Hebrews 9:17Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Since there were likely many fainthearted people who did not believe His promises precisely because Christ had died, Paul seeks to refute this opinion decisively. He presents an example drawn from common custom. What custom is this? For this very reason, he says, one ought to be confident. Why? Because testaments are valid and receive force not while the testators live, but after their death. Therefore he begins his discourse in this way: "He is," he says, "the Mediator of the New Covenant." A testament is made on the last day before death. This testament makes some heirs and deprives others of the inheritance. So also here, concerning the heirs Christ says, "Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I desire that where I am, they also may be with Me" (Jn 17:24).

It is certain that a covenant receives force after death, and we would have been wholly unworthy of the inheritance, since the enmity would not have been destroyed. It has no force while the testator lives. Read and understand this as a question.

As the Apostle says to the Hebrews, "For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must necessarily occur." By this he affirms that the New Covenant was confirmed by Christ's death for us. The Old Covenant was its likeness, where the sacrificial animal prefigured the death of the testator. If it is asked how, according to the Apostle, we are children and heirs, "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom 8:17), since inheritance is confirmed by the death of the one who precedes, the answer is found in the same Apostle. We became heirs of the One who Himself died, for we were called His sons: "Can the sons of the bridal chamber mourn while the bridegroom is with them?" (Mt 9:15). We are called His heirs because He left to us the world of the Church as a possession. We possess it by faith in the providence of God, which we have in this life. In Augustine the wording is literally: "the testament is sealed by the death of the testator."

Having given us a covenant, or testament, according to the demand of His righteousness and for our justification, He Himself nevertheless had to undergo death. For a testament becomes valid only when the one who wrote it dies. He endured death also so that His testament would not be like the first, which had no force without blood. For the blood of a heifer was sprinkled upon it, not the blood of the testator (Ex. 24:8).

The Apostle said this to comfort those troubled by the Master’s death. He shows that, in establishing the New Covenant, death was necessary, because testaments receive force after the death of those who make them. He proves this from the Old Testament.

“Among the dead” means after the death of the testators. “Since it has no power while the testator lives.” That is, during the testator’s lifetime it does not yet have force and has not yet come into effect. Yet this example seemed to be contradicted by the fact that the old covenant had force, although God, who made that covenant, lives. The Apostle resolves this contradiction by pointing to the blood with which that covenant was sprinkled. Thus there was blood there, and there is blood here as well. But that blood was the blood of irrational and typological sacrifices, while this is the blood of a rational and true sacrifice.

Thinking that Saint Paul, in saying this, had turned to a thought contrary to what he had said before, you asked what this means: "For a testament is confirmed among the dead, since it has no force while the testator lives." Therefore I write this in answer. The phrase "has no force" (μή ποτε), perhaps through ignorance, was made by some from the words "not then" (μη τότε) by adding a single stroke to one letter. This is what I found also in ancient copies. For the one adorned with the Divine Spirit and esteemed as a Hermes would not have turned to a contrary thought. Since a testament does not have force while the testator lives, it becomes firm after death. But if "has no force" is retained, then the accent must be placed not on μη, but on μήποτε, so that the expression means "not at all."

In this section of his epistle, the Apostle unfolds three thoughts: the necessity of the death of the Mediator of the New Covenant, the once-for-all character of Christ's most excellent sacrifice, and the abolition of the Old Testament sacrifices and priesthood. First, the necessity of the death of the Mediator of the New Covenant. "And for this reason Christ is the Mediator of the New Covenant." For what reason? Because He shed His own blood and offered it as a sacrifice to God, not the blood of animals, as the Old Testament high priests did. "So that, Christ's death having occurred, those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance" (Heb 9:15). "For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must necessarily be brought in.

Next the apostle explains from the very nature of a covenant or testament (διαθήκη) the point stated above, that receiving the promised eternal inheritance depended on Christ’s death. A testament, says the Apostle, comes into force only after the death of the testator. Only after this death does it become firm and incapable of being changed.