Hebrews 8 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

Chapter 8. Jesus Our Great High Priest And The New Covenant.

This chapter continues where the previous chapter left off. The writer had amply demonstrated that Jesus Christ was proclaimed to be a priest, and a High Priest, and that not of the Levitical order, but ‘after the order (likeness) of Melchizedek'. This, he argued, therefore meant that there would be a change of law and a new and better covenant. It was necessarily so because the old Law and the old covenant were ministered by the levitical priesthood and had failed. And besides, having already described precisely the type of High Priest Jesus is (Hebrews 7:26-28), it should be obvious to all that the old priesthood was finished. For the new sacrifice of Himself that Jesus has offered could not be offered under the old priesthood. There is thus no point in seeking back to them. And if they look to the new and better sacrifice it requires a new and better priesthood. He now continues with this theme.

In the course of the chapter he declares,

1) That the priesthood of the Son (Hebrews 7:28) is heavenly, to do with what is real, and permanent, while that of the levitical economy was earthly, was to do with ‘copies', and was destined by its own nature to be temporary (Hebrews 8:1-5).

2) That it was fit and proper that He be removed to heaven to perform the functions of His office, since if He had remained on earth, He could not have officiated as priest, as that privilege was by the law of Moses entrusted to others pertaining to another tribe (Hebrews 8:4-5). Thus should they see that He has to operate in Heaven.

3) That the Son had obtained a more exalted ministry than the levitical priests, because He was the Mediator of a better covenant, a new covenant which related to the heart rather than to external observances (Hebrews 8:6-13), and of a better sacrifice which could not have been mediated by earthly priests.

And yet in all this he gives due honour to the old, for he is not seeking to denigrate it but to put it in its proper place, as an honourable priesthood that had fulfilled an important function.

We should perhaps note what is apparent from all this. Firstly that Jesus was made High Priest while on earth, but as a minister of the heavenly Tabernacle, connecting earth with Heaven. For it was as High Priest that He offered Himself as a sacrifice (Hebrews 7:27) on an ‘altar' (through the cross - Hebrews 13:10) appointed by God outside Jerusalem. This fact that it was outside Jerusalem is later emphasised (Hebrews 13:12). The earthly ‘holy city' is seen as ‘the camp', that is the equivalent of the old camp of Israel in the wilderness, under the jurisdiction of the levitical priesthood, outside which must be put all that was unclean, and outside which was burned as belonging to God all that was excessively holy. And so Jesus, Who was condemned as unclean, but was in fact truly holy, was thrust out of the camp, bearing the reproach that was thrust on Him. But that He was there ‘sacrificed' indicates, as the whole context requires, a priesthood on earth but outside the camp, just as Melchizedek came out of Jerusalem to perform his functions with Abraham.

And secondly that from there He passed through the heavens so as to present the blood of the sacrifice before God (Hebrews 4:14; Hebrews 9:11-12).

It is a salutary thought that the holy city thrust Him out to die thus making the ground outside the holy city the most holy ground on earth, while the city itself, no longer holy, was thus opened to the Roman destruction. For those who believed in Jesus, God's High Priest, there could be no return to Jerusalem's priesthood, nor indeed to Jerusalem, a lesson hardly learned yet by Christians. (How extraordinary that some would seek for the restoring of the levitical priesthood and the failing sacrifices, pretending that the latter are the same as in the Old Testament and yet having to admit that they are not the same. In the light of Hebrews it is inconceivable. All these were shadows pointing forward to the greater Reality and had now ceased because the Reality had come).

For the true sanctuary was now in Heaven, and with the veil removed. And once His blood had been shed on earth, where the sins that made it necessary had been committed, it was presented once-for-all before the throne. The result was that, having made the one sacrifice for sin for ever, He sat down at God's right hand in Heaven to continue His ministry of administering the new covenant and to intercede for His own. From then on no inner court was necessary. No altar was required. No further sacrifices needed to be offered. All who now came, came through Him, and entered the sanctuary direct. Jerusalem was no longer required. Thus they should rather look to the heavenly Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26 and Revelation constantly).

The next three Chapter s will therefore concentrate on this new ministry of our heavenly High Priest. The whole passage from 8-10 could be headed, The Whole Levitical System With All That It Involved Has Been Replaced By The Something Far Better To Which It Pointed.