d have destroyed the priestly character
of His heavenly life. But His death would have been insufficient. He
must offer His blood and appear in the presence of God for us. To give
men access unto God was the ultimate purpose of redemption. He must,
therefore, consecrate through the veil of His flesh--a new and living
way by which we may come unto God through Him.

Must we, therefore, say that Christ entered the holiest place at His
death, not at His ascension? Does the Apostle refer only to the entrance
of the soul into the invisible world? The question is not an easy one.
If the Apostle means the Ascension, what doctrinal use does he make of
the interval between the Crucifixion and the Ascension? Many of the
fathers are evidently at a loss to know what to make of this interval.
They think the Divine person, as well as the human soul, of Christ was
conveyed to Hades to satisfy what they call the law of death. Does the
Epistle to the Hebrews pass over in silence the descent into Hades and
the resurrection? On the other hand, if our author means that Christ
entered the holiest place immediately at His death, we are met by the
difficulty that He leaves the holiest, to return finally at His
ascension, whereas the Apostle has argued that Christ differs from the
high-priests under the former covenant in that He does not enter
repeatedly. Much of the confusion has arisen from the tendency of
theologians, under the influence of Augustine, to construct their
systems exclusively on the lines of St. Paul. In his Epistles atonement
is a forensic conception. "Through one act of righteousness the free
gift came unto all men to the justification of life."[191] Consequently
the death of Christ is contrasted with His present life. "For the death
that He died, He died unto sin once; but the life that He liveth, He
liveth unto God."[192] But our author does not put his doctrine in a
Pauline framework. Instead of forensic notions, we meet with terms
pertaining to ritual and priesthood. What St. Paul speaks of as law is,
in his language, a covenant, and what is designated justification in the
Epistle to the Romans appears here as sanctification. Conscience is
purified; the worshipper is perfected. The entering of the high-priest
into the holiest place is as prominent as the slaying of the victim.
These are two distinct, but inseparable, parts of one priestly action.
All that lies between is ignored. It is as if it were not. Christ
entered i