NOTES for Heb 9:1-10
Describing in some detail the arrangement of the tabernacle, well known to his contemporaries from the text of Exodus, the author of the letter at the same time focuses his readers' attention on the fact that the very form of Yahwist worship implied a certain incompleteness. It hinted at something greater than what it could give a person in terms of purification and sanctification. The author describes the tabernacle as an earthly sanctuary connected with that "first covenant" which joined the people to God at Sinai (vv. 1-5). This sanctuary had its role: it was the place of God's presence, which purified and sanctified the people (vv. 6-7). But the very fact that such a sanctuary existed showed that neither complete purification nor complete sanctification was possible in those times, when many centuries still remained before the coming of the Messiah (vv. 8-10).
Here we face a problem over which Paul had already reflected a great deal: spiritual life is not the sphere where quantity turns into quality by itself. Increasing the number of religious duties a person performs does not bring the performer closer to the ideal spiritual state of a living Torah, even if the number of those duties tends toward infinity. The new spiritual quality is, in principle, irreducible to the quantity of "spiritual" deeds a person performs. The same is true of sanctification or purification: even increasing the number of purification rituals to infinity will not free the one being purified from the power of sin, just as repeated sanctification over and over again will not fully transform the human nature of the one being sanctified. Here too, quantity does not become quality by itself. A special, purposeful spiritual effort is needed for such a transition to become reality, and for a person truly to have the possibility of sharing in the life of the Kingdom. Before the Messiah's coming, the main task of spiritual life remained the maintenance of at least a relative spiritual balance, one that would allow those seeking a righteous life at least not to sink into sin and not to fall completely under the power of the laws of an untransformed world.
Of course, even this task was far from easy to solve, but it was nevertheless solved, so that the world did not collapse into the abyss before the coming of the Messiah. Only now has it become possible to speak of taking the next step, after which, in the light of the Kingdom that has been revealed, the former efforts and former forms will no longer be needed.