"Therefore, brothers, we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus" (Heb 10:19).

 

"With these somewhat obscure, I should rather say exceedingly beautiful and rich words, the apostle evidently wants us to imitate Christ, who suffered and by dying crossed over to the glory of the Father. The meaning, of course, is brief and clear, namely, what is written: 'You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.' (Col 3:3). But one must observe with what grace and power of expression the apostle discusses this. In the first place, that figurative veil of the temple was a sign of the flesh of Christ, as the apostle plainly shows here. However, the removal of the veil by him who enters, namely, the priest, refers to the death of the flesh of Christ, the death by which He Himself was removed from us and entered the invisible sanctuary. That way or entrance of the priest in past days was old and dead. It means that this way and entrance of Christ is new and alive. In this way He fulfilled the figure and took away the shadow.

 

"But at the same time this whole fulfillment and figure of the truth (for he beautifully connects them both at the same time and discusses them with the same words) has a meaning that goes beyond this and is the sacrament of the imitation of Christ. His flesh, of course, which He assumed, signifies the weaknesses of our flesh. This is the weaknesses which we assumed through sin. Because of it, it happens that we walk on the old and dead way, that is, by following the lusts of the flesh. Therefore 'a new and living way' had to be prepared; and in order that this might come about, lust had to be slain. Therefore the suffering of Christ's flesh, His death and removal, is the sacrament of the slaying of the conscience, of the same death.

 

"But Christ's entry into heaven through death is also the sacrament of our new life and way, by which we are to seek only heavenly things and love them with absolutely all our affection after entering into the heavenly things, so that, 'our citizenship,' as the apostle says, 'is in heaven' (Phil 3:20). Paul is full of this mystical and exemplary suffering of Christ throughout nearly all his epistles, as in Rm 6:4; 8:10; Eph 4:22; Col 3:3; and Phil 3:10; and everywhere he teaches about the slaying of the old man and the renewing of the inner man. Therefore what Christ did according to the flesh alone (for He did not cross over at some time or other from sins, as we do, but He was always in heaven, as Jn 3:13 says: 'No one has ascended into heaven but the Son of Man, who is in heaven'), through this He, with His single act, is in agreement with our double act, as Augustine says in the third chapter of the fourth book of his On the Trinity. For we cross over according to the flesh and according to the spirit, but Christ crossed over only according to the flesh. Therefore the crossing over of our flesh is an example, for we shall be like Him (1Jn 3:2). Yet by the crossing over of Christ's flesh the crossing over of the spirit is signified as by a sacrament.

 

"Hence arise those various concepts of lives and deaths (so to speak). For life and death at the present time is the workshop in which two other lives and two other deaths fight with each other, so that if love lives, lust dies, and this means to live to God and to die to the world. But if lust lives, love dies, and this means to live to the world and to die to God. For one of the two must either die or live. And these two are called spirit and flesh. Thus in addition to physical life and death there are two lives and deaths, the death of the flesh and the death of the spirit, the life of the flesh and the life of the spirit. The apostle speaks of this very often." 

 

Martin Luther, Lectures on Hebrews, 10.19