<p>9:16 <i>For where a will is of power, there must of necessity be the death of him that made it</i>- Paul is playing on the meaning of the word translated &quot;testament&quot; or &quot;covenant&quot;; it also means a will, a set of promises which become actual after the death of the one who made the promises. I have commented elsewhere that whilst Paul's reasoning is true enough as it stands for us as Christians, viewing it retrospectively from our position, there are times when it would appear that he is rather forcing a point. For the obvious objection would be that it was God who made the new covenant, not Jesus; His death is not to be seen as the death of God, leaving us without Him to receive what He has left behind for us. But this kind of apparently forced logic would have been acceptable within the paradigm of Rabbinic midrash. The point becomes more logical however when we consider the argument that the old covenant or &quot;will&quot; was ordained with the shedding of blood, as if it would only come into true effect when someone died. And as explained in :15, the forgiveness offered under the old covenant was only finally effective when the Lord died. For the blood of animals of itself could not take away sin.</p><p>The death of the covenant victim was to act as a warning for what would happen to those who broke the covenant. Thus &quot;The men who transgressed my covenant&hellip; I will make like the calf which they cut in two&quot; (Jer. 34:18 RSV). In the account of a Babylonian covenant it was written: &quot;This head is not just the head of the goat&hellip; it is the head of Mati'ilu&hellip; If Mati'ilu breaks the oath, then as the head of this goat is cut off&hellip; so shall the head of Mati'ilu be cut off&quot;. Thus the dead animal was seen as a representative of the person who entered the covenant. The death of our Lord, therefore, serves as a reminder to us of the end for sin. We either put sin to death, or we must be put to death for it. Gal. 3:15; Heb. 9:16 and other passages liken the blood of Christ to a covenant; and yet the Greek word used means definitely the last will and testament of a dead man. His blood is therefore an imperative to us to do something; it is His will to us, which we must execute. Thus His death, His blood, which is also a symbol of His life, becomes the imperative to us for our lives and living in this world. Note how blood is a symbol of both life and also death (Gen. 37:26; Num. 35:19,33; Lev. 20:9). Both His death and His life form a covenant / testament / will for us to obey- in both baptism and then in living out the death and life in our daily experience. We cannot be passive to it.</p>