the other hand, prevents men from receiving the salvation promised in this fellowship. The latter thought lies evidently in ix. 15, according to which death is required for the redemption of the sins contracted under the first covenant, in order that its members may receive the covenant promise. It rests on this, that guilt makes punishment necessary, and the execution of the punishment stands in the way of obtaining the promise.* But Christ has even thus become the Mediator of the covenant, that He, in virtue of His own blood, has entered into the Holiest, having obtained a redemption eternally valid (through the shedding of His own blood, ver. 12). For if, according to the context of x. 26, 27, where there is no θυσία περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν, only a terrible expectation of judgment remains, it is clear that that sacrifice, because it atones for sin, at the same time delivers men from guilt, and removes the punishment which threatened them in the judgment. The Epistle to the Hebrews, moreover, by this punishment can only have referred to the death by which, in conformity with ordinary Bible teaching (comp. § 50, d; 57,d; 66, d), the divine punishment for sin was executed; and if it now, ii. 9, emphasizes the fact that Christ tasted death (in all its bitterness; comp. also § 124, a, footnote 3) for the good of each, there is then involved the thought that He has freed the others from this bitter consequence of sin, and therefore there is the idea of substitution. But sin-bearing, i.e. the

formula ixáoxsola, r. àμapr., which, according to Greek usage, translates the Hebrew, comp. Ritschl, ii. p. 209; Gess, p. 473. Yet the former accords, if, according to viii. 12 (after Jer. xxxi. 34), God in the New Covenant is gracious ("λws) to unrighteousness, and remembers sins no more, with which, according to x. 17, 18, the apsors T. áμaptiv is given, and with that every need for a ποσφορὰ περὶ ἁμαρτίας is taken away.

4 Here then, in any case, it is an objective necessity for the death of Christ that is spoken of, the reason of which lies evidently enough in the context, and this Pfleiderer, pp. 340-342 [E. T. ii. 68-70], overlooks. Actually it is deliverance from guilt which is meant by axoλúrpwors, quite as, with Paul (§ 80, c), a guilt occasioned by the rapaßárus, threatened as they have been with the divine anger. One can admit, with Ritschl (ii. p. 221), that there is nowhere indicated in the Epistle to the Hebrews any reference to a λúrpov by which this is brought about; and therefore the Petrine redemption (really different otherwise) from the slavery of sin (§ 49, d; comp. § 108, b, footnote 5), and also the passage (which as a matter of fact points to the same thing) Mark x. 45 (§ 22, c), cannot be here compared. But in fact it here remains, that this self-surrender to death must be considered as an act which works this aroλúrpwois (ix. 12).

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removing of the severest consequences of sin, is expressly, ix. 28, indicated as the object of the sacrifice of Christ.5

(d) But the author undoubtedly, who regards death, ix. 27, with the judgment following immediately, as the general fate of men, has thought of death not as such, but in the results which it occasions to the sinner; and these, according to ii. 14, consist in this, that the devil is he who has power over death, and uses it as a means to deliver sinners over to the destruction under which he has himself fallen; but no notice is at the same time taken of the arraignment of the devil in the judgment (Gess, p. 476). It is certainly indicated by Sià TOû baváтov that the death of Christ as the guiltless One made him that had the power of death powerless, only in so far as the guiltiness of men, which drew death on them, gave to the devil the power to use it as the means for exercising his power over men to bring destruction on them. But this He could do, not only because He forms an exception to the law of the kingdom of death (Ritschl, ii. p. 254), but because this innocent death freed men from the guilt and punishment of sin (note c). Hence the redeemed are delivered, not from death, but from the fear of death, which kept them in lifelong bondage, so far as they need no more fear falling by death under the power of Satan (ver. 15).6

5 The expression εἰς τὸ πολλῶν ἀνενεγκεῖν ἁμαρτίας, on the ground of the Old Testament usus loquendi, and in particular on that of the passage Isa. liii. 12, coinciding with it, as also in accordance with the practice of Peter (§ 49, b), can be taken only of the bearing of the punishment allotted to sin. The idea of an assumption of punishment, to be sure, is originally as foreign to the idea of sacrifice as is that of deliverance from punishment; but the author might make such a combination (to him quite peculiar), because he looked on Christ not only as sacrifice, but also as priest, who by giving Himself to the bitter suffering of death, not only offered the sacrifice for the atonement of sin appointed by God, but also took on Himself the punishment of sin in order to bear it in the room of sinners. There is no need, therefore, of the somewhat artificial explanation of Ritschl, ii. p. 285, who, moreover, mistakes the significance of sin-bearing.

6 This view is essentially distinct from the doctrine of the Palestinian theology (comp. Riehm, p. 654), according to which the devil, if he is permitted by God, takes away life from those who have transgressed the law, even though it is perhaps allied to it. The devil is in no sense here looked at as the angel of death, as even Hahn, p. 373, assumes. But the Pauline view also, according to which the power of the devil is broken by the redemption wrought by Christ's death, is quite different; for this victory refers, according to § 104, b, to the dominion which the devil already wields over those confirmed in sin, and not to

§ 123. The Effects of the Sacrificial Death of Christ. When the covenant people were sprinkled with the atoning blood of the covenant sacrifice, they were purified from the stains of guilt, and their consciences were delivered from the consciousness of guilt (a). This purification put them into an estate of holiness, in which alone man can become God's possession, and in which he has constantly to keep himself (b). But therewith is the perfection reached, which the complete realization of the covenant requires (c). Hence, also, the way into the Holiest is now opened, and that approach to God is made possible which is the condition of the true worship of God (d).

(a) If even the purifying effect of the blood of the New Testament covenant, ix. 23, is referred but to the heavenly things, which, after that sin has been atoned for by that blood, are purified from the stains of guilt clinging to them (§ 122, a), then the purification wrought by the sacrifice of Christ may also naturally be referred to the sinner himself; nay, on the supposition of the former cleansing, there is brought into view only the objective necessity in particular of the latter subjective cleansing. But as, ix. 22, κalaρíčeтaι is made identical in the parallel member of the sentence with yíveraι apeσis, it is clear that the thought can be only of a deliverance from sin, a cleansing from the stains of sin, not a cleansing from its unholy power. In conformity with this, purification from

that power of his to which they are subjected in death. Death as the doom of God's wrath, especially with Paul, conformably to the peculiarity of his doctrine of sin, referred to footnote 3, is even in itself, and without this co-operation of the devil, regarded as the punishment of sin, so that the judgment which follows it can only determine who abide in death, and who have been delivered from it; comp. Pfleiderer, p. 350 f. [E. T. ii. 78 f.], who goes wrong only in this, that he narrows the objective effect of the death of Christ only to this, while our statements present it rather in the sense of note c.

1 The usus loquendi of the LXX. corresponds with this, to which the phraseology of our author conforms (comp. Riehm, p. 56), as also that of Paul, with whom xalapiuos appears as the effect of baptism (Eph. v. 26; comp. § 101, a). In Acts xviii. 6, xx. 26, also, xalapós means clear from guilt. Pfleiderer, p. 339 [E. T. ii. 67], has acknowledged this signification of xalapós, and he, moreover, strikingly points out how the (moral) worship of God, mentioned ix. 14, as the result of a cleansed conscience, proves nothing to the contrary; while Gess, p. 474, mixes up again the moral cleansing; and Schenkel, p. 326, exclusively insists on it. If he, p. 337, footnote b, makes the cleansing referred to in ix. 14

And thus to the

sin is given, i. 3, as the special purpose of the appearing of Christ on the earth, which Christ has effected, and that, as the aorist shows, by a single act, namely by His own sacrificial death. But ordinarily it is this subjective cleansing that is thought of when the reference is to the conscience of one who has obtained deliverance from guilt. carnal (Levitical) cleansing, which alone the Old Testament sacrifices could produce (ix. 13), stands opposed the cleansing of the conscience from dead works effected by the blood of Christ (ver. 14; § 115, b), as these dead works stain the conscience with the consciousness of guilt. As the Old Testament covenant people were sprinkled with the (cleansing) blood of the covenant sacrifice (ix. 19; comp. Ex. xxiv. 8), so are Christians pepavтioμévoι by the blood of Christ (comp. 1 Pet. i. 2, and therewith § 49, c); but here also this sprinkling is more exactly referred to the heart, and the deliverance produced thereby from an evil conscience (x. 22: àπò ovveldnσews πovnρâs); for the blood of sprinkling loudly proclaims the perfected atonement (xii. 24).

(b) That the idea of ayıáčev stands in very close connection with that of cleansing, ix. 13 shows, where the ȧytáčet is taken up in the parallel apodosis by kalapieî, ver. 14. What cleansing is to the subjective consciousness of the man, that ȧyiaoμós is for his objective relation to God. Because a sin

to be the consciousness of deliverance in principle from the dominion of sin, then that contradicts the uniform idea of ruvídnois (comp. § 115, b, footnote 5).

* According to x. 2, he who has been actually freed from the consciousness of the guilt of sin has no longer any συνείδησις ἁμαρτιῶν. There is a consciousness of past sins only when the sins have not yet been atoned for; for through atonement, or the forgiveness of sins which follows, the sins are really removed (§ 122, b). There is a consciousness of forgiven sins according to Bible phraseology, when the sins, along with the guilt which they contract, are regarded together, not that one may not, with Riehm, p. 566, distinguish between the consciousness of sin and the consciousness of guilt.

3 But it follows even from this, that in ix. 13 cleansing cannot be designated as a result from yά, as Riehm, p. 576, supposes, but that xpòs rùv rñs œœpxis xatapornra designates only the relation in which the Old Testament means of atonement produced holiness (comp. for this signification of pés, i. 7, ii. 17, iv. 13, v. 1, 14, vi. 11). Real holiness consists only in this, that one as regards purifying the flesh is consecrated for an (external) fellowship with God, but that only by the purification of the conscience is one made capable of the real (moral) worship of God (comp. footnote 1), and this he only can exercise who has been delivered from guilt, as Peter teaches (§ 49, d; comp. also § 81, b).

stained man cannot be consecrated to God for His possession, Christ by the cleansing blood of His sacrifice must first consecrate the covenant people (xiii. 12), and so make them fit for that relation of being God's, and of being in fellowship with Him, which corresponds to the perfect covenant relationship. This has taken place, in that Christians have once for all been consecrated by the sacrifice of the body of Christ (x. 10), or by the cleansing blood of the covenant (ver. 29); they are hence called you (iii. 1, vi. 10, xiii. 24). For if Christians are exhorted to strive after holiness (xii. 14), i.e. after participation in the divine ȧytóτns (ver. 10; comp. § 45, d, footnote 6), the idea has no reference to positive moral perfection; what is said is, that the Christian, after he has once for all been put into the position of one cleansed from sin, a position which fits him to be of the family of God, has now laid on him the task of keeping himself in this position by avoiding fresh defilement from sin, as even that drawing near to God in the end, which leads to the vision of God, is naturally permitted only to those who are consecrated to God (ver. 14).

(c) If those, who have been sanctified by the sacrificial death of Christ (note b), have been for ever perfected by one offering (x. 14), it is clear that by the Teλelwois of the Christian cannot be understood moral perfection as by the TEλeiwσis of Christ (§ 119, b, footnote 6), as Schenkel, p. 331, will have it, but only the putting them completely, by the act of purification and sanctification once for all (comp. x. 2 with ver. 1), into the condition of that perfection, which fits for the realization of the covenant relation. Hence the idea very

♦ Riehm, p. 576, has not proved that this idea, which with our author bears exclusively an Old Testament stamp, includes in principle deliverance from the bondage of sin, as it does with Paul (comp. § 84, d). Neither in ii. 11 nor in x. 4 does he speak of one becoming increasingly holy, but in both places Christians are characterized, without reference to time, as such as have received from Christ, in the way above explained, consecration for the family of God. Compare the excellent exposition by Pfleiderer, p. 340 [E. T. ii. 68], but also Ritschl, ii. p. 211, and even Gess, p. 472; while Schenkel throughout thinks only of moral holiness. The realization of the Old Testament fundamental command (Lev. xi. 44) continues also here, as with Peter (§ 45, d), and in a certain sense also with Paul (§ 84, d), the goal of the Christian; but this goal can only then be striven after when he has been purified from the stains of sin, and consecrated to be the possession of God.