When the Curtain Falls: Understanding True Access to God
What’s Hebrews 10 about?
This chapter is the climactic moment where everything the author has been building toward crashes together – it’s about how Jesus didn’t just modify the old system of sacrifice, he completely replaced it. The author shows us that what the temple could never accomplish with endless animal sacrifices, Christ did once and for all, tearing open a new and living way straight to God’s presence.
The Full Context
Hebrews 10 was written to Jewish Christians who were facing intense pressure to abandon their faith in Jesus and return to Judaism. Around 60-69 AD, before the temple’s destruction, these believers were watching their fellow Jews offer daily sacrifices while wrestling with whether they’d made the right choice in following Christ. The author writes this letter to demonstrate that Jesus is superior to every aspect of the old covenant – its priests, its sacrifices, and its promises.
This chapter serves as the theological crescendo of the entire letter. After nine chapters of careful argument showing Christ’s superiority over angels, Moses, and the Levitical priesthood, the author now delivers his knockout punch: the old sacrificial system was never meant to be permanent. It was a shadow, a placeholder, pointing forward to something infinitely better. The passage addresses the deepest question these Jewish believers faced: “If we abandon the temple sacrifices, how can we be sure our sins are truly forgiven?”
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The opening verses hit us with a fascinating Greek construction. When the author says the law is a skia (shadow) of good things to come, he’s using a word that means more than just “dim reflection.” In Plato’s famous cave allegory, shadows on the wall weren’t the reality – they were projections of real objects. The author is saying the entire sacrificial system was like those shadows on the cave wall.
Grammar Geeks
The phrase “year after year” in verse 1 uses a Greek construction that emphasizes endless repetition – kat’ eniauton. It’s like saying “year after year after year after year…” The repetition itself proves the sacrifices weren’t working. If they actually removed sin, why keep doing them?
But here’s where it gets really interesting. In verse 5, when the author quotes Psalm 40:6-8, he uses the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) version, which reads “a body you prepared for me” instead of the Hebrew “ears you have dug for me.” This isn’t a mistake – it’s brilliant theology. The author is showing that even the Old Testament anticipated a time when God would provide a human body as the ultimate sacrifice.
The word prosenenken (offered) in verse 12 is in the aorist tense – it happened once, completely, finally. No more repetition. No more “year after year.” Christ’s sacrifice was a single, decisive act that accomplished what centuries of animal sacrifices could never do.
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
Picture yourself as a Jewish Christian in the first century. Every morning, you can hear the temple trumpets announcing the daily sacrifice. The smell of burning incense drifts through Jerusalem. Your neighbors, your family members – they’re all participating in rituals that have defined Jewish identity for over a thousand years. And here you are, following a crucified carpenter from Nazareth, wondering if you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life.
Did You Know?
The Day of Atonement sacrifice mentioned here required the high priest to enter the Most Holy Place only once per year. If he made any mistake in the ritual – wore the wrong garment, used the wrong incense, entered at the wrong time – Jewish tradition says he could die instantly. They actually tied a rope around his ankle just in case they needed to drag out his body.
When these Jewish Christians heard verses 19-20 about having “confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain,” their minds would have been blown. The temple curtain was sixty feet high, thirty feet wide, and so thick that tradition says it took 300 priests to manipulate it. It was a massive “KEEP OUT” sign separating humanity from God’s presence.
The author is telling them that this impenetrable barrier has been ripped open. Not just opened – torn open. The Greek word katapetasma for curtain literally means “that which hangs down.” But now it’s been destroyed, creating what the author calls a “new and living way” – prosphatos and zosan – fresh and alive, like a path that’s just been cut through the forest.
Wrestling with the Text
Here’s something that might bother you: if Christ’s sacrifice was so perfect and complete, why do we still struggle with sin? The author addresses this head-on in verses 26-29, and honestly, it’s one of the most sobering passages in the New Testament.
The phrase “deliberate sin” (hekousiōs hamartanō) doesn’t mean any sin we commit intentionally – it means willful, defiant rejection of Christ after knowing the truth. The author is talking about apostasy, not everyday moral failures. But even understanding that, the warning is still intense: “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Wait, That’s Strange…
Why does the author quote Deuteronomy 32:35 – “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” – in a chapter about God’s mercy and grace? Because he’s showing the flip side of the coin. The same God who provided the ultimate sacrifice is also the God who takes sin seriously. Grace and justice aren’t opposites – they meet perfectly at the cross.
The real wrestling match comes in verses 32-39. After this heavy theological teaching and stern warning, the author shifts to encouragement. He reminds these believers of their past faithfulness, their courage under persecution, their care for imprisoned fellow Christians. It’s like he’s saying, “Remember who you are. Remember what you’ve already endured. Don’t give up now when you’re so close to the finish line.”
How This Changes Everything
The revolutionary truth of Hebrews 10 isn’t just that we have access to God – it’s that this access is confident access. The word parrēsia in verse 19 means bold, fearless speech. It’s the word used for a citizen’s right to speak freely in the Greek assembly. The author is saying we can approach God not as cowering slaves, but as confident children.
This changes how we think about prayer. We’re not trying to get God’s attention or convince him to listen to us. The curtain is torn. The way is open. We have a high priest who understands our weaknesses because he became human and faced everything we face.
“The old system could never take away sins – it could only cover them temporarily. But Christ’s sacrifice doesn’t just cover sin; it removes it completely, as far as the east is from the west.”
It also changes how we think about community. Verses 24-25 aren’t just nice suggestions about church attendance. When you understand that every believer now has the same direct access to God that only the high priest had once a year, gathering together becomes a celebration of this shared privilege. We’re not just individuals who happen to believe the same things – we’re a new kind of priesthood, all of us serving in God’s presence.
The call to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds” uses a word (paroxysmos) that can mean either encouragement or provocation. Sometimes spurring someone on requires a gentle nudge; sometimes it requires a firm challenge. But it’s always rooted in this amazing reality that we’re all priests now, all with access, all with responsibility.
Key Takeaway
The sacrifice of Christ didn’t just make forgiveness possible – it made boldness possible. You can approach God with the same confidence that Jesus himself has, because his blood has opened a way that can never be closed again.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
External Scholarly Resources:
- The Letter to the Hebrews by F.F. Bruce
- Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary by Donald Guthrie
- Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey
Tags
Hebrews 10:1, Hebrews 10:19, Hebrews 10:25, Psalm 40:6-8, Deuteronomy 32:35, sacrifice, priesthood, temple, access to God, new covenant, atonement, perseverance, community, worship, sanctification
