Hebrews 9:27 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

And as it is appointed unto men once to die: the proof of the necessity of Christ's suffering death but once, is introduced in this verse by the conjunction And. It was according to God's decreed and published statute of men's but once dying; for God the Supreme Lord, Governor, and Judge of them, set, constituted, and appointed by an unalterable and irrevocable decree, as Lawgiver, and sentence, as Judge, to all of the sinful human race, the corrupt seed of apostate Adam, their grand representative, whom God threatened with this penalty upon his sinning and transgressing his law, Genesis 2:17; which sentence was denounced upon him, Genesis 3:19; compare Romans 5:12,14 Ro 6:23. This sentence was but once to be undergone by himself and all his sinful offspring, and by their Surety, and no more; so that the Second Adam needed but once to die by this statute. No man can keep himself from this, it being the general rule of God's proceeding with all persons. The Supreme Legislator may make what exceptions and provisos to his law he pleaseth. Those that were translated by him, did suffer a change proportionable to death, as Enoch, Hebrews 11:5 Genesis 5:24, and Elijah, 2 Kings 2:11,12; and those that shall be changed at Christ's coming must undergo the like, as 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Those that were raised from death by Christ, Peter and Paul, &c., God might glorify his name by reiterating it; but whether they did die again, is not certain. This is to be the general settled law and rule of God. But after this the judgment: in order, after souls by death are separated from their bodies, they come to judgment: and thus every particular one is handed over by death to the bar of God, the great Judge, and so is despatched by his sentence to its particular state and place with its respective people, Romans 14:12. At the great and general assize, the day of judgment, shall the general and universal one take place, Acts 17:31, when all sinners in their entire persons, bodies and souls united, shall be adjudged to their final, unalterable, and eternal state, Romans 14:10 2 Corinthians 5:10 Judges 1:6 Revelation 20:11-15.