Hebrews 9:7 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 9:7

Comments

On that one great day of the year, the Day of Atonement, the high priest alone through past the veil into the second chamber of the tabernacle, the holy of holies. He went in first with the golden censer, and then with the sin offering for himself, and finally with the sin offering for the people (Leviticus 16:12-15). He was not to go in without the blood of the animals, which had already been killed outside. He is said here to offer blood for the errors of the people. How interesting! The word ‘errors’ is a very unusual word there in the Greek. It is not the usual word used for the sins of the people. The offerings of ancient times and the offering which the high priest made for the people in the Old Testament is described here in Hebrews as an offering for sins of ignorance. In Numbers 15:22-31 there is a distinction made between sins of ignorance and presumptuous sins. The same distinction is made here. Does that mean that the sacrifice of Christ, pictured here on the Day of Atonement, only covers sins which are not presumptuous? Certainly, there is a difference, and yet Paul says of himself, ‘Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief’ (1 Timothy 1:13), and he knew himself to be guilty of wilful sins, and to have been fighting against his conscience. All sin has something of the nature of error in it. Included in what are called sins of ignorance are all the sins of the people, which the high priest was to pronounce (Leviticus 16:21). Let no one however sin presumptuously and then come to offer sacrifices on the assumption that they will be forgiven. God will not be blinded in this way. There was no offering made for presumptuous sins or being high-handed in your unbelief.This entrance into the holy of holies once a year by the high priest alone, pictured Christ entrance into heaven for us. He must carry out the work of atonement single-handed, alone. To underline this, God allowed him to be forsaken even by his own disciples on his arrest (Matthew 26:31,56). Only he could enter the holy place, for only he was qualified to be our perfect high priest, holy, harmless, and undefiled. Only he could fulfil the role of high priest and the role of sacrifice in the covenant of grace. Only he fully suffered the punishment that we deserved for all eternity, and only he could ascend into heaven to present his finished work before his heavenly Father. As we shall read later however, where Christ has gone before us, the way is opened up for us to follow (Hebrew 10:20).

Application

Let no one say, ‘I sinned in error; therefore it cannot be counted against me.’ The law recognised a particular category of sins called sins of ignorance (Leviticus 4), but they were still sins and still needed to be purged away by sacrifice. These are not unintentional sins, as if we did not know we were sinning. They are sins in which there is an element of misunderstanding as well. Perhaps we ignorantly underestimate the seriousness of what we are doing, or we fail to be on our guard, or we deceive ourselves that we can go a certain distance down the path of sin and then turn back. Ignorance is no excuse, for much of our ignorance is self-induced, and comes from not diligently studying God’s will, or from not wanting to know reasons why we should not indulge our favourite sins.

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Hebrews 9:7 Commentary and Bible Study