According to the writer of Hebrews, believers should know the privileges and benefits that Christ has secured for them in the new Covenant that is not written on stone tablets, but on the heart of every believer. According to this passage some of the new privileges are...

• Boldness to enter into the holiest. They have access to God, light to direct them, liberty of spirit and of speech. They may enter into the gracious presence of God and so be in communion with God.
• A high priest over the house of God, Jesus presides over the church  God is willing to dwell with people on earth. But corrupt people cannot dwell with a holy God without the atoning supplications of a high priest, who is the Mediator of reconciliation in the here and now and in the hereafter.

 

The priests under the law were to wash, before they went into the presence of the Lord to offer before him. There must be a due preparation for making our approaches to God.  Hence the reference of the author to the washing of our bodies with pure water, that is, perhaps with the water of baptism, or with the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit, reforming and changing us.

The apostle exhorts believers to hold fast the profession of their faith, v. 23. The duty itself is to hold fast the profession of our faith, to embrace all the truths and ways of the gospel.  And this is the manner in which we must do this—without wavering, without doubting, without disputing.

 

The courage to approach God coupled with the steadfastness we are to pursue will produce the hope that the same grace that has kept us faithful in great trials in past times gives reason to hope that it will be sufficient to help us through the future.