After He completed His great assignment which culminated with Calvary, Jesus ascended back to heaven. Luke described the scene this way: “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Then two angels explained what just happened: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven (Acts 1:9, 11).”
We notice that the word heaven in our text is plural; He passed, not through heaven, but the heavens. That is because there are three heavens. The sky above us, where clouds float by and raindrops fall, is the first heaven. The second heaven is outer space, where we see the sun and moon, and the occasional planet. The third heaven is far above the second, and is the dwelling place of God. In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul described a vision into this third heaven where he saw things he was not permitted to record.
So Jesus passed through the three heavens in order to be our Savior. He did so when He came to earth, and then again when He left. The writer of Hebrews includes that fact because his audience would have understood the significance. The writer is explaining that Jesus is the great High Priest. The Jews who received this letter knew that the high priest had to pass through three levels to perform his duty.
The priest would offer a sacrifice for the sins of the nation, and then carry that blood into the outer courtyard, then into the Holy Place, and finally into the Most Holy Place, where the blood was poured onto the Mercy Seat.
It is significant that there was no chair in the temple because the priests didn’t sit down. They were continually offering sacrifices because the work was never finished. But Hebrews goes on to say, “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (10:12).”
The high priest would pass through the three areas of the temple to make continual sacrifices, but Jesus passed through the three heavens to make a single sacrifice, and because “it is finished,” He sat down, indicating there is no more sacrifice to make. All that is left is for us to trust in what He has done.
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