10 Arndt and Gingrich, p. 522. 11 Ibid., p. 388.
1:3
Defilement/Purification and Hebrews 9:23
"For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification [katharofes} of the flesh."
"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify [katharizo} your conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
"Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified [katharizo] with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."
"Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to bepurified [katharizo} with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these."
10:2 "Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? If the worshipers had once been cleansed
[katharizo}, they would no longer have any
consciousness of sin."
10:22 "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed wthpure [katharos} water."12
The data thus demonstrate thatprima facie, the topic of defilement and purification in the book of Hebrews merits careful examination. But by listing the bare lexical data, we have only begun.
The terms we just have noticed do not represent discrete concepts. They are simply windows into the same cultic structure, a part of the matrix of the theological argument. We need also to take account of a related vocabulary. This vocabulary is extensive, but for the sake of simplicity we will confine it to those terms that may be associated most readily with defilement and purification.
12 We have not taken up the occurrences of louein ("to wash" or "bathe") or baptismos
("dipping" or "washing") since these terms do not enter into the cultic argumentation of Hebrews. The terms occur in Hebrews 10:22 ("Let us draw nearwith a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed [louein} with pure water"); 6:2 ("with instruction about ablutions [baptismos}, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment"); and 9:10 ("but deal only with food and drink and various ablutions, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation").
85 9:13
9:14
9:22
Related Vocabulary
Blood. The most important noun calling for consideration here is haima ("blood"). Haima is the middle term, so to speak, between defilement and purification. Just as defilement is the problem and purification is the solution, so blood is the means to obtain the latter.
Haima occurs no fewer than 21 times in Hebrews, with 14 occurrences
1 ^
in Hebrews 9-10. We shall cite those that most clearly point to blood as the means of purification.
9:7 "But into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people."
9:12 "He entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption."
9:13-14 "For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God."
9:22 "Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins."
10:4 "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins."
10:19 "Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,..."
10:29 "How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?"
12:24 "And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel."
13:12 "So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood."
Defilement/Purification and Hebrews 9:23
13:20 "Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant...."
Verbs of removal. Three verbs are used in the cultic argumentation in connection with the sin problem—anapherein, aphairein and periairein. These point to "sin" (hamartia) as something that must be removed (in contrast to a debt to be paid, a relationship to be restored, and so on). As such, they parallel the concept of sin as defilement:
a. Anapherein signifies "to bring or take up... to take away."14 It is used in Hebrews of Christ's removal of sins:
9:28 "So Christ, having been offered once to bear [ana-
pherein} the sins of many, will appear a second
time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him."
b. Aphairein signifies "to take away"15 and is found in connec- tion with the ОТ cultus:
10:4 "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away [anapharein] sins."
c. Periairein, signifying "to take away, remove," is found like- wise in reference to the old services:
10:11 "And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins \periairein].1'
Having surveyed the terminology of defilement and purification in Hebrews, we need now to focus on where the terms occur in the argu- ment—that is, on the relative significance accorded them by the author.