> ‎Chapter 10‎ > ‎Chapter 11‎ > ‎Chapter 12‎ > ‎Chapter 13‎ >   

 

 

 

Chapter 9:Summary

The old covenant had ordinances for worship: a first and a second
tent. In that second tent was the Holy of Holies, with a golden
incense altar and the Ark of the Covenant, having cherubim on its
lid.

The ancient priests go many times into the first tent, but only the
high priest, on Yom Kippur, once a year, goes into the second tent,
the Holy of Holies. He goes with blood, to offer for the sins of
ignorance (sheggaghah) of the people.

Thus the Holy Spirit shows that while the first tent stood, the way
for full access to God was not to be had. The gifts that were
offered could never make the worshippers perfect in their
consciences. They cleansed only from the sheggagah. But now Christ
has come, as the high priest, going into the greater and more
perfect tent or sanctuary, not with the blood of animals, but with
His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. If the blood of
goats and bulls was good for bodily cleansing, how much more will
the blood of Christ cleanse consciences from dead works, so as to
worship the living God.

So He is the Mediator of the new covenant. Where there is a
covenant, the death of the testator is necessary. for a last will
and testament is valid only when the testator has died. In

the old covenant everything was cleansed with blood, and without
the shedding of blood there was no forgiveness.

If the earthly copies of the heavenly things shown to Moses on the
mountain are cleansed by such means, then the heavenly realities
have to be cleansed by better sacrifices than the old ones. For
Christ has entered not into just an earthly Holy of Holiness, but
into the heavens themselves.

He did not need to come there many times over as did the ancient
high priests -- if He had to do that He would have had to die many
times since the beginning of the world. But He was offered once-
for-all to bear the sins of all. To those who look forward to His
coming a second time, He will bring final salvation.

Chapter 9:Comments

Nothing certain is found about the Ark of the Covenant after 587
BC, the fall of Jerusalem. It seems that the postexilic temple had
nothing in the Holy of Holies, so that when Pompey the Roman
conqueror forced his way into it in 63 BC. (Tacitus Histories 5.
9), he was surprised to find nothing there. The spot for the ark
was marked by a slab called the "stone of foundation".

In Second Maccabees 2. 4-8 we read that Jeremiah hid the ark and
the altar of incense in a cave on Mount Nebo ( Dt 34. 1) where
Moses had gone up and seen the inheritance of God. Later some
followers of Jeremiah came and tried to find the place, but were
unable. Jeremiah told them the place was to remain unknown until
God would again gather His people together and show them mercy. The
problem is that Scripture does not guarantee this account, for in
2. 1 it merely says,"you will find this in the records", that is,
in secular records, not in Scripture.

Fuller information on the involuntary sins, sheggagah is given in
our comments on 2. 10 above.

In 9. 7 we heard again that the great Day of Atonement was only for
sheggagah, not for sins be yad ramah. Hence the ordinances for that
Day were called material ordinances, good for only

"bodily cleansing" ( 9. 13 & 14) from "dead works." Dead works
could mean either useless rites, useless since they could not
remove sins other than sheggagah, or else the phrase could mean
even grievous sins.

Yet in spite of this limitation, the High Priest was secluded for 7
days before performing the rite of the Day of Atonement, so that he
might not even by chance incur ritual defilement (Mishnah, Yoma 1.
1).

Our Epistle reasons: If all this was done for cleansing of the
flesh, sheggagah, how much more powerful was the atonement of
Jesus, who entered the true Tabernacle in the heavens, and not just
the copy of it found on this earth (cf. 9. 23).

Behind our author's thinking lies the account of the Suffering
Servant of Isaiah 52-53. In 52. 15 this servant is to "sprinkle
many nations". Jesus sprinkled all with His own blood.

Now, at 9. 15, our Epistle begins to speak of the new covenant. The
old covenant was that of Sinai; the new was foretold by Jeremiah
31. 31-33. We wonder if Jeremiah had been given a special light or
revelation to see that the essential obedience of the new covenant
was that of Jesus - at Sinai it had been the obedience of the
people. Now in the new, Jesus is the "guarantor" of the covenant
(cf. 7. 23 above and comments there): Vatican II, Lumen gentium 9,
said on the first Holy Thursday night Jesus inaugurated this new
covenant, making Jew and gentile into one people of God (cf.
Ephesians 3. 6).

Even though Jesus is the guarantor of the new covenant, the
obedience of His people is still required, as shown by the syn
Christo theme (cf. again the continuation of comments on 7. 23
above).

Now our author begins to make use of the fact that in the NT the
word diatheke can mean either covenant or last will and testament.
It clearly means last will and testament here, and also in
Galatians 3. 15ff. But ordinarily in the NT it means covenant.

But then there is much debate about the sense of the word covenant.
Many authors want to make it a unilateral thing, in which God, the
sovereign, simply imposes on people His own will and requirements,
without taking on Himself any obligation at all.

Yet it is not true that He undertakes no obligation at all, when at
Sinai as in Exodus 19. 5 He said: "If you really hearken to my
voice and keep my covenant, you will be my special people". In
other words, if you obey, you will get special favor. Once He has
given His word, on a condition, if humans fulfill the condition,
God is not free to simply pay no attention and ignore it all. He
has given His word, and His word cannot be violated once He has
given it. Hence in Romans 2. 6 Paul speaking of covenant (cf. Wm.
Most, The Thought of St. Paul, pp. 292-93) can speak of "repayment"
under the covenant. So if we ask why God gives good things within
the covenant framework, there are two answers, on two levels. On
the basic level: all is mercy, for no creature by its own power can
establish a claim on God. Thus there is justification without
earning it, by faith. But on the secondary level, i.e., given the
fact that He has freely entered into a covenant, then if humans
observe the condition, He owes it to Himself to do what He says.
Hence In Romans 2. 6. St. Paul can speak of repayment, while citing
Psalm 62. 12.

Yes, it is true that technically God cannot owe anything to a
creature. But He can owe things to Himself, and His fidelity, once
pledged does bind Him. So we often find paired hesed, observance of
the covenant, with "faithfulness" to the covenant (Hebrew emeth or
emunah) e.g., Psalm 25. 10 "All the ways of the Lord are hesed and
emeth for those who keep his covenant and demands, ." and Ps. 57.
4: "God sends His hesed and emeth," and Ps. 89. 25: "My hesed and
my enumah will be with him."

We suspect that is the influence of Lutheran ideas that want to
insist the covenant of Sinai was only unilateral, i.e. that God has
no obligation and that human responses have no role in salvation.
Lutheranism wants to insist there is no condition at all that we
place that affects our salvation. But that can have dreadful
logical consequences: If there is nothing in a human that can make
a difference, then God would seem to predestine blindly, without
regard to anything . Luther did actually hold this (cf. his Bondage
of the Will (tr. J. J. Packer & O. R. Johnston, F. H. Revell Co.
Old Tappan. N. J. 1957, pp. 273 & 103-04) and Calvin did so too. In
line with this belief the Missouri Synod of Lutherans, in their
Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod,
Concordia, St. Louis 1932, #14 asked: Since all are equally and
totally corrupt, and grace is everywhere, why are not all saved?
They replied: "We do not know". No wonder. They did not dare face
the consequence. If there is no difference at all in people, then
God would have no recourse but to predestine entirely blindly.
Luther himself (op. cit. pp. 103-04) did say that we have nothing
at all to say about whether we are saved or lost eternally. And he
added that God saves so few and damns so many (p. 101) and that
they go to hell "undeserving" (p. 314). Cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
De Deo Uno, Desclee de Brouwer, 1938, p. 525, who thinks this
conclusion is inevitable from St. Paul 1 Cor 4. 7.

Those who make this error have argued there is no difference in
people, since everything good is the gift of God. That is true. Cf.
1 Cor 4. 7, and the reference to Garrigou-Lagrange above. But there
is another factor they have overlooked: resistance to grace,
leading to sin. People are very different in this matter. Therefore
God can take into account sin, and if someone persistently throws
away His grace by sinning, God will not predestine Him to heaven,
though He had wanted to do so. The man is blocking Him. So as to
salvation: "You cannot earn it, but you can blow it", as one
student of mine once said. On this matter cf. Wm. G. Most, New
Answers to Old Questions, London, 1971, summarized briefly in Our
Father's Plan, (Christendom College Press, 1988, chapter 12.

To return to the matter of whether or not God takes on an
obligation in the covenant: there are many Psalm lines in which by
Hebrew parallelism it is clear that it is a matter of sedaqah,
moral rightness, for God to observe His covenant. For example in
Psalm 36. 10: "Keep up your covenant fidelity [hesed] to those who
love you, your moral righteousness [sedaqah] to the upright of
heart." Similarly Psalm 103. 17 Says "The covenant fidelity [hesed]
of the Lord is from age to age on those who fear Him, and His moral
rightness [sedaqah] on children's children." So sedaqah and hesed
are put in parallelism: it is a matter of moral rightness for God
to keep His covenant.

Similarly, the prophets, especially Hosea compares God's relation
to His people to marriage, in which there are rights and
obligations on both sides. And in Deuteronomy 26. 17-18, if we read
the Hebrew (the usual versions gloss over this): "This day you have
caused (hiphil perfect) God to say He will be a God to you, and He
has caused you (hiphil perfect) to say you will keep His decrees
and His commands." We notice the almost bold familiarity in putting
God Himself in the same situation as His people: each causing the
other to say.

Cf the blood ceremony at Sinai, in which they became His blood
relatives, so He would be their goel, the next of kin with the
right and duty of recusing his kinsman who had fallen into dire
straits. So in Isaiah 63. 16 God is called their goel. Cf 60.
16;49. 26

F. F. Bruce in commenting on 9. 26 strongly rejects the idea that
Jesus offers Himself in the Eucharist, saying His offering was
once-for-all, and is not renewed. But Bruce misses two things in
saying this: 1)In the Mass, His will is not changing at all, it is
continuous from first the instant of conception as we read in 10.
7. In Mass only the outward sign is multiplied, b y the priest to
whom has come down the command of Jesus: "Do this in memory of me".
2)The Mass is simply the application, the giving out of fruits, by
the means He Himself ordered: Do this in memory of me". And he
missed the import of Hebrews 13. 10 on the altar.

Yet the Mass is correctly called a sacrifice, since in it are found
the two elements of which Isaiah speaks in 29. 13: The outward
sign, and the interior disposition. The outward sign is indeed
multiplied, but the interior, the attitude of obedience of the
Heart of Jesus is not multiplied, but continuous from the first
instant of His human conception as in 10. 7.

Why have this Mass since in the once-for-all sacrifice all
forgiveness and grace was bought and paid for by the infinite price
of redemption? There are two reasons: 1) God in His love of good
order, loves to have a title for giving out that which was already
earned. Of course that title does not move Him, He cannot be moved,
does not need to be moved, but in His love of good order He is
pleased to have it: cf Summa I. 19. 5. c.  2) So we may join our
obedience to that of Christ, to form the obedience of the whole
Christ. We do this by way of the syn Christo theme, cf. Romans 8.
17: "We are heirs of God, fellow heirs of Christ, provided that we
suffer with Him, so we may also be glorified with Him."