A commentary on the whole Epistle to the Hebrews. By M. John Calvin. Translated…A commentarie on the vvhole Epistle to the Hebrevves. By M. Iohn Caluin. Translated…

For then he must have often suffered, Vers. 26 &c.] He showeth how absurd and unreasonable a thing it should be, if we content not our selves with the only sacrifice of Christ. For from thence he concludes, that he must then have often suffered, because death is always joined with the sacrifice. Now there is no reason at all to grant this latter: it follows then that the virtue of this only sacrifice is eternal, and stretcheth it self unto all times. He saith, since the foundation of the world, because that in all times since the beginning there have bin sins which have had need of purgation. If then the sacrifice of Christ had not been effectual from the beginning, ¹none of the Fathers had obtained salvation. For seeing that of themselves they were culpable before God, ⟨p. 197⟩and deserved his wrath, they had bin destitute of the remedy of redemption, and had had no means to escape the judgement seat of God, unless Christ by enduring of death once, had suffered from the beginning of the world to the end thereof, for the obtaining of Gods favour for men. And therefore let us satisfy our selves with this only sacrifice, unless peradventure we expect many deaths of Christ. By this it also evidently appears how frivolous that distinction of the Papists is, ²in which subtlety they so much please themselves, when they say that the offering up of Christ upon the cross was bloody; but the sacrifice of the Mass, which they forge to be offered up every day, is without blood. For if this subtle shift may have place, the Spirit of God shall be blamed of unadvisedness, because he remembered not himself concerning this. For the Apostle takes it for a thing out of question, that there is no sacrifice without death. I pass not, that the ancient Doctors have spoken thus: for it is not in the power of men to forge what sacrifices they list. This principle of the holy Ghost remains sure, that sins are not purged by sacrifices, unless there be effusion of blood. Therefore it is an invention of the devil, to hold that Christ should be often offered. But now in the end of the world he appeared once, &c. He calls the end of the world, that which S. Paul calls the fullness of time, Gal. 4: for the time was then expired, which the Lord had ordained by his eternal decree.