24 But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.
25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
This verse is the key to this section. You see, the emphasis is upon the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is living. He is not dead — He is not on a cross; He is not lying in a grave. He arose from the dead, and the emphasis is upon our living Christ.
26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;
was fitting for us,-He is what we need
who is holy- in His relation to God,
harmless He never does anything to harm — He is never moved by anger
undefiled – free from any moral impurity
separate from sinners- in His life and character, although He is right down here among us and wants us to come to Him
become higher than the heavens- He is in the presence of God
27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
His sacrifice was not of silver or gold or bulls or goats; He offered up Himself!
There is nothing of greater value than He.
28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
1 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
Christ did something which no priest in the Old Testament ever did.
There is not a priest in the line of Aaron who ever had a chair in the tabernacle where he sat down. He was on the run all the time. Why? Because he had work to do.
Now that Christ has died, all has been fulfilled, and we do not need to wonder if we are doing enough to merit salvation. All we need to do is turn to Jesus Christ and trust Him as our Savior. He sat down because He had finished our redemption. He asks only that we accept it.
2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
Bezaleel was the master craftsman who made the beautiful articles of furniture for the tabernacle. The mercy seat and the golden lampstand were of gold and highly ornate.
It was all man-made, although the Holy Spirit directed him.
In contrast, the Lord Jesus ministers in a tabernacle that He Himself has made in heaven.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this One also have something to offer.
Sacrifices were of blood. They had to do with the cleansing of sins.
Jesus did that once and for all.
Gifts had to do with free will offerings, gifts of self-dedication, thanksgiving, and commitment.
Neither gifts nor sacrifices could be offered to God by a layman.
Both gifts and sacrifices had to come through the high priest.
Jesus does not offer up any more sacrifices for our sins. He did that once and for all.
But He still does offer up gifts to God the Father.
He does it in this way:
We can only come to God through Jesus Christ.
We can only dedicate ourselves, offer praise, and vows of commitment, IF we come through Jesus.
He is the only we that man is able to approach the Father.
And so in that way, He offers on our behalf, the gifts of our thanksgiving, our praise, our dedication.
The Christian had a need for Jesus to continue to NOT to offer sacrifices, but our gifts to God.
Our gifts of praise, worship, commitment, dedication, thanksgiving, etc.
4 For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law;
5 who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
“For if that first covenant had been faultless” — the first covenant was not adequate, which created a necessity for a better covenant. Somebody says, “Then the old covenant was wrong.” Now, that is not the case. Listen to the next verse:
8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
“For finding fault with them” — not with it. The problem never was with God’s covenant. There is nothing wrong with God’s law, but there is a whole lot wrong with you and me. You and I are not able to keep the Law; we are not able to measure up to its requirements.
9 “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD.
The people broke the first covenant. It did not enable them to perform what it demanded.
10 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
The New Covenant will be written upon their hearts — not upon tables of stone — so that they will be able to obey it.
11 “None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD, for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.
12 “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
There will be full forgiveness of sin. There will be complete pardon.
13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Hebrews 9
1 Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.
2 For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;
3 and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,
4 which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;
5 and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
6 Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services.
7 But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance;
8 the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.
9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience–
10 concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.
11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.
12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,
14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
16 For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
17 For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives.
18 Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood.
19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.”
21 Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.
22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;
25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another–
26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,
28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.