Barnes New Testament Notes

Verse 24. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands. Into the temple or tabernacle. The Jewish high priest alone entered into the most holy place; and the other priests into the holy place. Jesus, being of the tribe of Judah, and not of Levi, never entered the temple proper. He had access only to the courts of the temple, in the same way as any other Jew had. See Barnes "Mt 21:12".

He has entered into the true temple -- heaven of which the earthly tabernacle was the type.

Which are the figures of the true. Literally, the antitypes antitupa. The word properly means that which is formed after a model, pattern, or type; and then that which corresponds to something, or answers to, it. The idea here is, that the type or fashion -- the true figure or form -- was shown to Moses in the Mount, and then the tabernacle was made after that model, or corresponded to it. The true original figure is heaven itself; the tabernacle was an antitype of that -- or was so formed as in some sense to correspond to it. That is, it corresponded in regard to the matters under consideration -- the most holy place denoted heaven; the mercy-seat and the shekinah were symbols of the presence of God, and of the fact that he shows mercy in heaven; the entrance of the high priest was emblematical of the entrance of the Redeemer into heaven; the sprinkling of the blood there was a type of what the Redeemer would do in heaven.

Now to appear in the presence of God for us. As the Jewish high priest appeared before the shekinah, the symbol of the Divine Presence in the tabernacle, so Christ appears before God himself in our behalf in heaven. He has gone to plead for our salvation; to present the merits of his blood as a permanent reason why we should be saved, See Barnes "Ro 8:34"; See Barnes "Heb 7:25".

{a} "appear" Ro 8:34