Hebrews 9:14

Through the eternal spirit (διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου) For the rend. an. Διὰ through equals by virtue of. Not the Holy Spirit, who is never so designated, but Christ's own human spirit: the higher element of Christ's being in his human life, which was charged with the eternal principle of the divine life. Comp. Romans 1:4; 1 Corinthians 15:45; 1 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 7:16. This is the key to the doctrine of Christ's sacrifice. The significance and value of his atonement lie in the personal quality and motive of Christ himself which are back of the sacrificial act. The offering was the offering of Christ's deepest self - his inmost personality. Therein consists the attraction of the cross, not to the shedding of blood, but to Christ himself. This is Christ's own declaration, John 12:32. "I will draw all men unto me." Therein consists its potency for men: not in Christ's satisfaction of justice by suffering a legal penalty, but in that the cross is the supreme expression of a divine spirit of love, truth, mercy, brotherhood, faith, ministry, unselfishness, holiness, - a spirit which goes out to men with divine intensity of purpose and yearning to draw them into its own sphere, and to make them partakers of its own eternal quality. This was a fact before the foundation of the world, is a fact today, and will be a fact so long as any life remains unreconciled to God. Atonement is eternal in virtue of the eternal spirit of Christ through which he offered himself to God.

Offered himself without spot (ἑαυτὸν προσήνεγκεν ἄμωμον) The two other elements which give superior validity to Christ's sacrifice. It was voluntary, a self-offering, unlike that of brute beasts who had no volition and no sense of the reason why they were offered. It was spotless. He was a perfectly righteous, sinless being, perfectly and voluntarily obedient to the Father's will, even unto the suffering of death. The legal victims were only physically unblemished according to ceremonial standards. Ἄμωμος in lxx, technically, of victims, Exodus 29:1; Leviticus 1:3, Leviticus 1:10, etc. Purge your conscience (καθαριεῖ τὴν συνείδησιν ἡμῶν) For your rend. our. The superior nature of Christ's sacrifice appears in its deeper effect. While the Levitical sacrifice accomplished only formal, ritual expiation, leaving the inner man unaffected, while it wrought externally and dealt with specific sins the effect of Christ's sacrifice goes to the center of the moral and spiritual life, and cleanses the very fountainhead of being, thus doing its work where only an eternal spirit can do it. Καθαρίζειν to purge is not a classical word. In Class. καθαιρεῖν (also in lxx): but καθαρίζειν appears in inscriptions in a ritual sense, and with ἀπὸ from, as here, thus showing that the word was not confined to biblical and ecclesiastical Greek.

Hebrews 9:14 . πόσῳ μᾶλλον τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ .… The Levitical sacrifices had their congruous effect, the sacrifice of Christ must also have its appropriate result. The blood offered was not of bulls and goats but of “the Christ;” it was not with another’s blood (vicarious, Hebrews 9:25 ) but with His own He entered God’s presence. His was not a bodily sacrifice but διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου . ὃς δς διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου … Θεῷ . This clause is inserted to justify the efficacy of the blood of Christ in cleansing the conscience. It had virtue to cleanse the conscience because it was the blood of one “who through eternal spirit offered Himself blameless to God”. How are we to understand διὰ πν . αἰωνίου ? Riehm considers it a parellel expression to that of Hebrews 7:16 , κατὰ δύναμιν ζωῆς ἀκαταλύτου , and that it is here used to bring out the idea that Christ having an eternal spirit was thereby able to perform the whole work of atonement, not merely dying on the cross but passing through that death to present Himself before God. So too Davidson, Weiss and others. This involves that προσήνεγκεν refers not to the cross but to the appearance before God, subsequently to the death. And it does not account for the absence of the article.

It seems more relevant to the passage and more consistent with the purpose of the clause (to show the ground of the efficacy of the blood of Christ) to understand the words as expressing the spiritual nature of the sacrifice which gave it eternal validity. It had superior efficacy to the blood of bulls and goats because it was not of the flesh merely, but was expressive of the spirit. It is the spirit prompting the sacrifice and giving it efficacy, which the writer seeks to indicate. Over against the “ordinances of the flesh” which made the slaughter of animals compulsory and a mere matter of letting material blood, he sets this wholly different sacrifice which was prompted and inspired by spirit and belonged wholly to the sphere of spiritual and eternal things. [ Spiritus opponitur conditioni animantum ratione carentium ( Hebrews 9:13 , Bengel); “bezeichnet das Lebensprinzip, in dessen Kraft, von dem beseelt und angetrieben Christus sich opferte” (Kübel)]. It was the spirit underlying and expressed in the sacrifice which gave it all its potency. Spirit is eternal and can alone be efficacious in eternal things. ἑαυτὸν . The Levitical High Priest, as stated in Hebrews 9:25 , entered the holy place ἐν ἅματι ἀλλοτρίῳ , but Christ διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου αἵματος . Also goats and calves were of no great value, but what Christ offered was of infinite value. Two points are brought out by ἑαυτόν . (1) He offered not a vicarious victim; but, as Priest, offered the only true sacrifice, Himself.

Hebrews 9:14 . Τὸ αἷμα ) The blood , and death: see the following verses.— διὰ Πνεύματος αἰωνίου , by the eternal Spirit ) See Luke 4:18 : and comp. Romans 1:4 ; Romans 15:16 . The Spirit is opposed to the condition of irrational animals, Hebrews 9:13 . The epithet eternal is understood from Hebrews 9:12 ; Hebrews 9:15 , ch. Hebrews 7:16 , and is opposed to the heifer reduced to ashes [ ashes of a heifer ].— ἄμωμον , without spot ) Superior as contrasted with every Levitical victim.— καθαριεῖ , shall purge ) It corresponds to καθαρότητα , purifying , Hebrews 9:13 . So Hebrews 9:22-23 , ch. Hebrews 10:23 , Hebrews 1:3 . It is put in the future as an antithesis to the present, ἁγιάζει , sanctifies , Levitically, Hebrews 9:13 .— ἀπὸ ) ἀπὸ , εἰς , from, to , denote things contrary.— νεκρῶν ἔργων , from dead works ) Things dead most of all defile . The antithesis is ζῶντι , living . The power of sin and death was abolished by the blood of Christ.— εἰς τὸ λατρεύειν , to serve ) for ever, in a manner most blessed and truly sacerdotal, [ Hebrews 9:12 ; Revelation 22:3 .—V. g.]

14 . how much more ] Again we have the characteristic word—the key-note as it were—of the Epistle. the blood of Christ ] which is typified by “the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness” ( Zechariah 13:1 ). who through the eternal Spirit ] If this be the right rendering the reference must be to the fact that Christ was “quickened by the Spirit” ( 1 Peter 3:18 ); that “God gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him” ( John 3:34 ); that “the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him” ( Luke 4:18 ); that He “by the Spirit of God” cast out devils ( Matthew 12:28 ). For this view of the meaning see Pearson on the Creed , Art. iii., and it is represented by the reading “Holy” for Eternal in some cursive mss. and some versions. It may however be rendered “by an Eternal Spirit,” namely by His own Spirit—by that burning love which proceeded from His own Spirit—and not by a mere “ordinance of the flesh” ( Hebrews 9:10 ). In the Levitic sacrifices involuntary victims bled; but Christ’s sacrifice was offered by the will of His own Eternal Spirit. without spot ] Christ had that sinless perfection which was dimly foreshadowed by the unblemished victims which could alone be offered under the Levitic law ( 1 Peter 1:19 ). from dead works ] See Hebrews 6:1 . If sinful works are meant, they are represented as affixing a stain to the conscience; they pollute as the touching of a dead thing polluted ceremonially under the Old Law ( Numbers 19:11-16 ). But all works are “dead” which are done without love

. It is to be observed that the writer—true to the Alexandrian training which instilled an awful reverence respecting Divine things—attempts even less than St Paul to explain the modus operandi . He tells us that the Blood of Christ redeems and purifies us as the old sacrifices could not do. Sacrifices removed ceremonial defilement—they thus “purified the flesh:” but the Blood of Christ perfects and purifies the conscience ( Hebrews 10:22 ) and so admits us into the Presence of God. The “ how can this be?” belongs to the secret things which God has not revealed; we only know and believe that so it is . to serve the living God ] Not to serve “dead works” or a mere material tabernacle, or fleshly ordinances, but to serve the Living God who can only be truly served by those who are “alive from the dead” ( Romans 6:13 ).

14. offered himself—The voluntary nature of the offering gives it especial efficacy. He "through the eternal Spirit," that is, His divine Spirit (Ro 1:4, in contrast to His "flesh," Heb 9:3; His Godhead, 1Ti 3:16; 1Pe 3:18), "His inner personality" [Alford], which gave a free consent to the act, offered Himself. The animals offered had no spirit or will to consent in the act of sacrifice; they were offered according to the law; they had a life neither enduring, nor of any intrinsic efficacy. But He from eternity, with His divine and everlasting Spirit, concurred with the Father's will of redemption by Him. His offering began on the altar of the cross, and was completed in His entering the holiest place with His blood. The eternity and infinitude of His divine Spirit (compare Heb 7:16) gives eternal ("eternal redemption," Heb 9:12, also compare Heb 9:15) and infinite merit to His offering, so that not even the infinite justice of God has any exception to take against it.

(14) Through the eternal Spirit. —Better, through an eternal Spirit; for in a passage of so much difficulty it is important to preserve the exact rendering of the Greek, and the arguments usually adduced seem insufficient to justify the ordinary translation. By most readers of the Authorised version, probably, these words are understood as referring to the Holy Spirit, whose influence continually rested on “the Anointed One of God” ( Acts 10:38 ). For this opinion there seems to be no foundation in the usage of the New Testament, and it is not indicated by anything in the context. The explanation of the words must rather be sought in the nature of our Lord, or in some attribute of that nature. There are a few passages, mainly in the Epistles of St. Paul, in which language somewhat similar is employed in regard to the spirit ( pneuma ) of our Lord.