Hebrews 8:1–6

8:1–2 With the announcement that “we have such a high priest” as has just been described, we have reached the “point” (kephalaion) of the sermon. This Greek word appears once elsewhere in the NT, designating a sum of money (Acts 22:28). In extrabiblical Greek it was used in the sense it is here: “summary, main point.” In Hebrews 7:26 we heard that “such a high priest,” holy and innocent, was fitting to meet our spiritual need. The good news is that “we have such a high priest.”

Psalm 110:1 was enlisted earlier to establish Christ’s superiority to angels, since he is enthroned “at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3, 13). The fourth verse of the same psalm was enlisted to show that Christ remains a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek by virtue of his indestructible life and God’s immutable oath (5:6, 10; 6:20–7:28). Now these two verses converge to establish (among other points) that the Melchizedek-like priest-king conducts his ministry not in an earthly tent but in God’s original heavenly sanctuary.

The sanctuary in which Christ ministers as High Priest is “the holy places” and “the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.” Later, this sanctuary will be characterized in similar terms:

the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) . . . the holy places (9:11–12)

not . . . holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but . . . heaven itself (9:24)

In calling heaven “the true tent, which the Lord set up [or “pitched”; cf. Num. 24:6 LXX], not man,” our author is not echoing Platonic idealism, which devalued the reality or significance of the physical universe. Rather, his point is that the tabernacle constructed in the wilderness was derivative in its design from God’s eternal heavenly residence, his true “dwelling place” beyond the universe of time and space. OT leaders such as Solomon recognized that the earthly temple, as splendid as it was, could not begin to rival “heaven your dwelling place” (1 Kings 8:30; cf. Acts 7:48–50). The earthly sanctuaries (tabernacle and temple) shared the defilement of their human builders and thus needed to be purified through the sprinkled blood of slain animals (Heb. 9:21–23); and further, they shared the mutability that pervades and will eventually bring decomposition to the present created order (1:10–12; 12:25–28).

8:3 The mention of Jesus’ role as a “minister” (leitourgos; 8:2) in the heavenly Holy Place introduces the purpose of priests’ appointment, which is “to offer gifts and sacrifices.” This previews a major theme to be explored in chapters 8–10: “this priest” needed to have “something to offer.” The “something” Christ offered was infinitely more costly and effective than the gifts and sacrifices presented by the Aaronic priests. Their offerings consisted of animals’ blood; our High Priest sacrificed his own body and has brought his own blood into the heavenly Most Holy Place (9:11–14, 25–26; 10:1–10).

8:4–5 Our preacher revisits the objection that Jesus’ genealogy would disqualify him from priestly ministry in Israel’s sanctuaries (cf. 7:13–14). Previously he argued that Christ’s lack of Aaronic ancestry was no disadvantage because God had announced in Psalm 110:4 a different criterion—his own oath—by which he would designate a priest superior to Aaron (Heb. 7:15–22). Now the fact that Aaron’s offspring minister on earth shows that Christ’s ministry must take place in a better Holy Place: heaven. God had directed Moses to make the tabernacle and its fixtures “according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain” (cf. Ex. 25:40). God’s heavenly palace was the template, while the earthly sanctuary was a “copy and shadow” replicating that original in miniature (cf. Heb. 9:23–24; 10:1). Christ has entered that heavenly original, where God dwells in the fullness of his glory, in order to represent and intercede for his people.

8:6 The superiority of the heavenly sanctuary to its earthly copies, the tabernacle and temple, implies that Christ’s ministry surpasses that of the Levitical priests. This comparison leads to the superiority of the covenant he mediates. Covenant (diathēkē) is the overarching theme under which our author will articulate the motifs of sanctuary and sacrifice. Fourteen of the seventeen appearances of “covenant” (diathēkē) in Hebrews occur in chapters 8–10. The others are in 7:22, anticipating the theme (cf. note there); 12:24; and 13:20.

Our preacher’s reasoning replicates that used in 1:4, where he used the same comparative and correlative adjectives to contrast the Son to the angels:

as much superior [kreittōn] to angels as [hosō] the name he has inherited is more excellent [diaphorōteron] than theirs (1:4)

a ministry that is as much more excellent [diaphorōteras] than the old as [hosō] the covenant he mediates is better [kreittovos] (8:6)

Jeremiah 31:31–34, now to be cited, shows that the two covenants being contrasted are the pact that God made with Israel at Sinai, on the one hand, and a “new covenant” now mediated by Christ, on the other. The first covenant had been enacted on the basis of the Levitical priesthood (Heb. 7:11), but the new covenant is enacted on the basis of better promises, announced in Jeremiah’s prophecy: heart transformation, intimate access, complete forgiveness. The change of priesthood has produced a change in the whole covenant relationship binding God to his people.