[383]. ix. 7, 25.
[384]. Heb. x. 4.
[385]. vii. 25.
[386]. ix. 25-27, 12; x. 12, 14.
[387]. ix. 8.
[388]. vii. 17, 24-28.
[389]. vii. 27. Let the reader look carefully again into the verbal and logical structure of this verse; and then ask himself, whether it is not as plain as words can make it, that Christ “once for all” offered up “a sacrifice first for HIS OWN SINS, and then for the peoples.” The argument surely is this; “he need not do the daily thing, for he has done it once for all; the never-finished work of other pontiffs, a single act of his achieved.” The sentiment loses its meaning, unless that which he did once is the self-same thing which they did always; and what was that?—the offering by the High-priest of a sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people’s. With what propriety, then, can Mr. Buddicom ask us this question: “Why is he said to have excelled the Jewish High-priest in not offering a sacrifice for himself?” I submit, that no such thing is said: but that, on the contrary, it is positively affirmed that Christ did offer sacrifice for his own sins. So plain indeed is this, that Trinitarian commentators are forced to slip in a restraining word and an additional sentiment, into the last clause of the verse. Thus Peirce; “Who has no need, like the priests under the law, from time to time to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and after that for the people’s. For this latter he did once for all when he offered up himself; and as to the former, he had no occasion to do it at all.” And no doubt the writer of the epistle ought to have said just this, if he intended to draw the kind of contrast, which orthodox theology requires, between Jesus and the Hebrew priests. He limits the opposition between them to one particular;—the Son of Aaron made offering daily,—the Son of God once for all. Divines must add another particular; that the Jewish priest atoned for two classes of sins, his own and the people’s,—Christ for the people’s only. Suppose for a moment that this was the author’s design; that the word “this,” instead of having its proper grammatical antecedent, may be restrained, as in the commentary cited above, to the sacrifice for the people’s sins; then the word “daily” may be left out, without disturbance to the other substantive particular of the contrast: the verse will then stand thus; “who needeth not, as those High-priests, to offer up sacrifice for his own sins; for he offered up sacrifice for the people’s sins, when he offered up himself.” Here, all the reasoning is obviously gone, and the sentence becomes a mere inanity: to make sense, we want, instead of the latter clause, the sentiment of Peirce,—for “he had no occasion to do this at all.” This, however, is an invention of the expositor, more jealous for his author’s orthodoxy, than for his composition. I think it necessary to add that, by leaving out the most emphatic word in this verse (the word once) Mr. Buddicom has suppressed the author’s antithesis, and favoured the suggestion of his own. I have no doubt that this was unconsciously done; but it shows how system rubs off the angles of Scriptural difficulties.—I subjoin a part of the note of John Crell on the passage: “de pontifice Christo loquitur. Quid vero fecit semel Christus? quid aliud, quam quod Pontifex antiquus stata die quotannis[[a]] faciebat? Principaliter autem hic non de oblatione pro peccatis populi; sed de oblatione pro ipsius Pontificis peccatis agi, ex superioribus, ipsoque rationum contextu manifestum est.”
The sins which his sacrifice cancelled must have been of the same order in the people, and in himself; certainly therefore not moral in their character, but ceremonial. His death was, for himself no less than for his Hebrew disciples, commutation for the Mosaic ordinances. Had he not died, he must have continued under their power; “were he on earth, he would not be a priest,” or have “obtained that more excellent ministry,” by which he clears away, in the courts above, all possibilities of ritual sin below, and himself emerges from legal to spiritual relations.
[a]. This is obviously the meaning of καθ’ ἡμέραν in this passage; from time to time, and in the case alluded to, yearly; not, as in the common version, daily.
[390]. Heb. ix. 13, 14.