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Heb_9:26. Proof of the necessity that Christ’s sacrifice should take place only once for all, from the non-reasonableness of the opposite. For if the sacrifice of Christ sufficed not once for all for the cancelling of sin, He must oftentimes in succession—because no generation of mankind, so long as the world has endured, has been free from sin—have undergone death since the beginning of the world. But now, seeing this is contrary to reason, the matter stands in reality quite otherwise. From this reasoning it is evident that the author supposed an expiation of the sins of all the earlier generations of mankind too, by virtue of the sacrificial death of Christ. An erroneous statement of the connection of thought is given by Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 441), Delitzsch, and Alford. See, on the other hand, Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 552, Obs.
ἐπεί ] since otherwise, alioquin. Comp. 1Co_5:10; 1Co_7:14, al.
ἔδει αὐτὸν πολλάκις παθεῖν ] it were needful that He should often suffer.
On ἔδει without ἄν , see Winer, Gramm., 7 Aufl. p. 266.
παθεῖν specially of the suffering of death, as Heb_13:12.
ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμον ] from the foundation or creation of the world onwards (comp. Heb_4:3), i.e. here: so long as there are men in the world.
νυνὶ δέ ] as Heb_8:6, in the logical sense: but now. Opposition to ἐπεὶ κ . τ . λ .
ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων ] in the end of the ages, periods of time. Antithesis to ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου , and equivalent in signification to ἐπ ̓ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων , Heb_1:1. Comp. also ἐν τῇ συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος , Mat_13:40; Mat_13:49.
εἰς ἀθέτησιν ἁμαρτίας διὰ τῆς θυσίας αὐτοῦ ] for the cancelling of sin by His sacrifice. These words belong together. The conjoining of διὰ τῆς θυσίας αὐτοῦ with πεφανέρωται , which has been preferred by Jac. Cappellus, Grotius, Carpzov, Heinrichs, Schulz, Böhme, Tholuck, and others, is, in connection with the right determination of the sense of the verb (vid. infra), harsh and unnatural, and not at all justified by the alleged analogon: ὁ ἐλθὼν δι ̓ ὕδατος καὶ αἵματος , 1Jn_5:6. Tholuck’s objection, however, that ἅπαξ … αἰώνων is antithetically opposed to the κατ ̓ ἐνιαυτόν , Heb_9:25, and πεφανέρωται διὰ τῆς θυσίας to the εἰσέρχεται ἐν αἵματι ἀλλοτρίῳ , does not apply, inasmuch as the second clause of Heb_9:26 forms the antithesis to the first clause of that verse, but not to Heb_9:25; on which account also ἐπεὶ … κόσμου is not, with Beza, Mill, Griesbach, Carpzov, Schulz, Bloomfield, and others, to be enclosed within a parenthesis.
No emphasis for the rest falls upon the personal pronoun employed with θυσίας , in such wise that the sense would be: by the sacrifice of Himself (so Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, in their translations, Piscator, Jac. Cappellus, Owen, Limborch, Schulz, Heinrichs, Böhme, Stuart, Stengel, Tholuck, Ebrard, Conybeare, and others). It means simply: by His sacrifice (Bleek, de Wette), so that not αὑτοῦ , but αὑτοῦ is to be written. The contrast between His own blood and the blood of other victims was already sufficiently brought out afresh at Heb_9:25.
πεφανέρωται ] He has been manifested, i.e. He has appeared or come forth before the sight of men upon earth. Comp. 1Pe_1:20; 1Jn_3:5; 1Jn_3:8; also Col_3:4; 1Jn_2:28; 1Pe_5:4 [1Ti_3:16]. To explain the expression of the appearing before God, and to make it of like import with ἐμφανισθῆναι τῷ προσώτῳ τοῦ θεοῦ , Heb_9:24 (Jac. Cappellus, Heinrichs, Schulz, al.), is forbidden alike by the absence of the, in that case indispensable, addition τῷ θεῷ , as by the ἐκ δευτέρου ὀφθήσεται , Heb_9:28, corresponding as it does to the πεφανέρωται .