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About this time of year, many people start thinking about New Year’s resolutions. There’s conviction and hope that habits will be changed or pounds will be shed. For many, however, these resolutions are broken in January and forgotten by March. Months pass, December arrives, and the cycle repeats itself!
It’s part of our human nature to experience limitations, despite our best intentions. This limitation is part of the argument made in Hebrews. Yesterday, we saw that Jesus the Great High Priest was able to do what the Levitical priests couldn’t do. Today, we’ll see that because Jesus is fully human and fully divine, He is able to offer a better sacrifice (Heb. 9:11–14) and effect a better covenant (vv. 15–22).
Access to the Holy of Holies in the wilderness tabernacle was only possible when human sin was cleansed by sprinkled animal blood. But Jesus is able to enter to the true Holy of Holies, heaven itself, because of His own shed blood. This better sacrifice does more than cleanse us from sin temporarily or externally–it cleans our very consciences.
The covenant mediated through Moses was glorious (2 Cor. 3:7), and with it came the inheritance of the Promised Land. But even so, this covenant is surpassed by the new covenant that Jesus Christ Himself mediates, and which effects the eternal inheritance of life with Him. Just as a human will only becomes effective when the person who wrote it dies, so too the old covenant required the death of animals; the new covenant required the blood of Jesus. The key to this is that forgiveness for sins requires shed blood (v. 22).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Hebrews helps us see the true significance of all the symbolism in the tabernacle. The arrangement of the tabernacle, the high priest, and the sacrifices all point to Jesus Christ. Like the tabernacle, He is where the glory of God is found. Like the high priest, He leads the people to God. Like the animals sacrifices, His blood removes sin. But unlike any of these earthly things, Jesus Christ accomplishes perfectly and forever what the earthly tabernacle could only do imperfectly and temporarily.
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