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Heb_9:27-28. Further ( καί ) enforcement of the ἅπαξ , Heb_9:26, by means of an analogy. As death is appointed to men once for all, they, after having once suffered death, do not need to die again, but after death nothing more follows for them but the judgment; so also Christ has once for all offered up Himself for the cancelling of sin; at His return He will not again have to offer Himself for the cancelling of sin, but He will return once again, only to put the believers in possession of the everlasting salvation.
καθ ̓ ὅσον ] inasmuch as [cf. Heb_7:20], is not entirely synonymous with καθώς , which one might have expected on account of the following οὕτως , and which Grotius and Braun conjecture to have been the original reading; for, whereas καθώς would express the bare notion of comparison, this contains at the same time an indication of cause. The indication of cause, however, has reference merely to ἅπαξ ἀποθανεῖν , to which then the ἅπαξ προσενεχθείς , Heb_9:28, corresponds; but not likewise, as Kurtz maintains,[95] to the addition μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο κρίσις , since to this an element of dissimilarity is opposed at Heb_9:28. The sense is: inasmuch as men, regarded generally, have only once to undergo death, so also Christ, since He was herein entirely like unto His brethren, could not die more than once.
ἀπόκειται ] is appointed (in the decree of God). Comp. Col_1:5; 2Ti_4:8. The verb originally of that which has been laid aside, and so lies ready for future use.
ἅπαξ ἀποθανεῖν ] to die a single time, or once for all. Comp. Sophocles in Stobaeus, ii. 120: θανεῖν γὰρ οὐκ ἔξεστι τοῖς αὐτοῖσι δίς .
Calvin: Si quis objiciat, bis quosdam esse mortuos, ut Lazarum et similes (comp. Heb_11:35), expedita est solutio, apostolum hic de ordinaria hominum conditione disputare: quin etiam ab hoc ordine eximuntur, quos subita commutatio corruptione exuet (comp. Heb_11:5).
μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο κρίσις ] sc. ἀπόκειται , not ἐστίν or ἔσται . Whether, for the rest, the κρίσις is thought of by the author as ensuing immediately after the death of each individual (Jac. Cappellus, Kurtz, al.), or as a later act coinciding only with the general resurrection of the dead (Bengel, Bleek, Tholuck, Bisping, Delitzsch, Maier, al.), the elastic μετὰ τοῦτο affords us no intimation.
κρίσις ] judgment, is to be taken quite generally. Wrongly is it understood by Schulz (and so also Böhme) specially of the judgment unto punishment or unto condemnation, in that he supposes—erroneously, because at variance with the absolute τοῖς ἀνθρώποις —two different classes of men (those to be punished and those to be blessed) to be opposed to each other in Heb_9:27-28. [Yet comp. Joh_5:24.]
[95] According to Kurtz, the resurrection and ascension of Christ is then to be thought of as the result of the κρίσις on Christ’s part. But where is ever in the N. T. the resurrection and ascension of Christ presented from the point of view of a judgment exercised on Him? And how could it be expected of the reader, without further indication, that he should derive so strange a conception from the words of vv. 27, 28?