Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Leviticus 19:2
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5:48

IF YOU WISH TO UNDERSTAND THE BOOK OF HEBREWS PROPERLY, you need at least a working knowledge of these concepts. And I use the word concept deliberately, because these words don't represent precise scientific quantities or concrete objects, but they stand for abstract ideas, ideas with fuzzy edges that overlap each other. If you are an engineer, you might have trouble with coming to terms with blurry-edged concepts. Perhaps we all would like to package concepts into boxes we can post Stick-it notes on, naming them precisely. This box is the redemption box, that one the propitiation box, and so forth. Of course, these concepts aren't fictions, they are spiritual realities. Morris puts it well:

Any word has a range of meaning; its meaning is like the area in a circle rather than like a point. It is rarely the case that the circle or meaning in a word in one language exactly overlaps that of a word in another language. The translator will select one word for the overlapping area and other words for the areas where the two do not overlap (1983, p. 159).

Bible translators have increased our discomfort by rendering words inconsistently. For instance, for no apparent reason King James translators rendered the Greek word katharizo and its cognates in two different ways — cleanse and purify — about equal numbers of times. Without access to original languages, one could easily waste hours trying to figure out a non-existent difference in meaning between cleansing and purifying.

All these words stand for ideas which, though abstract in nature, represent ultimate realities upon which our very future depends. But they are not like a dog, or a tree, or a building. They are more like faithfulness, love and honesty — realities, but so broad they overlap one another. Don't begrudge spending some time with them now, because understanding them just a little is important to understanding Hebrews. A number of these words appear in the book, with one (sanctification), together with its synonym (perfection), occupying centre stage.

Unifying glue

Perhaps the best place to begin is to emphasize the unity of all these terms. That is , they all stand for various aspects of the process of salvation. As such, as already mentioned, they overlap each other. And the overlap is so pervasive that any attempt to hammer down each term, or to put them in a box, just won't work, and will only lead to endless frustration. However, the very use of the different words suggests that each one has its unique “centre of gravity”; put them all together and you have a complete picture of salvation. Perhaps you could liken each one to a color in the spectrum of light, wherein the one grades gradually into another. Put the lot together and you have dazzling white light.

All of these different concepts, each with its own centre of gravity, are themselves united under the umbrella of one overarching idea — atonement (Hebrew: kopar ) — in both Old and New Testaments.

Old Testament

Let Beckwith & Selman illuminate us on the meaning of kopar :

It is extremely difficult to pinpoint its exact meaning, even its etymology is a matter of dispute… The careful study of kipper by Kiuchi has led to the following conclusion. ‘Make atonement' is a broad idea involving several subsidiary ones. The offering of sacrifice makes atonement and this involves a variety of consequences. Altars and priests are ‘sanctified'… ‘Lepers' and others are cleansed. Sinners are forgiven (Lv. 4:20) and guilt is carried (Lv. 10:17) (1995, p. 81-82).

In other words, this one word stands at the top of the pile, largely covering all the others under its wings. When a person is atoned for, some previous stumbling block between him and God, be it sin or impurity, is taken away, forgiven or cleansed, and God's anger is propitiated and the individual is redeemed from some awful consequence. Thus, he is reconciled with God, and can continue in His grace. In brief, atonement involves all aspects of the process of eliminating sin from mankind and facilitating fellowship between God and man.

As an illustration of the status of all the other concepts under the dominating umbrella of atonement, like things such as affection, motherly instinct and compassion reside under the shelter of the greater concept of love, consider the concept of propitiation (averting of God's anger). Though nowhere in the Book of Leviticus can one find any direct reference to propitiation, that this important aspect of our relationship with God is covered by the overall concept of atonement is hinted at in such later elaborations as 2 Chronicles 30:8, which tells us,

Now do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord ; and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you.

One enters the sanctuary specifically to worship and offer atoning sacrifices. Thus, the concept of propitiation is shown here to be covered by the one Hebrew word kopar which, incidentally, appears in Leviticus 44 times in one form or another.

According to the Old Testament, atonement comes about by one thing — blood:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul (Lev. 17:11).

Thus, all the hard-to-digest “… ion” words draw their life nourishment from blood. They are all geared to giving life by the elimination of sin, and the basis of that life is blood.

Blood denotes death

Some scholars misread the statement “the life of the flesh is in the blood” to mean that when blood is shed in sacrifice, what is actually happening is not the death of the creature, but the “releasing of life”, suggesting that the life of the slain animal persists in the “basin the priest held” (Morris 1983, p. 57). The vessel containing the blood and carried by the priest to the altar of incense becomes a “bowl of life”. But as Morris shows convincingly, “blood” is used in Scripture to denote death:

For all its popularity… this view is difficult to maintain on the evidence of the Old Testament… With the exception of two books, right through the Old Testament the idea most commonly suggested by ‘blood' is death by violence…Careful examination of the ‘life is in the blood' passages actually shows that the meaning is ‘life given up in death' and not simply ‘life' (1983, p. 55).

In short, when Scripture talks about blood in atonement passages, it is speaking about death, not some mysterious transfer of life.

New Testament

The significance of blood becomes even clearer in the New Testament, where all the terms in question are clearly linked with Christ's blood, that is, His death. Note the following references:

Justification: Romans 5:9
Propitiation: Romans 3:25
Forgiveness: Colossians 1:14
Redemption: Colossians 1:14
Reconciliation: Colossians 1:20
Purification: Hebrews 9:14
Sanctification: Hebrews 9:13

Intriguingly, nowhere in the New Testament can one find an obvious equivalent for the “mother term” kopar. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament usually renders it as exilaskomai. This word is never used in the Greek text of the New Testament. Why not? Who can say? Perhaps because it would be confused with the cognate word ilaskomai which, in New Testament times, meant propitiate, or turn away wrath. Propitiation is only one component of the total atonement concept. When the Author of Hebrews makes unambiguous reference to kopar , he renders it in terms such as offering blood for sins (9:7).

All the components of atonement, then, are linked by the common denominator of Christ's blood, the single, effective means of atonement.

Done and being done

Eliminating sin means, putting it positively, making people like God. God's whole intention for us is to make us just like Him:

Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48).

Few recognize the enormity of this project God has undertaken, or the significance of being made “like Him" (1 John 3:2). Like time itself, atonement and perfecting cannot all happen at once. First, when a sinner responds to Jesus' invitation to the kingdom of God, that person's sin and sinfulness must be dealt with. Upon repentance and baptism, his sins are totally wiped away (purification) by being transferred to Jesus Christ. The person is justified, or declared innocent of all guilt by God. God's anger is assuaged (propitiation) and the ex-sinner now has a living relationship with God (reconciliation). At the same time, a miracle truly does occur in the individual's mind, “perfecting” him forever (Hebrew. 10:14).

A justified person is no longer a sinner who needs purging, but a righteous person who, because of weakness, needs lots of help in attaining perfection.

Paul, who was concerned with how mankind can get onto God's program of salvation, summed up in his discussions on justification, dealt with the early stages of atonement. By contrast, the Book of Hebrews is concerned with the later stage of atonement — sanctification. That sanctification itself is part of the bigger atonement package is hinted at in a few Old Testament passages, such as Leviticus 8:15:

Then he took the blood, and put some on the horns of the altar all around with his finger, and purified the altar. And he poured the blood at the base of the altar, and consecrated [sanctified] it, to make atonement for it.

Verse 30 speaks of human beings being sanctified for service at the altar. In short, people must be sanctified to bring God's plan of atonement for mankind to completion.

Sanctification — the Christian's life long calling

The Book of Leviticus contains one of the most shocking demands in the entire Bible, and it's just as relevant, and means the same thing, today as it meant then:

Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (19:2).

If any verse outside the Epistle to the Hebrews sums up that epistle's whole point of departure it is this one. And holiness, or, to use New Testament words, sanctification, or perfection, is critical to salvation.

What is the nature of the sanctification God requires of Christians today? Let's begin answering that by considering the most basic of all questions — what is holiness? Books have been written on it. Wright gives a good explanation:

Holiness is the biblical ‘shorthand' for the very essence of God. This makes the command of Leviticus 19:2 quite breath-taking… No less breath-taking, of course, was Jesus' own echo of the verse to His disciples: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect' (Mt. 5:48) (1983, p. 27).

Leviticus doesn't elaborate fully on the path to holiness or sanctification. In hindsight, we can read its message clearly enough — becoming holy means becoming like God! Shocking, to say the least.

State and status

After much study, scholars have come to general consensus that the term holiness, or sanctification, can refer to either a state or a status, the context acting as guide to which may be in mind in any given passage.

When a person repents and turns to God, at the moment of baptism and justification he or she becomes sanctified, or holy, being set apart for God's special purpose in life. At that moment, the individual is blessed with the status of holy, or sanctified. From then on, God works in the individual's life to actually transform, or change, him. God works on his or her innermost being, making him like Himself, producing in him His own divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). For the rest of his life, the individual gradually grows more and more in holiness. He develops the state of holiness.

The Epistle to the Hebrews has both aspects in mind, not always clearly designating which is in view, partly because the distinction was not as critical to the argument as the means by which it was achieved — through the sacrificial and mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. In some instances, the initial consecration is being spoken of, as in, for instance, 10:10. Yet in others, such as 12:14, the lifelong process is in the spotlight.

In sum, sanctification involves:

1. An initial act of being set apart for and dedicated to God. One might call this “legal” sanctification, or consecration, or having the status of holiness. Those whom God takes to be His, whether they respond in holy living or not, are designated holy. Romans 11:16 shows that even carnal, unconverted Israelites were holy in this sense. The removal of sinfulness that occurs then is not the same as the addition of holiness, but merely a vital first step towards sanctification. This phase of sanctification is mentioned in Hebrews 13:12:

Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

2. An ongoing, lifelong process in which a person changes totally, is transformed from the inside out. Such a person not only has a holy status, but is actually in a holy condition, radiating a new way of life. The ongoing nature of sanctification is seen in a verse such as 1 Thessalonians 5:23:

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Clearly, for any individual the story is not yet completely complete. Hebrews 10:14 preaches the same message, showing that sanctification is a continual feast in the life of a Christian. The process never halts:

For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

In light of the two fundamental stages of sanctification just mentioned — immediate and ongoing — the apparent duplication in this verse is resolved. When a person sees the light, repents, and launches into a whole new life style, he or she is immediately (upon baptism) “made holy”. He then spends the rest of his life becoming more holy. Mind you, he never reaches absolute perfection in this life. The apostle Paul, who declared he had led a blameless life with respect to law-keeping also acknowledged that he hadn't attained to perfection. Compare the two following passages:

… concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless (Phil. 3:6).

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me (Phil. 3:12).

The apparent contradiction between Paul's confession and profession, rather than leaving us scratching our heads in total perplexity, helps us understand a fundamental premise of the Book of Hebrews — attaining perfection involves much more than achieving blameless behavior. Like Paul, Job had succeeded in controlling his fleshly desires. Like Paul, he too had to learn that becoming like God involves much more than A+++ squeaky cleanness. Blameless living is only part of the story.

Christians today seem to have the opposite problem to Job. They want their high priest to do everything, and shirk from personal responsibility in the process. All too often the slackness is excused on the grounds that any attempt to obey law smacks of earning salvation. But we cannot get around the burden laid upon us when we set our hands to God's plough. We are to change completely. Many Christians have lost a sense of purpose and joy in living, precisely because they have neglected the call to personal holiness. They want their heavenly high priest to do everything for them, and are not willing to play the part of fellow laborers with their Melchizedek priest to bring it about. Many have settled for a “feel-good” brand of Christianity, with little or no pain and little long term gain.

What sanctification is about

Ceremonial cleansing affected the body; spiritual cleansing overhauls the mind. The mind is the focus of God's concern. Real life boils down to thoughts, not thrills and spills (John 6:63). Helen Keller, the famous deaf and blind mute, was more alive than Hugh Heffner ever has been. Locked deep within her were noble thoughts, thoughts that could uplift others as well as herself.

Dead Abraham is far more alive than the very active and highly conscious Satan the devil. Though Abraham has no consciousness, his way of thinking, when he is resurrected, will bring joy to himself and others. Though immortal, Satan is dead, miserable, wretched, neither enjoying consciousness himself nor contributing to the happiness of others.

Sanctification causes a converted person to have a whole new outlook on life, setting his or her mind on a completely new wavelength, so to speak. Sanctification challenges believers to rediscover the pursuit of holiness as nothing less than a life-long passion for loving God and following in His ways. Sanctification means putting on the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5). At the end of the day, we think like God, love the things He loves and hate the things He hates. In sum, it means our thinking processes gradually come to mirror God's.

How sanctification begins

When a man or woman sees, in the mind's eye, his or her Creator hanging on the cross, he will experience a change in conscience, or mind, that seeing a blood-drained sheep on the altar can never give. God Himself washes clean the minds of those who willingly contemplate the staggering notion that God Himself was willing to become flesh, to live in our midst, and to shed His blood by the hand of those He created for the purpose of eternal glory. He miraculously changes their entire perspective.

David Brainerd was a young missionary who ministered to numerous groups of American Indians. His journal records:

I never got away from Jesus and Him crucified. When my people were gripped by this great… doctrine of Christ and Him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about morality. I found that one followed as the sure and inevitable fruit of the other… I find my Indians begin to put on the garments of holiness and their common life begins to be sanctified even in small matters when they are possessed by the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified.

The Author of Hebrews emphasizes that one cannot possibly be set on the pilgrim's path of sanctification by looking to animal's blood but only to Jesus'. True, a converted person can be tremendously impacted by participating in a lawfully-conducted animal sacrifice; but what affects their thinking is not the thought of the doomed animal, but seeing their Creator and sinless Savior, in their mind's eye, hanging from the stake.

How sanctification continues

But starting is not the same as finishing. Reaching the pilgrim's goal of “God-likeness” doesn't happen overnight. It's what the Christian fight is all about. Sanctification is not brought to completion by Christ's blood, or faith in it. It requires something more dynamic; just what it is is made clear in Romans 5:10:

For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

That process involves the work of the living Jesus Christ living his life in us through the Holy Spirit (1 Pet. 1:2) with our cooperation through obedience. He does the lion's share of the work, but we must do our part too. Ongoing meditation on the sacrifice of Christ forms part of the means Christ uses to bring us to perfection. But His intercession for us entails minute by minute activity that we cannot see or detect. He comforts, encourages, corrects and rebukes us. In other words, He shepherds us.

The Author of Hebrews went to a lot of effort to hammer home the simple point that the process of completing the sanctification begun by faith in Christ's blood can never be provided by fleshly ministrations but only by the intercessory work of our man in heaven — the raised, living Jesus Christ sanctifying us through His ongoing role as our Melchizedek order high priest.

All of the above points are what the Author had in mind when he quoted Jeremiah, saying…

I will remember their sins no more

The new covenant's chief claim to fame is the simple promise that new covenant forgiveness means God would no longer remember the sins of any who come under its power (Jer. 31:34). The Author of Hebrews rewords Jeremiah's promise slightly, but the content is identical:

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more (8:12).

So important is this prophetic promise to the Book of Hebrews and its message that it is repeated almost verbatim in 10:17.

But what is the point of this promise? It amounts to nothing less than a promise that God will not only overlook the sins of His people, He will actually set up a dynamic process to remove their sins. Those locked up under the old covenant could only experience the canceling of sin-caused curses. But the moment the curse was cancelled, the individual was just as likely to go out and do the same thing again. Bruce Ware says this:

…not only did the sin of the people need to be forgiven, but beyond that, it had to be removed altogether; for unless it is removed, then there can be no unfaltering or fully consistent faithfulness under the new covenant (ed. Blaising & Bock, p. 81).

The kind of forgiveness that results in nothing but an erasing of the debts from the slate has value in this life only. But the kind of forgiveness that comes when a human being stands before the cross of Christ, understanding that there hangs his creator who willingly died to purge his sins, is forgiveness of a totally different quality. It's forgiveness of a kind that will actually cause him to hate the sins that put Jesus there. It's transforming, mind-changing forgiveness. An individual who has been blessed with this kind of forgiveness is fit for the family of God in the eternal Kingdom of God, because he or she can no longer sin, as 1 John 3:9 tells us:

Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

The new covenant provides the final solution to sin, transforming believers' minds in such a way that they cannot abide to practice sin as a way of life.

Sin and sinfulness

A very helpful way to distinguish between sanctification available through ceremony from the sanctification through Christ is to see it in terms of the huge difference between sin and sinfulness, and the change that sanctification works in a sinful person.

Even decent, good people are sinful by nature. We'll take a peek at just two vital passages that tell us this, one from each of the testaments:

And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done” (Gen. 8:21 ).

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be (Rom. 8:7 ).

Of course, part of the problem we face stems from our human perspective — God's view of sinfulness doesn't match ours. We find it hard to match this description with lots of people we know. But therein lies the whole point. What we think is sinful, carnal, is not at all identical with God's view of it. Ask yourself one simple question: Whose view needs to change?

To Him, simply not caring about God is sinfulness in the extreme. Notice what He says in Psalm 90:11 . We will use the Soncino translation, as it is about the only one that captures the meaning:

Who knoweth the power of thine anger, and Thy wrath according to the fear that is due unto Thee?

The sense seems plainly enough to be that God is angered (and whatever makes Him angry must amount to serious sin) by the lack of fear He should be given. Another Psalm (10:4) tells us that the hallmark of the wicked is simply that, “God is in none of his thoughts”.

I bet you have an aunt who is as sweet as pie. Charming, delightful and kind to everybody. Does that make her godly? Not at all, if she can't give a hoot about God. God made her, and every gift she has, including the ability to blow her nose, comes from Him. How would you feel if you gave a son or daughter absolutely everything they could ever want, and yet they showed total indifference towards you? Sorry to say, your aunt is carnal and sinful.

One of the major lessons of the Old Testament is that even religious people can be no closer to God in truth than those who wear the trash on the outside. Jesus repeated the words of Isaiah when He said:

These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me (Matt. 15:8 ).

Many such people offered sacrifices, and perhaps enjoyed the benefits; but their hearts were far from God.

Hebrews tells us that true worshipers, even though they may not have access to the benefits of Levitical ministrations, temple worship, and sacrifice, were at a huge advantage over their unconverted temple-going brethren because they were being transformed from the inside out; they were on God's program. They were sinful no more.

But, warned the Author, pull up your socks lest you revert to your previous condition. The pursuit of holiness cannot be seen as a part-time, moonlighter's profession, but must be viewed by its participants as a full-time career. Like a soldier going into battle, they must aim to hit their enemy, sin, every time. And to avoid getting hit by the enemy every time — not getting hit very much will prove fatal. If they gave up on Christ, their fate would be too horrifying to contemplate.