7. What did that temple at Jerusalem picture, and in the Most Holy thereof whose sacrifice was presented?

⁷ That earthly temple did not picture or typify the Christian congregation that was established 639 years later in the rebuilt city of Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost of 33 C.E. No, but it was pictorial or typical of Jehovah’s heavenly temple or palace, in which he reigns supreme above the living cherubs who attend him. As it is beautifully stated in Psalm 99:1, “Jehovah himself has become king. Let the peoples be agitated. He is sitting upon the cherubs. Let the earth quiver.” It was there in the Most Holy of Jehovah’s temple that Jesus Christ presented his sacrifice after ascending to heaven.

On the other hand, Jesus Christ was not a Levite priest of the family of Aaron and did not enter into the Most Holy of the earthly, mundane temple at Jerusalem. So as regards his service as Jehovah’s spiritual High Priest we read:

⁹ “Christ entered, not into a holy place made with hands, which is a copy of the reality, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God for us. . . . But now he has manifested himself once for all time at the conclusion of the systems of things to put sin away through the sacrifice of himself. . . . so also the Christ was offered once for all time to bear the sins of many.”​—Heb. 9:1, 24-28.

10. When did Jesus enter upon his sacrificial course on earth, and like what ancient priest did he become?

¹⁰ When on earth Jesus laid down his perfect human sacrifice, he entering on this course of self-sacrifice at the time that he was baptized in water by John the Baptist, in 29 C.E. There God’s spirit descended upon Jesus, begetting him to spirit life as a spiritual Son of God. At the same time that spirit anointed him as a spiritual High Priest and a spiritual King who resembled King Melchizedek of the ancient city of Salem.

11. (a) Into what new relationship did Jesus then enter, and by what was the state in which he was then walking pictured? (b) What then separated him from spirit life in the heavens?

¹¹ From that time on, John the Baptist spoke of the anointed Jesus as “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world,” also as “the Son of God.” (John 1:29-51; Matt. 3:13-17) Because of this new spiritual relationship with Jehovah God in heaven Jesus Christ was, as it were, walking in that spiritual state pictured by the first compartment of the temple, called The Holy, even while he was carrying out his sacrificial course on earth. Like the curtain or veil that separated the Holy and the Most Holy of the temple, Jesus’ perfect flesh was the thing that separated him during his human life in the flesh from spirit life in the invisible heavens where God personally is. He passed beyond this “veil” by dying as a human and being raised as a spirit.

12. According to the manner of whom did Jesus Christ become a high priest, and what did the inner curtain of the temple picture?

¹² With regard to this, it was written to the Christianized Hebrews, the natural descendants of the patriarch Abraham: “In this manner God, when he purposed to demonstrate more abundantly to the heirs of the promise [made to Abraham] the unchangeableness of his counsel, stepped in with an oath [to back up the promise], in order that, through two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to the refuge may have strong encouragement to lay hold on the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor for the soul, both sure and firm, and it enters in within the curtain, where a forerunner has entered in our behalf, Jesus who has become a high Priest according to the manner of Melchizedek forever.” (Heb. 6:17-20) “Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness for the way of entry into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, which he inaugurated for us as a new and living way through the curtain, that is, his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach.”​—Heb. 10:19-22.

13. According to the testimony of 1 Peter 3:18, what kind of resurrection did Jesus have, and who are to share with him in that kind of resurrection?

¹³ That Jesus Christ was resurrected as a spirit creature because of having laid down his human life as a sacrifice in order to pass beyond the “curtain, that is, his flesh,” the apostle Peter testifies, writing: “Why, even Christ died once for all time concerning sins, a righteous person for unrighteous ones, that he might lead you to God, he being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit.” (1 Pet. 3:18) Thus he left his flesh forever behind and ascended to heaven with the “blood,” that is, the value of his perfect human sacrifice. There, as a High Priest, he presented that ransoming merit before the person of God, hence in the antitypical Most Holy. All his dedicated, baptized footstep followers, those begotten with God’s spirit and anointed with God’s spirit, have the hope of sharing in Jesus’ resurrection and joining him in the spirit heavens as heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.​—Rom. 8:14-17.