Christ serves in heaven in the true tabernacle
8
📚Now the main point of what we have been saying is this: We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 📚a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle 📖 that was erected by the Lord, and not by man. 3 📚For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this man 📖 also have something to offer. 4 📚If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer gifts according to the Law, 5 📚who serve as the representation and shadow of heavenly things. So Moses was warned 📖 by God when he was about to make the tabernacle. He said, See that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.
8:5 Verse 2.⚜
The New Covenant is greater than the Old Covenant
6 📚But now Jesus has received a more excellent ministry, and by so much more he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises 📖.
8:6 The writer now begins to compare the old covenant which He gave through Moses with the new covenant established by the Lord Jesus. He continues this comparison up to Heb 10:18. See notes on the old covenant at Ex 19:5-6, 21-25; on the new covenant at Jer 31:31-34; Matt 26:28. See another comparison between the old and the new at 2 Cor 3:6-18. The new is far superior to the old because it accomplishes what God wants done in the salvation of men, and the old did not. A covenant is an agreement made between two parties or a promise made from one to another. In the old covenant God promised His blessings to the people of Israel if they obeyed His laws. In the new covenant God promises the forgiveness of sins, a new heart, the knowledge of God which results in eternal life. The one requirement on man’s part is repentance and faith.⚜
The New Covenant does what the Old could not do
7 📚For if that first covenant had been without fault, then no place would have been sought for a second.
8:7 What was wrong with the old covenant? The people were all sinners and could not (and would not) obey God’s laws. Therefore it brought a curse rather than God’s blessings – Rom 8:3; Gal 3:10-13.⚜
8 📚But finding fault with them, he said,
See, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah,
9 📚Not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
Because they did not continue in my covenant 📖,
and I disregarded them, says the Lord.
10 📚For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their mind,
and write them in their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they will be my people 📖.
8:10 God here promises to make His people new and different, to give them a mind and heart that can keep His commandments (compare John 1:12-13; 3:3-8; Rom 8:3-4; 2 Cor 5:17; 1 Pet 1:23).⚜
11 📚And among them no one will teach
his neighbour, and no one his brother,
and say:
“Know the Lord”, for everyone,
from the least to the greatest,
will know me 📖.
12 📚For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,
and their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more.
8:8-12 See notes at Jer 31:31-34.⚜
8:12 Isa 44:22; Micah 7:19; Luke 24:47; Acts 13:38-39; Rom 4:6-8; 8:33. Notice here in vs 8-12 God’s words “I will” repeated again and again. The new covenant is based on God’s “I will”. The old covenant was based on the people’s words “We will” – Ex 19:8; 24:7. This is why the old was weak and failed, and why the new is powerful and succeeds.⚜
13 📚By his saying “A new covenant”, he has made the first old. Now that which is old and has become obsolete 📖 is ready to vanish away 📖.
8:1-13 The writer continues to show that Christ’s priesthood is superior to the OT priesthood (and so, of course, to any human priesthood imaginable). It is better because He serves as priest in the true sanctuary of God in heaven itself, but all Old Testament priests performed their work in an earthly sanctuary which was only a little picture of the heavenly one – vs 1-5. Also Christ’s priesthood is superior because it is associated with a better covenant than the old one – vs 6-13.⚜