Hebrews 9:25 Commentary and Bible Study

There are several thoughts there. Obviously, the high priest could not take his own blood, because then he would not be alive to continue his ministry. He was called of God to be a high priest in the earthly tabernacle, and no part of his calling involved sacrificing himself. That of course would have achieved nothing, for he was disqualified to be a sacrifice for the people by his own sin, he could not possibly take the burden of the sins of the people, nor had he any promise that God would raise him to life again. He was dependent on going only with symbolic blood, the blood of the slaughtered animals. God, who created every creature, ordained that the lives of those animals should be spent for the purpose of teaching this lesson to the one creature made in his image, whose understanding was worth more than the lives of all those animals. But none of these limitations and defects applied to the priesthood of Christ. He offered himself (verse 14), a sacrifice of infinite worth. By the sacrifice of himself he accomplished what those thousands and tens of thousands of animal sacrifices could never accomplish. Why did their ministry involve this constant repetition? Because it was designed to hold before the eyes of the people the lessons which they so urgently needed to learn. These things did not just need teaching once, but again and again for as human being we are slow to learn the Lord’s lessons. In addition, each new generation needed to learn the same lessons afresh. The children needed to learn that their sins must be purged, as their parents’ sins were purged, through the shedding of blood.