Hebrews, I suggest, understands
these Levitical concepts and reflects on the new covenant and its high priest
and sacrifice in terms that cohere with—are even informed by—the old covenant
and its priests and sacrifices. Because Jesus ascended into the heavenly holy
of holies and remains there, it follows for the author that Jesus is the
high priest who can guarantee that the new covenant relationship is perpetually
maintained, something no earthly high priest could do because of death and
because the law never brought about perfection. The law, in other words, never
made it possible for someone to enter the earthly holy of holies and remain
there in God’s presence, to say nothing of making it possible for a high priest
to pass through the heavens and remain in the heavenly holy of holies.
Moreover, as Hebrews 7:25 states, because Jesus is the high priest who always
lives and is always at God’s right hand, he is always able to intercede for his
people and so is able to save them completely (εις το παντελες).
The logic of Hebrews 7:25 implies
that, if Jesus were not actively interceding for his people, their complete
salvation would not be possible. Yet this implication suggests another: Jesus’s
followers need ongoing atonement. The very work that the high priests on earth
could do only once a year is done by Jesus perpetually. In contrast to the old
covenant high priests, who were prevented by death from remaining in their
office, Jesus, because of his resurrection, is able to not only serve as the
heavenly high priest but to do so without interruption. Thus, Jesus’
high-priestly ministry beings a level of purity and forgiveness that exceeds
that of the old covenant. Jesus’s ministry ensures that the new covenant
relationship is fully maintained. Because he is in himself both high priest and
sacrificial offering, his very presence in the Father’s presence secures the
covenant relationship and ensures the salvation of its members. (David M.
Moffitt, Rethinking the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death,
Resurrection, and Ascension [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2022],
147-48)
Given that Hebrews views salvation
not as something one presently possesses but as something one receives in the
future (e.g., 1:14; 9:28), Jesus’s continual intercession appears to be an
essential part of his work that ensures that his people will be fully
saved—they will successfully enter the promised inheritance. In all probability,
this full salvation has to do with all God’s people being resurrected when they
are all made perfect together (11:39-40). (Ibid., 148 n. 30)
Milligan recognized this, too,
writing with respect to Jesus’ heavenly session:
What is [Jesus] about [i.e.,
doing]? He is not simply interceding on the strength of a past gift or
sacrifice. He is presenting an offering on which his intercession is based, and
in which it is involved. The idea of offering . . . cannot be separated form
the action of our Lord after His Ascension, unless we also separate the thought
of offering from what was done by the high-priest of Israel in the innermost
sanctuary of his people. Such a separation the ceremonial of the law does not
permit. The Jewish high-priest ministered in that sanctuary with more than the
recollection or the merit of an offering already made. He had to sprinkle on
the mercy-seat and before the veil the blood which he carried in along with
him; he had to complete the reconciliation of Israel to God . . . And all of
this was part of the offering, not merely something done after the offering was
ended . . . As, therefore, the Jewish priest continued his work of offering
after he had gone within the veil, so, in similar circumstances, we must
connect with [Jesus] in whom the economy of Judaism is fulfilled the idea of
offering. (Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of Our Lord, 122-23) (Ibid.,
149 n. 32)
Hebrews it not a unique witness in
the New Testament to Jesus’s ongoing work of forgiveness and purification for
his people in the Father’s presence. The idea appears in 1 John 1:7-2:2 as
well. The collocation of Jesus’ blood, confession of sin, forgiveness of sins,
and purification in 1:7-9 suggests the author reflects on Jesus’s ongoing work
of forgiveness and purification in terms of Jewish sacrificial categories. That
the author thinks believers need on-going forgiveness and purification from
sins becomes particularly clear in 2:1. He states there that he is writing to
believers (“my little children”) in order to encourage them not to sin, the
obvious aim or ideal. If, however, they do sin, their sins can be dealt with by
means of Jesus’s ongoing advocacy for them before the Father. This ongoing
advocacy is possible because the author suggests in 2:2, Jesus is the atoning
sacrifice (ιλασμος) for their sins. The point
appears to be that Jesus is the advocate who can intercede for his people when
they sin because he is the atoning sacrifice for their sins who is alive and
with the Father right now. This looks remarkably like the nations of Jesus’s
high-priestly ministry and ongoing work of covenant maintenance that one finds
in Hebrews. (Ibid., 156 n. 47)
