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Heb_9:14.[91] Incomparably more efficacious must the sacrifice of Christ be. For—(1) Christ offered Himself, i.e. He gave up His own body to the death of a sacrifice, while the Levitical high priest derives his material of sacrifice from a domain foreign to himself personally; then: He offered Himself from a free resolve of will, while the Levitical high priest is placed under the necessity of sacrificing, by the command of an external ordinance, and the sacrificial victim whose blood he offers is an irrational animal, which consequently knows nothing of the end to which it is applied. The Levitical act of sacrifice is then an external one wrought in accordance with ordinance, a sensuous one; Christ’s act of sacrifice, on the other hand, one arising out of the disposition of the heart, thus a moral one. From this it is already evident how it could be said (2) that Christ offered Himself διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου . The ethical belongs to the province of the spirit. Christ accordingly offered Himself by virtue of spirit, because His act of sacrifice was, in relation to God, an act of the highest spiritual obedience (Php_2:8), in relation to the human brethren an act of the highest spiritual love (2Co_5:14-15). ΔΙᾺ ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΟς ΑἸΩΝΊΟΥ , however, by virtue of eternal spirit did Christ offer Himself, inasmuch as the notion of the eternal belongs inseparably and essentially to the notion of spirit, in opposition to σάρξ , which has the notion of the transitory as its essential presupposition. The adjective ΑἸΩΝΊΟΥ is added in natural correspondence with ΑἸΩΝΊΑΝ ΛΎΤΡΩΣΙΝ , Heb_9:12. For only by virtue of eternal spirit could a redemption which is to be eternal, or of ever-enduring validity, be accomplished.
The majority have interpreted ΔΙᾺ ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΟς ΑἸΩΝΊΟΥ of the Holy Spirit; then thinking either, as Clarius, Estius, Whitby, and others, of the third person in the divine trias, or as Bleek, de Wette, and others, of the Spirit of God which dwelt in Christ in all its fulness, and was the principle which animated Him at every moment. But this application is too special. For, in accordance with the force of the words and the connection of the thoughts, there can stand as a tacit antithesis to the expression: διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου , only the general formula: ΔΙᾺ ΣΑΡΚῸς ΠΡΟΣΚΑΊΡΟΥ , whereby the mode of accomplishing the Levitical acts of sacrifice would be characterized. Moreover, if the Holy Spirit had been intended, the choice of the adjective ΑἸΩΝΊΟΥ instead of ἉΓΊΟΥ must have appeared strange, because indistinct and liable to being misunderstood; finally, the absence of the article also is best explained on the supposition that the formula is to be understood generically. Too special, likewise, is the explanation of the words adopted by Aretius, Beza, Jac. Cappellus, Gomarus, Calov, Wolf, Peirce, M‘Lean, Bisping, and many others, in part coinciding with the second form of the first main interpretation, according to which, by πνεῦμα αἰώνιον , the divine nature of Christ, or “the principle of the eternal Sonship of God indwelling in Christ” (Kurtz), is designated. This view already finds its refutation in the fact that πνεῦμα has its opposite in ΣΆΡΞ , and ΠΝΕῦΜΑ and ΣΆΡΞ are contrasted as spirit and body, not as divine and human. To be rejected farther is the procedure of Faustus Socinus, Schlichting, Grotius, Limborch, Carpzov, Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 525 ff.), Reuss,[92] Kurtz, Woerner, and others, in making the ΠΝΕῦΜΑ ΑἸΏΝΙΟΝ , as regards the thing intended, equivalent to the ΔΎΝΑΜΙς ΖΩῆς ἈΚΑΤΑΛΎΤΟΥ , Heb_7:16, whereby the essentially ethical import of the expression in our passage is lost sight of; entirely false and arbitrary, however, is the interpretation of Döderlein, Storr, and Stuart, who refer πνεῦμα αἰώνιον to Christ’s state of glorification after His exaltation; of Nösselt (Opusc. ad interpret. sacr. scripturr. fascic. I. ed. 2, p. 334),—as also van der Boon Mesch, l.c. p. 100,—who espouse the opinion: “ πνεῦμα esse victimam, quam Christus se immolando Deo obtulit, eamque ΑἸΩΝΊΑΝ dici propterea, quod istius victimae vis ad homines salvandos perpetua atque perennis futura sit;” of Michaelis, ad Peirc., who finds the sense, that Christ presented Himself not according to the letter of the Mosaic law, but yet certainly according to its spirit; and of Planck (Commentatt. a Rosenm. etc., edd. I. 1, p. 189), who even maintains that the spirit of prophecy in the prophets of the Old Covenant is thought of. Strangely also Oecumenius, Theophylact, Clarius, and others (comp. already Chrysostom): διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου stands in opposition to the fire, by which the Levitical sacrifices were offered to God. Similarly Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 420, 2 Aufl.), who is followed by Delitzsch and Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 527, Obs.): “the spirit by which Christ offered Himself is called an eternal spirit, in opposition to the fleeting spirit of the animals which the O. T. high priest presented.” Of a “spirit” of the animals the author (cf. Heb_4:12) can hardly have thought, inasmuch as, though in the O. T. a πνεῦμα is often ascribed to animals, this is understood only in the lower sense of the ΨΥΧΉ . Needlessly, in the last place, does Reiske conjecture ἉΓΝΕΎΜΑΤΟς instead of ΠΝΕΎΜΑΤΟς .
ΔΙΆ ] denotes not the mere impulse or impelling motive (Vatablus, Ribera, Estius, al.), nor yet the condition or sphere (Stengel, Tholuck, al.), but the higher power, by virtue of which the offering was accomplished and made effective.
ἑαυτὸν προσήνεγκεν ] is understood by Bleek, with whom Kurtz concurs, after the precedent of Faustus Socinus, Schlichting, Grotius, Limborch, and others, in the sense that Christ offered to God, in the heavenly Holy of Holies, His blood which was shed upon earth; which, however, is violent on account of διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου , since these words appertain to the whole relative clause, and are not to be referred, with Bleek, as a nearer definition merely to ἌΜΩΜΟΝ . The undergoing upon earth of the death of the cross is that which is meant.
ἌΜΩΜΟΝ ] as a spotless sacrifice, yielding full satisfaction to God. The Levitical victim must be ἄμωμος ( úÌÈîÄéí ), physically free from blemish. Here ἌΜΩΜΟς is used of the higher, ethical spotlessness, and has reference to the sinlessness of character manifested by Christ during His earthly life. Erroneously Bleek: the expression has respect to “the condition of Christ after death and the resurrection, in which, raised above even the infirmities to which as very man He was subject upon earth, He could in particular no more fall a victim to death.”
Τῷ ΘΕῷ ] is to be taken along with the whole relative clause, not merely with ἌΜΩΜΟΝ .
ἈΠῸ ΝΕΚΡῶΝ ἜΡΓΩΝ ] forth from dead (legal) works, so that we free ourselves from them as from something that is unfruitful and useless, rise above them. The notion of the ΝΕΚΡᾺ ἜΡΓΑ here the same as at Heb_6:1.
[91] A. L. van der Boon Mesch, Specimen Hermeneuticum in locum ad Hebr. ix. 14, Lugd. Bat. 1819, 8vo.
[92] “L’auteur a voulu dire ici, par une tournure nouvelle, justement ce qu’il a déjà dit deux fois en d’autres termes (Heb_7:16; Heb_7:25). La nature de Christ lui assure une vie éternelle, non sujette à la mort et par cela même seule capable de nous assurer un bienfait durable et éternel aussi.”