Heb 9:15

“It was probable that many of those who were more weakly would especially distrust the promises of Christ because He had died. Paul accordingly out of a superabundance introduced this illustration, deriving it from common custom. Of what kind is it? He says, "indeed, on this very account we ought to be of good courage." On what account? Because testaments are established and obtain their force when those who have made them are not living, but dead. "And for this cause," he says, "He is the Mediator of the New Testament." A Testament is made towards the last day, [the day] of death. And a testament is of this character: It makes some heirs, and some disinherited. So in this case also: "I will that where I am," Christ says, "they also may be." And again of the disinherited, hear Him saying, "I pray not for" all, "but for them that believe on Me through their word." Again, a testament has relation both to the testator, and to the legatees; so that they have some things to receive, and some to do, So also in this case. For after having made promises innumerable, He demands also something from them, saying, "a new commandment I give unto you." Again, a testament ought to have witnesses. Hear Him again saying, "I am one that bear witness of Myself, and He that sent Me beareth witness of Me." And again, "He shall testify of Me," speaking of the Comforter. The twelve Apostles too He sent, saying, "Bear ye witness before God." "And for this cause" (he says) "He is the Mediator of the New Testament." What is a "Mediator"? A mediator is not lord of the thing of which he is mediator, but the thing belongs to one person, and the mediator is another: as for instance, the mediator of a marriage is not the bridegroom, but one who aids him who is about to be married. So then also here: The Son became Mediator between the Father and us. The Father willed not to leave us this inheritance, but was wroth against us, and was displeased [with us] as being estranged [from Him]; He accordingly became Mediator between us and Him, and prevailed with Him. And what then? How did He become Mediator? He brought words from [Him] and brought [them to us], conveying over what came from the Father to us, and adding His own death thereto. We had offended: we ought to have died: He died for us and made us worthy of the Testament. By this is the Testament secure, in that henceforward it is not made for the unworthy. At the beginning indeed, He made His dispositions as a father for sons; but after we had become unworthy, there was no longer need of a testament, but of punishment. Why then (he would say) dost thou think upon the law? For it placed us in a condition of so great sin, that we could never have been saved, if our Lord had not died for us; the law would not have had power, for it is weak.”

“In these verses the apostle considers the gospel under the notion of a will or testament, the new or last will and testament of Christ, and shows the necessity and efficacy of the blood of Christ to make this testament valid and effectual. I. The gospel is here considered as a testament, the new and last will and testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is observable that the solemn transactions that pass between God and man are sometimes called a covenant, here a testament. A covenant is an agreement between two or more parties about things that are in their own power, or may be so, and this either with or without a mediator; this agreement takes effect at such time and in such manner as therein declared. A testament is a voluntary act and deed of a single person, duly executed and witnessed, bestowing legacies on such legatees as are described and characterized by the testator, and which can only take effect upon his death. Now observe, Christ is the Mediator of a New Testament (Heb 9:15); and he is so for several ends and purposes here mentioned. 1. To redeem persons from their transgressions committed against the law or first testament, which makes every transgression a forfeiture of liberty, and makes men debtors, and slaves or prisoners, who need to be redeemed. 2. To qualify all those that are effectually called to receive the promise of an eternal inheritance. These are the great legacies that Christ by his last will and testament has bequeathed to the truly characterized legatees. II. To make this New Testament effectual, it was necessary that Christ should die; the legacies accrue by means of death. This he proves by two arguments: - 1. From the general nature of every will or testamentary disposition, Heb 9:16. Where a testament is, where it acts and operates, there must of necessity by the death of the testator; till then the property is still in the testator's hand, and he has power to revoke, cancel, or alter, his will as he pleases; so that no estate, no right, is conveyed by will, till the testator's death has made it unalterable and effectual. 2. From the particular method that was taken by Moses in the ratification of the first testament, which was not done without blood, Heb 9:18, Heb 9:19, etc. All men by sin had become guilty before God, had forfeited their inheritance, their liberties, and their very lives, into the hands of divine justice; but God, being willing to show the greatness of his mercy, proclaimed a covenant of grace, and ordered it to be typically administered under the Old Testament, but not without the blood and life of the creature; and God accepted the blood of bulls and goats, as typifying the blood of Christ; and by these means the covenant of grace was ratified under the former dispensation. The method taken by Moses, according to the direction he had received from God, is here particularly related (1.) Moses spoke every precept to all the people, according to the law, Heb 9:19. He published to them the tenour of the covenant, the duties required, the rewards promised to those who did their duty, and the punishment threatened against the transgressors, and he called for their consent to the terms of the covenant; and this in an express manner. (2.) Then he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and applied this blood by sprinkling it. This blood and water signified the blood and water that came out of our Saviour's pierced side, for justification and sanctification, and also shadowed forth the two sacraments of the New Testament, baptism and the Lord's supper, with scarlet wool, signifying the righteousness of Christ with which we must be clothed, the hyssop signifying that faith by which we must apply all. Now with these Moses sprinkled, [1.] The book of the law and covenant, to show that the covenant of grace is confirmed by the blood of Christ and made effectual to our good. [2.] The people, intimating that the shedding of the blood of Christ will be no advantage to us if it be not applied to us. And the sprinkling of both the book and the people signified the mutual consent of both parties, God and man, and their mutual engagements to each other in this covenant through Christ, Moses at the same time using these words, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. This blood, typifying the blood of Christ, is the ratification of the covenant of grace to all true believers. [3.] He sprinkled the tabernacle and all the utensils of it, intimating that all the sacrifices offered up and services performed there were accepted only through the blood of Christ, which procures the remission of that iniquity that cleaves to our holy things, which could not have been remitted but by that atoning blood.”

“And for this cause he is the Mediator of the New Testament,.... See Gill on Heb 7:22, See Gill on Heb 8:6, See Gill on Heb 8:8. This may refer both to what goes before, and what follows after; for Christ, that he might offer himself to God, and by his blood purge the consciences of his people from dead works, that so they might serve the living God, became the Mediator of the New Testament, or covenant; and also he took upon him this character and office, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance; Christ became the Mediator of the New Testament, and assumed human nature that he might die, and by dying might obtain redemption for his people; not only for those that were then in the world, or should be in it, but also for all those that had been in it. "The first testament" is the first dispensation of the covenant of grace, reaching from the first promulgation of it to Adam after the fall, to the death of Christ; "the transgressions" that were under it are the sins of the saints who lived under that dispensation, froth Adam to Moses, and from Moses to Christ, and takes in all their iniquities of every kind: and the "redemption" of these, or from these, by Christ, at and through his death, does not suppose that there was no remission of sins, or justification from them, under that dispensation; or that the Old Testament saints did not go to heaven, but were detained in a prison, till redeemed by the death of Christ; or that their sins were only redeemed, not their persons; for transgressions may stand for transgressors; and so the Syriac version renders it, "that by his death he might be a redemption for them who transgressed the first testament"; so the Jews say, that the Messiah must die "to redeem the fathers" (b): but the sense is, that though legal sacrifices could not atone for sin, nor ceremonial ablutions cleanse from them; yet the sins of Old Testament saints were expiated, their iniquities pardoned, and they justified and saved, through the blood of Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; whose death is a redemption from transgressions past, present, and to come; whose blood is the ransom price for them, and was shed for the remission of them, even of sins that are past through the forbearance of God; who took the surety's word for the performance of all this, which in the fulness of time he strictly fulfilled, to the satisfaction of law and justice; see Rom 3:25 and the ultimate end of Christ's being a Mediator, and dying for such purposes, was, that called ones might receive the promised inheritance: by the "eternal inheritance", is meant heaven, which is by gift and bequest, belongs to children only, and comes through the death of Christ; and is a very substantial, plentiful, and glorious one; it is incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, and as here, "eternal"; it was prepared from the foundation of the world, and will continue for ever; and it may be so called, to distinguish it from the inheritance of the land of Canaan, or any temporal one: "the promise" of this was made before the world began, and was put into the hands of Christ, the surety of the better testament, by whose death the heirs of it come to enjoy both the promise, and the thing promised; and they are such who are "called", not merely externally, but internally and effectually; by whom were meant, not Abraham and his natural seed, nor the Old Testament saints only, but all that are called with an holy calling, whether Jews or Gentiles, and who will enjoy both the promise of the inheritance, and that itself, in a way of "receiving": every word shows this affair to be all of grace; it is an "inheritance", and therefore the Father's gift; it is by "promise", and so of grace; and it is "received", and so freely given, and not merited; and only such who are "called" by grace possess it; and yet it is through the death of Christ, that so it might be received in a way consistent with the justice of God. (b) R. Moses Haddarsan apud Galatin. l. 8. c. 20.”

“And for this cause - Some translate δια τουτο, on account of this (blood.) Perhaps it means no more than a mere inference, such as therefore, or wherefore. He is the Mediator of the new testament - There was no proper reason why our translators should render διαθηκη by testament here, when in almost every other case they render it covenant, which is its proper ecclesiastical meaning, as answering to the Hebrew ברית berith, which see largely explained, Gen 15:10, and in other places of the Pentateuch. Very few persons are satisfied with the translation of the following verses to the 20th, particularly the 16th and 17th; at all events the word covenant must be retained. He - Jesus Christ, is Mediator; the μεσιτης, or mediator, was the person who witnessed the contract made between the two contracting parties, slew the victim, and sprinkled each with its blood. Of the new testament - The new contract betwixt God and the whole human race, by Christ Jesus the Mediator, distinguished here from the old covenant between God and the Israelites, in which Moses was the mediator. That by means of death - His own death upon the cross. For the redemption of the transgressions - To make atonement for the transgressions which were committed under the old covenant, which the blood of bulls and calves could not do; so the death of Jesus had respect to all the time antecedent to it, as well as to all the time afterward till the conclusion of the world. They which are called - The Gentiles, might receive the promise - might, by being brought into a covenant with God, have an equal right with the Jews, not merely to an inheritance such as the promised land, but to an eternal inheritance, and consequently infinitely superior to that of the Jews, inasmuch as the new covenant is superior in every point of view to the old. How frequently the Gentiles are termed οἱ κλητοι and οἱ κεκλημενοι, the called, all St. Paul's writings show. And they were thus termed because they were called and elected in the place of the Jews, the ancient called and elect, who were now divorced and reprobated because of their disobedience.”

“And therefore he is the mediator of the new testament. [4] The mediator, so as to be our Redeemer, which applies only to our Saviour, Christ. Moses is called a mediator betwixt God and his people. See Galatians iii. 19. and 1 Timothy ii. 5. &c. The saints in heaven, and men on earth, may be called mediators in an inferior and different sense: but Christ alone is the mediator who reconciled God to men, by satisfying for their sins, and by a redemption from the slavery of sin. This sense, in which Christ is the mediator of the New Testament is expressed in these following words: that by means of his death, for the redemption of those transgressions which were under the former testament, they who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance; that is, Christ by his death, redeemed all men. He names in particular the sins of those under the former testament, to shew them that the sacrifices of the Mosaical law could not of themselves obtain a remission of sins, so that all saved from Adam, or that shall be saved to the end of the world, have their sins forgiven, and obtain salvation by virtue of Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross. He paid the ransom of their sins, and is the Redeemer of all. (Witham)”

“for this cause--Because of the all-cleansing power of His blood, this fits Him to be Mediator (Heb 8:6, ensuring to both parties, God and us, the ratification) of the new covenant, which secures both forgiveness for the sins not covered by the former imperfect covenant or testament, and also an eternal inheritance to the called. by means of death--rather, as Greek, "death having taken place." At the moment that His death took place, the necessary effect is, "the called receive the (fulfilment of the) promise" (so Luk 24:49 uses "promise"; Heb 6:15; Act 1:4); that moment divides the Old from the New Testament. The "called" are the elect "heirs," "partakers of the heavenly calling" (Heb 3:1). redemption of . . . transgressions . . . under . . . first testament--the transgressions of all men from Adam to Christ, first against the primitive revelation, then against the revelations to the patriarchs, then against the law given to Israel, the representative people of the world. The "first testament" thus includes the whole period from Adam to Christ, and not merely that of the covenant with Israel, which was a concentrated representation of the covenant made with (or the first testament given to) mankind by sacrifice, down from the fall to redemption. Before the inheritance by the New Testament (for here the idea of the "INHERITANCE," following as the result of Christ's "death," being introduced, requires the Greek to be translated "testament," as it was before covenant) could come in, there must be redemption of (that is, deliverance from the penalties incurred by) the transgressions committed under the first testament, for the propitiatory sacrifices under the first testament reached only as far as removing outward ceremonial defilement. But in order to obtain the inheritance which is a reality, there must be a real propitiation, since God could not enter into covenant relation with us so long as past sins were unexpiated; Rom 3:24-25, "a propitiation . . . His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past." might--Greek, "may receive," which previously they could not (Heb 11:39-40). the promise--to Abraham.”