Twice the author clearly states
that the heavens are part of this creation and will suffer the same fate as the
earth. The first passage is in the first part of the letter, in Heb. 1.10-12.
The author cites Ps 101(102).26-28, and applies it to the person of the Son:
‘In the beginning, Lord, you found the earth, and the heavens are the work
of your hands; they will perish, but you remain . . .’. The expression
‘work of your hands’, is found in the Psalm, and the verbal adjective ‘made
with hands’ in 9.11 are evidently related. The tent ‘not made with hands, that
is not of this creation’ and the heavens that are the ‘work of the Lord’s hands’
are not identified but rather contrasted.
The second text comes in the last
part of the letter, in 12.26-27. There the author uses an oracle from Haggai
2.6, in this form: ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the
heaven’, and he expounds this eschatological pronouncement by saying: ‘This
phrase “Yet once more” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created
things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain’. Two levels of ‘created’
things (πεποιημενων: the verb is
the same as in χειρο-ποιητος in 9.11) and the eschatological
level of definitive realities (this contrast corresponds to the one established
in 1.10-12 between the present creation and the glorified Christ. Just as
Christ remains (1.11-12; cf. 7.24; 13.8], so also the realities he has
established [which constitute the ‘unshakeable kingdom’ that believers are
receiving, 12.28] are definitive). Heaven is not included in this new order,
but in the present creation, destined for ‘removal’ (It emerges from these
texts that the expression ‘work of your hands’, ‘made with hands’, denote for
our author an inferior order of creation [cf. Philo, Plant 50].
Cosmological realities are only sketches. Definitive reality appears later in
its perfect form. It is of a higher order, because it gives us a closer
relationship with God, who shares his holiness with us and admits us into his
presence). It has no role to play in Christ’s eternal priesthood. (Albert
Vanhoye, “’By the Greater and More Perfect Tent’ Heb 9.11),” in Vanhoye, A
Perfect Priest: Studies in the Letter to the Hebrews [trans. Nicholas J.
Moore and Richard J. Ounsworth; Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen
Testament 2. Reihe 477; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018], 82-83)
