Hebrews 9:11

But Christ having come a high priest of good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation.

But Christ having come a high priest shows that the author of Hebrews considered the public ministry of Christ with his passion, death, and resurrection to be the termination of the old order, and not his birth, a truth attested by Christ's fulfilling the law meticulously during his earthly sojourn.

Of the good things to come is made to read "of the good things that have come" in the RSV; and even English Revised Version gives the alternative reading from certain old manuscripts; but there is no problem, because it is true either way. As Robertson said,

It is a nice question which is the true text. Both aspects are true, for Christ is a high priest of good things that have already come as well as the glorious future hope.[7]

Through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation is easily understood as far as the last two clauses are concerned, since they clearly refer to the spiritual and more heavenly nature of the perfect tabernacle; but it is a little more difficult to determine what the antitypical realities are in Christ, as compared with the ancient high priest.

The Jewish high priest first offered the bullock OUTSIDE the sanctuary; the Lord also offered himself outside the city, or camp of Israel. The Jewish high priest then passed through the sanctuary and offered the blood within the veil. Christ also conformed to this pattern, with the additional fact that he was both the victim and the one offering the victim. Christ then passed through the sanctuary and into heaven itself (corresponding to that which is within the veil) and there offered his own blood. The problem is to determine what corresponds to the sanctuary through which the high priest passed to go within the veil; and how is it that Christ also passed through the great antitype of it? Barmby's thorough exploration of the subject is helpful, although we draw back from accepting his conclusion. He makes the tabernacle through which Christ passed on the way to heaven the atmospheric heavens and other areas short of entering into the very presence of God on High.[8] He also mentioned the conviction of the Ante-Nicene fathers generally as holding that it refers to Christ's human nature, which Barmby refutes on the premise that Christ's human nature was assumed at his birth prior to his offering himself; and the figure calls for the passing through the sanctuary after his sacrifice of himself. If Christ's human nature, however, is restricted to mean the spiritual and glorified resurrection body, rather than his flesh throughout his earth life, we may escape the weight of Barmby's refutation, and in addition pick up the most solid support of such a view from a number of other important considerations.

Of invaluable aid in understanding this is the fact that the sanctuary is a type of the church of Christ; and the church, of course, is the spiritual body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). To the objection to the above view (In what sense can it be said that he entered through it? We should say that he ascended WITH it to the right hand of God.),[9] we may only say that the difficulty in this view is far less than that attending any other view. A summary of what various scholars have said about this is taken from Milligan. Macknight says it was "the whole earth"; Chrysostom made it "the human nature of Christ"; Ebrard identified it with "the holy life of Christ"; Hofmann thought it was "the glorified body of Christ"; Bleek called it the "aerial and siderial heavens"; and Delitzsch explained it as "the heaven of angels and of the just made perfect."[10] The view preferred here is that of Hofmann, since whatever view is taken, it must be consistent with the relation of the church itself to the sanctuary; and Christ's glorified body best suggests and maintains that fact. We strongly agree with Milligan to the effect that whatever the upper and greater tabernacle is, through which Jesus passed, "it manifestly includes the church of Christ."[11]

[7] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures of the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1932), Vol. 5, p. 398.

[8] J. Barmby, op. cit., p. 230.

[9] Ibid.

[10] R. Milligan, op. cit., p. 253.

[11] Ibid.