Hebrews 9:25Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For this purpose, after first noting that images of heavenly things were generally hidden in these rites, the Apostle turns his remembrance to the Old Testament rite on the great and only day of cleansing in the year. On that day the high priest alone entered with sacrificial blood into the sanctuary behind the veil, which concealed the Holy of Holies. If all this was to receive its fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ, the great High Priest of the new and better covenant, then He too clearly had to enter the sanctuary with sacrificial blood. But since "Christ entered not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear for us before the face of God," His sacrificial blood clearly had to be of a better and higher quality than Old Testament blood. What this blood is, we already know from what precedes. But another circumstance also points to the surpassing value of Christ's redeeming blood. Having ascended into heaven, Jesus Christ had no need to repeat His great sacrifice by shedding His own blood many times, as the Old Testament high priest did each year in the earthly sanctuary with another's blood. Otherwise, as the Apostle notes, Christ would have had to suffer and die many times from the foundation of the world. The once-for-all character of Christ's sacrifice was typologically indicated by the very offering of the Old Testament high priest. Though repeated every year, it was still the single offering of the year. It was as though it annually foretold another singular sacrificial offering, which would be single and once-for-all in its very essence, yet unceasing in its continuation. All this was in fact fulfilled. Jesus Christ died only once, and likewise ascended into heaven with His blood only once. By His priceless death and blood He acquired eternal redemption for us once for all (Heb 9:12). Yet the Lord began the offering of His great sacrifice from the first moments of His earthly life. He will continue it in heaven and on earth until the full completion of the great work of redemption and salvation for all human generations at the end of the ages. "But now once, at the end of the ages, Christ has appeared to put away sin by His sacrifice" (Heb 9:26). Do the Apostle's words contradict the repeated celebration of the mystery of the Eucharist? Not at all. The Apostle speaks only of Christ's once-for-all accomplishment of the bloody sacrifice, not of the bloodless one. The Lord Jesus Christ established the mystery of this latter sacrifice solely in remembrance of His bloody sacrifice. He established it as a sign of the unceasing continuation of the redemptive work that He accomplished by His bloody sacrifice on the cross. This was so that, for their salvation, men might have a means of continually appropriating the fruits of Christ's bloody sacrifice, accomplished once for all.