Hebrews
Now the first covenant had rules for divine service and its earthly
sanctuary.
A tabernacle was prepared. In the outer part, which is called the
Holy Place, were the lampstand, the table, and the sacred bread.
Behind the
second curtain there was an inner part which is called the Most Holy Place.
In it were a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides
with gold. In the ark were a golden jar holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that
budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.
Above the ark were the
cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. But we
cannot now go into detail about these things.
So with these things prepared in this way, the priests
continually go into the outer part, performing their services.
But into
the inner part the high priest goes alone once a year, and not without blood,
which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people done in ignorance.
The holy spirit uses this to show that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been
revealed while the old tabernacle system was still operating.
That tabernacle was a symbol for that
time, when gifts and sacrifices were offered which could not make the
worshiper perfect in conscience.
They were only food and drink and various ritual
washings, physical rules imposed until a time of reformation.
But now Messiah has appeared as the high priest of the good things to
come. He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made
with hands, that is to say, not of this present creation,
and he entered once
for all into the Most Holy Place, not through the blood of goats and calves, but
through his own blood, and so he secured the redemption of the age to
come.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer
sprinkling those who have been defiled, consecrated for outward, ritual purity,
how much more will the blood of Messiah, who through the spirit of the
age to come offered himself without defect to God, purify our consciences from dead works to serve the living God!
So then he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who
have been invited may receive the promised inheritance of the age to
come, since a death has taken place for deliverance from violations committed under the first covenant.
For where there is a covenant,
there
must be proven the death of the one who made it.
For a covenant is valid at
death, and it is not in force while the one who made it lives.
So even the
first covenant was ratified with blood.
For when every commandment had
been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the
blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and
sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
saying, “This is the blood
of the covenant which God commanded you to obey.”
And in the same way he
sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and all the things used in worship.
According to the Law, nearly everything was purified with blood, and without
the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
It was necessary therefore for the sketches of the things in the heavens to
be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things
themselves
required better sacrifices than these.
For the Messiah did not enter a holy place
made with hands, which is a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now
to appear in the presence of God for us.
And he did not need to offer
himself often, the way the high priest enters the holy place year after year
with blood not his own,
for then he would have had to suffer often since the
foundation of the world. But now once at the culmination of the ages, he
has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Just as it
is appointed for people to die once, and after this comes judgment,
so
Messiah also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear
a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly
waiting for him.
Hebrews