Skip to main content

Passed Through the Heavens


The author of Hebrews wrote, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession (4:14).” What does it mean that Jesus passed through the heavens? This certainly calls to mind the incarnation and His earthly ministry, when Jesus left heaven and was born into our world. 

 

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.  

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Save a Life

(Like my blog about the peace symbol, this blog was written as a default response to all the parents, students, and other people who are asking my opinion of To Save a Life.) By now you have probably heard of the movie To Save a Life, which opened nation-wide in theaters on January 22nd. The movie deals with so many issues that teens face today, like suicide, cutting, drinking, drugs, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and abortion. At first glance this movie looks like an awesome resource that we should recommend for our teens, parents, youth pastors, and youth workers. But a closer look at the movie reveals a few disturbing things. For starters, according to pluggedin.com, there are 2 uses of the “A” word, 5 uses of hell (used as a curse word), and once the “D” word is used. There are other crude terms used to describe a girl, and crude terms for referring to sexual activity. There is also a bedroom scene that shows a girl removing a boy’s shirt, then afterwards the girl putting he...
38 comments
Read more

Catechism #15

Q. By what sin did our first parents fall from their original condition? 
A. Our first parents’ sin was eating the forbidden fruit. The first sin we see in the Bible was in the eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam and Eve. But as we saw last week, there are sins of commission and omission. The eating of the fruit was an act of commission—a sin that was committed in the Garden of Eden. But before Eve ever took her first bite, a few sins of omission occurred that led up to the sin of commission. First, notice that it was Eve, not Adam, that did all the talking with the serpent in Genesis 3. Yet it was Adam, not Eve, who was created as the spiritual leader of the family. For whatever reason Adam abdicated his role as the spiritual leader and stood silently by as Eve ate the fruit. After Eve’s bite, she gave it to Adam, and he ate it too. Not only did Adam omit his role as leader, Eve omitted her trust in the goodness of God. Not only did she misquote God ...
Post a Comment
Read more

All Things To All Men

One of our favorite verses to use in our evangelism methods is where Paul said that he “becomes all things to all men” so that he might “by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22).” This is certainly a good idea if we keep it in its proper context and application. For example, I remember a time in high school where I knew a kid that loved skateboarding. Being the chicken that I am, I was never a skateboarder. All he would talk about was skating, and I knew none of his lingo. But to help develop a relationship with him (he was new to our church and didn’t know many people), I brushed up on my skating lingo so I could ask if he had done any sick ollies lately (impressed?). This would be like Paul saying “to the skateboarder, I became a skateboarder.” This is effective and necessary. But then there are the people that use this verse to justify doing sinful things in the name of evangelism. The first one that comes to mind is about drinking. Some people will go into the bars to evan...
23 comments
Read more