Hebrews Chapter Nine, Ratifying The Will

 

Hebrews 9:16 For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. [17] For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives.

 

The testament, of course, is a will. It is the legacy, or inheritance of what the testator leaves behind or bequeaths to his loved ones. To follow this line of logic, we return briefly to verse 11, and walk back to our current passage.

Christ came into this world as High Priest of the good things to come, John 1:12. This is what verse 11 relates. Jesus came to Israel; He presented Himself as the Jewish Messiah they had long been anticipating. But the good things our Lord offered needed to be ratified with blood to be put into effect. The promises made in the Old Testament dispensations reached fruition ONLY when our Lord died on the cross in our space/time/matter universe, outside Jerusalem, on a hill called Calvary. The saints prior to the cross looked toward the consummation and their faith was counted for righteousness, John 8:56.

 

Verse 12 relates that Jesus did not come as High Priest with blood of another, as the Aaronic priests did in a never ending cycle of sacrifice; one which did not take away spiritual guilt, but served to simply ceremonially cleanse. He offered His own blood, referencing His vicarious death and atonement, through which He obtained eternal redemption. To redeem means to buy back, liberate, free, or emancipate. To do so eternally means that the state of those bought back is perpetual; it will not alter or end.

 

Verse 13 testifies that the blood of the animals shed on Jewish altars was efficacious for ritual or ceremonial cleansing; it sanctified the flesh, not the spirit or conscience of a man. Hence it’s never ending repetition while the first covenant remained.

 

Verse 14 details the infinite worth of Jesus’ blood in contrast to animal blood. Jesus was hanged on a cross, a Roman form of capitol punishment inflicted to those outside the safety of being a nationalized citizen, unless one was a political dissident. That was why Paul, when he was martyred for his faith under Nero, was not crucified, since he was a citizen of Tarsus and a native member of Roman society, Acts 22:27, 28. The value of Christ’s sacrifice lay not only in who offered it, but also in what it accomplished. The God-man suffered a willing death to cleanse not our flesh, but our conscience, from dead works to make us fit to actually worship and serve the living God. Dead works do not befit the living God, so we are to cease trying and start trusting, Hebrews 4:10.

 

Verse 15 explains for this reason Jesus is our Mediator for the new covenant, by means of death. To accentuate this verse, the NIV translates it, “that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” The ESV renders the passage, “so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.” A death was necessary to nullify the binding nature of the first covenant, and to ratify the new covenant. Jesus told the disciples this when He shared His last supper with them, telling them that the drink and bread represents His body and blood, given for them to remit sin, Mark 14:22-24, Matthew 26:26-28.

 

As a side-note, notice how Jesus is bodily present with His disciples as He administers His “body” and “blood.” That these are tokens meant to memorialize His vicarious death is apparent, since He is in the room with them while they ingest the wine and bread. This is not transubstantiation, but a memorial to remember and honor the new covenant. This becomes very clear when He says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” Luke 22:19, ESV. Paul, following his Master’s command, reiterated Luke’s passage to the Corinthian church, adding, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes,” 1 Corinthians 11:26, ESV. That the Lord’s Supper is a memorial, not a magical ceremony to reconstitute the elements into the actual body and blood of the Savior under the appearance of bread and wine, is apparent to those not invested in Roman Catholic dogma, but Biblical clarity.

 

That Jesus our Lord died is historically verified. “But when [the Roman soldiers] came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear,” John 19:33, 34. “And when Jesus cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.’” Having said this, He breathed His last,” Luke 23:46. Tacitus in his annals, which was written about 116 AD, says, “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”

 

The writer goes on to proclaim that the testament, or will, is only in effect after the testator’s death. “The good things to come,” we read in verse 11, could only come when Jesus our Lord fulfilled what was promised before, by paying the penalty of Israel’s iniquity, and redeeming the Gentile nations to make the separated peoples one in Christ, saved by grace through faith alone in His name, John 16:7, Luke 24:49, Acts 2:33, Joel 2:28-32, Isaiah 53:10- 11, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Isaiah 49:6, Daniel 9:26, etc.

 

The author concludes that the will does not have power while the testator lives. The KJV exchanges the word “power” with “strength.” The Greek word for either translation is, “ischuo,” and means, “to be strong, to have efficacy, force or value.” The will is only efficacious (has a practical effect) when the testator’s death affects the catalyst for its implementation. The coming of the Christ always had its culmination with His victorious death, ushering in a dispensation of grace apart from the Law, where Jew and Gentile are saved in like manner; the Gentile no longer approached the God of Israel through Israel’s commonwealth and adoption. Now, both came to the Father through His Son: Israel’s Messiah and the world’s Savior. This was the essence of what God warned Lucifer in the Garden of Eden when He said, “He (Messiah) shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel,” Genesis 3:15. Victorious in death, Jesus will disarm the principalities and powers arrayed against Him, and destroy, or bring to naught, the one who had power over death, the Devil.