Hebrews 9:15.— What follows in this chapter seems to be in a good measure a digression, though a most pertinent and useful one. Having, in what goes before, by comparing the ancient tabernacles and the service thereof with Christ, shewn the weakness of it, he returns to this topic in the beginning of the next chapter; but here, upon having asserted the great virtue of the blood of Christ, he enlarged, in order to shew how necessary the shedding of his blood was, partly upon the account of his office as Mediator, and partly from the nature of God's covenant with men, as appears by what was done under the first covenant. He argues, from the different natures of the things to be purified with sacrifices, that the blood of a more excellent sacrifice was necessary under the second, than under the first; and in the four last verses he has a respect to what he had before said, of Christ dying, and entering into the holy of holies but once; proving this to have been every way sufficient.
And for this cause— And by that [blood] he is the Mediator of the new covenant, that death being provided for the redemption, &c. Chapman, Euseb. vol. 2: p. 338. This reading seems unexceptionably just. Dr. Sykes understands it in the same manner, and thus paraphrases the verse: "And besides, through this blood Christ is become the Mediator of the new covenant, and acts as such between God and man; so that as death intervened under the first covenant, in order to ratify that, and to secure the engagement to deliver from or pardon the transgressions which were under it; in like manner, under the second covenant, there was to be an intervention of death, &c." The word Διαθηκη has throughout this epistle been hitherto truly rendered covenant, and so it should have been here. The Hebrew word ברית berith, invariably signifies a covenant, and the apostle plainly had this in his eye. See Hebrews 9:18-20. Besides, a testament has no Mediator belonging to it, as a covenant has; and therefore "the Mediator of a testament" is an improper, perhaps an unintelligible expression. See the next verse. The apostle in the present verse gives this reason why Christ was the Mediator of a new covenant through his blood; namely, because as by the intervention of death assurance was made or given that transgressions under the first covenant should be pardoned; so likewise under the second covenant, by means of death, the faithful should have assurance that their sins should be remitted, and they entitled to an everlasting inheritance. There is a general likeness or similitude in the two great scenes of God's providence and grace. There was death in the first covenant, in order to the establishing of that law which gave the Israelites assurance that their sins of ignorance should be forgiven; and that they should, if they would conform to what was commanded, enjoy a present temporal possession. There was likewise death in the second covenant, to establish that; and to give assurance that those with whom it was made, that is, all the faithful of all nations, ages, and dispensations, should enjoy a future and eternal inheritance. It was expedient that Christ should be made man, or be partaker of flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death. Ch. Hebrews 2:14. The God-man Christ therefore was Mediator through his blood, that as death intervened for the freeing men from transgressions, and giving them a present enjoyment in the land of Canaan, under the first covenant; in like manner, under the second covenant, they who should enjoy an everlasting inheritance, might, by the intervening of death, receive the pardon of their sins, and life everlasting.