9:6 {2} Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service [of God].
(2) Now he comes to the sacrifices which he divides into those daily sacrifices and that yearly and solemn sacrifice with which the high priest only but once every year entering into the Holiest of all with blood, offered for himself and the people.
9:6 The priests went alway. The present tense go is used in the Greek, as in the Revised Version. The temple, which was a copy of the tabernacle, was still standing when the Epistle was written.
Into the first tabernacle. Into the holy place. The priests went in every day in the service.
9:6 Always - Every day. Accomplishing their services - Lighting the lamps, changing the shewbread, burning incense, and sprinkling the blood of the sin offerings.
9:6-10 The apostle goes on to speak of the Old Testament services. Christ, having undertaken to be our High Priest, could not enter into heaven till he had shed his blood for us; and none of us can enter, either into God's gracious presence here, or his glorious presence hereafter, but by the blood of Jesus. Sins are errors, great errors, both in judgment and practice; and who can understand all his errors? They leave guilt upon the conscience, not to be washed away but by the blood of Christ. We must plead this blood on earth, while he is pleading it for us in heaven. A few believers, under the Divine teaching, saw something of the way of access to God, of communion with him, and of admission into heaven through the promised Redeemer, but the Israelites in general looked no further than the outward forms. These could not take away the defilement or dominion of sin. They could neither discharge the debts, nor resolve the doubts, of him who did the service. Gospel times are, and should be, times of reformation, of clearer light as to all things needful to be known, and of greater love, causing us to bear ill-will to none, but good-will to all. We have greater freedom, both of spirit and speech, in the gospel, and greater obligations to a more holy living.
