Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

512 Hebrews IX. 15-23.
X>orary rest. T/yv tna^ye/.iai' denotes not the act of promising but
(as at chap. x. 36 ;
chap. xi. 13 and 39) the 2^romiscd ohject, the
thiuf; promised to them. The sentiment then is tbis : that those
who are called to the eternal inheritance might receive the thing
promised to them (the fulfilment of the promise.)
How this was done is shewn in the words Oavd-ov yevojxsvov elg
aTioXvTpcjocv ~u>v tnl ry rrpwrg diaOi'jKTj TrapaPdaeojv . According to VCr.
13, seq., the animal sacrifices under the old covenant had not the
power to redeem the sinner from transgressions (/. e., from the guilt
of these.) They procured for him, not righteousness before God,
but that relative outward purity or conformity to the law, which
itself was only an emblem and symbol of the rif/hteousncss of God.
In order truly to redeem from sins committed under the old covenant,
a death must be underrjone (a difierent one of course from that
of bulls and goats.)
Now the entire sentiment becomes clear. In order that by a
death—through which, at the same time, the sins committed under
the old covenant first found their true atonement—those members
of the old covenant who are called to the eternal inheritance might be
enabled to receive the thing promised to them (namely, the eternal
inheritance itself) : Christ must establish a neto covenant. The internal
ground of this connexion of ideas is manifest. It had already
been shewn in chap. viii. and ix. of the old covenant, that its priestly
service could not blot out the guilt of sin. If the old covenant
still continued to subsist, then its priestly service also continued,
and thus, so long as it continued, there could be no redemption, no
2)0SsibLlity of at length truly entering into the long promised inheritance.
Tliere is here, therefore, an inference draivn hackivards from
the necessity of a new priestly service {XHTovpyia) to the necessity of
a neiv diaOi'jKT].
But closely connected with these principal points is the second
idea of the passage before us, Oavdrov yevojuvov elg d:roAVTpu)niv, that
it was possible to accomphsh this only by an atoniwj mcrifcial
death.
This second point is further developed in ver. IG, seq. A covenant
cannot be made without death ; the sinner cannot enter into a
covenant witli the holy God without dying ; hence, also, in the making
of the first covenant, substitutionary burnt-ofierings must needs
be brought by the Israelites who entered into covenant with God.
This passage in itself so easy—easy whenever one has i)atience
to read to the end of it, that is to ver. 22— has by most critics been
regarded as a real crux.
Many have been led by what seems to be
said in ver. IG, to snjjpose that the signification covenant here is by
no means suitable, and thus have rendered (haOi'jKfi either, already
at ver. 15, by testament (thus completely breaking the connection