Hebrews 9:15 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, the apostle looks at the gospel as a will, or testament, the new and final will of Christ. He shows both the need for Christ’s blood and its power to make that testament valid and effective.

The gospel is here spoken of as a testament, the new and last will of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is worth noticing that the solemn dealings between God and man are sometimes called a covenant and sometimes a testament. A covenant is an agreement between two or more parties about matters in their power, or that may be in their power, made with or without a mediator, and carried out in the way and time stated. A testament is the free act of one person, properly signed and witnessed, giving gifts to those named and described by the one making the will, and it can take effect only after his death.

Now Christ is the Mediator of the New Testament (Hebrews 9:15), and he serves in that role for the purposes named here. First, he redeems people from the sins they committed against the law, or the first covenant. That law makes every sin a loss of freedom and leaves people as debtors, slaves, or prisoners who need to be set free. Second, he prepares all who are truly called to receive the promise of an eternal inheritance. These are the great gifts Christ has left in his last will to those who truly fit the description of his heirs.

To make this New Testament effective, Christ had to die, since gifts in a will come through death. The apostle proves this in two ways. First, from the very nature of a will itself: where there is a testament, there must be the death of the one who made it (Hebrews 9:16). While he is alive, the property still belongs to him, and he can cancel, change, or revise his will as he pleases. Nothing is truly passed on by a will until death makes it fixed and effective.

Second, he points to the way Moses ratified the first covenant, which was not done without blood (Hebrews 9:18, Hebrews 9:19, and following). By sin, all people had become guilty before God. They had lost their inheritance, their freedom, and even their lives into the hands of divine justice. Yet God, wanting to show the greatness of his mercy, announced a covenant of grace and ordered it to be pictured in the Old Testament, but not without the blood and life of a creature. God accepted the blood of bulls and goats as a sign pointing ahead to the blood of Christ, and by this means the covenant of grace was confirmed in the earlier time.

Moses carried out this command exactly as God had told him. First, Moses spoke every command to all the people, according to the law (Hebrews 9:19). He made known the whole covenant, the duties it required, the blessings promised to those who obeyed, and the punishment threatened against those who broke it. He also called for their open agreement to its terms. Then he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled it. The blood and water pointed to the blood and water that flowed from our Savior’s pierced side, for justification and sanctification, that is, being put right with God and made holy. They also pointed to the two New Testament ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The scarlet wool pointed to Christ’s righteousness, with which we must be clothed, and the hyssop pointed to the faith by which we receive all these blessings.

With these things, Moses sprinkled the book of the law and covenant to show that the covenant of grace is confirmed by Christ’s blood and made effective for our good. He also sprinkled the people, showing that Christ’s blood will do us no good unless it is applied to us. The sprinkling of both the book and the people also showed the mutual agreement of both sides, God and man, and their mutual commitments in this covenant through Christ. At the same time Moses said, This is the blood of the testament which God has commanded for you. This blood, which pointed to Christ’s blood, is the ratification of the covenant of grace for all true believers.

He also sprinkled the tabernacle and all its furnishings, showing that all the sacrifices offered there and all the service done there were accepted only through Christ’s blood. That blood secures the forgiveness of the sin that clings even to our holy things, a forgiveness that could not be given apart from that atoning blood.