John Calvin Commentary Hebrews 9:16

"For where a testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him that made it." — Hebrews 9:16 (ASV)

For where a testament is, etc. Even this one passage is a sufficient proof that this Epistle was not written in Hebrew; for ברית means in Hebrew a covenant but not a testament; but in Greek, διαθήκη includes both ideas. The Apostle, alluding to its secondary meaning, holds that the promises would not have been otherwise ratified and valid if they had not been sealed by the death of Christ. He proves this by referring to what is usually the case with wills or testaments, the effect of which is suspended until the death of those whose wills they are.

The Apostle may still seem to rest on too weak an argument, so that what he says may be easily disproved. For it may be said that God made no testament or will under the Law; rather, it was a covenant that He made with the ancient people. Thus, neither from the fact nor from the name can it be concluded that Christ’s death was necessary.

For if he infers from the fact that Christ should have died because a testament is not ratified except by the death of the testator, the answer may be this: ברית, the word always used by Moses, is a covenant made between those who are alive, and we cannot think otherwise of the fact itself.

Now, regarding the word used, he simply alluded, as I have already said, to the two meanings it has in Greek; he therefore focuses chiefly on the thing in itself. Nor is it an objection to say that it was a covenant God made with His people, for that very covenant bore some resemblance to a testament, for it was ratified by blood.

We must always hold this truth: no symbols have ever been adopted by God unnecessarily or unsuitably. And God, in establishing the covenant of the Law, made use of blood. Therefore, it was not such a contract between the living, as some say, that did not require death.

Besides, what rightly belongs to a testament is that it begins to take effect after death. If we consider that the Apostle reasons from the thing itself and not from the word, and if we bear in mind that he admittedly takes for granted what I have already stated—that nothing has been instituted in vain by God—there will be no great difficulty.

If anyone objects that heathens ratified covenants by sacrifices according to the other meaning, I indeed admit this to be true. But God did not borrow the rite of sacrificing from the practice of heathens; on the contrary, all heathen sacrifices were corruptions that derived their origin from the institutions of God. We must then return to the same point: the covenant of God, which was made with blood, can be aptly compared to a testament, as it is of the same kind and character.