A Better Hope

The author, stemming from his pointing out of the Levitical priesthood and it's inability to bring about perfection, opens this portion with a rhetorical question of the very same. But what did it mean to be a quintessential Jew back then, fully indoctrinated with all the traditions and ceremonies and sacrificial system? Let's take Peter, one of these, and view ourselves through his lens, but more importantly, how do we view our own salvation in grace alone? As the free gift fulfilled in CHRIST, or are we still trying to add to it with works?