Hebrews 9:11–28

Original Meaning

Introduction (9:11–12)

THE AUTHOR BEGINS with a temporal clause: “when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here.” The designation “Christ” appears at the beginning of the Greek sentence, making it emphatic, and carries the force of a title.1 The significance of the Messiah’s appearance is that he comes as a high priest of “good things that are already here.” The Greek phraseology continues to build a stark contrast between the old and new covenant systems. The “good things” are all those blessings associated with the new covenant (8:6), blessings that have now been ushered in by Christ’s establishment of that better agreement.

The writer has two prominent Old Testament images in mind as he walks us through this part of his argument: the high priest’s Day of Atonement sacrifice, and the sacrifice made by Moses to inaugurate the Sinai covenant. Christ’s death on the cross incorporates and fulfills the meaning of both. At present he stays with his high priest motif and proclaims that as the earthly high priest passed through the outer to the inner room of the sanctuary, so Christ “went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made.”

Mention of the “greater and more perfect tabernacle” has given rise to various expressions of creative exegesis. Some commentators have understood this tabernacle to be the Lord’s incarnate body, pointing to those references where the Lord referred to his body as a “temple” (e.g., John 2:19–22). Others, including Westcott and Bruce, have suggested the tabernacle of Hebrews 9:11 refers to the church, the people of God, as the place of our high priest’s ministry. A third view considers our high priest’s passage through the “greater and more perfect tabernacle” to refer to a cosmic passage, the outer chamber of the heavens. However, Hughes is correct when he suggests that all three interpretations have missed specific indicators offered by our author.2 What he has in mind is simply Christ’s passage into the very presence of God in heaven (8:1). The accuracy of this reading may be seen in a parallel text (9:24), where he writes, “For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.”

This high priest did not enter the presence of God “by means of the blood of goats and calves,” but “by his own blood,” shed in sacrifice. The author means no crass materialism here, as if the exalted Lord took his physical blood into heaven, similar to how the old covenant high priest took the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place. Christ’s entrance with his own blood means his sacrificial death on the cross, which established his mediatorial relationship between us and the Father, after he “obtained our eternal redemption.” The word “redemption” can also be translated “liberation” or “deliverance.” The Jews expected the Messiah to deliver Israel from their enemies.3 The deliverance brought by the heavenly high priest, however, involves deliverance from sin’s penalty and is eternal in nature, Christ having “entered the [true] Most Holy Place once for all.”

Bridging Contexts

AS WE SEEK to bring this text into our contemporary contexts we must address simultaneously at least two main issues. (1) Several challenges exist regarding the communication of certain truths or motifs from our passage to contemporary contexts. These challenges are both conceptual (namely, that moderns tend to think of “sacrifice” and “heaven” as primitive concepts) and attitudinal (many in contemporary society questioning the existence of sin and the need for forgiveness).

(2) Once again we must move beneath the surface, cultic-worship language of the Scriptures and pinpoint the significance of the affirmations found in 9:11–28. What does the author wish for us to understand about the sacrifice of Christ? One of our tasks in this regard must be the identification of certain false moves interpreters have made in handling this text so that we do not fall to the same errors. Specifically, we focus here on the concepts of Christ’s blood and the location of his offering in the heavenly tabernacle “not made with hands.” Since the author presents his full-blown treatment on the finality of Christ’s sacrifice in 10:1–18, we reserve discussion of that motif for the next section of the commentary.

The challenge posed by popular conceptions of morality. One of the critical challenges facing the expositor who wishes to communicate Hebrews 9:11–28 to a modern audience stems from a cultural shift from concern either with biblical morality or with the idea of a “macro-morality” (i.e., a universal moral standard), to various popular conceptions of morality. Stated another way, many of our contemporaries have a loosely arranged mental construct that they think of as “morality” (i.e., “concepts of right and wrong”). This construct may be made up of teachings from parents, professors, friends, movies, television, commentaries, novels, self-help books, or experiences.

In other words, the contemporary person sets the standards of morality, picking and choosing ideas that will be included in the moral system. Popular choices might include, “tolerance is right, exclusivity is wrong”; “free choice is right, restrictions are wrong”; “helping others is right, harming others is wrong”; and the list goes on. Wrong takes the form of “not being true to oneself,” “not being inclusive,” or, perhaps, the obvious acts of harm or violence against others; but the lines are fuzzy at best. Since most of us are not likely to label our own tendencies as “sin”—an unpopular word anyway in our culture—the need for “forgiveness” may be considered outdated. It would not be unusual for us to hear someone say, “Basically I consider myself a good person,” or, “She is a very moral person,” which may have a variety of meanings, depending on one’s system of morality.

In fact, our culture increasingly places the emphasis on being “good” to others as well as good to ourselves. When a person sees the whole of morality in terms of whether or not one is “doing good”—certainly an admirable pursuit in itself—this may dull our sense of need for forgiveness of what the Bible terms sin. In his classic Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes:

Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken the law and put yourself wrong with that Power—it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.18

My point is that we must communicate a biblical view of morality as a replacement for the popular view that many have, if we want Christianity (and esp. Heb. 9:11–28) to speak to them.

Even so, contemporary conceptions of morality present us with a great challenge. As Blaise Pascal reminds us in Pensées, “There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”19 Many of our society have become like the Pharisee of Luke 18, who focused on his own goodness. Their version, however, might go as follows: “God, I thank you that I am not like the really bad people I see on the news every night!”

The concept of “blood.” This brings us to a second challenge in communicating the truth of our passage. The concept of sacrifice, the shedding of blood to satisfy a requirement made by God, seems horribly primitive and dark to many moderns. Think for a moment about “the shedding of blood” and its associations in most modern cultures of the world. The image conjures pictures of violence, murder, and war—not exactly positive, life-affirming images. Moreover, there exists a great concern for being humane to animals. We spend thousands of dollars to save a pair of whales stranded in an ice field and, at the end of certain movies, read the disclaimer, “No animal in this film was harmed.” How, then, can we communicate the sacrificial slaughter of animals and the new covenant sacrifice of Christ himself to a congregation inundated with cultural messages that seem to contradict these motifs at their core?

We must return to the question of significance. Why are these images in the biblical record? What does God wish to communicate through them? (1) At least since the time of B. F. Westcott commentators have been misinterpreting the “blood” motif in the New Testament as signifying “life.”20 For example, in his commentary on John’s Gospel, Westcott states,

Thus, in accordance with the typical teaching of the Levitical ordinances, the Blood of Christ represents Christ’s life (1) as rendered in free self-sacrifice to God for men, and (2) as brought into perfect fellowship with God, having been set free by death. The Blood of Christ is, as shed, the Life of Christ given for men, and as applied, the Life of Christ now given to men, the Life which is the spring of their life (John xii. 24).… The Blood always includes the thought of the life preserved and active beyond death.21

Along this same line Westcott comments on Hebrews 9:18–22: “By the use of the words ‘not without blood’ the writer of the Epistle suggests the two ideas of atonement and quickening by the impartment of a new life which have already connected with Christ’s work.”22 Thus, the concept of “blood” communicates the idea of life being imparted. This idea that the death of the sacrificial victim means that life has been released can also be found in the works of scholars such as Vincent Taylor and C. H. Dodd.23

Yet, the biblical evidence points strongly in another direction. References to sacrificial blood in Scripture point to the death of the victim, not the bestowal of life. Specifically in Hebrews, when the author mentions the shedding of Christ’s blood, he speaks of the Lord’s sacrificial death on the cross. It is his sacrificial death, not the communication of life, that cleanses us (9:14); it is his death that brings freedom (9:15) and inaugurates the new covenant (9:16–18). The analogy throughout Hebrews 9 between Christ’s death and that of animals makes this interpretation more sure. Through their deaths the animals were not imparting life, but giving their lives for the purpose of cleansing sin and reconciling people to God. In other words, the blood motif represents death in Scripture, and when alluding to Christ, connotes his sacrificial death on the cross, by which he “expiated our sins, propitiated our Maker, turned God’s ‘no’ to us into a ‘yes,’ and so saved us.”24

“Death” and modern society. This fact raises a third challenge related to Hebrews 9, closely related to the concept of sacrifice. John Stott notes the modern objection to the relevance of a person long dead. He humorously parallels the modern questioning how a figure from ancient history can have relevance for us to a passage from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck responds to the widow Douglas’ recount of the Moses story:

I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him; because I don’t take no stock in dead people.25

Many people in contemporary society avoid the topic of death at all costs. In a context in which naturalism governs the worldview, death represents termination, the end of one’s existence, the ultimate enemy. However, the concept of Christ’s sacrificial death, given on behalf of people, may give us a connection with modern audiences that does not seem apparent at first thought. Christ sacrificially accomplished something for us which we were at a loss to accomplish for ourselves. This reiterates one theme on the rise in American culture—that of volunteerism, the giving of oneself on behalf of another. On the verge of the third millennium some ninety-three million adults ages eighteen and up have served as volunteers, giving on average 4.2 hours per week, 85 percent of whom worked on some serious social problem.26 Is this not what Christ has done for us? Moreover, it was a “volunteer service” rendered at the greatest personal expense and for a greater cause.

The point here is not to attempt to remove the cross from its “stumbling block status” or to water down the doctrine of penal substitution. That a violent death two millennia ago can somehow transform modern individuals will continue to be mocked in many quarters. Rather, we are looking for contact points for communication, and the concept of volunteerism may provide such a connection.

Heaven and pop culture. How we and our contemporaries think of heaven presents a fourth challenge to communication, and here too we have much cultural baggage to overcome. Asked for their ideas about heaven, many moderns either deny its existence or present a shallow portrait based on pop mythology. The picture probably includes clouds or a mist across the floor, everyone having become an angel, each with a harp to play and, perhaps, gold trimmings. Movies such as the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, one of this writer’s favorites, have perpetuated such pop myths.

Admittedly, the New Testament’s own portrayals of heaven are minimal, for the authors attempt to describe the indescribable. But all this modern poppycock of clouds and harps is dull at best and horribly misleading at worst. “Clouds,” for instance, are associated by the New Testament with the interchange between the heavenly realm and the earthly.27 In focusing on clouds and harps, we set our sights on the rocks—not even the rocks but the dirt particles—at the foot of the mountain as if they were the mountain itself. Such fixations stunt biblical thinking about heaven, which by New Testament accounts is so much more. “More what?” we ask. More of God’s good gifts (referred to as our “inheritance” in Hebrews) and of God himself.

Specifically, in heaven we will know fully the presence of God, and this brings us to the point of the author’s references to heaven in Hebrews 9. Heaven is ultimately the place of God’s presence fully known and experienced. When Jesus died on the cross, God the Father was present since God is omnipresent. Yet Hebrews notes that Jesus “entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence” (9:24). So heaven is the place into which we follow our great high priest, Jesus, drawing near to God, entering into his presence. Thus heaven can be experienced now because of the high-priestly sacrifice of Christ, which has won us entrance into the presence of God, and will be experienced fully at the end of the age. One point of application, therefore, might reflect on how we as believers think about heaven and its relation to the Christian life.

Contemporary Significance

TRIVIALIZING THE CROSS. The cross of Christ, once respected, if not reverenced, as a significant religious symbol, has undergone a transmutation. For example, on a Holy Week cover of The New Yorker magazine, a bunny rabbit—arms outstretched, head bowed, legs together in an obvious caricature of crucifixion—portrays “Theology of a Tax Cut.”28 Such adaptations of the cross to make a political statement or to define the perverted, quasi-religious image of pop-stars such as Madonna obscure the crucifixion’s significance. In the mind of the general public the cross amounts to mere jewelry that can be had with or without “the ‘little man’ on it.”29

There are at least two reasons for this metamorphosis of the cross. (1) With vast segments of the population, the Christian religion as popularly perceived has become a too-familiar, empty fixture of the culture. With the passage of time, images related to Christianity—such as the church building, the minister, the cross (images that once represented significant referents)—have vaporized into faint echoes of their real counterparts: true bodies of believers, committed men of God, a symbol of ultimate, atoning sacrifice.

(2) The concept of sacrifice, especially blood sacrifice, has been deemed such a primitive idea as to be completely irreconcilable to modern thinking. John Stott writes:

The gospel contains some features so alien to modern thought that it will always appear “folly” to intellectuals, however hard we strive (and rightly) to show that it is “true and reasonable.” The cross will always constitute an assault on human self-righteousness and a challenge to human self-indulgence. Its “scandal” (stumbling-block) simply cannot be removed. Indeed, the church speaks most authentically to the world not when it makes its shameful little prudential compromises, but when it refuses to do so; not when it has become indistinguishable from the world, but when its distinctive light shines most brightly.

Thus Christian people, who live under the authority of God’s revelation, however anxious they are to communicate it to others, manifest a sturdy independence of mind and spirit.30

In her article, “After the Gang, What?” Evelyn Lewis Perera tells of an experience that illustrates Stott’s point. When her younger sister, Vee, first professed Christ to her, she said, “I mean, I have realized that Jesus really is exactly who he says he is, that he really died for my sins and rose again, and I have decided to entrust my whole life to him.” Evelyn and her friend Barbara sat stunned. Having excused themselves, they agreed to make a united front to talk Vee out of her new perspective, but this did not work. When they tried to speak to her of art, music, poetry, and novels, which they assumed stood in contradistinction to Christianity, Vee further informed them of the faith of Bach, Michelangelo, T. S. Eliot, and Blaise Pascal. Then Evelyn informed Vee “that according to Buckminster Fuller, Competitive Man would soon evolve into Cooperative Man, and then human behavior would improve, without Jesus and ‘all that blood.…’” In the end Evelyn came to understand the significance of “all that blood” and devoted herself to the crucified and risen Christ.31

We must retake this ground from the culture; we must take back our image of the cross and the sacrifice it represents. Why? Because the world must hear, and we must hear in a fresh way every day, that God loved us enough to experience voluntarily the death of his Son on our behalf. Christ volunteered to meet a need for us that we could not meet for ourselves. This is the giving God of grace and his Son, the Cosmic Volunteer. Therefore, we must not abandon the concept of the blood of Christ, for it lies at the heart of our redemption.

At the same time, we must interpret and communicate the significance of the blood for our modern audiences scandalized by the “primitive sacrifice” concept. This image itself is strong meat, perhaps too strong for those without the Spirit or for those recently acquainted with him. We must help them see the significance of the blood as both an aspect of and, in New Testament theology, a representation of Christ’s death.

We must also help contemporary people see that they need help. The problem with popular conceptions of morality stems from their inability to “cleanse the conscience,” as Hebrews 9 puts it. The expositor, therefore, must point out the biblical picture of God’s holiness and his terms of establishing a relationship with us, his fallen creatures. God does not grade on a curve, and the point is neither to have our good deeds outweigh our bad nor simply to keep from doing the “very bad” sins (however one might define those). The question, as the Bible defines it, is whether we are set apart from the tyranny and consequences of wrongdoing. Any person, except the most deluded, would admit that they do wrong at times, and this opens for us an opportunity for communicating a biblical view of morality. It also calls us to praise a God who would work out a means for our forgiveness and cleansing.

The limited but important view. Ernest Hemingway, in a 1925 letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, wrote of his view of heaven:

To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors.32

But this conception of heaven, admittedly stemming from wishful thinking rather than theological reflection, is more in line with C. S. Lewis’s portrayal of hell in The Great Divorce. In this fictionalized musing Lewis dramatizes a hell in which the inhabitants move further and further away from others because of utter selfishness, a selfishness that produces incessant quarreling. Those who have been in hell the longest live millions of miles from anyone else, lost in self-centered isolation.33

Some may think of Hemmingway’s thoughts on heaven as too broad. But his selfish view of heaven, centered as it is on his pleasures alone, is not too broad but too narrow. Heaven, the real heaven, is a place in which the focus of attention reaches outward and rests on God. All our greatest desires and pleasures will be realized beyond our wildest hopes and dreams—“no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived” (2 Cor. 2:9)—because they will be realized in him, the Limitless One. If this sounds rather dull to us, it shows how little we know of him.

But heaven, a clear view of that for which we are to long, eludes us dreadfully in our earthly sojourn. In Murder at the Cathedral T. S. Eliot wrote, “I have had a tremor of bliss, a wink of heaven, a whisper.…” W. Arnot suggests:

Throughout the whole circumference of the earth, a dead wall, very near and very thick, obstructs the view. Here and there, on a Sunday or another season of seriousness, a slit is left open in its side. Heaven might be seen through these slits, but the eye that is habitually set for earthly things cannot, during such momentary glimpses, adjust itself to higher things. Unless you pause and look steadfastly, you will see neither clouds nor sunshine through these openings, nor the distant sky. The soul has looked on the world so long, and the world’s picture is so firmly fixed in its eye, that when the soul is turned for a moment toward heaven, it feels only a quiver of inarticulate light and retains no distinct impression of the things that are unseen and eternal.34

Nevertheless, this heaven, as both present place and ultimate destination, is to be a matter of important focus for Christian pilgrims. As the locus of God’s fully known presence, it is the point of Christ’s work. He has died for us and redeemed us to bring us here. This is where we belong. This is the realm of our ultimate hopes and desires. This is our dwelling place now and then—now in spirit and then in resurrected fullness.

Original Meaning

The Superior Blood of Christ (9:13–22)

THE OLD COVENANT high priest offered the most important sacrifices of Israel’s year on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:1–25). As noted in our treatment of Hebrews 5:1–3, the high priest first offered a special sacrifice for himself and his household and then presented the sacrifice on behalf of the people. Having cast lots for the two goats taken from among the Israelites, he slaughtered one of the goats as a sin offering “for the people” (Lev. 16:15) and brought forth the other goat alive from the tent. The high priest then laid hands on the head of the “scapegoat,” confessing all the sins of the people before the Lord, and sent it away into the desert (16:20–22). God instructed Aaron to take the blood of both the bull and the sacrificed goat “behind the curtain” so that the blood of each might be sprinkled on the atonement cover (16:15–16). Our writer refers to these rituals in Hebrews 9:13.

In addition to “the blood of goats and calves,” the writer of Hebrews mentions a third sacrifice not associated with the Day of Atonement. Here alone in the New Testament does an author refer to the “ashes of a heifer.” In Numbers 19:1–21 God commanded the Israelites to bring Moses and Aaron a red heifer, perfect in body and never having been under a yoke. The heifer was taken outside the camp and slaughtered, its blood sprinkled seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. Then the animal was burned and its ashes collected for later use. When needed for ceremonial cleansing, the ashes were mixed with water and the mixture was sprinkled on the unclean person. The tabernacle also had to be sprinkled when an Israelite had touched a dead body, thus defiling the worship center.

For the author of Hebrews these sacrifices were external oblations that dealt with external defilement. They were able to clean worshipers temporarily so that they might have ceremonial purity in relation to the old covenant system. But these offerings fade in contrast to the offering made by Christ (9:14).

In reality verses 13–14 form one long sentence, with verse 13 presenting a conditional clause that can be translated: “if [or since] the blood of goats … sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean.” Verse 14, as the follow-up “then” clause, presents a theological capsule of the efficacious sacrifice of Christ: “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ … cleanse our consciences.…” These two verses form an “argument from lesser to greater,” which reasons: “If something is true in a lesser situation, it is true to an even greater degree in a greater situation.”4 Here the sacrifice of animals constitutes the lesser circumstance and the offering of the blood of Christ the greater.

Christ, as the great high priest, is said to have made his offering of himself “through the eternal Spirit” and “unblemished to God.” The first of these phrases is ambiguous, presenting a challenge to interpreters. Some commentators, including Attridge, Hughes, and Westcott, understand the “spirit” here to refer to the spiritual nature of Christ’s sacrifice or, more specifically, to Christ’s own spirit.5 Others, however, including Lane, Hagner, Bruce, and Ellingworth, take “eternal Spirit” as a reference to the Holy Spirit, who anointed our high priest for every aspect of his ministry, including his sacrificial death.6

The interpretation of the second phrase, “unblemished to God,” is more certain. The author alludes to the Old Testament requirements for sacrifice under the first covenant, in which God gave the requirement that a sacrificial animal be “without blemish or defect” (Lev. 14:10). In relation to Christ this does not refer to a lack of physical imperfections; rather, it refers to his spiritual and moral flawlessness (1 Peter 1:19). Because of his perfection, his sacrifice of himself is able to “cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death.”7 With consciences cleansed from deeds that are spiritually lethal, we are set free rightly to “serve the living God.”

With verse 15 the discussion shifts from a treatment of Christ’s sacrifice vis-à-vis the sacrifices offered within old covenant worship to the inauguration of a covenant through sacrifice. Two focal truths emerge from a consideration of this important verse. (1) Christ is the “mediator” (mesites) of the new covenant. The word mesites occurs especially in literature of the Hellenistic period, often with legal connotations. It referred, for example, to an arbiter in a political dispute or to a peacemaker in a business conflict. It also functioned as a synonym for engyos (7:22), meaning the “guarantor” of an oath. Philo speaks of angels and Moses as intermediaries between God and people;8 this religious meaning for the word is also evident in its six New Testament occurrences (Gal. 3:19–20; 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24).9 Christ as mediator of the new covenant has stood between God and people and accomplished the bringing of the two parties together in this agreement (1 Tim. 2:5). The result for the new people of God is that they receive the eternal inheritance.

(2) This mediatorial relationship was established by Christ’s death, in which he served as a ransom to liberate people from sins. The word rendered by the NIV as “ransom” (apolytrosis) is rare outside the New Testament; it occurs especially in Paul’s writings, where the word refers to God’s redemptive act on behalf of his people to set them free from the ravages of sin. Christ, by death, has liberated us, establishing a means by which we might be forgiven for our transgressions (Rom. 3:24; 1 Cor. 1:30). This constitutes a blessing of the new covenant, in which the sins of God’s people are remembered “no more” (Heb. 8:12).

Regarding 9:16–17, two main lines of interpretation have been followed among commentators. (1) The first suggests the author crafts a play on words, in which the word normally translated “covenant” in Hebrews (diatheke), following from the reference to “inheritance” in verse 15, should be understood as meaning “will” or “testament.”10 This view has as its cornerstone the reference to the ratifier’s death in verses 16–17, suggesting that covenants are not established by the death of those who make them. Rather, wills go into effect only when the one who made the will dies.

(2) The other position, the one adopted in this commentary and taken up most rigorously by Westcott and Lane, points out that the interpretation of diatheke as “will” in verses 16–17 is out of step with the immediate discussion. In context the author focuses on the old covenant sacrifices (vv. 12–14) and the establishment of the old covenant through sacrifice (vv. 18–22).11 These explain the reference to the ratifier’s death as symbolically realized in the death of the sacrificial victim. By this interpretation, verses 16–17 proclaim simply that someone (represented by the sacrificial victim) had to die in order for the covenant to be established. As Lane points out, these verses

explain why Christ had to die in order to become the priestly mediator of a new covenant. The ratification of a covenant required the presentation of sacrificial blood (cf. v. 18). Such blood is obtained only by means of death. Christ’s death was the means of providing the blood of the new covenant. His sacrificial death ratified or “made legally valid” the new covenant promised in Jer. 31:31–34.12

This reading of Hebrews 9:16–17 in terms of sacrifice squares perfectly with what follows in verses 18–22, which relate Moses’ inauguration of the Sinai covenant with sacrificial blood (Ex. 24:3–8). The focus of the author’s interest may be seen in verse 18, where he points out that the first covenant was inaugurated with the shedding of blood. In verses 19–21 the details of this Old Testament event are summarized. Having informed the people of the Lord’s words concerning the law (Ex. 24:3, 7), Moses took the blood of the calves sacrificed as fellowship offerings and sprinkled it on the people, proclaiming, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words” (24:8).13 Hebrews alone among ancient references to this event states Moses also sprinkled the book of the covenant.

The author’s assertion that the tabernacle and ceremonial vessels were also sprinkled with blood is problematic at first blush, since the Exodus passage does not include this fact. However, our writer, on the principle of verbal analogy,14 may be considering the Exodus text in concert with one or two others that refer to sprinkling—the Day of Atonement ritual of Leviticus 16 and, perhaps, the red heifer ceremony of Numbers 19, both already alluded to in Hebrews 9:12–13. In the red heifer passage Eleazar the priest was instructed to take some of the heifer’s blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times in the direction of the Tent of Meeting (Num. 19:4).15 Similarly, in the Day of Atonement ceremony the high priest took some of the blood from the bull and goat, sprinkling it on and in front of the atonement cover seven times. He was to sprinkle the blood on the Tent of Meeting and on the altar in the same manner (Lev. 16:14–19).

This use of blood in cleansing the various aspects of tabernacle worship demonstrates the truth stated in Hebrews 9:22: “The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” The Day of Atonement ritual especially focused on the use of blood for atonement from sin.