The Book of Hebrews:
Salvation Through Faith in Jesus Christ, His Shed Blood, and the Forgiveness of Sins

Expository Study • Hebrews 1–13 (KJV)

A chapter-by-chapter Scripture study of Hebrews 1–13

The book of Hebrews presents Jesus Christ as the perfect High Priest. The one offering of Jesus Christ accomplished what the repeated sacrifices of the Old Covenant never could. Hebrews teaches that Jesus Christ purged our sins and obtained eternal redemption by His own blood. Jesus Christ opened the way for us to draw near to God. The letter also calls us again and again to come to God through Jesus Christ in faith and to hold fast to Him.

Step 1: Textual (What the Text Actually Says)

This step walks through what each chapter of Hebrews says about the blood of Jesus Christ, the remission of sins, and faith in God. Not every passage states that salvation is received through faith in Jesus Christ. Some passages explain the sacrifice that makes salvation possible, and others warn against unbelief.

The King James Bible follows the Received Text in Hebrews. A few manuscript differences exist in this letter, such as whether Hebrews 9:11 speaks of good things to come or good things that have come. No manuscript difference in Hebrews changes its teaching on the blood of Jesus Christ, the remission of sins, or faith.

Hebrews 1: Jesus Christ Purged Our Sins

• Hebrews 1:3: Jesus Christ by Himself purged our sins and then sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
• Hebrews 1:14: The angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.

Hebrews 2: Jesus Christ Brings Salvation Through His Death

• Hebrews 2:3-4: The writer warns against neglecting so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord.
• Hebrews 2:9: Jesus, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man.
• Hebrews 2:10-11: Jesus Christ is the captain of our salvation, made perfect through sufferings, bringing many sons unto glory.
• Hebrews 2:14-15: Through death Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Jesus delivers those held in bondage by the fear of death.
• Hebrews 2:17-18: Jesus Christ was made a merciful and faithful high priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Jesus is also able to succour them that are tempted.

Hebrews 3: Faith in God, Unbelief, and Holding Fast

• Hebrews 3:1: Believers are called to consider Christ Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession.
• Hebrews 3:6: We are the house of Christ if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
• Hebrews 3:7-12: The Holy Ghost warns against an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
• Hebrews 3:14: We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.
• Hebrews 3:18-19: Israel could not enter into the rest of God because of unbelief.

Hebrews 4: Believing and Entering the Rest of God

• Hebrews 4:1-3: The word preached did not profit the wilderness generation, because it was not mixed with faith in them that heard it. We which have believed do enter into rest.
• Hebrews 4:6: Those to whom the promise was first preached entered not in because of unbelief.
• Hebrews 4:9-11: There remaineth a rest to the people of God, and believers are urged to labour to enter into that rest.
• Hebrews 4:14-16: Jesus the Son of God is our great high priest. Believers may therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 5: Jesus Christ, the Author of Eternal Salvation

• Hebrews 5:1-3: Every high priest taken from among men offered gifts and sacrifices for sins, including offerings for his own sins.
• Hebrews 5:7-9: Jesus learned obedience by the things which He suffered and became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him.
• Hebrews 5:12-14: Spiritual maturity belongs to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Hebrews 6: Faith Toward God, the Promise, and Hope

• Hebrews 6:1-2: Repentance from dead works and faith toward God are named among the first principles. The doctrine of baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection, and eternal judgment are listed with them.
• Hebrews 6:4-6: A solemn warning speaks of those once enlightened and made partakers of the Holy Ghost, if they shall fall away.
• Hebrews 6:9-12: The writer is persuaded of better things concerning his readers, things that accompany salvation. He urges them to be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
• Hebrews 6:13-18: God confirmed His promise to Abraham by an oath. That oath gives strong consolation to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.
• Hebrews 6:19-20: This hope is an anchor of the soul that enters within the veil. Jesus entered there as our forerunner, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Hebrews 7: Jesus Christ Saves to the Uttermost

• Hebrews 7:11-19: The Levitical priesthood could not bring perfection. The bringing in of a better hope did, and by that hope we draw nigh unto God.
• Hebrews 7:22: Jesus was made a surety of a better testament.
• Hebrews 7:24-25: Jesus continueth ever with an unchangeable priesthood. Jesus is therefore able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.
• Hebrews 7:26-27: Unlike the former priests, Jesus Christ needed no daily sacrifice, for Jesus offered up Himself once.
• Hebrews 7:28: The word of the oath makes the Son a high priest who is consecrated for evermore.

Hebrews 8: The New Covenant and the Forgiveness of Sins

• Hebrews 8:1-2: Jesus Christ is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. Jesus Christ is a minister of the true tabernacle.
• Hebrews 8:6: Jesus Christ is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
• Hebrews 8:7-9: The first covenant was not faultless, so God promised a new covenant.
• Hebrews 8:10-11: Under the new covenant God puts His laws into the minds of His people and writes them in their hearts.
• Hebrews 8:12: God promises to be merciful to their unrighteousness and to remember their sins and their iniquities no more.
• Hebrews 8:13: By calling it a new covenant, God made the first old, and what waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 9: Redemption, the Blood of Jesus Christ, and the Remission of Sins

This chapter gives one of the fullest explanations in Scripture of how blood sacrifice, cleansing, redemption, and the remission of sins fit together.

• Hebrews 9:1-10: The earthly sanctuary, its priests, the blood of animals, and divers washings were a figure for the time then present. They could not make the worshipper perfect as pertaining to the conscience.
• Hebrews 9:11-12: Christ entered in once into the holy place by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
• Hebrews 9:13-14: The blood of Christ purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
• Hebrews 9:15: Christ is the mediator of the new testament. By means of the death of Christ we have redemption from the transgressions under the first testament.
• Hebrews 9:16-18: A testament is of force only after the death of the testator, so even the first testament was not dedicated without blood.
• Hebrews 9:19-21: Moses sprinkled the book, the people, the tabernacle, and the vessels of the ministry with blood. He called it the blood of the testament.
• Hebrews 9:22: Almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.
• Hebrews 9:23-24: Christ entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
• Hebrews 9:25-26: Christ appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
• Hebrews 9:27-28: Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. Christ shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation to them that look for Him.

Descriptive

Hebrews names the blood of Jesus Christ as the ground of eternal redemption. No verse in Hebrews names water baptism as the means that applies that blood.

Watch: Hebrews 9:22 in 45 Seconds

Hebrews 10: The One Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the Remission of Sins

• Hebrews 10:1-2: The law, having a shadow of good things to come, could never with its yearly sacrifices make the comers thereunto perfect.
• Hebrews 10:3-4: Those sacrifices brought a remembrance of sins every year. It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
• Hebrews 10:5-9: Christ came to do the will of God, taking away the first order of sacrifices to establish the second.
• Hebrews 10:10: By that will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
• Hebrews 10:11-12: Every earthly priest stood daily offering sacrifices that can never take away sins. Christ offered one sacrifice for sins for ever and sat down on the right hand of God.
• Hebrews 10:13-14: By one offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
• Hebrews 10:15-17: The Holy Ghost is a witness to us that God will remember the sins and iniquities of His people no more.
• Hebrews 10:18: Where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
• Hebrews 10:19-20: Believers have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The way is a new and living way, consecrated through the veil, that is to say, the flesh of Jesus.
• Hebrews 10:21-22: Believers are called to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Their hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience and their bodies washed with pure water.
• Hebrews 10:23: Believers are told to hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering, for God is faithful that promised.
• Hebrews 10:26-29: A warning is given to those who sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth. They count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing.
• Hebrews 10:30-31: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
• Hebrews 10:32-36: Believers are told not to cast away their confidence, for they have need of patience to receive the promise.
• Hebrews 10:37-39: The just shall live by faith. We are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

Descriptive

Prescriptive

Hebrews 10:22 does speak of bodies washed with pure water. Some Bible teachers see an allusion to Christian baptism in these words. Others see the washings of the Old Covenant priests behind them (Exodus 29:4; Leviticus 16:4). In either reading, the passage grounds our access to God in the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19). It calls us to draw near in full assurance of faith. The verse never says that water removes sins.

Hebrews 11: Faith in God as the Way God’s People Have Always Come to Him

Hebrews 11 shows the nature and necessity of faith in God through believers who lived before Jesus Christ came in the flesh. In every example, the faith described is trust in God and in His promise. Those promises find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

• Hebrews 11:1-3: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.
• Hebrews 11:4: By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice and obtained witness that he was righteous.
• Hebrews 11:5: By faith Enoch was translated, and before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
• Hebrews 11:6: Without faith it is impossible to please God, as the verse quoted below states in full.
• Hebrews 11:7: By faith Noah prepared an ark and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
• Hebrews 11:8-10: By faith Abraham obeyed the call of God and looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
• Hebrews 11:11-12: Through faith Sara received strength to conceive seed, because she judged God faithful who had promised.
• Hebrews 11:13-16: These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but they saw them afar off and desired a better country.
• Hebrews 11:17-19: By faith Abraham offered up Isaac, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.
• Hebrews 11:20-22: By faith Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph spoke and acted on the promises of God concerning things to come.
• Hebrews 11:23-28: By faith the parents of Moses hid him, and by faith Moses kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood.
• Hebrews 11:29-31: By faith Israel passed through the Red sea, and by faith Rahab received the spies with peace.
• Hebrews 11:32-38: Many faithful men and women endured trial, persecution, and death while trusting the promises of God.
• Hebrews 11:39-40: These all obtained a good report through faith and yet received not the promise, because God provided some better thing for us.

Prescriptive

Hebrews 12: Looking Unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of Our Faith

• Hebrews 12:1-2: Believers run with patience the race set before them. They look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who endured the cross.
• Hebrews 12:3-4: Considering what Jesus endured strengthens believers in their striving against sin.
• Hebrews 12:5-11: The chastening of the Lord is a mark of sonship. It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness, that we might be partakers of the holiness of God.
• Hebrews 12:12-17: Believers are told to follow peace and holiness, looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.
• Hebrews 12:18-24: Believers are come to mount Sion and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant. They are come to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel.
• Hebrews 12:25-29: The writer warns us not to refuse Him that speaketh from heaven, for believers receive a kingdom which cannot be moved.

Hebrews 13: Sanctified by the Blood of Jesus

• Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
• Hebrews 13:9: It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats.
• Hebrews 13:10-12: Jesus suffered without the gate, that Jesus might sanctify the people with His own blood.
• Hebrews 13:13-14: Believers go forth unto Jesus without the camp, bearing the reproach of Jesus, and they seek a city to come.
• Hebrews 13:15-16: By Jesus Christ believers offer the sacrifice of praise, do good, and share with others. These are offerings of worship rather than offerings for sin.
• Hebrews 13:20-21: The God of peace brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. God makes believers perfect in every good work to do His will.

Step 2: Contextual-Literary (Setting and Genre)

Hebrews calls itself a word of exhortation (Hebrews 13:22). It reads like a written sermon, with teaching and warning woven together throughout. The author does not give his name. The letter was written to believers steeped in the Old Testament. They were under pressure to turn back from Jesus Christ to the old order of priests and sacrifices (Hebrews 10:32-39; 13:9-14).

The argument of the letter moves in one direction. Jesus Christ is better than the angels (chapters 1 and 2), and Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses (chapter 3). Jesus Christ holds a priesthood after the order of Melchisedec that is greater than the priesthood of Aaron (chapters 5 through 7). Jesus Christ is also the mediator of a better covenant (chapter 8). Chapters 9 and 10 then show that the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ accomplished what the old sacrifices only pictured.

The warning passages must be read inside this flow (Hebrews 2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 5:11-6:12; 10:26-39; 12:14-29). They warn against turning away from Jesus Christ, the only sacrifice for sins. The writer also states his confidence in his readers. He speaks of things that accompany salvation (Hebrews 6:9), and he says that we are not of them who draw back unto perdition (Hebrews 10:39).

Step 3: Grammatical-Lexical (Grammar and Word Meaning)

Several Greek words carry the argument of Hebrews.

Aphesis (ἄφεσις): This word means remission, forgiveness, or release. Hebrews 9:22 uses it when it says that without shedding of blood is no remission. Hebrews 10:18 uses it again when it says that where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

Haima (αἷμα): This word means blood. Hebrews uses it again and again to set the blood of animals beside the blood of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 9:12, 14, 22; 10:19; 12:24; 13:12, 20).

Pistis (πίστις): This word means faith, trust, or confidence. Hebrews 11 opens nearly every example with the phrase by faith, showing how the people of God responded to His promises.

Hilaskomai (ἱλάσκομαι): The King James Bible translates this verb in Hebrews 2:17 as to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. The word describes the atoning work that answers the just demand of God against sin. Related words are rendered propitiation in Romans 3:25 and 1 John 2:2.

Hupakouō (ὑπακούω): This verb means to obey, and Hebrews 5:9 uses it for them that obey Jesus Christ. Hebrews 3:18-19 places they that believed not beside the word unbelief, so disobedience and unbelief describe one and the same failure.

Baptismos (βαπτισμός): Hebrews never uses the verb baptizō. The related noun appears twice. Hebrews 6:2 lists a doctrine of baptisms among the first principles. Hebrews 9:10 uses the same noun for the divers washings of the old order. Neither verse connects water with the remission of sins.

Step 4: Historical-Cultural (Background and Original Audience)

Under the Old Covenant, the priests offered animal sacrifices day after day. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the holiest place, not without blood (Leviticus 16; Hebrews 9:7). Ceremonial washings were part of the life of the priests and the worshippers. These included washing with water and the ashes of an heifer (Leviticus 16:4; Numbers 19; Hebrews 9:13).

Hebrews speaks of the service of the priests in the present tense (Hebrews 8:4; 9:6-9; 10:1-2). For that reason, many students of the letter conclude that it was written before the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. The first readers would have known these rituals well, and some were tempted to go back to them.

Hebrews explains that these practices pointed forward to the greater work of Jesus Christ. The distinction in Hebrews 9:13-14 matters greatly. The old rituals sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. The blood of Christ purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Step 5: Exegetical (Drawing Out the Author’s Meaning)

1. The ground of remission is the blood of Jesus Christ. Hebrews says that Jesus Christ obtained eternal redemption by His own blood (Hebrews 9:12). The letter adds that without shedding of blood is no remission (Hebrews 9:22). Believers enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19).

2. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is once for all and complete. Jesus Christ offered up Himself once (Hebrews 7:27) and appeared once to put away sin (Hebrews 9:26). By one offering Jesus Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified (Hebrews 10:14). Where remission is, there is no more offering for sin (Hebrews 10:18), so nothing is added to complete it.

3. The response Hebrews calls for is faith in God through Jesus Christ. The word preached did not profit those who did not mix it with faith (Hebrews 4:2). Jesus Christ saves to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him (Hebrews 7:25). We draw near in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:22), and we believe to the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39).

4. The obedience of Hebrews 5:9 is the obedience of believing. Hebrews uses believed not and unbelief for the same failure in Hebrews 3:18-19. Paul writes that they have not all obeyed the gospel, and then he quotes Esaias, who asked who hath believed our report (Romans 10:16). Scripture also speaks of being obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7) and of obedience to the faith among all nations (Romans 1:5). Hebrews 5:9 never names water baptism.

Descriptive

5. None of the water passages in Hebrews says that water removes sin. Hebrews 6:2 names a doctrine of baptisms as a first principle. Hebrews 9:10 places divers washings among carnal ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. Hebrews 10:22 grounds our approach to God in the blood of Jesus and in full assurance of faith.

6. The warnings call believers to endure, and enduring shows that their faith in Jesus Christ is genuine. Hebrews 3:14 says that we are made partakers of Christ if we hold our confidence stedfast unto the end. The writer is persuaded of things that accompany salvation in his readers (Hebrews 6:9). He counts himself and them among those who believe to the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39).

Inductive conclusion: When every passage in Hebrews is gathered, the letter ties the remission of sins to the blood of Jesus Christ again and again. It ties access to God to faith in God through Jesus Christ. No passage in Hebrews ties the remission of sins to water.

Deductive conclusion: Without shedding of blood is no remission, and where remission is, there is no more offering for sin (Hebrews 9:22; 10:18). The one offering of Jesus Christ obtained eternal redemption and perfected for ever them that are sanctified (Hebrews 9:12; 10:14). Therefore water baptism cannot be the act that obtains or completes the remission of sins. Water baptism follows salvation as an act of obedience to Jesus Christ.

Summary: The Most Direct Passages on Whether Water Baptism Removes Sin

Step 6: Canonical-Theological (Coherence With the Whole of Scripture)

The teaching of Hebrews agrees with the rest of Scripture. Jesus Christ called His blood the blood of the new testament, shed for many for the remission of sins (Matthew 26:28). Whosoever believeth in the Son of God should not perish but have everlasting life, and he that believeth on Him is not condemned (John 3:16-18). The believer hath everlasting life and is passed from death unto life (John 5:24).

Peter preached that whosoever believeth in Jesus Christ shall receive remission of sins. The Holy Ghost then fell on the household of Cornelius before they were baptized in water (Acts 10:43-48). Peter later said that God purified their hearts by faith (Acts 15:7-9).

We are justified freely by the grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24-28). We are justified by the blood of Christ (Romans 5:9). In Jesus Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:13-14). After we believed, we were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and it is not of works (Ephesians 2:8-9). We were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19). The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

Step 7: Application (From Meaning to Faithful Response)

Hebrews calls us to rest our whole confidence on the finished sacrifice of Jesus Christ. No religious ceremony can add to what the blood of Jesus has already done. Water baptism is a command of Jesus Christ, and I teach it as an act of obedience that follows salvation. Yet anyone who claims that baptismal water removes sin must prove that claim from Scripture, and Hebrews gives no such proof.

Water has never purged one sin, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.

Child of God, you may come boldly unto the throne of grace today, because Jesus Christ has entered within the veil for you. Glory to God!

Preaching Notes

• Build the main message on Hebrews 9:11-28 and Hebrews 10:1-22, because these passages explain the blood of Jesus Christ and the remission of sins most fully.
• Use Hebrews 11 as supporting evidence that God’s people have always come to God by faith in His promise.
• Make the positive case first. Hebrews does more than stay silent about baptismal regeneration. It names the sacrifice and blood of Jesus Christ as the ground of the remission of sins.
• Address Hebrews 6:2, Hebrews 9:10, and Hebrews 10:22 openly, because hearers who hold to baptismal regeneration will raise them.
• Pair Hebrews 5:9 with Hebrews 3:18-19 and Romans 10:16 to show that obeying the gospel means believing it.

Closing Statement

Jesus Christ by one offering accomplished the purging of sins, eternal redemption, and the remission of sins. Anyone who teaches baptismal regeneration must therefore show from Hebrews where water baptism accomplishes or activates that remission. The text of Hebrews places that work in the blood of Jesus Christ alone. My aim is to test this teaching by the Scriptures, as the Bereans did (Acts 17:11), and never to judge the salvation of any person.

Descriptive (verses 18, 19, and 21) and Prescriptive (verse 20)

Related studies on the blood of Jesus Christ: Without Shedding of Blood: Hebrews 9:22 and the Passover, The Way In: Access to the Father Through the Blood of Jesus, and He Ever Liveth to Make Intercession (Hebrews 7:25). If you have questions about anything you have read here, we would be glad to hear from you.