The introduction of the apostle’s assertion is by the
disjunctive negative, odd¢, “nor yet.” It answers the negative in the first part of the preceding verse: ‘He entered not
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388 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. IX.
into the holy place made with hands, as the high priest; nor yet did what the high priest did afterwards,’
In the words themselyes there are two things: 1. What 1s denied of the Lord Christ. 2. The limitation of that denial unto the other part of the comparison, as unto what the high priest did:—
First, It is denied of him that he did thus enter into heaven that he should offer himself often. ‘It doth not follow,’ saith the apostle, ‘that because as a high priest he entered into heaven, as the high priest of the law entered into the holy place made with hands, he should therefore offer himself often, as that high priest offered every year. It was not required of him; there was no need of it, for the reasons mentioned; it was impossible he should. For this offering of himself was not his appearance in the presence of | God; but the one sacrifice of himself by death, as the apostle declares in the next verse. That he should so offer himself often, more than once, was needless, from the perfection of that one offer- ing,—“ By one offering he hath for ever perfected them that were sanctified;” and impossible, from the condition of his person,—he could not die often. What remains for the exposition of these words, will be declared in the removal of those false glosses and wrestings of them whereby some endeavour to pervert them.
The Socinians plead from hence that the sacrifice of Christ, or his offering of himself, is the same with his appearance in heaven and the presentation of himself in the presence of God; and they do it out of hatred unto the atonement made by his blood. For, say they, “it is here compared unto the entrance of the high priest into the holy place every year; which was only an appearance in the presence of God.”
Ans. 1. There is no such comparison intended in the words. The apostle mentioning the entrance of the high priest with blood into the holy place, intends only to evince the imperfection of that ser- vice, in that after he -had done so he was again to offer renewed sacrifices every year; a sufficient evidence that those sacrifices could never make them perfect who came unto God by them. With Christ it was not so, as the apostle declares. So that there is not herein a comparison between the things themselves, but an opposi- tion between their effects.
2. It is granted that the entrance of the high priest into the holy place belonged unto the complement or perfection of his service in the expiatory sacrifice. But the sacrifice itself did not consist therein. So likewise did the entrance of Christ into heaven belong unto the perfection of the effects and efficacy of his sacrifice, as unto the way of its application unto the church. So far there is a comparison in the words, and no farther.
3. That the sacrifice of Christ, or his offering himself once for all,
VER. 25.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 389
once, and not often, is the same with his continual presentation of himself in the presence of God, is both false in itself and contrary to the express design of the apostle. For,—
(1.) It is Sucva, a slain or bloody sacrifice, whereof he treats, as he expressly calls it, verse 26; but there is no shedding of blood in the appearance of Christ in heaven; nor, according to these men, any such thing appertaining unto his nature.
(2.) These things are distinguished in the Scripture, from their different natures and effects, 1 John ii. 1, 2.
(8.) His sacrifice, or the offering of himself, is so affirmed to be one, as to consist in one individual act. It is not only said that it was “one offering,’ but that it was “once” only “ offered,” verses 26, 28. This is no way reconcilable unto his continual appearance in the presence of God.
(4.) His offering is mentioned by the apostle as that which was then past, and no more to be repeated: “ He hath by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
(5.) His oblation was accompanied with, and inseparable from suffering; so he declares in the next verse, proving that he could not often offer himself, because he could not often suffer. - But his presentation of himself in heaven is not only inconsistent with actual suffering, but also with any obnoxiousness thereunto. It belongs unto his state of exaltation and glory.
(6.) The time of the offering of himself is limited unto the end of _ the world, “ Now once in the end of the world,” in opposition unto the season that passed before; denoting a certain determinate
season in the dispensation of times; of which afterwards.
(7.) This imagination is destructive of the principal design and argument of the apostle. For he proves the imperfection of the sacrifices of the law, and their insufficiency to consummate the church, from their annual repetition; affirming, that if they could have perfected the worshippers they would have ceased to have been offered: yet was that sacrifice which he respects repeated only once a-year. But on this supposition, the sacrifice of Christ must be offered always, and never cease to be actually offered; which reflects a greater imperfection on it than was on those which were repeated only once a year.” But the apostle expressly affirms that the sacrifice which could effect its end must “cease to be offered,” Heb. x. 2. Whereas, therefore, “by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified,’ he doth not continue to offer himself; though he doth continue to appear in the presence of God to make application of’ the virtue of that one offering unto the church.