Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 9:14

πόσῳ μᾶλλον. Again we have the characteristic word—the keynote as it were—of the Epistle.

τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ. Which is typified by “the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1).

διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου. If “through the Eternal Spirit” be the right rendering the reference must be to the fact that Christ was “quickened by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18); that “God gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him” (John 3:34); that “the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him” (Luke 4:18); that He “by the Spirit of God” cast out devils (Matthew 12:28). For this view of the meaning see Pearson on the Creed, Art. III., and it is represented by the reading “Holy” for Eternal in some cursive MSS. and some versions. It may however be rendered “by an Eternal Spirit,” namely by His own Spirit—by that burning love which proceeded from His own Spirit—and not by a mere “ordinance of the flesh” (Hebrews 9:10). In the Levitic sacrifices involuntary victims bled; but Christ’s sacrifice was offered by the will of His own Eternal Spirit.

ἄμωμον. Christ had that sinless perfection which was dimly foreshadowed by the unblemished victims which could alone be offered under the Levitic law.

ἀπὸ νεκρῶν ἔργων. See Hebrews 6:1. If sinful works are meant, they are represented as affixing a stain to the conscience; they pollute as the touching of a dead thing polluted ceremonially under the Old Law (Numbers 19:11-16). But all works are “dead” which are done without love. This seems to be the meaning, for the Writer speaks of the conscience as cleansed. It is the conscience which impels a man to work, but all works done in slavish obedience even to conscience uncleansed are dead. It is to be observed that the writer—true to the Alexandrian training which instilled an awful reverence respecting Divine things … attempts even less than St Paul to explain the modus operandi. He tells us that the Blood of Christ redeems and purifies us as the old sacrifices could not do. Sacrifices removed ceremonial defilement—they thus “purified the flesh”: but the Blood of Christ perfects and purifies the conscience (Hebrews 10:22) and so admits us into the Presence of God, because the Blood of Christ means the Life of Christ which vivifies the soul. The “how can this be?” belongs to the secret things which God has not revealed; we only know and believe that so it is.

εἰς τὸ λατρεύειν θεῷ ζῶντι. Not to serve “dead works” or a mere material tabernacle, or fleshly ordinances, but to serve the Living God who can only be truly served by those who are “alive from the dead” (Romans 6:13).

Continues after advertising

BibliaPlus

Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 9:14

Old Testament

New Testament