Hebrews 9:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

He says, "through the greater and more perfect tabernacle." Then later he says, "which He opened for us through the veil, that is, His flesh" (Heb 10:20).

Again: "He enters the inner place behind the veil" (Heb 6:19). And again: "Christ entered not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (Heb 9:24).

Why does he do this? To teach us that in both types there is one and the same meaning.

Specifically, heaven is a veil, because the veil separates the holy place. So also the flesh conceals the Godhead.

Likewise the flesh, enclosing the Godhead, is a tabernacle. Heaven also is a tabernacle, because the Priest dwells there within.

"Christ entered," he says, "as High Priest." He did not say, "having become," but "entered," that is, having come for this very work.

He did not succeed someone else, nor was it that He first came and afterward became High Priest. He was this at the very moment He came.

He called these good things "to come" in relation to the time of the Law. For just as he called that time "present," so he calls the time of Christ "to come," as if in comparison with it.

Or he speaks in comparison with the mysteries that are to be revealed to us in the age to come.

"Through the greater and more perfect tabernacle." Here he means the flesh. It is the greater tabernacle, because in it dwell both God the Word and the whole power of the Spirit.

For "God does not give the Spirit by measure" (Jn 3:34). Being the more perfect tabernacle, it also accomplishes greater works.

"Not made with hands," that is, "not of this creation." Here the heretics attack, saying that the body is heavenly and ethereal.

Yet if the Apostle considered His body heavenly and ethereal, how would he have said that it is "not of this creation"? For heaven is not excluded from the number of created things.

What, then, do his words mean? On the one hand, they mean that the Old Testament tabernacle was made by the hands of the craftsman Bezalel and his fellow workers (Ex 31:2-6).

The tabernacle of God the Word, however, was formed by the Spirit.

This is why he said that it is not "of this creation," that is, not from these creatures, but spiritual and divine.

For none of the creatures has God the Word in itself by nature. This tabernacle, however, was united with Him by nature.

Therefore, in matter the Lord's body was like ours and of one essence with us, since it was formed from the pure blood of the Most Holy Virgin.

But in the mode of union, it is above us, because it was united by nature with God the Word.

Since the materials for the Old Testament tabernacle were wood and skins, gold and silver, bronze and certain fabrics, the Apostle looked to these and said that this tabernacle was not of the same construction as the Old Testament tabernacle required.

In general, he speaks comparatively and shows the superiority of Christ.

He calls the Lord's body a tabernacle, as here, because the Only-begotten dwelt in it, and a veil, because it concealed the Divinity.

He also calls heaven by the same names: a tabernacle, because the High Priest is there; and a veil, Heb 10:20, because the saints are enclosed by it.

"That is, not of this creation." It is not of the handmade construction by which the tabernacle of Moses was made, or by which the temple of Jerusalem was built.

Concerning the blood of Christ, in which the new covenant is contained: true cleansing was accomplished once for all in the blood of Christ, not in the blood of animals offered in sacrifice many times.

The work was begun under the leadership of Zerubbabel the governor and Jesus the high priest. Yet because of military attacks by neighboring peoples, it could not be completed sooner than forty-six years.

This also corresponds most excellently to the completion of the Lord's body.

Writers on natural phenomena report that this number of days corresponds to the stages of forming the human body from conception.

For the first six days it resembles milk. In the following nine it is transformed into blood. In the next twelve it acquires firmness.

In the following eighteen, the outlines of all the members are perfectly formed. During the remaining time until birth, it only increases in size.

Six, nine, twelve, and eighteen make forty-five in all. If we add one, that is, the very day when the body begins to be formed from its separate members, we find just as many days in the building of the body as years in the construction of the temple.

Since that temple made with hands is also the sacred flesh of the Lord, which He received from the Virgin Mary, we learn that His body and the Church signify one thing in equal measure.

They signify the body and soul of the faithful. We find many examples of this in various places of Scripture, such as Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 6:15; 12:27; Eph 5:29-30.

What tabernacle does he call greater, more perfect, and not made with hands, that is, not of this creation? Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, and Theophylact say that he called the very flesh of the Lord Jesus the tabernacle.

He called it so because in it "all the fullness of the Godhead" settled and dwelt (Col 2:9).

He called it greater and more perfect because the flesh of God the Word incomparably surpasses the lawful tabernacle.

Through the Passion and death of His flesh, God accomplished works incomparably more perfect than those performed in the tabernacle.

He called it not made with hands because it was not skillfully constructed by human hands, as the lawful tabernacle was by Bezalel and Eliab (Ex 36:2).

What does the explanatory phrase mean: "that is, not of this creation"?

It means that the flesh of the Giver of Life received its being not according to the laws of nature, that is, from the union of man and woman, as human bodies do.

Rather, it was composed and fashioned from the most pure blood of the Ever-Virgin Mary, by the descent of the All-Holy Spirit and the overshadowing of the power of the Most High (Lk 1:35).

Here is another superiority of the sacrifice. The typical legal sacrifice was accomplished with the blood of goats and calves, but the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ with His own blood.

The lawful high priest enters the Holies in the tabernacle, offering the blood of goats and calves (Lev 16:14, 18).

But Jesus, the High Priest of grace, after offering His divine blood, ascended into heaven.

To show the difficulty and arduousness of our redemption, he said "having obtained." So it happens among men: when they accomplish difficult and troublesome tasks, they regard it as a finding and say, "We have obtained it."

He called our redemption eternal because, having once been redeemed, we remain free forever. There is no need whatever for another sacrifice to be offered for our redemption.

This, then, is the complete meaning of the Apostle's present words.

Christ, he says, came into the world so that, as High Priest, He might offer Himself in sacrifice, not for worldly and temporal goods, but for the heavenly and unending goods of the age to come.

With His assumed flesh, which is greater and more perfect than the lawful tabernacle, and which was formed supernaturally and not according to the law of nature, He ascended.

He ascended not "once a year" (Heb 9:7), as the lawful high priest did, but only once.

He ascended not into the tabernacle, but into the Holies, that is, "at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens" (Heb 8:1).

He ascended offering not the blood of goats and calves, but His own blood, poured out on the Cross.

By this sacrifice He granted the human race eternal redemption from the slavery of Satan and the endless glory of divine blessedness.

Having said this, he brings forward a proof taken from the lesser to the greater.

What is the direct consequence of all this? A sacrificial offering of another, most excellent blood had to be arranged.

Another and higher High Priest had to arise, who by offering this blood could both cleanse human sins and open the heaven that had been closed to men.

The Old Testament Law itself proclaims this. It was accomplished in Christ Jesus, who became priest and sacrifice at one and the same time.