Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 9:15

διὰ τοῦτο, i.e. on account of the grandeur of His offering.

διαθήκης καινῆς μεσίτης. “A mediator of a NEW Covenant.” Moses had been called by Philo “the Mediator” of the Old Covenant, i.e. he who came between God and Israel as the messenger of it. But Christ’s intervention—His coming as One who revealed God to man—was accompanied with a sacrifice so infinitely more efficacious that it involved a NEW Covenant altogether.

θανάτου γενομένου. The rendering of the A.V. makes the passage entirely unintelligible. The true rendering and explanation of this highly condensed and elliptical clause seem to be as follows: “And on this account He is a Mediator of a New Covenant, that—since death” [namely the death of sacrificial victims] “occurred for the redemption of the transgressions which took place under the first covenant—those who have been called [whether Christians, or faithful believers under the Old Dispensation] may [by virtue of Christ’s death, which the death of those victims typified] receive [i.e. actually enjoy the fruition of, Hebrews 6:12; Hebrews 6:17; Hebrews 10:36; Hebrews 11:13] the promise of the Eternal Inheritance.” Volumes of various explanations have been written on this verse, but the explanation given above is very simple. The verse is a sort of reason why Christ’s death was necessary. The ultimate, a priori, reason he does not attempt to explain, because it transcends all understanding; but he merely says that since under the Old Covenant death was necessary, and victims had to be slain in order that by their blood men might be purified, and the High Priest might enter the Holiest Place, so, under the New Covenant, a better and more efficacious death was necessary, both to give to those old sacrifices the only real validity which they possessed, and to secure for all of God’s elect an eternal heritage.

τῶν … παραβάσεων. The gen. of the object, sin-redemption, i.e. redemption from sins. Winer, p. 231.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 9:15

Old Testament

New Testament