Hebrews 9:9

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;

A figure

The time

Hebrews 7:11

Hebrews 11:39

1 Peter 1:11

Gifts

Hebrews 5:1

That could

Bible References

A figure

For it was not into a Sanctuary made by human hands, which merely foreshadowed the true one, that Christ entered, but into Heaven itself, that he might now appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

For he argued that God was able even to raise a man from the dead--and indeed, figuratively speaking, Abraham did receive Isaac back from the dead.

Yet, from Adam to Moses, Death reigned even over those whose sin was not a breach of a law, as Adam's was. And Adam foreshadows the One to come.

And baptism, which this foreshadowed, now saves you--not the mere cleansing of the body, but the search of a clear conscience after God--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

The time

If, then, Perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood--and it was under this priesthood that the people received the Law--why was it still necessary that a priest of a different order should appear, a priest of the order of Melchizedek and not of the order of Aaron?

Yet, though they all won renown by their faith, they did not obtain the final fulfillment of God's promise;

as they strove to discern what that time could be, to which the Spirit of Christ within them was pointing, when foretelling the sufferings that would befall Christ, and the glories that would follow.

Gifts

Every High Priest, taken from among men, is appointed as a representative of his fellow-men in their relations with God, to offer both gifts and sacrifices in expiation of sins.

That could

For, if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, purify those who have been defiled (as far as ceremonial purification goes),

On the one hand, we have the abolition of a previous regulation as being both inefficient and useless

The Law, though able to foreshadow the Better System which was coming, never had its actual substance. Its priests, with those sacrifices which they offer continuously year after year, can never make those who come to worship perfect.

Does that set the Law in opposition to God's promises? Heaven forbid! For, if a Law had been given capable of bestowing Life, then righteousness would have actually owed its existence to Law.