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"Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath
trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant,
wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing" (10: 29).
"Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest He that
destroyed the firstborn should touch them" (11: 28).
"Ye have not yet resisted unto blood" (12: 4).
"To Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that
speaketh better things than that of Abel" (12: 24).
"The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high
priest for sin, are burned without the camp." (13: 11).
"Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered
without the gate" (13: 12).
"Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great
Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the aionian covenant, make you perfect in
every good work to do His will" (13: 20, 21).
Those that refer to redemption are 9: 12, 22; 10: 4; and 11: 28; of these 9: 12
speaks of redemption as having been obtained already, and is not the result of the offering
there, as verses 13, 14 prove; 9: 22, speaking of remission, may at first seem to be a
direct statement, yet it is in the midst of a context dealing with the Covenant and
Tabernacle, and rather indicates that the remission which is a part of the new covenant
(Heb. 10: 16-18) cannot be enjoyed without this blood of sprinkling that links the people
and the book together; 11: 28 refers to the passover, the true type of redemption, which
offering is outside the scope of the epistle, for Hebrews has no place for redemption from
Egypt, its setting being the wilderness and its centre the Tabernacle. Salvation in the
evangelical and gospel sense is not the theme of Hebrews; it deals with a saved people,
and their sanctification. Redemption, in the evangelical sense, is presupposed.
The teaching of the epistle as to sanctification is directly bearing on the "purifying for
sins", which Heb. 1: 3 brings so prominently forward. It figures again in 2: 11 and
10: 10, 14, "we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all
. . . . . for by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified". The
context speaks of the New Covenant, of access into the holiest, and of despising the
blood of the Covenant whereunto one is sanctified; it is not the salvation of the sinner,
but the perfecting of those who are sanctified that is here in view; so we come back to
Heb. 1: 3. Of all the phases of the sacrificial work of Christ this one is selected; selected
by reason of the fact that it is vitally connected with the purpose of the epistle. The
greatness of the One Who thus provided the purifying, the Son of God, makes willful
defilement a terrible thing. It does despite to the spirit of grace.
Heb. 10: 12 tells us that after the Lord had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, He
sat down; this is the testimony also of Heb. 1: 3, "When He had made a purifying for
sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high". This has reference to His high
priesthood, "we have such an High Priest, Who is set on the right hand of the throne of
the Majesty in the heavens" (8: 1), and to Himself as the Pattern, "looking unto Jesus
the author and perfecter of faith, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the
cross despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (12: 2).
Both the High Priest and the Pattern are for believers, so also this one phase of the work
of Calvary, "the purifying of or for sins".