⁹ We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him.

¹⁸ I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.^[a]

¹⁴ Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

²⁴ But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip. ²⁵ King David said this about him:

¹² But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. ¹³ There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet.

²⁵ Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save^[a] those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

¹⁴ Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had^[a] the power of death. ¹⁵ Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

¹⁴ Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come.

¹⁶ Jesus became a priest, not by meeting the physical requirement of belonging to the tribe of Levi, but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.