Hebrews 9:21,22 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Moreover To prefigure the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ to render our acts of worship acceptable; he sprinkled with blood the tabernacle The altar, and mercy-seat; and all the vessels of the ministry All that were used in the tabernacle service. See the margin. And almost all the things Pertaining to the tabernacle and service of God, (the apostle says almost all things, because some were cleansed with water, and some with fire, Numbers 31:23, and some with the ashes of the red heifer, Numbers 19:2-10,) are by the law purged from any ceremonial defilement with blood Offered or sprinkled; and without shedding of blood According to the law; is no remission Of sins, neither typical nor real. Or he means, no remission was granted on the day of atonement without blood. All this pointed to the blood of Christ, effectually cleansing from all sin, and intimated that there can be no purification from it by any other means. Because some fancy that a real pardon of sin was obtained by the atonements of the Mosaic law, and especially by those made on the tenth of the seventh month, concerning which it is said, (Leviticus 16:30,) on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you that you may be clean from all your sins: it may be proper to observe here, that “this cleansing of the people from all their sins could not possibly have any reference to the punishments of the life to come, because the atonement was made for all the people indiscriminately, whether penitent or not, consequently it could not be a cleansing of their consciences, but of their bodies; redeeming them from those civil penalties which God, in the character of their chief magistrate, would have inflicted on them for breaking the laws of the state, unless these atonements had been made. A remission of that kind all the people of the congregation might receive, and it was the only remission which, in a body, they could receive through the sacrifices mentioned. And from the inefficacy of the annual atonements, made on the day above mentioned, to procure for the people the eternal pardon of their sins, it follows that the daily atonements, made by the ordinary priests, had no greater efficacy in procuring their pardon.” Macknight. See notes on Hebrews 9:8-10; chap. Hebrews 10:4.