Hope for the future in Hebrews

The author of Hebrews explains that "God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking" to Jesus and, in him, to humanity (2:5).

This captures much of what Hebrews is about. It is not a about incorporeal reality in contrast to a corporeal sub-reality. Instead it is profoundly eschatological. It is a book about our future ("the world to come") which has already happened in Christ. "At present" we do not see this future world except when we look to Jesus where it is encapsulated (2:8-9).

Hebrews regularly exhorts its readers to "hope" that endures through present difficulties "to the end". This involves "patience" and "waiting" but we are not to be "sluggish", but should "run" towards the eschaton.

Jesus is our "forerunner" who has entered the future before us. The OT temple is not modelled on heavenly realities only in the sense that it is modelled on an incorporeal dimension to reality. The Holy of Holies is symbolic of the future age which is "not yet opened" (9:8), and the Holy place "is symbolic for the present age" (9:9). Indeed the whole law is a "a shadow of the good things to come" (10:1).

Christ "entered once for all into the holy places [plural]" (9:12) to secure an "eternal redemption" (9:12; cf. 9:15).

We are waiting now for him to come a "second time" (9:28), just as he is "waiting [...] until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet" (10:13). The "Day" is "drawing near" (10:25) so we should encourage each other to hold firm and do good for "a little while" longer (10:37). Because "here [that is, in our present age] we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come".