Post 49 of study: Hebrews 9

The writer had to be a Jew or a Jewish insider, describing in detail the rituals. "The way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing."  If the theme of Hebrews is that Jesus is better, then that means the First Testament system was innately inferior, incomplee, a representation but not the real. "They could not make him who perfomed the service perfect in regard to conscience .... (v. 14) "how much more shall the blood of Christ .... cleanse you conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" 

The death of Christ is about what Jeremiah prophesied: "they shall know me." There is a deep spiritual--and otherwise--transformation that cleanses our conscience. It's not just a superficial forgiveness, a ritual cleaning we do to feel we met our requirements and paid through the sometimes hefty price of an animal sacrifice. It is a reckoning with God, or should be. How much the "conversion experience" is for individuals is a deep question. It is tempting in this day to question how truly real the transformation, the movement from dark to light, is for most professing believers. We can sit in judgment, but where do we get that right? We do not have it. I prefer to let God judge. Someone in my life believes themselves in a position to judge, and I think many of us feel the same need at times, but it really is not our role. 

God has not been asleep during COVID, nor is He incapable of running His universe.