Hebrews 8

Hebrews 8:1

Now to recapitulate all that we have said in this matter of Christ’s being our high priest: The high priest which intercedes for us Christians is one that is entered into heaven, and there sits at the right hand of God, that is, reigns there; hath all power given unto him, and so is a king and priest together; actually bestows upon us all those things for which he intercedes for us, grace and pardon to all obedient, sincere Christians, and is able and ready to help us in time of need;

Hebrews 8:2

One that ministers and officiates in his church; that hath the ordering of the true, not typical figurative temple and tabernacle, that which is not built by human workmen, but by God, (all power being given unto him in heaven and in earth, having dominion instated on him over his church to deliver them, and over his enemies to destroy them.)

Hebrews 8:3

A minister, I say; for so every priest is, his business being peculiarly to sacrifice and offer burnt-offerings and sin-offerings, &c. ch. v. 1; and agreeably Christ was to have some sacrifice to offer to God as a priest, and that was himself, presenting himself in heaven, the true sanctuary, after the slaying him upon the cross, ch. ix. 12.

Hebrews 8:4

And for his being a minister not on earth only, but now more especially in heaven, and there exer-

Hebrews 8:5

And those priests which officiate here on earth do attend on and perform none but that figurative typical service, which signified and represented this offering of Christ, presenting himself to God in heaven, and there interceding for us. (So that that which was by God himself said to Moses, when he was to make the tabernacle, that he should take care to make it according to the pattern shewed him in the mount, may fitly be applied by way of accommodation to this matter; this offering of Christ’s in heaven being indeed that substantial idea of which all the service of the tabernacle was but a type or shadow, and so fitly styled an heavenly pattern.)

Hebrews 8:6

But as for Christ’s office or ministry that he thus exerciseth, it is above that of the Levitical priests, which consisted only in typical observances, and as much above them as the covenant which Christ mediated between God and man was above the Mosaical economy. Of this covenant it is observable, first, that it is now settled as a law, in which both parties are mutually bound to each other, God to man, and man to God; and secondly, that it is a much more excellent, perfect, beneficial covenant than the former, the duties now required more spiritual and sublime, and the promises now proposed infinitely better promises than those which were under the law; (viz. not only legal impunity, which the sacrifices under the law yielded, but pardon and remission, that pardon not only for light faults, sins of error, &c., for which those sacrifices were designed, but even for wilful sins, if forsaken and repented of, yea, and the pouring out the Spirit on all flesh, giving spiritual gifts for the building up of the church, not only to a few, as to one or two prophets under the law, but to many, even to all, Gentiles as well as Jews, yea, to all Christians in some measure; and lastly, instead of the promises of a temporal Canaan, the plain promises of eternal life and bliss.) ³ those being priests, ἄντων ἱερῶν. ⁵ enacted, νεομοθέτηται. ⁴ wait upon the image, ὑποδείγματι λατρεύουσι.

Hebrews 8:7

For if the covenant under the law had been so perfect, that it could not have been improved or bettered, there would have been no need of a second covenant.

8, 9. Which appears by this, because when he speaks in the prophet Jeremy, ch. xxxi. 31. of making a new covenant, he doth it by way of complaint, or finding fault with the weakness and imperfection of the former, (see ch. vii. 18,) after this manner or form of speech: The covenant which I will now make is not after the rate of the covenant which I made with the Israelites by Moses, (a covenant made up of external carnal commandments,) when I brought them out of Egypt; for that was not effectual to them, was not able to attract them to obedience or perseverance; but they fell off from me, and consequently I forsook them, saith the Lord.

Hebrews 8:9

[a] I regarded them not] The whole place being by this writer cited out of Jeremy, ch. xxxi. 32, some difficulty there will be to accord this part of the citation, ἡμίλησα αὐτῶν, I regarded them not, with that which we now find in the Hebrew there. For the words בַּעַלְתִּי בָּם, as our Hebrew copies now read, ordinarily signify ἐκυρίεσσα αὐτῶν, I ruled over them, which is very far distant both from the designed sense of that place, if we will judge by the context, and from the words, I regarded them not, as they are here recited. The unfitness of that rendering in that place in the prophet is visible to any reader that observes the words immediately precedent, which my covenant they brake, to which these other cannot connect (but rather the contrary) and I ruled over them, or, I was their Lord. Here our English have put husband for Lord, and although for and, and yet farther altered it in the margent, Should I have continued an husband unto them? by way of interrogation; which, as it makes the sense directly contrary to what it would be without the interrogation, so it is a confession, that that contrary sense is (in the truth) it which alone is agreeable to the place. It is therefore far more reasonable to consider, that the words which are here recited in this author, and are exactly agreeable to the context in the prophet, (which is designed to set down the Israelites’ breaking of covenant, and God’s dealing with them by way of punishment,) are the very words by which the Greek translator had rendered that place in the prophet, which makes it necessary to conclude, that either the Hebrew copy now is in this particular varied from what it was when they translated it, or that בַּעַל hath some other signification than that which is ordinarily taken notice of. That all copies transcribed from hand to hand should be subject to some light changes, is nothing strange; nay, it is evident, by comparing 2 Kings xx. 12, with Esay xxxix. 1, that such mistakes have been committed: for there in a story, which in both those places is exactly the same, we now read בְּרֵאֲדָךְ Berodach in the former place, and בְּרֵאֲדָךְ Merodach in the latter, which must needs be imputed to the hand of the scribe, and not to any other original. So in the same story, in the very next verse, 2 Kings xx. 13, we read וַיִּשְׁמַע, And Hezekiah heard, or hearkened, but Isa. xxxix. 2, it is וַיִּשְׁמַח, And Hezekiah was glad of them; where the light change of ח into ע is visibly the error of the scribe. And so the eighteenth psalm, which was certainly delivered by David in one fixed, certain form, is yet varied in many particulars, 2 Sam. xxii., which cannot be imputed to any cause but that of the transcribers; and the Masorites’ pains, coming long after these changes were come in, can give no security or fence against them. And then it is not impossible but that thus it hath happened in that place of Jeremy which is here cited. Accordingly the annotations under the name of Hugo Grotius conceive, that the Septuagint read it בַּחַלְתִּי, not בַּעַלְתִּי, and accordingly ren-

Hebrews 8:10

But this is the covenant which I will make in the latter days, or age of the Messiah, in time of the gospel; I will, instead of those external carnal ordinances and observations, give them spiritual commands for the regulating their affections, precepts most perfectly agreeable to all rational minds; and by the exceeding greatness of that grace and mercy, in this and many other particulars, ver. 12, I shall incline their affections willingly to receive my law, as well as convince their understandings of their duty, and so I will take pleasure in them, and they shall perform obedience unto me, live like a people of God, worthy of such a Leader.

Hebrews 8:11

And there shall be no need of such pains in teaching men what they are to do, as under Moses’s law, (which consisted of many outward performances which had no such inward essential goodness in them, as that a man’s own reason should prompt him to them, and approve them as best and most excellent, if they were not taught by the law-maker, and kept still in their minds by instruction in the law;) but the precepts now proposed being so agreeable to human reason, they shall be found written by every man in his own heart, (as it were,) able of themselves to approve themselves to men: (see Deut. xxx. 11.)

Hebrews 8:12

Especially when that part of the covenant is considered, promise and assurance of pardon for all forsaken sins, as also for frailties and weaknesses daily

Hebrews 8:24

[d] unchangeable] That ἀποράβατος here signifies that which doth not pass from father to son, from one successor to another, is from the nature of the word παραβαίνειν, transire, to pass; and so they are the words of Athanasius concerning Christ, ἀπαράβατον καὶ ἀδιάδεκτον ἔχων τὴν ἀρχιερωσύνην, “He hath a pontificate, or priesthood, that passeth not away, or doth not go by succession to others.”

Hebrews 8:28

For the Levitical law makes such men priests, and none else, which are subject to mortality; but the oath of God, psalm ex, concerning the immutable priesthood, makes Christ the chief priest, whose life, and so whose priesthood, was never to determine; whose offering for himself, that is, for the putting off his infirm mortal body, was complete at that once, and needed never to be offered again by him any more than the same offering of his as it was for the sins of the world: (see ch. x. 11, 12.)

NOW of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;