This phrase, ουδ ινα is key in two respects.
First of all it shows the connection to verse 24, and the entry, and therefore continues the argument about the cleansing of the heavenly things.
And second it points to the correct interpretation of the word "offer" in verse 25.
The "offering" of Himself in verse 25 happens as part of His entrance into God's presence. The offering then is not speaking of the death but of the presentation before the Father.
And the "offer" here is the fulfillment of the sprinkling on the day of atonement.
Here is the evidence:
a. The term that is used for offer here means to bring/offer/present. It is also the term that is used in 9:7 when describing the sprinkling of blood in the earthly day of atonement:
Heb 9:7 but into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.
The author in 9:7 uses an unusual term to describe the day of atonement ministration of blood in the earthly sanctuary. The blood in the day of atonement type was sprinkled. But instead of sprinkling the author describes it as presentation of blood. This anticipates the fulfillment where Christ presents Himself in God's presence. Jesus in the fulfillment enters God's presence (9:24) and offers/presents Himself, just as the earthly high priest offered the blood on the day of atonement in God's presence, according to the author in vs. 7.
Heb 9:24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
Heb 9:25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own
Jesus did not sprinkle Himself in heaven, but He presented Himself. His shed blood was long since dried after the cross. But He lives again and presents blood in the form of a living, completed sacrifice. He presents Himself in God's presence.
b. Jesus' offering of Himself is compared to the ENTRY of the earthly high priest, not the killing of the animal by the high priest.
Heb 9:25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,
The presentation of Christ is directly analogous to the entry with blood of animals by the high priest yearly (yearly is here meant rather than throughout the year as the term with κατα is the distributive usage). The yearly entry with blood by the high priest into God's presence is the day of atonement, as even many Adventist scholars have recognized:
Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary on Hebrews 10:1
Compare ch. 9:25, 26, where the work of Christ is again contrasted with that of the earthly high priest on the Day of Atonement.
M.L. Andreasen in The Book of Hebrews:
Verses 25, 26. The priests entered the first apartment daily, the high priest once every year when
he went into the most holy with the blood of the bullock and the goat.
William Johnsson in his essay Day of Atonement Allusions, which can be found in the DARCOM volume on Hebrews, lists 9:25 as clearly alluding to the day of atonement.
The context clearly points to a Day of Atonement allusion (high priest...yearly...blood [cf. 9:7])
Alwyn Salom in his appendix article in the Daniel and Revelation committee series, speaking of verse 24, 25:
The reference in the context of the day of atonement service of the earthly high priest is not to the outer compartment of the sanctuary.
Richard Davidson, notes that vs. 25 is an unmistakable reference to the day of atonement:
I agree with Young that Hebrews 9:7 and 9:25 refer to Day of Atonement, because of the clear references to “once a year” and “every year” respectively. Inauguration or Day of Atonement? Andrews University Seminary Studies, Spring 2002, pg. 79
Felix Cortez states in his article From the Holy to the Most Holy Place: The Period of Hebrews 9:6-10 and the Day of Atonement as a Metaphor of Transition:
Unchallenged references to the Day of Atonement in the central section include 9:7, 25
c. It makes no sense to say "Nor yet did He enter in order that He might offer Himself in death repeatedly." The death did not happen at the entry but on earth. But the offer here is the offering of Himself in God's presence. And that did happen at the entry.
d. If we take Jesus' offering of Himself to be death then it does not make sense of the whole argument in verse 25 and 26.
Heb 9:25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,
Heb 9:26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
The argument the author is making is that if Jesus were to offer Himself in heaven before God often He would also have to suffer (death) often.
But this argument, that for Jesus to present Himself often in heaven would require Him to suffer often, is lost if both "offer" and "suffer" mean death.
If both "offer and "suffer" referred to death then the argument of the two verses would be:
Nor yet was it to die often ....for then he would have had to die often....
The statement would be redundant.
Instead what we see in vs. 24 and 25, in direct answer to the necessity of the cleansing of the heavenly things, is an entrance into God's presence, fulfilling the offering of the blood by Jesus presenting Himself once for all. Jesus is living. He does not present His blood in a bowl but in His person.
Here are a number of commentaries which note this:
Jamieson Faussett Brown|:
Construe, "Nor yet did He enter for this purpose that He may offer Himself often," that is, "present Himself in the presence of God, as the high priest does (Paul uses the present tense, as the legal service was then existing), year by year, on the day of atonement, entering the Holy of Holies.
Commentary on the New Testament by D. D. Whedon
This offer is parallel to the entereth of the high priest; it, therefore does not here mean to sacrifice himself, but to present himself in heaven, as the high prest presented himself in the holy place. Yet in both cases a previous sacrifice takes place.
Beacon Bible Commentary
Extends the thought of the previous verse by affirming that this crucial self-presentation before the Father does not need to be repeated, as the high priest entereth into the [earthly] holy place every year with blood of others. If our Lord's mediatorial deed were not more conclusive than the Levitical copy, then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
Vincet's Word Studies notes this as well stating:
Offer himself refers rather to Christ's entrance into the heavenly sanctuary and presentation of himself before God, than to his offering on the cross...The sacrifice on the cross is described by παθειν suffer, Heb 9:26, and is introduced as a distinct thought. The point is that, being once in the heavenly sanctuary, Christ was not compelled to renew often his presentation of himself there, since, in that case, it would be necessary for him to suffer often. Each separate offering would necessitate a corresponding suffering.
New International Commentary on the New Testament (F.F. Bruce)
Moreover, when Christ entered into the heavenly sanctuary, he entered once for all. His entrance into the presence of God on his people's behalf, by virtue of his own blood, is set in sharp contrast to the entrance of Israel's high priest into the material holy of holies on the Day of Atonement.
Layman's Bible Commentary
Again, our Lord's entrance as High Priest into the heavenly sanctuary need not be performed "repeatedly" (vs.25). Repetitions of this type, as the author has already indicated, serve to show the nonvalidity (sic) of the sacrifices thus presented (vss. 8-10).
Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews by Franz Delitsch
V. 25 Nor yet (is he entered in) that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy of holies year by year with alien blood.
The comparison is between the offering of the Jewish high priest within the veil, and that of Christ in the eternal sanctuary: the προσφερειν εαυτον here spoken of cannot therefore be ...the self-sacrifice of Christ upon earth, but a self-presentation subsequent to that. The Jewish high priest goes year by year into the typical sanctuary, εν...αιματι αλλοτριω, i.e. to offer there the blood of a sacrifice which is not himself. Not so with Christ. He is gone into the heavenly sanctuary once for all, not to offer Himself first now, and then again some time hence, and again afterwards, and so on in perpetual succession.
On verse 26:
An of-repeated self-oblation (πολλακις προσφερειν εαυτον
would have been impossible without an oft-repeated suffering of death (πολλακισ παθειν.
The Epistle to the Hebrews: The First Apology for Christianity, An Exegetical Study, by Alexander Balmain Bruce
These verses (25-28) may be paraphrased thus: Christ has entered into the heavenly sanctuary to appear in the presence of God for us, and to abide there, herein differing from the Levitical high priest, who went into the most holy place and came out and went in again, repeating the process year by year, and making many appearances before God, with the blood of fresh sacrifices. Christ presents Himself before God once for all, remaining in the celestial sanctuary, and not going out and coming in again and again. It must be so; any other state of things would involve an absurdity. If Christ were to go in and come out, go in and come out, again and again, that would imply His dying over and over again; for the object of the repeated self-presentations in the presence of God on the part of the Jewish high priest was to offer the blood of new victims; but as Christ’s sacrifice was Himself, each new self-presentation would in His case imply a previous repetition of His passion. He must often on that supposition have suffered death since the foundation of the world.
The Expositor’s Greek Testament
“Nor yet [did he enter in] in order to offer Himself repeatedly,” that is, He did not enter in for a brief stay from which He was to return to renew His sacrifice. Westcott holds that the “offering” corresponds with the offering of the victim upon the altar, not with the bringing of the blood into the Holy of Holies. He refers to v. 14, εαυτον προσηνεγκεν, to ver. 28, and also to x. 10. Similarly Weiss and others. But in ix. 7 προσφερει distinctly refers to the bringing in and application of the blood in the Holy of Holies, and the context of the present passage seems decidedly to make for the same interpretation. The sequence of the ινα clause after εισηλθεν; the analogy presented in the clause under ωσπερ; and the consequences stated under επει (ver. 26) all combine in favouring this meaning. The high priest enters the Holiest annually, but Christ’s entering in was of another kind, not requiring repetition.
The Greek Testament
On vs. 26, in reference to 25 and 26 and the argument therein:
This παθειν is here not equivalent to that προσφερειν, but is emphatically placed as a new necessity, involved in that; the πολλακις being common to both: the πολλακιςπροσφερειν necessitated the πολλακιςπαθειν. If Christ’s view in entering heaven was to offer, present, himself often to God, then, as a condition of that frequent presentation, there would be an antecedent necessity for Him to suffer often: because that self-presentation is in fact the bringing in before God of the Blood of that his suffering: and if the one was to be renewed, so must the other be likewise.
