"For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." Hebrews 10:1–4
The law was a vessel through which God, though in a foggy sort of way, revealed both His extravagant mercy and His need for justice. But the law fell short because His people fell short, over and over and over again; it simply was not a permanent solution.
The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins. They can momentarily allow God to forgive the faults of His people, but it didn't change them, and so the ransom had to be paid repeatedly. It could not set the crooked paths of their hearts straight. It could not fully clean them, and therefore they could not fully experience God. Instead, they were stuck in the cycle of trying to measure up
But the cross revealed a new Way, and a Kingdom was ushered into the hearts of His people. Because His atonement has taken away sins. Here is a Way that can "make perfect those who draw near".
"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." -Hebrews 10:19–23
In all the places the blood of bulls and goats fell short, the blood of Jesus surpassed, paying our debts in full. A new way has been opened to us into the holy places, a place once greatly feared (because entering, unless by the high priest once a year, would cause certain and immediate death), was now a place we could enter into with confidence because we have the blood of the Lamb over the doorpost.
As we live under the blood of Christ, God has no reason to execute justice against us because our hearts have been completely sprinkled clean, our bodies washed with pure water; So much so that the Holy Place is not a place of death, but instead we are met with life and life abundantly.
While Jesus fully paid for our sins and His work is finished, and He, therefore, sees us without blemish, His Spirit is still perfecting us here and now. This is not a contradiction, though at a glance it may seem as such.
The law is dead because it could not change or perfect as the blood of Jesus can. Meaning that though a band-aid was put over the wound, there was no healing going on beneath it. God could see the future of each of those people, and the future was still sin and corruption and evil and crooked hearts because His Spirit was absent. But the Lamb of God's sacrifice completely rewrote not only our current state but also our future.
Jesus loves us into that future; sanctifying and perfecting us as we are but seeing us as we are becoming. He sees us when we will behold Him, when we will know Him fully (1 Cor. 13:20). Because of His atonement, we are not under a dead law but a living authority, a new Way, living for a new Kingdom. The Father looks at every one of His children and sees us as forgiven, cleansed, holy, blameless, and full of glory because Jesus has gone before us, pleading His blood.
Those weary and burdened and crushed under the weight of the law, come.
The harsh law that once presided over our hearts, revealing our desperate situation and need for condemnation, has been replaced with the beauty of the presence of God, a gift only the High Priest Himself could pay for. The weight of needing to measure up, to work for forgiveness, to clean ourselves up, has been cast aside for something new and much bigger; the empty space the law left behind is where His Spirit now floods in, proclaiming:
You are free.
"But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." -Romans 1:6
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