Hebrews 2:5-18.
Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.”
Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Here am I and the children whom God has given me.”
Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested. — Hebrews 2:5-18 NRSV.
The argument deepens in verse 14, which explains that the Son shared fully in human flesh and blood “in order that through death He may bring to nought him that has the power of death and set free so many as by fear of death were held fast in bondage.” Taken together, these passages make it unmistakable that Christ’s death was not accidental or incidental. It was deliberate, purposeful, and aimed directly at human salvation.
Verse 17 brings this teaching into even closer alignment with Paul, particularly Romans 3:25. There we read that Christ became like his brothers and sisters "so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement (ἱλάσκεσθαι) for the sins of the people.” Combined with what has come before, this leaves no doubt that the author understands Christ’s death in sacrificial terms. Just as under the Old Covenant forgiveness was almost always secured through the blood of an innocent victim, Christ now saves his people from the penalty of their sins through his own death.
Hebrews 9:11-28
But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant. Where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been told to all the people by Moses in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. — Hebrews 9:11-28 NRSV.
From this point onward, Hebrews 9 is dominated by the idea that Christ’s death is a necessary condition of salvation. In verse 16 the author introduces a striking new way of explaining this connection. The Greek word διαθήκη, used throughout the Septuagint as the equivalent of the Hebrew term for a covenant, usually means something quite specific in classical Greek: a legal testament or will. Such a document becomes valid only through the death of the one who made it.
Christ himself used this term when speaking of the new covenant (as recorded in 1 Corinthians 11:25 and elsewhere), and the writer of Hebrews takes that usage seriously. By doing so, he presents the gospel as both a covenant — where one party binds himself to another under defined conditions — and a testament, which only becomes legally effective when the testator dies. The implication is unmistakable: Christ’s death was required for the New Covenant to be valid. Without it, the promise of forgiven sins to those who believe would have had no legal standing.
This way of thinking closely parallels Paul’s teaching in Romans 7:4 and Colossians 2:14, where Christ’s death removes a legal barrier to justification. What makes the agreement especially striking is that Hebrews expresses this idea in language and imagery completely different from Paul’s, even though they are arriving at the same theological conclusion.
The same theme reappears repeatedly. Hebrews 9:26 speaks of Christ’s death as “for the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” and verse 28 describes him as “once offered in order to bear the sins of many.” In chapter 10 we read that Christ “having offered one sacrifice on behalf of sins,” and later of those who have “counted as a common thing the blood of the Covenant in which he was sanctified.” The argument concludes along the same lines in Hebrews 13:12: “Jesus, in order that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the camp.”
Conclusion
By this point, the conclusion is unavoidable. The Epistle to the Hebrews fully reproduces Paul’s central and carefully defined understanding of Christ’s death and its saving significance. The author consistently presents the violent death of Christ on the cross as the means by which humanity is saved — and as the very reason Christ died. He explicitly calls it a means of “redemption,” speaks of Christ making “atonement for the sins of the people,” and introduces a legal analogy that implies Christ’s death was necessary to validate the covenant God offers to humanity.
Taken together, these arguments point to a profound conclusion: the necessity of Christ’s death as a means of salvation rests in the justice of God himself.
This post is based upon Lecture XX from J. A. Beet's book Through Christ to God: A Study in Scientific Theology (1893), re-written with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original text may be found at the Internet Archive here: Through Christ to God.
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