Hebrews 10:20 speaks of “a new living way opened for us through the curtain” – which in the tabernacle of old separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place (9:2-3). No Israelite could go through that curtain into the Most Holy Place, except the high priest once a year, to “show that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed” (7-8).
But that changed after Jesus died and he became our high priest, because, thanks to him, we can now “confidently enter the Most Holy Place” (10:19-21) and see into “the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, entered on our behalf” (6:19-20).
So where Jesus is, we are too. And since he’s now “seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven” (8:1), so are we. This new living way, then – that enables us to pass through the curtain and see behind it – means we are now with Jesus, in heaven.
Paul confirms this in Ephesians 2:6, that “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms,” and in Colossians 3:1-3, that “since we’ve been raised with Christ….our life is now hidden with Christ.” So we aren’t limited to just this visible, physical world. Which sounds impossible when we’re so dependent on what we see as evidence of existence, but according to Hebrews 11, faith grants us hope and certainty in this other world that we cannot see too (verses 1 and 3).
Which was God’s intent from the beginning, because faith would have done the same for Adam and Eve. If they’d trusted what God said and not the word of a serpent, they would have stayed in the Garden of Eden, and had God’s world opened up to them. Instead, for their lack of faith, they were kicked out of the Garden, and the curtain to God’s world was drawn closed.
But it wasn’t the end of faith. Amazingly, despite Adam and Eve’s abject failure in trusting God, their second son, Abel, “By faith offered God a better sacrifice than that of his brother Cain,” Hebrews 11:4. It was “better” because it involved blood. So, had God given Abel a glimpse through the curtain, that only a blood sacrifice – like that of Jesus later – would cancel out God’s judgment on humanity and open up his world to us again? If so, Abel got the message and believed it, and his faith got him “commended by God as a righteous man” (4). Which shows, as the next story about Enoch also shows, that “Faith pleases God immensely”….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 