What would you die for? Or, if you prefer a more positive spin, what would you live for? What is so important to you, what conviction matters so much that if someone said, “It’s this or your life,” you’d answer, “Then take my life”? What would be so important that, even without that kind of pressure, you would willingly dedicate your life to it and at the end be able to say, “That’s what my life was about, and I’m glad I did it.” What is your life about?
This question is as practical as it gets, and it’s at the very core of the book of Hebrews. I believe the book was written as a sermon around 64 AD to a group of Christians from a Jewish background, who had been expelled from Rome fifteen years earlier under Claudius. They were now living in southern Italy, and Nero was beginning to persecute Christians. Violence was erupting all around. Big problems start in small ways, and that’s exactly what was happening here. In just a couple of years, there would be a war. The Jewish people back in Judea would revolt against Rome, leading to a devastating war. People would die by the thousands, then by tens of thousands, and eventually by hundreds of thousands. Some estimates say as many as a million died when Jerusalem was besieged in 70 AD. The stakes were very real and very high.
Imagine being part of this little community, asking yourself, “What do I care about? What truly matters?” Would your convictions push you to a deep loyalty to Judaism, maybe even to join the fight against Rome? Or would you feel a stronger loyalty to Christianity, prepared to die for your faith or even take up arms to defend it? Or perhaps you would choose to quietly assimilate, live as a good Roman, step back, and let it all play out.
The Jewish-Roman war didn’t begin with a grand strategy but rather with a spark—a single incident that ignited long-held tensions. By 66 AD, everyone was on edge, just waiting for a fuse to be lit. According to traditional history, it all started with a single act of defilement: a pot of urine dumped at a synagogue.
Did the incident really happen? History is murky, and we’ll likely never know the full truth. If this was today, there’d be two competing media narratives arguing over what really happened, with debates and uncertainty on all sides. Now, 2,000 years later, we only have bits and pieces of the story. But the account goes like this: someone allegedly passed by a Jewish synagogue with a chamber pot full of urine and spilled it there. Whether it was an accident or an intentional act of disrespect toward the Jewish faith, we will never know. But for the Jewish community, it symbolized deep disrespect from the Romans toward their holy places. This single incident, or even the rumor of it, was enough to spark the flames of a long-brewing conflict. The real issue was about respecting holy places, specifically, Jewish synagogues and the temple.
These were the intense questions already being faced by Christians two years earlier in 64 AD. This specific event hadn’t happened yet, but tensions were already sky-high, and everyone was ready for a fight. So, the question many wrestled with was: Are the holy places of Judaism worth dying for? With Nero’s persecution ramping up, would they die for Christianity? Should they stand and fight, as their friends in Jerusalem were preparing to do, or should they accept their fate quietly, even if it meant a fatal trip to the Coliseum?
When you read Hebrews 9, it’s not just a casual overview of the Tabernacle; it’s speaking directly to the life-or-death concerns of its original audience. It opens with a discussion of holy places. These people felt the Romans had little respect for their sacred spaces, and the preacher in Hebrews addresses this by asking, What do we really think about our holy places?
Hebrews 9:1-2 begins, “Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence; it is called the Holy Place.” Here, the author reminds them that long before there was a temple in Jerusalem, there was a tent—the Tabernacle. This tent was significant because it symbolized God’s presence under the first covenant. And connected to it were all sorts of rituals, detailed extensively in the book of Leviticus. Hebrews 9 offers a summary of these rituals.
Inside the tent’s first section, known as the Holy Place, there was a lampstand that symbolized God’s presence through its light. There was also the bread of the presence, a way of saying, “God is here.” But behind a second curtain was an even holier area called the Most Holy Place. This space held the golden altar of incense, the Ark of the Covenant covered with gold, a golden urn with manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the Covenant. Above it all were cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat.
The preacher, knowing his audience may not sit through a lengthy discussion on Leviticus, moves quickly, summarizing these elements in just a few verses. The High Priest would enter this Most Holy Place only once a year with the blood of a sacrifice to atone for the people’s sins. This sacred act was a key part of the religion, performed with utmost reverence and careful adherence to tradition.
As Hebrews explains, “These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the High Priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.” As the preacher recounts these details, the audience, primarily Jewish Christians, would nod along in agreement. They understood the significance of these holy spaces, symbols, and rituals. To them, the Tabernacle and its holy places weren’t just structures; they represented the very core of their faith and God’s presence among them.
The author of Hebrews emphasizes that the Law of Moses contained earthly symbols of a heavenly reality. When the high priest entered the Tabernacle, stepping behind the curtain once a year, he wasn’t literally transported to heaven. Instead, he stood on the “outskirts” of a heavenly realm. Even in the Most Holy Place, everything—the tent, the bread, the candles, and the priests themselves—was an earthly representation, a symbol, of something far greater. Yes, symbols matter deeply, but ultimately, symbols are just that—signs pointing to a reality that is “further off.”
In Hebrews 9, the author reminds his audience that even the temple was ultimately just a place on a hill, a structure made of bricks and mud. This earthly sanctuary symbolized the true heavenly dwelling. “The way into the holy places,” Hebrews says, “is not yet opened, as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age.” In other words, these symbols invited people into God’s presence while also reminding them that they weren’t fully there yet. As Hebrews says, “Gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings.” These symbols kept people looking forward, waiting for a true, transformative encounter with God.
This anticipation finally finds fulfillment in Jesus. Hebrews tells us, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come … he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” The symbols and rituals were just shadows, and Jesus is the reality. He didn’t pass through a curtain into an earthly tent; he ascended into heaven itself, entering the true presence of God on our behalf. While earthly priests symbolically represented the people, Jesus directly represents us before God. He didn’t offer the symbolic blood of animals but His own, securing real and eternal redemption.
If the symbolic sacrifices were meaningful, how much more, Hebrews asks, is the actual sacrifice of the Christ? Ancient worshipers knew that a goat wasn’t the same as a person; the ritual of sacrificing animals was always understood as symbolic. The author of Hebrews argues that these symbolic acts were placeholders for the real, profound act that Jesus had performed. The sacrifices, the symbols, and the rituals were imperfect signs of a reality is fulfilled in Christ. Now, in Jesus, that deeper reality has come to pass. Christ offered His own blood, not merely as a symbol, but as the real atonement humanity has always needed.
Unlike the high priests who repeated sacrifices each year, Jesus offered himself once and for all. If he had to sacrifice himself repeatedly, it would mean his work wasn’t complete. But, “as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” What’s the message here? We repeat symbols—they remind us of what they represent. But the real thing only needs to happen once. Jesus accomplished the real work, far surpassing the rituals and symbols of the past.
Hebrews concludes this chapter with a reflection on life, death, and judgment: “Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.” Here, the message is clear: Jesus did the real work. He didn’t die for the temple; he died to be the temple. He died to accomplish something more perfect than any symbol or ritual could ever achieve. So, if the Romans burn the earthly temple or if it fades into history, it doesn’t matter—Jesus is in the heavens, untouched and eternally present. That reality, unlike symbols, cannot be destroyed.
Christ’s sacrifice shows us what truly matters. He didn’t call people to die for symbols or kill for symbols; he showed the reality worth living and dying for. And, by doing so, he demonstrated what we’re to do with our Christian faith. Jesus didn’t take up arms against Pilate or wage a revolt against the religious leaders. Knowing what was real and what mattered, he lived and died faithfully for that reality.
It’s easy to get distracted by the darkness around us. But Jesus’ example teaches us that we don’t defeat darkness with power; we defeat it with light. Once we see what’s real—what God has already accomplished on our behalf—our task becomes clear. Whether it’s a quiet life of faithful dedication or a call to sacrifice, our purpose remains the same: to live unflinchingly for the truth of that reality, no matter the cost.
Dr. Benjamin Williams is the Senior Minister at the Central Church of Christ in Ada, Oklahoma and a regular writer at So We Speak. Check out his books The Faith of John’s Gospel and Why We Stayed or follow him on Twitter, @Benpreachin.
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