Hebrews 9:15

καὶ διὰ τοῦτο, “And on this account,” that is to say, because, as stated in Hebrews 9:14, Christ's blood cleanses the conscience from dead works and thus fits men to draw near to God, διαθήκης καινῆς μεσίτης ἐστίν, “He is mediator of a new covenant”. The old covenant with sacrifices which could only cleanse the flesh allowed sins to accumulate. But Christ, as above stated, obtained cleansing from sins, and so laid the essential foundation of a new covenant, Hebrews 8:12. ὅπως θανάτου γενομένου … “that a death having taken place for deliverance from the transgressions [committed] under the first covenant, those who have been called might receive the promised eternal inheritance”. Even under the old covenant this inheritance had been promised. A gospel had been preached to them, and they had been invited, Hebrews 4:2. God being during that period the covenant God of the people, this involved eternal good. But until their transgressions were atoned for they could not receive the inheritance. The sacrifices under the old covenant could not atone for sin, therefore a new covenant with a death which could atone was necessary; in order that such a death having taken place and their sins being removed they might receive fulfilment of the promise. The retrospective reference of the death of Christ is here affirmed; as in Hebrews 11:40 it is stated that without us, i.e., without the Christian dispensation, the O.T. believers could not be perfected, The words οἱ κεκλημένοι, therefore, include not only the Hebrews addressed but all who had lived under the O.T. dispensation. ἀπολύτρωοιν … παραβάσεων, the genitive is of the object from which redemption is achieved, and ἐπὶ is scarcely “against” as in Vaughan, but rather “in the time of,” as in Hebrews 9:26; Philippians 1:3.