The Blood of Christ

Well, it seems to me you are arguing that scripture can have a personal interpretation. You can interpret scripture to mean anything you want it to mean. But the scriptures say that scripture is of no private or personal interpretation.

2 Pet 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

The word "by" is used twice in Heb 9:12. In the first instance we know that it is speaking of the high priests entering in the holy place with literal blood (verse 7). In fact, they could not enter without blood, it was forbidden. The second instance of the word "by" in verse 12 is the same exact word. Why would you interpret it to have a different meaning?

 

Not at all. I would argue vigorously against any sort of personal interpretation. I merely make some distinctions in how parallels can be used. Do you grant the distinctions are valid (even if you disagree with which I see Heb 9 as being)?

 

Same meaning both times. Again, it depends on what sort of parallel is intended in this passage.

Also, consider this: Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us].

According the tense in this verse, redemption had already been obtained by Christ *before* He entered heaven. If redemption was obtained before entered heaven (clearly a reference to His death and sacrifice), what need was there to take blood to heaven, much less to offer it on the mercy seat? This is one major clue that a more exact sort of parallel (type B in post 97) is not intended. Vs. 7 indicates that the High Priest needed to enter the Holy place with blood and offer it there as part of the national redemption. However, according to vs 12, such was not the case with Christ. There was no need to enter with blood since redemption had been obtained already by His death.

Thus, the point of verse 12 could not be about any need for Christ to carry blood to heaven, but merely about the need of a blood sacrifice to make it possible to enter heaven. This is just one of many reasons to reject the view that Heb 9 is drawing a type B parallel. The differences between the OT practice and the NT example as given in Heb 9 are too significant, too inconsistent, and occur too often to read Heb 9 as an close parallel to OT practices, but with just a few consistent differences. Instead, it is a much more reasonable to see Heb 9 treating the OT practices as a shadow of Christ's sacrifice - that is, like a shadow and an object, having many point of correlation which the author draws upon to make His point about Christ's sacrifice, but *not* like a blueprint and building where the correlation is nearly exact except in a few key ways.