Hebrews 8

     8:1-5.  There is nothing weak about our high priest (cf. 7:28), for he is enthroned (as king) at the right hand (i.e., with all power and authority, Mt. 28:18) of the divine Majesty in the heavens.  He is an effective intercessor forever (7:25), because he ministers in the true tabernacle of the Lord’s presence, not in the earthly man made figurative copy (2, 5).  What he offers is the true and effective sacrifice, not those many offered by those who are priests by appointment of the Law, that only foreshadow the heavenly reality appointed forever by God’s oath (3-4).  The pattern God gave Moses had to be carefully copied, because it was a copy, a shadow cast by the approach of the heavenly reality (5; cf. 9:24).

     Two errors should be guarded against.  First, it is not only these Hebrews who are tempted to exchange the unseen heavenly reality of the once for all atonement for the pageantry and ceremonies of earthly external religion.  But secondly, we cannot ignore and dismiss the OT as irrelevant.  Its types and shadows testify to the truth and necessity of Christ’s work in fulfilling them.  We identify Jesus by his picture.  Jesus is not only the true king, the true high priest, but also the true propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of his elect people.  Metaphorically, he is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).   Thus it is wrong to take the picture literally for the real thing–a ceremonial legalism; or to become so literal minded that the metaphor (the OT picture) is missed entirely, in which case we tend to make our own false image of Christ that has no reality in heaven or earth.  We especially need the OT testimony to give us a true picture of ourselves, and our need of the promised Savior’s blood atonement.

     8:6-13.  The writer once again effectively uses the OT Scripture to prove that the old covenant was never intended to be permanent or effective by itself, but temporary and promissory.  His calling the first covenant faulty is not his invented judgment.  Long ago, the Lord through Jeremiah said the same thing (Jer. 31:31-34).  The fact that its outward forms are now obsolete was built into it from the beginning, and its completion in the new covenant a reason for praise (cf. Ro. 3:21-25).  Its fulfillment is a new covenant written on redeemed hearts, not on tablets of stone, and it makes the old covenant of types and symbols obsolete.