Heb. 9:26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

The “for” connects to the previous verse, in that, Jesus must offer his blood, as the high priests had done every year in the pattern of the old priesthood.  But then he, Jesus, must have often suffered since the foundation of the world.

What is the suffering?  This is the suffering of his death, or rather, suffering which would produce blood which could be offered.  Since Jesus only died once, we can be certain this refers to the death of Jesus on Calvary.

What is the foundation of the world?  Or better still, the foundation of what world?  This cannot be the present world for the sacrifice of Jesus comes in “the end” of the world discussed.  We therefore eliminate the end of the present world unless we are ready to accept Jesus to be offered again at the end of another world.  The blood offering is here called the “sacrifice of himself”, which resulted from the appearing of Jesus in the end of the world.  Working backwards, therefore, we conclude the “sacrifice of himself” is at Calvary; and the end of world, or the age, in question is 29 AD.  Continuing then, the sacrifice is assumed complete and therefore, the appearing of Jesus discussed here, which leads to the sacrifice, must also be completed.

The important word, for our context, is “once”.  This sets up the comparison with the “often” of the previous thought.  Now, the blood sacrifice of Jesus was offered only once, but note that the text says he appeared once, in the end of world, to…what?

He appeared once…to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

We have before us the object of his appearing…to put away sin.  Has sin been put away?  If we answer that sin has not been put away, then we are faced with a terrible conclusion:  the sacrifice of Jesus did not accomplish its task.  Since it the only sacrifice which will be offered, that is, he is only offered once, then the putting away of sin is a failure.

The error is to assume that the term sin is talking about all sin, that is, of every human.  Has all sin been put away?  No.  So then, what sin was put away?  What sin did the sacrifice of Jesus deal with?  It must be defined then, as not including future sins, but rather, past sins, sins that accumulated until the end of the world.  The one time sacrifice of Jesus answered sins past.

Andrew Giddens

21Aug2006