Hebrews 9:24 - Exposition

For not into holy places made with hands did Christ enter, which are figures ( ἀντίτυπα , antitypes ) of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of (literally, before the face of ) God for us. This verse confirms the view that "the heavenly things" of Hebrews 9:23 denoted the heavenly regions into which Christ is entered. ἅγια at the beginning of the verse may be better translated "holy place" (as at Hebrews 9:12 and Hebrews 9:25 ) rather than "places," since here the heavenly counterpart of the holy of holies, as distinguished from the" first tabernacle," appears to be in view, viz. "heaven itself," the heaven of heavens, the immediate presence or "face" of God, the "throne of the Majesty on high," to which Christ passed through the intermediate heavens. There he now (the perpetual now of the new era of accomplished redemption), in his humanity, in behalf of and representing all humanity, beholds for ever the very face of the eternal God, which Moses could not see and live, and of which the typical high priest saw from year to year but the emblem, in transitory glimpses, through intervening clouds of incense. The word ἀντίπυπα , like ὑποδείγματα in Hebrews 9:23 , expresses the idea of the earthly sanctuary being a visible representation answering to a heavenly reality. The original τύπος ( type ) was shown to Moses in the mount ( Hebrews 8:5 ); what was constructed by him on the earth below was the antitype to it. The words τύπος and ἀντίτυπος are elsewhere used to express respectively a prophetic figure of a fulfillment to come and the fulfillment itself (as in Romans 5:14 and 1 Peter 3:21 , baptism in the latter text being regarded as the ἀντίτυπον of the Deluge), but still with the same idea of the type being prior to the antitype , the latter answering to the former.