Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 9:12

εὑράμενος. The rarer form, altered by D into εὑρόμενος.

12. οὐδέ. “Nor yet.”

διʼ αἵματος τράγων καὶ μόσχων. “By means of the blood of goats and calves” (this is the order of the words in the best MSS.). It is not meant that the sacrifices of the Old Covenant were useless, but only that when they were regarded as meritorious in themselves—apart from the faith, and the grace of God, by which they could be blessed to sincere and humble worshippers—they could neither purge the conscience, nor give access to God. When the Prophets speak of sacrifices with such stern disparagement they are only denouncing the superstition which regarded the mere opus operatum as sufficient apart from repentance and holiness (Hosea 6:6; Isaiah 1:10-17, &c.).

διὰ δὲ τοῦ ἰδίου αἵματος. His own blood (i.e. His essential life poured out for us) was the offering by which He was admitted as our High Priest and Eternal Redeemer into the Holy of Holies of God’s immediate presence (Hebrews 13:20; Revelation 5:6). Διὰ expresses the means by which Christ entered.

ἐφάπαξ. “Once for all.”

εἰς τὰ ἅγια, i.e. into the Holiest, as in Leviticus 16:2-3.

αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν, i.e. the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7), and ransom from sinful lives (1 Peter 1:18-19) to the service of God (Revelation 5:9). It should always be borne in mind that the Scriptural metaphors of Ransom and Propitiation describe the Atonement by its blessed effects as regards man. All speculation as to its bearing on the counsels of God, all attempts to frame a scholastic scheme out of metaphors only intended to indicate a transcendent mystery by its results for us, have led to heresy and error. To whom was the ransom paid? The question is idle, because “ransom” is only a metaphor of our deliverance from slavery. For nearly a thousand years the Church was content with the most erroneous and almost blasphemous notion that the ransom was paid by God to the devil, which led to still more grievous aberrations. Anselm who exploded this error substituted for it another—the hard forensic notion of indispensable satisfaction. Such terms as those of “substitution,” “vicarious punishment,” “reconciliation of God to us” (for “of us to God”), have no sanction in Scripture, which only reveals what is necessary for man, and what man can understand, viz. that the love of God in Christ has provided for him a way of escape from ruin, and the forgiveness of sins.

εὑράμενος. “Having obtained.” The “for us” is rightly supplied in the A.V.; but the middle voice of the verb shews that Christ in His love to us also regarded the redemption as dear to Himself. εὑράμην is the aor. mid. for εὑρόμην. It is also found in Pausanias, and is due to a kind of false analogy with the form of the 1st aor.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 9:12

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