Hebrews 9 can feel repetitive, circling again and again around priests, blood, and sacrifice. Yet the writer’s purpose is deliberate. Each repetition presses upon us the weight of unfinished atonement—the relentless cycle of ritual that could never cleanse the conscience. The chapter invites us to feel that burden, to sense the distance between a holy God and sinful humanity.
The author recalls the elaborate design of the tabernacle and the regulations governing worship. The priests entered daily into the Holy Place, but only the high priest could enter the inner sanctuary—the Holy of Holies—and that only once a year, and not without blood. The writer’s own repetition ironically mirrors the relentless and futile rhythm of the priestly sacrifices—a continual testimony that access to God remained closed, the way into His presence ceremonially guarded. Each return to the altar revealed how far humanity had fallen from the presence of a holy God since sin entered the world—exiled from daily communion with their Creator, His nearness, and from His glory now hidden beyond the veil.
As Hebrews 9:8 explains, “By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing.” The first section of the tabernacle symbolizes the present age—a world still waiting for full redemption. No human priest, no shaman, no ritual or spoken prayer this side of heaven could perfect the conscience of the worshipper (Hebrews 9:9) or set us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Not even the annual sprinkling of blood by Israel’s high priest could remove sin’s stain—it could only cover it temporarily.
This is why no earthly rite performed by a priest can secure salvation. There is no biblical support for the practice of last rites or prayers for the dead. The church itself is not a launchpad into heaven. Only a perfect High Priest—one sent by God and fully God and fully man—can wipe away sin forever. Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
Somehow, by the Spirit of God, David glimpsed this truth centuries earlier. In Psalm 103 he rejoiced not in ritual sacrifice but in divine mercy itself:
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. (Psalm 103:10–13)
Paul echoes this in Colossians 2:13–14:
And you, who were dead in your trespasses … God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
And the writer of Hebrews later affirms, quoting Jeremiah 31:34:
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” (Hebrews 10:17)
Here the writer reiterates the main point: “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come…” (Hebrews 9:11). He entered not an earthly tent, but the true and perfect sanctuary—heaven itself. He came not with the blood of goats and calves but with His own blood, “thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). The endless cycle was broken. The repetition had met its end.
As recorded by three of the Gospel writers, when Christ breathed His last, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” The heavy veil that once separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was the visible symbol of our broken fellowship with God and the resulting punishment of exile from His presence in the Garden of Eden. The crucifixion ripped it apart. The way back to God was opened; fellowship restored.
No longer are believers bound by ritual or endless offerings of goats and bulls. The blood of Christ accomplishes what those sacrifices never could: “How much more will the blood of Christ... purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14).
In that light, the words Jesus spoke from the cross—“It is finished”—are worth repeating. Tetelestai: paid in full, accomplished, completed. What the priests could only symbolize, the Son of God completed. The debt was canceled, the conscience cleansed, the way made open.
The chapter closes with great hope: “So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time... to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28). His first coming ended sin’s power; His return will complete salvation’s promise.
Early in Hebrews, the writer warned believers not to drift away or turn back. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Hebrews 2:1). Having once lived under the weight of the Law, his audience now stands in the full light of the Gospel. Christ has done what the Law could never do—He has set us free.
Why, then, would anyone return to the shadows after seeing the light? The Law was never meant to enslave us, but to reveal the full magnitude of our sin and our desperate need for grace. Now that the perfect sacrifice has been offered, to rely again on rituals or works to appease God is a fruitless endeavor—a return to bondage. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). And again, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
The same struggle surfaced in the early church when some Jewish believers insisted that Gentile converts must follow the Law of Moses—including circumcision—to be saved. At the Jerusalem Council, Peter stood against this teaching, declaring that salvation cannot be achieved through ritual observance but only through faith in Christ:
“And he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:9–11)
The call of Hebrews is both a warning and an invitation: Don’t drift backward in unbelief, but hold fast to Christ. The veil is torn, the sacrifice is complete, and the way is open. To return to the old order is to rebuild a wall that God Himself has torn down.