¹¹ But when Christ appeared as a 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 creation; ¹² and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

Tabernacle worship was only for a time, until the thing symbolized came—like a lover puts away the picture once his or her beloved has arrived. Christ has arrived, and He came as a high priest. We learned earlier in Hebrews that His was a new kind of priesthood, in the order of Melchizedek. His priesthood is far greater. Now we are introduced to the “greater and more perfect” tabernacle. This is what Moses saw at Sinai.

This tabernacle that Moses constructed turns out to be a figurative expression of the work of Christ entering the Father’s presence on our behalf. We are invited to simply picture it as the Lord entering a celestial tent. Paul recognized the inadequacy of human words to describe what he saw when he spoke of being “caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak” (2 Cor 12:4). This is the place where Christ offered His sacrifice to the Father, where He “obtained eternal redemption.”

This “greater and more perfect tabernacle” was not human made. In fact it is completely separate from creation. It is therefore uncreated, eternally existent. Since God Himself is the only eternally existent entity, the tabernacle must be identified as the very presence of God Himself. Entry to His presence was not through the sacrifice a created thing like goats or calves, but through the sacrifice of an eternal being. Thus the offering Christ provided was not just physical, but was also a spiritual sacrifice. Yet the physical was important, because throughout the book of Hebrews the physical nature of the blood and body of Christ are emphasized. His sacrifice was a physical-spiritual event, merging the eternal with the finite, the spiritual with the physical. Christ’s sacrifice was the ultimate reconciliation of all things to God. The breach in the space-time-spirit-eternal continuum has been bridged. More than bridged, it has been restored and unified.

This redemption was a once for all deal, indicating that God was working in time to bring about an eternal, time-liberated effect. It came about because the God-man suffered a physical death, which was presented to the Father (the Most Holy Place) in a one time-only event. The result: we have been redeemed!

Lord, thank You that I am wonderfully and eternally redeemed because of Your High Priestly work in presenting Yourself as a sacrifice for my sin before God.