¹⁹This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, ²⁰ where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Hope is central to Christian life, it is what keeps us moving ahead through the difficulties, discouragements and defeats of life. There is the inner sense, through faith, that there is something better on before us. It is as though there is an inner sanctuary for the soul, beneath all the doubts, disappointments and depressions that so easily plague us. No matter how hard life gets, the Christian’s hope will sustain and support him.

But this hope is not in something wistful or whimsical. Rather it is rooted in the historical fact of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Though a past event, 2000 years ago, it gives us hope for eternity—because what Christ did was timeless, an eternal event. Indeed, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world…” (Eph 1:4a). Is Christ not “…the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world”? (Rev 13:8b). Time is not essential to that which is eternal, rather it is completely subsumed, eclipsed. So, when Christ provided a sacrifice, it was not limited in any way, and not the least by the sequence of before and after that we call time. His death is everywhere and always present—eternity may have bisected time, the infinite invading the finite, but it was in no way limited by that which it came to. We believe the eternal Son of God became a human man. So we also believe the sacrifice of the eternal Son of God took place in time. Yet just as the Christ did not cease to be the Son of God, His sacrifice did not only find reality 2000 years ago, but continues to be a reality through 2000 years until the present, and will continue to be a reality forever. That’s why John saw in his vision, “a Lamb standing, as if slain…” (Rev 5:6). Indeed, Jesus in His resurrected body continued to show the marks of the sacrifice in His hands (John 20:26-29).

Christ is portrayed in the imagery of a priest entering the inner sanctuary of the temple (called the Holy of Holies) where no one but the high priest could enter, and then only once a year. Christ is both the sacrifice and the priest who presents the sacrifice. He entered on our behalf, but not as a Levitical priesthood—for that would have meant repeated sacrifices and a continuance of the Law. Rather He performs the role of a Melchizedekian priest, a subject to which the writer now turns again after temporarily setting it aside in Hebrews 5:10-11.

Lord, I hold on to the hope I have in the timeless death of Christ, who is greater than all else, including the priesthood under the Law.