22
33ὃ
αἱματεκχυσίας οὐ γίνεται ἄφεσις. 23. ᾿Ανάγκη οὖν τὰ μὲν ὑπο- δείγματα τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς τούτοις καθαρίζεσθαι - αὐτὰ δὲ τὰ
24. “od γὰρ εἰς χειρο-
a 5%. ᾿ἐϑαήρίονα κρείττοσι θυσίαις παρὰ ταύτας. Τη. ΠΣ ΗΝ ποίητα ἅγια εἰσῆλθεν ὃ Χριστὸς,! ἀντίτυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς Oan, 11.2.
αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανὸν, νῦν ἐ ανισϑῆ ναι τῷ προσώπῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑπὲ ρ 2 τ τ
1 Τ.Ε. CcDb,cEKLP; om. ο
els ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. Cleansing was required of everything connected with God’s worship, because it was stained through contact with men. And that this stain was guilt is implied i in the use of ἄφεσις. It is by remission of sin the stain is removed. And according to the great law of Lev. xvii. τὰ, this remission was attained by the shedding of blood τὸ yap αἷμα ἀντὶ ψυχῆς ἐξιλάσεται. ἄφεσις is used absolutely only here and in Mark ii. 29; elsewhere it is used with ἁμαρτιῶν or παραπτωμάτων. In Luke iv. 18 it signifies “‘release”’
Vv. 23-28. The necessity of cleansing the heavenly sanctuary and the efficiency and finality of Christ’ s one sacrifice.
Wer 23. ἀνάγκη οὖν τὰ μὲν ὑποδείγματα... “It was necessary, therefore, that the copies indeed of the heavenly things be cleansed with these, but the heavenlies themselves with better sacrifices than these.” ἀνάγκη οὖν, the οὖν carries to its consequence ver. 22; and the necessity arises from the as ener of the law there mentioned.
μὲν ὑποδ. the μὲν . . . δὲ show that ge second clause is that to which attention is to be given, the first clause introducing it. The statement is almost equivalent to “Ας it was necessary . . . so it was necessary ”’ . The ὑποδείγ. are the.tabernacle and its furnishings, in accordance with viii. 5; which see. τού- τοις, viz., the things mentioned in ver. Ig. αὐτὰ δὲ τὰ ἐπουράνια. If the copies were cleansed by material rites, realities being spiritual and eternal can only be cleansed by what is spiritual and eternal, cf. ver 14. κρείττοσιν θυσίαις, the plural is suggested by τούτοις, and states an abstract inference. But do the “ heavenlies’’ need cleansing ? Bruce says, “1 prefer to make noattempt to assign a theological meaning to the words. I would rather make them intelligible to my mind by thinking of the glory and honour accruing even to heaven by the entrance there of ‘the Lamb of God’. I believe there is more of poetry than of theology in the words. For the writer is a poet as well as a theologian,
with NAC*D*, 17, 71, 118.
and on this account, theological pedants, however learned, can never succeed in interpreting satisfactorily this epistle”. But it is scarcely permissible to exclude at this point of the author’s argument the theological inference that in some sense and in some relation the heavenlies need cleansing. The earthly tabernacle, as God’s dwelling, might have been supposed to be hallowed by His presence and to need no cleansing, but being also His meeting-place with men it required to be cleansed. And so our heavenly relations with God, and all wherewith we seek to approach Him, need cleans- ing. In themselves things heavenly need no cleansing, but as entered upon by sinful men they need it. Our eternal relations with God require purification. Ver. 24. οὐ γὰρ εἰς χειροποίη- πα... bie connection, indicated by ‘yap, is “I say αὐτὰ τὰ ἐπουράνια, for it is not into a holy place constructed by man that Christ has entered, but into heaven itself’. Others prefer to con- nect this verse with κρείττοσιν θυσίαις. “Better sacrifices” were needed, for not into, etc. The humanly constructed tabernacle, being made after the divine pattern, viii. 5, is here called ἀντί- τυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν. According to viii. 5 a τύπος of the heavenly realities was shown to Moses, and what he con- structed from that model was an ἀντί- τυπον, answering to the type. But as here used with τῶν ἄληθ., ἀντίτυπα (in agreement with ἅγια) must mean what we usually speak of as a type, that which corresponds to and prefigures. In the only other instance of its occurrence, 1 Pet. iii. 21, it has the converse meaning, the reality of baptism which corresponds to or is the antitype of the deluge. The ἀντίτυπα are contrasted with αὐτὸν τὸν οὐρανόν, heaven itself [αὐτὸν in contrast to the mere likeness or copy] the ultimate reality, the presence of spiritual and eternal things. ““ Coelum in quod Christus ingressus est, non est ipsum coelum creatum quodcunque fuerit, sed est coelum in quo Deus est etiam quando coelum creatum nullum est, ipsa