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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
verse 14, and should in both cases be translated "unto perpetuity". Chapter 10: 1, 2
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
have we 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" or maturity 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" here. In 6: 10 and 13: 24
it is used for "the saints" without qualification.
Hagion in its ten 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 the epistle to the Hebrews is linked with the wilderness and the
Tabernacle, not the kingdom and the Temple, and with the heavenly Jerusalem, not the