Hebrews 9:14

14. Through the eternal Spirit Lunemann enumerates some eight different interpretations of this unusual phrase. A large majority of commentators understand it to mean either the divine second person of the Trinity in Jesus incarnated, or the third person, the Holy Spirit, indwelling and inspiring him. For this last Stuart assigns the following texts:

Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1; Matthew 12:28; Luke 4:18; Matthew 3:16; Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:22; John 1:32-33; John 3:34. This makes, certainly, a genuinely biblical meaning. It assumes that Christ went through the scenes of the atonement in full cooperative accordance with, and under actuation by, the blessed Spirit. Nevertheless, our own view will appear from our threefold parallel given above. And our process brings out a result quite coincident with the view of Delitzsch, (which is treated by Lunemann with almost contempt,) namely, that the eternal personal spirit of Christ himself, his divine nature, stands in antithesis to the perishing life of the animal sacrifice. So, rightly, Delitzsch says: “This eternal spirit answers to the animal soul ( נפשׁ ) in the expiatory victims of the Old Testament.” The animal becomes a sacrifice through an animal soul; Jesus makes himself a sacrifice through an eternal spirit. And the phrase is without the definite article in the Greek. Christ is, though rarely, styled a spirit in Scripture, and by Paul alone. 1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 3:17, and onward. Hereby the divine nature of the Son of God is brought in, upbearing and giving divine superiority and merit to his atonement.

Without spot The usual phrase by which the spotlessness of the victim was expressed in the law; prefiguring the sinlessness of Him who atones for the sins of others.

To God And not as a few of the Church fathers taught, to Satan; as if he possessed a conceded authority over all held under penalty of sin. We hold that the sacrifice of himself by Jesus was a divine concession paid to the divine governmental justice. It was offered to God, not as a payment or gift to him, but as a presentation manifesting that the concession was truly made by which sin is forgiven and government verified.

Your conscience Your, carries home the direct appeal to the moral consciousness of those (our Hebrews) addressed.

Conscience Our moral nature, which feels the claim of moral obligation, the sense of guilt at its violation, and the sense of purity upon forgiveness and sanctification. And how great that feeling when assured at such a cost and from such a source!

From dead works Suggested by the image above detailed of the moral taint from the death-touch. Dead works are our corrupting dealings and contact with sin and death, sending a death-taint through our soul. And in contrast with this is the living God, whom sin and death would love to kill, but who ever lives, and sends immortal life through soul and body of all who serve him.