Obviously Heb. 9:14 refers to Christ's sacrificial death, and in Heb. 9:26 His sacrifice of Himself' is equivalent to His having suffered.' The contention that the priestly office of Jesus begins with His entrance into the presence of God is set aside by the plain teaching of this passage, which regards His death as the beginning of His priestly work. What, then, are the characteristics of that offering, according to this writer? The point dwelt on most emphatically is that He is both priest and sacrifice. That great thought opens a wide field of meditation, for adoring thankfulness and love. It implies the voluntariness of His death. No necessity bound Him to the Cross. Not the naris, but His love, fastened Him there. Himself He would not save, because others He would save. The offering was through the Eternal Spirit,' the divine personality in Himself, which as it were, took the knife and slew the human life. That sacrifice was' without blemish,' fulfilling in perfect moral purity the prescriptions of the ceremonial law, which but clothe in outward form the universal consciousness that nothing stained or faulty is worthy to be given to God. What are the blessings brought to us by that wondrous self. sacrifice? They are stated most generally in verse 26 as the putting away of sin, and again in verse 28 as being the bearing of the sins of many, and again in verse 14 as cleansing conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Now the first of these expressions includes the other two, and expresses the blessed truth that, by His death, Jesus has made an end of sin, in all its shapes and powers, whether it is regarded as guilt or burden, or taint and tendency paralysing and disabling. Sin is guilt, and Christ's death deals with our past, taking away the burden of condemnation. Thus verse 28 presents Him as bearing the sins of many, as the scapegoat bore the sins of the congregation into a land not inhabited, as the Lord made to meet' on the head of the Servant the iniquities of us all.' The best commentary on the words here is,' He bare our sins in His own body on the tree.' But sin has an effect in the future as in the past, and the death of Christ deals with that. So verse 14 parallels it not only with the sacrifice which made access to God possible, but with the ceremonial of the red heifer,' by which pollution from touching a corpse was removed. A conscience which has been in contact with dead works' (and all works which are not done from the life' are so) is unfit to serve God, as well as lacking in wish to serve; and the only way to set it free from the nightmare which fetters it is to touch it with the blood,' and then it will spring up to a waking life of glad service. The blood' is shed to take away guilt; the blood' is the life, and, being shed in the death, it can be transfused into our veins, and so will cleanse us from all sin. Thus, in regard both to past and future, sin is put away by the sacrifice of Himself. The completeness of His priestly work"is further attested by the fact, triumphantly dwelt on in the lesson, that it is done once for all, and needs no repetition, and is incapable of repetition, while the world lasts.
