The Law contained only a shadow of the good things to come; it did not express their full reality (Heb. 10:1). In the tent erected by Moses the people served a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as we read in the letter to the Hebews (8:5). This tent consisted of an outer part known as the Holy Place, which represents our present life on earth, and an inner sanctuary called the Holy of Holies, which was a figure or symbol of heaven, where our Lord Jesus Christ has gone before us to sit at the right hand of the Father. The Jewish High Priest was only permitted to enter the Holy of Holies once a year. He could not remain there because he was only a mortal man, any more than we, as mere mortals, had acess to heaven before our Lord Jesus Christ made it possible for us.

But now Jesus has entered the true Holy of Holies by ascending to heaven. He entered first on our behalf as our eternal High Priest, and has opened the way for us to follow him. He gives us right of entry by giving us a share in his own death and resurrection. Jesus our brother submitted to the law of death for our sake, and triumphed over that law by rising from the dead. He can never die again, nor can he be touched by suffering or corruption, and he has promisted that we too shall be as he is.

Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-392+) as quoted by Anne Field, From Darkness to LIght: What It Meant to Become a Christian in the Early Church (Servant Books, 1978, 101-102).