condition, under the actual circumstances of fallen man, whereby alone the Life of the Son of man could be made available for the race (2:9, 14; comp. 1 Cor. 11:26; Rom. 5:10; 6:3 f.; Phil. 2:8; 3:10; Col. 1:22). The Blood was the energy of Christ's true human life, under the circum-stances of earth, whereby alone man's life receives the pledge and the power of a divine glory (see Addit. Note on Heb. 9:12).
Thus the twothe Blood and the Deathcorrespond generally with the two sides of Christ's work, the fulfilment of the destiny of man as created and the fulfilment of this destiny though man has fallen. The first would have been necessary even though sin had not interrupted the due course of man's progress and relation to God. It becomes necessary therefore, in order to gain a complete view of the Sacrifice of Christ, to combine with the crowning act upon the Cross His fulfilment of the will of God from first to last (10:5 ff.), the Sacrifice of Life with the Sacrifice of Death. And when we look back over the facts of Christ's Sacrifice brought forward in the Epistle we notice two series of blessings gained for men by Him, the one series answering to the restoration of man's right relation to God which has been violated by sin, and the other answering to the fulfilment of the purpose of creation, the attainment by man of the Divine likeness: on the one side we recognise a re-opened entrance into the Holiest closed against fallen man and fresh access to God, on the other side sovereignty over the house and free intercourse with God.
Additional Note on Hebrews 9:16. The meaning of
diaqhvkh
in 9:15 ff.
1. The meaning of diaqhvkh in the N. T. must be determined in the first instance by the use of the word in the LXX. In the LXX. diaqhvkh and
diativqemai are the regular representatives of tyrIB] , H1382 and B tr"K; (with
two exceptions: Deut. 9:15 aiJ duvo plavke" tw'n marturivwn . 1 Kings 11:11 ta;" ejntolav" ). In one place (Zech. 11:14) diaqhvkh represents the more specific
idea of brotherhood ( hw:j}a' , H288) (comp. Ed. 5, Ps. 2:7). Elsewhere it has
uniformly the meaning of Covenant in the translation of the books of the Hebrew Canon (so in the three other places where it represents other words
than tyrIB] , H1382: Ex. 31:7 [ tWd[e , H6343]; Deut. 9:5 [ rb;D: , H1821]; Jer.
41:18 (34:18) [ tyrIB]h' yrEb]DI ]; compare also Lev. 26:11; Ezek. 16:29); and, as
representing tyrIB] , H1382, it is applied to a covenant between peoples (Josh.
9:6; Judg. 2:2) and between persons (1 Sam. 23:18; 2 Sam. 3:12 f. c Mal. 2:14). The same sense is preserved in the Apocrypha except in Ecclus. 38:33
diaqhvkhn krivmato" ouj dianohqhvsontai
, and 45:17
ejn diaqhvkai" krimavtwn
, where it appears to have the original and wider sense of disposition, arrangement. There is not the least trace of the meaning testament in the Greek Old Scriptures, and the idea of a testament was indeed foreign to the Jews till the time of the Herods: comp. Jos.
Ant.
13.1, 16, 1; 17:3, 2;
B. J.
2.2,
3.
Sunqhvkh , the ordinary word for covenant , is very rare in the LXX. though it is used several times by the later translators (Aqu. Symm. Theod.)
as the rendering of tyrIB] , H1382. The choice of diaqhvkh to express the
notion of a divine covenant is easily intelligible. In a divine covenant the parties do not stand in the remotest degree as equal contractors ( dunqhvkh ).