Hebrews 8

Hebrews 8:1-13

Subdivision 2. (Hebrews 8:1-13.)His more excellent ministry as Mediator of a better covenant. The second subdivision speaks here, too, now of our having a better ministry than that of the earthly priesthood, founded as it is upon a better covenant. The first six verses emphasize the fact that it is of the true tabernacle Christ is Minister. The last seven verses speak of the change of covenant.

1. We must remember that it is the Priest in the Sanctuary that the apostle is now showing us, -a Priest who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. In the Lord’s case we must separate widely, as with a mere human high priest one could not, between the ministry outside and the ministry inside the tabernacle. For Him the one ceased before the other was entered upon; yet He was the High Priest when He “offered up Himself” upon the cross, and He was the High Priest when He “passed through the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14). There was no difference in this respect, if we are to take exactly what is written. Upon this there would seem no need to insist; yet a verse here has been so interpreted as to mean the opposite, -that the Lord was not Priest upon earth at all; and every other statement of Scripture has been discredited to uphold what is not its statement, but a mistaken interpretation of something very different from this.

The apostle does not say that when Christ was upon earth He was not a Priest, but that “if then indeed He were upon earth He would not even be a Priest.” Plainly he is speaking of One not on earth, and not as looking back either to the time when He was there. He is speaking, as he says, of Christ as the glorified High Priest, the Minister of the true tabernacle, and the reason he gives is conclusive as to this.

Why would He not even be a Priest on earth? Because, he answers, “there are those who offer gifts according to the law.” The law, as he has said, has defined its priests as of the family of Aaron, and Christ has no place in the line of that succession; but that has nothing to do with the Lord’s work on earth, as is evident. It is a totally different thing from saying that when Christ offered Himself up He was not a Priest to say that if He were on earth He would be no Priest of any sanctuary there. True it is that the law has no place on earth for this Minister of the true tabernacle. If His name were sought upon the earthly register, it could not be found in what is but the “example and shadow of heavenly things” His place is not. Necessarily so, for He has “a more excellent ministry” in connection with the “heavenly things themselves.” Here, as already said, the confusion between the killing of the victim, which was not itself a priestly work, and the offering up of the sacrifice, which was absolutely so, has hindered many from seeing the truth.

Yet every one must see at once that the Lord did not kill Himself, and yet offered Himself. The killing of the victim is the death of Christ looked at, as we may say, from its human side.

The offering by the priest set forth, though still under a veil, what God found in it, but they both apply to what was done upon earth. The offering up of the sacrifice was not inside the tabernacle, but in the outer court, and is thus distinctly made to refer to something done upon earth. There was no presentation to God or burning of the victim in the tabernacle itself, -that is, in the sanctuary; and it is to be noted that while the apostle previously speaks of every high priest being constituted for the offering “both of gifts and sacrifices,” when he comes here to the Lord’s tabernacle work, he speaks of the offering of “gifts” alone. The incense and the show-bread, to go no further, belonged, of course, to the tabernacle work. The sacrifices never entered there, except in the blood being carried in. All here, therefore, is in absolute consistency with itself and with all other Scripture. But light has been thought to be thrown by this assertion, as it is taken to be, of Christ not having been a Priest on earth, upon that propitiation which it was His, as we have been told in the second chapter, distinctly as High Priest to make. This, then, it is urged, must have been made in heaven, and refers not to the work of the cross, but to the presentation for acceptance of that work before God, by the Lord, as having entered into His presence there. If, indeed, the Lord were not a Priest on earth, there would be reason, no doubt, for such an interpretation. As it is, there is none whatever. We shall have to look at it further in the chapter following this, but the acceptance of the work of the cross by God was clearly at the moment of its being made; not only the veil rent when the Lord died shows it, but also the fact that even before He dies the cloud that was upon Him is removed. He says no more “My God,” as when He was forsaken, but He says “Father,” in the sense of nearness.

Wrath-bearing was at an end, although the death which was still due from man as a sinner had to be taken. This He takes, therefore, proclaiming at the same time: “It is finished,” as He gives up His Spirit. There was no more to be done. No presentation further was necessary before Him whose Eyes are in every place, and who gives testimony as promptly as it can be done to the work which so fully satisfies Him. With regard to the interpretation of the type here, the actual entering in of the high priest into the sanctuary with the blood which he puts upon the mercy-seat, we shall have, necessarily, to look at in what follows presently. We have yet another question, however, to consider in connection with this thought of Christ’s priesthood being exercised entirely in heaven; and that is, if His be, as the apostle insists, entirely a Melchisedec priesthood, how else could it be exercised than after death, when the “many priests” of Aaron’s order proved their incompetency by the fact that “they were not able to continue, by reason of death;” and in contrast with them Christ’s Melchisedec character is seen in this, that He abideth forever “in the power of an endless life”? Now, whatever the difficulty here, it is certain that Christ was “a merciful and faithful High Priest to make propitiation” and therefore He was High Priest before propitiation was, or could be, made. If death, then, negatived the possibility of His being this at that time, then it would necessarily forbid His being so while in death, until resurrection had taken place. That is as plain as it is really decisive; for His resurrection was already the witness of the acceptance of His work, and, consequently, of propitiation (that is, appeasal) having been already made. Propitiation is by blood, and that was shed on earth; nor, when this was shed, did it wait an hour for the tokens of its acceptance. His own words, “It is finished,” were followed immediately by the rending of the veil, by which the holiest was opened to man; where Christ has now gone in to take His place for us with God, in the value of that blood, our Representative. Thus, being made perfect, He is greeted (or, “hailed”) of God a High Priest after the order of Melchisedec. Notice, it is not the same word as when it is said He was “called” to the priesthood. He is “hailed” now as Victor after His conflict, when the power of that endless life that was His had been manifested in His victory over death and him that had the power of it. Death had been but the sword which the Conqueror turned against him who wielded it; and over Him it could not have dominion when once, to do the will of God, He had descended into it. That eternal life which was in Him could not be touched by it; and the giving up of earthly life, which for the merely human priests had ended their priesthood fully, and taken them entirely away from the scene of their earthly ministry, could not affect the office of Him who could answer the appeal to Him as Lord of the dying malefactor with the royal words, “This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” Thus was He still Priest and King all through. Presently, with the keys of death and hades at His girdle, He is hailed in resurrection as the Royal Priest; not made so then, but approved as fully manifested such.

Already, while the disciples gaze upward after Him, a cloud received Him out of their sight (Acts 1:9). Was it mere earthly vapor? or was it not, rather, the “hail,” -the welcome home, of the manifest glory? Not one poor returning prodigal, but the Father runs to greet and bring him home. Was it not fit (as when, for the objects of His redeeming love, the Lord of glory -not leaving it to angelic hosts even to give them welcome, -“the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven,”) that He who was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father should thus -the angels nowhere as yet seen -be welcomed back to where He had been before, even when creation, as yet, was not called into being by His word? (2) We are now called, in connection with this, to see the new covenant according to which the new Priest draws near to God. There is a sharp contrast here shown us between this and the legal one. The very fact, says the apostle, of the Lord’s speaking of a new covenant, shows that the old was to pass away. It was, therefore, a “finding fault” with the first covenant, and all that belonged to it as such. We know what this means. God’s heart was set upon the bringing His people nigh, and according to the law they could never be brought nigh.

Thus, even, as regards the house of Israel and the house of Judah, with whom the new covenant is to be made in days to come, the terms of their relation to God are entirely altered. That covenant made with them in the day that He took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, did not abide.

Conditional as it was, they did not fulfil its terms, did not, therefore, continue in it, and He did not regard them. It was, in fact, impossible that He could do so without denying His own nature. The covenant that He is going to make, on the other hand, asks for no fulfilment on the part of man at all, but is the simple, positive affirmation of what He will do for them. “I will put My laws into their mind, and will write them also upon their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” It is plain here that the common thought that God’s law is written naturally upon everybody’s heart or mind, is entirely contradicted. It is grace alone that accomplishes it for any; and we must remember that God is speaking here explicitly of His earthly people, and not of any heavenly one. So, when He says: “They shall not teach each one his fellow-citizen, and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: because all shall inwardly know Me, from him that is little to him that is great among them,” a condition of things is implied such as the earth has yet never seen, and such as will not be seen until God brings back Israel to Himself, and the people, as He declares, shall be “all holy,” -when there shall be among them no one who does not know Him. And this, too, will be, not merely externally, so as to be orthodox in the faith, but, as the word is here, they shall “inwardly” know Him. And the ground of it will be this: “I will be merciful to their unrighteousnesses, and their sins and their lawlessnesses I will remember no more.’ ’ Thus, the people with whom this covenant will be made will be a people in that day entirely according to His mind. It will be asked how, according to this, the new covenant applies at all to us. Other scriptures answer this clearly by assuring us that if we have not the covenant made with us, it can yet, in all the blessings of which it speaks, be ministered to us. This unconditional grace is not limited by conditions. We have, thank God, much more than even what the new covenant declares; and grace, having laid the foundation in righteousness, can act according to its own sovereignty, and in such largeness as suits the bounty of God. We have, therefore, the new covenant fully ours, while we have much more than this, for all the “mysteries” which constitute Christianity proper are things before hidden, and really beyond it. The apostle’s purpose here is evidently and simply to show us that the legal covenant is set aside, displaced by that which alone could bring any blessing for man at all.