Hebrews chapter 9

vs 11

So now we start our comparisons of the earthly tabernacle and Christ. I'm sure we can learn a lot from this, but as I've said before, the author is mainly trying to pull on the strings of Jews.

So Christ entered a tabernacle as a high priest. But it wasn't the one on earth (ie the temple of his time). It was, it would seem, a more perfect tabernacle.

vs 12

The method of his entrance was by blood sacrifice, but it was not that of goats and calves, it was his own. So obviously we're talking about his death, and hence this is most likely to be a spiritual metaphorical understanding of Christ's sacrificial death. He didn't walk into the tabernacle.

vs 13

Not even physically clean, just ceremonially clean. Representing cleanness.

vs 14

Christ's sacrifice then actually cleans us. Again, not physically, but it's not just a metaphor for being clean either. It's an actual stripping away of the marks left on us by our sinful acts. It might not be visible, but it's real. Better than something visible that is powerless.

vs 15

It is precisely because Christ is the sacrifice that he is able to mediate for us now as a high priest. Interesting, that, because it means that he has to enter the tabernacle to make the sacrifice, and leaves it being the high priest. But then, how did he get in? Oh no, the metaphor is crumbling around us! Will our faiths be shipwrecked?

Of course not. Christians live with paradox. This is a tiny and probably reconcileable one that is of such unimportance that we can just move on. After all, it's just a metaphor.

The big point here being that Christ mediates for us, and so now we have access to the internal inheritance.

vs 16

Of course. Makes sense. You can't inherit your father's land while he's out at the shops.

vs 17

A useful point to make at this juncture is one that the TNIV makes in its margin notes - that the word for "will" is the same as the word for "covenant". The suggestion being, then, that even covenants require death to take effect. Hence the sacrifices under the old system?

vs 18

See!!