The shadow of cross upon which Jesus died could be seen for centuries in all of those animal sacrifices offered under the Old Covenant.  All the sacrifices offered from the time of Moses until the destruction of the temple were mere shadows of the good things brought by Christ through the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 10:1-10).

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews urged those Jewish people who had professed faith in Christ to continue in that faith.  The people he addressed had embraced Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, but were considering a return to the Old Covenant (2:1-4, 3:1-15, 6:4-8).  The author of Hebrews tried to convince those Jewish believers to continue following Christ Whose New Covenant in His blood was much better than the one to which they were tempted to return.

The New Covenant is in many ways “better” than the Old Covenant (7:19, 22, 8:6, 9:23).  Christ’s sacrifice was much better than all those animal sacrifices which were offered according to the law.  The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross made perfect before God those who would believe in Him.  Those Old Testament sacrifices could never make those who offered them perfect.  The animal sacrifices were offered over and over, but Jesus died once.  In His death Jesus “took away” our sins which was something the blood of bulls and goats could never do.  Through faith in Christ and His New Covenant sacrifice we are forgiven forever, but under the Old Covenant there was need for yearly sacrifices in order to receive the continual forgiveness of sins.

Many of us were saved from a life in which we attempted to secure the forgiveness of our sins through religious observance or ceremony.  We came to understand through the Scripture and by God’s grace that we cannot be saved by religious works or even the works of the law, but only by Christ and His sacrifice for our sins.  May we continue believing till our Lord Jesus returns for He is able to save completely and forever those who come to God through Him (Heb.7:25).