Joh 2:19-21, Heb 8:2, 9:11-12 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 19. Destroy this temple ] τονναοντουτον, This very temple ; perhaps pointing to his body at the same time.

‏ John 2:19-21

Verse 19. Destroy this temple] τονναοντουτον, This very temple; perhaps pointing to his body at the same time.

Verse 20. Forty and six years was this temple in building] The temple of which the Jews spake was begun to be rebuilt by Herod the Great, in the 18th year of his reign: Jos. Ant. b. xv. c. 11, s. 1; and xx. c. 9, s. 5, 7. But though he finished the main work in nine years and a half, yet some additional buildings or repairs were constantly carried on for many years afterwards. Herod began the work sixteen years before the birth of our Lord: the transactions which are here related took place in the thirtieth year of our Lord, which make the term exactly forty-six years. Rosenmuller. Josephus, Ant. b. xx. c. 8, s. 5, 7, has told us that the whole of the buildings belonging to the temple were not finished till Nero's reign, when Albinus, the governor of Judea, was succeeded by Gessius Florus, which was eighty years after the eighteenth year of Herod's reign. See Bp. Pearce.

Verse 21. Of the temple of his body.] Rather, the temple, his body: his body had no particular temple: but it was the temple of his Divinity-the place in which, as in the ancient temple, his Godhead dwelt; See how the Jews perverted these words, Mt 26:60, and the notes there.

‏ Hebrews 8:2

Verse 2. A minister of the sanctuary] τωναγιωνλειτουργος. A public minister of the holy things or places. The word λειτουργος, from λειτος, public, and εργον, a work or office, means a person who officiated for the public, a public officer; in whom, and his work, all the people had a common right: hence our word liturgy, the public work of prayer and praise, designed for the people at large; all having a right to attend it, and each having an equal interest in it. Properly speaking, the Jewish priest was the servant of the public; he transacted the business of the people with God. Jesus Christ is also the same kind of public officer; both as Priest and Mediator he transacts the business of the whole human race with God. He performs the holy things or acts in the true tabernacle, HEAVEN, of which the Jewish tabernacle was the type. The tabernacle was the place among the Jews where God, by the symbol of his presence, dwelt. This could only typify heaven, where God, in his essential glory, dwells, and is manifest to angels and glorified saints; and hence heaven is called here the true tabernacle, to distinguish it from the type.

Which the Lord pitched] The Jewish tabernacle was man's work, though made by God's direction; the heavens, this true tabernacle, the work of God alone, and infinitely more glorious than that of the Jews. The tabernacle was also a type of the human nature of Christ, Joh 1:14: And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, καιεσκηνωσενεν ημιν and tabernacled among us; for, as the Divine presence dwelt in the tabernacle, so the fulness of the Godhead, bodily, dwelt in the man Christ Jesus. And this human body was the peculiar work of God, as it came not in the way of natural generation.

‏ Hebrews 9:11-12

Verse 11. But Christ being come a high priest of good things] I think this and the succeeding verses not happily translated: indeed, the division of them has led to a wrong translation; therefore they must be taken together, thus: But the Christ, the high priest of those good things (or services) which were to come, through a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of the same workmanship, entered once for all into the sanctuary; having obtained eternal redemption for us, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, Heb 9:13. For if the blood of GOATS, and bulls, and calves, and a heifer's ashes, sprinkled on the unclean, sanctifieth to the cleansing of the flesh, (Heb 9:14,) how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your consciences from dead works, in order to worship (or that ye may worship) the living God?

In the above translation I have added, in Heb 9:13, τραγων, of goats, on the authority of ABDE, three others, the Syriac, the Arabic of Erpen, Coptic, Vulgate, two copies of the Itala, and Theodoret. And I have rendered ειςτολατρευειν, (Heb 9:14,) IN ORDER to worship, or THAT YE MAY worship; for this is the meaning of these particles ειςτο in many parts of the New Testament. I shall now make a few observations on some of the principal expressions.

High priest of good things] Or services, to come, τωνμελλοντων αγαθων. He is the High Priest of Christianity; he officiates in the behalf of all mankind; for by him are all the prayers, praises, and services of mankind offered to God; and he ever appears in the presence of God for us.

A greater and more perfect tabernacle] This appears to mean our Lord's human nature. That, in which dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, was fitly typified by the tabernacle and temple, in both of which the majesty of God dwelt.

Not made with hands] Though our Lord's body was a perfect human body, yet it did not come in the way of natural generation; his miraculous conception will sufficiently justify the expressions used here by the apostle.

Verse 12. But by his own blood] Here the redemption of man is attributed to the blood of Christ; and this blood is stated to be shed in a sacrificial way, precisely as the blood of bulls, goats and calves was shed under the law.

Once] Once for all, εφαπαξ, in opposition to the annual entering of the high priest into the holiest, with the blood of the annual victim.

The holy place] Or sanctuary, τααγια, signifies heaven, into which Jesus entered with his own blood, as the high priest entered into the holy of holies with the blood of the victims which he had sacrificed.

Eternal redemption] αιωνιανλυτρωσιν. A redemption price which should stand good for ever, when once offered; and an endless redemption from sin, in reference to the pardon of which, and reconciliation to God, there needs no other sacrifice: it is eternal in its merit and efficacy.