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for the purifying of the flesh which had come into contact with some form of death.
Christ's sanctification cleanses the conscience from dead works, the spiritual counterpart.
Heb. 10: 10 and 14 cannot be understood apart from the earlier verses. The word
translated "continually" in 10: 1 is the same as is rendered "for ever" in 5: 14, and
should in both cases be translated "unto perpetuity". Chapter 10: 1 should be rendered:--
"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the
things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year make the comers
thereunto PERFECT UNTO PERPETUITY. For then would they not have ceased to be
offered? because the worshippers once having been cleansed should have had no more
conscience of sins."
Verses 10 and 14 are the answer to this, just as verse 14 is the answer to verse 13 in
chapter 9: Chapter 10: 29 speaks of the awful possibility of counting the blood
wherewith He was sanctified unholy, and of doing despite to the spirit of grace, which is
opened up in an intensely practical way in the verses that follow, where the drawing back
from suffering and trial is a parallel. The last reference shows the captain of our
salvation suffering outside the gate. The oneness between sanctifier and sanctified is
expressed in the words:--
"Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For here
we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come" (Heb. 13: 13, 14).
These last words are full of light for us as to the underlying idea of this sanctification.
The pilgrim character, the wilderness pathway, the whole theme of race and crown is
involved in the word. Its association with "perfection" would teach students of
Philippians that much. See also another link between sanctification and pilgrim
character. Those who are sanctified suffer the spoiling of their goods knowing that in
heaven they have a better and an enduring substance. They have here no continuing city,
but seek one to come. Like Abraham:--
"They desire a better country, that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be
called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city" (11: 16).
"Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause
He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (2: 11).
Hagiotes and hagiasmos in Heb. 12: 10 and 14 speak of holiness as the outcome
of the Father's discipline, without which no man shall see God.
Hagios, apart from its occurrences in the expression "the Holy Ghost", comes in 3: 1,
"holy brethren", who are immediately named "partakers of the heavenly calling", a
statement which illuminates the meaning of "holy brethren" somewhat. In 6: 10 and
13: 24 it is used for "the saints" without qualification. In 9: 2 it is rendered
"sanctuary".
Hagion in its nine occurrences is used to denote the sanctuary or the holiest of all,
either in the tabernacle in the wilderness or the true tabernacle, "heaven itself". The
sanctification of "Hebrews" is linked with the wilderness and the tabernacle, not the
kingdom and the temple, and with the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly (see 12: 22). It