes notes:

The old covenant sailed on a sea of blood, for two vast reasons. First, to emphasize the seriousness of sin. The Bible takes sin seriously, more than any other religious scripture. Sin alienates one from God. Sin is rooted in the hearts of humanity. Sin cannot be vindicated by any self-help program. Sin leads to death—and it will not be denied. The second reason is the costliness of forgiveness. Death is the payment.[4]

That is why verse 22 says that almost everything under the old covenant was purified with blood because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Notice that forgiveness cannot be gained without a payment being made, and we should also notice that this runs contrary to the common understanding of forgiveness today, which is essentially like taking a mulligan. The present notion of forgiveness is more of a do-over, pretending that past actions no longer count. But that is not how forgiveness really works. God cannot simply overlook our past sins because doing so would be against His goodness, His justice, and His truth. No, in the financial world, a debt is only forgiven because the lender or a third party assumes the debt themselves. So it is with our spiritual debt. It cannot be simply bypassed and overlooked. For us to be forgiven, death must come to another in our place.

Under the old covenant, death came upon animals, millions upon millions of animals. But again, the fact that those animal sacrifices needed to be made over and over again testified to their insufficiency to actually cover sin’s debt. A greater sacrifice with great blood was needed, which is what the author again reminds us of in verse 23: Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. Verses 24-26 then describe that better sacrifice:

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Again, the author tells us that Jesus’ priestly ministry was not performed in the earthly tabernacle or temple, which are copies of the true things; instead, our Lord worked the true Day of Atonement before the actual heavenly throne of God.

In verse 25, the author explicitly states what he has previously implied. The sacrifice that Jesus presented before the Father was not offered repeatedly as the Levitical priests did with the blood of animals. Yet notice the author’s reasoning here at the beginning of verse 26: for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. What does the author mean by this? Robert Paul Martin gives a great answer:

We must remember that as high priest, Jesus represented all of the saints of all ages—from the creation to the consummation. Had he offered himself for their sins according to the repetitive year-by-year requirement of the old covenant, he would have needed to die as a sin-bearing sacrifice year by year since the beginning. But under the new covenant, the repetitive symbolic sacrifices of the Day of Atonement are replaced by the single, unique, once-for-all, climatic sacrifice of Christ at Calvary.[5]

Therefore, as verse 26 goes on to say, but as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. First note that Christ’s sacrifice took place at the end of the ages. This, of course, reiterates the author’s opening statement of this sermon-letter that Jesus’ coming has inaugurated the last days, in which we are still living today. Second, we are again told that Christ’s sacrifice was once for all, but now the author finally reveals the depth of what he means by that phrase. Christ’s one-time sacrifice is wholly sufficient for all in two senses: all of God’s people and all of their sins.

Although Jesus died two-thousand years ago, His sacrificial death applies to all who have trusted in Him since then. But His atoning death also applied retroactively, reaching back even to the very first humans. Thus, any faith that the Old Testament saints had of salvation was ultimately looking forward to Christ’s coming. Although they knew not Jesus’ name, they had faith in God’s plan to rescue them fully and finally from their sins. Thus, Christ’s one-time sacrifice was sufficient for all of God’s people.

Christ’s one-time sacrifice is also sufficient for all our sins. This will be explored more in next week’s text, but we find it here also by the author saying that Christ put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Jesus did, by His own blood, what the blood of animals could never do: He put away sin. Of course, this is not saying that His death fully eliminated all sin. Sadly, each day we testify that that is not so. Instead, He put away sin by dealing fully and finally with its consequences. He has paid the debt, and it no longer stands against us. Thus, as we saw last week, He has purified our consciences by dealing fully with the guilt that our sins have accumulated.

Again, Jesus has done this by the sacrifice of himself. As both truly man and truly God, Christ alone was worthy to work our salvation, to purchase the forgiveness of our sins. This is why we confess the forgiveness of sins as a doctrine within the Apostles’ Creed. It is a truth to be believed, not a work to be accomplished. Christ has already accomplished the work; all that now stands is for us to believe in its truth.

A SECOND TIME // VERSES 27-28

With these final two verses of the chapter, the author establishes definitively what is our hope in Christ. Hope, we ought to remember, is faith beyond the present, while faith is outworking of hope in the present. They are two sides of the same coin. And the author has been intent on anchoring us to our hope in Christ.

In 3:6, we were exhorted, “And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”

In 6:11, the author said, “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.”

In 6:18-19, we were given the marvelous promise: “so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.”

Finally, in 7:19, we read, “(for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.”

What then is this hope?

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Verse 27 establishes the premise and the problem. It is the divine appointment of every human to die once. If history is able to affirm anything, it is able to affirm this statement, for death’s claim on humanity is virtually one hundred percent. After that appointed day of death, comes judgment. We find this throughout the Scriptures, but the final verses of Ecclesiastes are one of my favorites:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14

Death, then judgment. Those are two thoughts that ought to send shivers down our spine. Yet corresponding to these two unchangeable realities, Christ has established our hope in Himself. While our physical death is the natural consequence of sin’s corruption of both ourselves and the cosmos around us, Christ’s death is the antidote to that corruption, for by His death He has put away the sin that corrupts.

Yet Christ’s death did not at once fully repair creation nor does it free us entirely from sin. Instead, just as judgment before God comes after our death, so too will Christ appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

This eager expectation for Christ is simply a sign that we love him and believe in him authentically. There is a phony faith that wants only to escape from hell, but has no desire for Christ. That does not save. And it does not produce an eager expectation for Christ to come. It would rather that Christ not come for as long as possible so that it can have as much of this world as possible. But the faith that really holds on to Christ as treasure and hope and joy is the faith that makes us long for Christ to come, and that is the faith that saves.[6]

Of course, Christ’s return will be His coming to judge the living and the dead. In other words, just as we must be judged, so Christ will be the Judge. This is, indeed, a marvelous hope. Our Judge is the very One who already offered Himself to bear our sins. We will be judged by our Savior who has already secured our eternal redemption through the sacrifice of Himself. We need not dread His judgment because He is the very One who put away our sins.

Why then would we not eagerly wait for Him? His coming to judge the world is our full and final salvation, the elimination fully of all our sin as we are resurrected into bodies like His resurrected body. Thus, we pray with eager expectation for our Lord to come and make our faith sight as we finally look upon Him face to face!

As we come to the Lord’s Supper, let us hear again the words of Paul from 1 Corinthians 11:26: 1 Corinthians 11:26: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” By eating this bread and drinking this cup, we proclaim Christ’s once for all sacrifice of Himself that has put away our sins. But these elements also set our gaze upon our blessed hope when Christ will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Looking back once more to Exodus 24, we read in verses 9-11 that after Moses threw the blood of the covenant upon the people:

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.

If that stunning moment came under the old covenant, how much greater will the new covenant be as we are seated with our Savior face-to-face at the marriage supper of the Lamb to His bride! Indeed, we often sing of that great hope:

Unto the grave, what shall we sing?
“Christ, he lives! Christ, he lives!”
And what reward will heaven bring?
Everlasting life with him
There we will rise to meet the Lord
Then sin and death will be destroyed
And we will feast in endless joy When Christ is ours forevermore

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[1] Charles Hodge, Hebrews, 86-88.

[2] Hodge, Hebrews, 87.

[3] Richard Phillips, Hebrews, 314.

[4] R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews, 239.

[5] Robert Paul Martin, Hebrews, 462.

[6] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/what-christ-will-do-at-the-second-coming