The Bloody Logic of a Last Will and Testament Text: Hebrews 9:15-22
Introduction: The Scandal of a Bloody Religion
We live in an age that is squeamish about blood. Our modern sensibilities prefer a sanitized, therapeutic, and bloodless faith. We want a God who is more of a cosmic guidance counselor than a holy Judge, a Jesus who is more of a life coach than a bloody sacrifice. We want forgiveness without cost, a crown without a cross, and a covenant without a death. But the Christian faith, from beginning to end, is a bloody religion. And if that offends you, it is because you have not yet understood the desperate nature of your sin or the glorious nature of God's justice.
The author of Hebrews is not writing to soothe our modern nerves. He is a master logician, a spiritual attorney, laying out the legal framework of our salvation. He is demonstrating that the cross was not a tragic accident, not a plan B, but rather the fulfillment of a covenantal necessity that was woven into the fabric of reality from the beginning. He is showing us that God's plan of redemption operates according to a divine and unalterable logic. And at the heart of that logic is this non-negotiable principle: where there is a covenant that grants an inheritance, there must be a death.
In this passage, the writer uses a brilliant legal analogy, that of a last will and testament, to explain why Christ had to die. He is not being morbid. He is showing us that the death of Christ is the very mechanism that activates the promises of God. It is the event that makes our eternal inheritance a legal certainty. To shrink back from the blood is to shrink back from the very thing that secures our forgiveness and guarantees our future.
The Text
And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the trespasses that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU." And in the same way, both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry he sprinkled with the blood. And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
(Hebrews 9:15-22 LSB)
The Mediator's Purpose (v. 15)
The argument begins by connecting Christ's mediation directly to the necessity of His death.
"And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the trespasses that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." (Hebrews 9:15)
Christ is the Mediator, the go-between. He stands in the gap between a perfectly holy God and a race of rebels. But His mediation is not one of simple diplomacy. It is a mediation that required a death. Why? The verse gives us two reasons. First, it was to deal with old business. His death was "for the redemption of the trespasses that were committed under the first covenant."
This is a staggering thought. The Old Covenant, with its system of animal sacrifices, could not ultimately take away sin. Those sacrifices were like writing checks on an account that had no funds. They were promissory notes, pointing forward to the day when a real payment would be made. Every lamb slain on a Jewish altar was an IOU for the work of the cross. Christ's death was retroactive. It paid the debt for the sins of Abraham, Moses, and David. It made good on all the promises that the old system could only foreshadow. Without the death of Christ, the faith of the Old Testament saints would have been in vain.
The second reason for His death was to secure future business. It was so that "those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." The goal is inheritance. We are not just forgiven criminals; we are adopted sons. We have been written into God's will. But as we are about to see, an inheritance is only received after a death. Christ's death was not just to clear the old debts, but to unlock the future riches.
The Covenant as a Will (v. 16-17)
Here the author introduces his central analogy, playing on the dual meaning of the Greek word for covenant, diatheke, which can also mean a will or testament.
"For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives." (Hebrews 9:16-17 LSB)
This is plain, hard-headed, legal sense. If your wealthy father writes you into his will, you do not have the right to march into his house and start carrying out the furniture while he is still alive and well. The will is just a piece of paper with promises on it. It has no legal force. The one event that activates the will, that turns the promises into possessions, is the death of the testator.
This is the divine logic of the New Covenant. God has promised us an eternal inheritance. He has written us, His called and chosen people, into His will. The testator is Jesus Christ Himself. And for that will to come into force, for us to legally possess that inheritance, the testator had to die. The cross was not the interruption of the plan; it was the execution of the will. It was the moment when all the promises of God became legally binding for His people. His death is the seal, the guarantee, the event that puts the entire inheritance into effect.
The Old Covenant Pattern (v. 18-21)
Lest his readers think this is some strange new idea, the author immediately demonstrates that this principle of death and blood was foundational to the first covenant as well.
"Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, 'THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU.' And in the same way, both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry he sprinkled with the blood." (Hebrews 9:18-21 LSB)
He takes us back to the dramatic scene in Exodus 24. This was the wedding ceremony between God and Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. God, through Moses, reads the terms of the covenant, the Law. The people all agree, saying, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do." But verbal agreement is not enough. The covenant must be sealed, inaugurated, and brought into force.
How is this done? With blood. Moses has animals sacrificed, representing a substitutionary death. He then takes the blood and sprinkles half of it on the altar, representing God's side of the agreement, and the other half on the people. He even sprinkles the book of the Law itself. This is a profoundly graphic act. The blood binds both parties. It signifies the life-and-death seriousness of the covenant. It says that breaking this covenant is a capital offense, and it simultaneously provides the substitutionary death that makes the relationship possible in the first place.
Notice the words Moses uses: "This is the blood of the covenant." These are the very words Jesus will take up in the upper room as He institutes the Lord's Supper. He is telling His disciples, and us, that His death is the inauguration of the New Covenant, just as the death of those animals inaugurated the Old. But His is the final, perfect sacrifice that they only pointed to. The entire tabernacle, the place where God met with man, and all its furniture, had to be cleansed with this blood. Sin's pollution is pervasive, and so the cleansing by blood had to be just as pervasive.
The Unbreakable Law of Forgiveness (v. 22)
The author now brings his argument to its sharp and unavoidable conclusion. This is the axiom upon which everything else rests.
"And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." (Hebrews 9:22 LSB)
He says "almost" because there were a few minor ceremonial cleansings in the Old Testament that used water or fire. But for the great matter of sin, for the forgiveness that reconciles a man to God, there was only one way. The principle was absolute. "Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."
This is the rock upon which all sentimental, bloodless gospels are shipwrecked. God is not a doting grandfather who can simply overlook our cosmic treason. He is holy and just. The "wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). That is a legal reality, a moral constant of the universe. A price must be paid. A life must be forfeited. Forgiveness is not God setting aside His justice; it is God satisfying His justice. And He did it by substituting His own Son in our place. The blood of Jesus represents His life, poured out to pay the death penalty we owed.
Any gospel that removes the blood, that preaches forgiveness without substitutionary atonement, is a false gospel. It presents a God who is unjust, a sin that is not serious, and a salvation that is not secure. It is a message that cannot save, because it denies the very basis upon which a holy God can forgive sinful men.
Conclusion: Our Bloody Guarantee
The argument of this passage is not an abstract theological exercise. It is the foundation of all our comfort and assurance. Why can you be certain that you are forgiven? Why can you be sure of your eternal inheritance? Not because you feel sincere. Not because you have promised to do better. You can be sure because the Testator has died.
The will is in effect. The covenant has been inaugurated. The blood has been shed. The legal requirements have been met, perfectly and eternally. When God looks at those who are in Christ, He does not see their sin; He sees the blood of His Son that has cleansed it. When Satan, the accuser of the brethren, brings a charge against us, the court of heaven has one answer: the case has been settled. The debt was paid in full by the shedding of Christ's blood.
This is why we must never be ashamed of the blood. It is not a relic of a primitive religion. It is the central fact of history and the only hope for humanity. It is the bloody logic that satisfied the justice of God and secured the eternal inheritance of His people. It is our guarantee, our receipt, and our everlasting peace.