Page 497 - Demo

HEBREWS -
26m It was tting that we should have such a high priest:* holy, innocent, unde led, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.* 27He has no need, as did the high priests, to o er sacri ce day after day,*n rst for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did that once for all when he o ered himself. 28For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests, but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law, appoints a son, who has been made perfect forever.o
8Heavenly Priesthood of Jesus.*
1The main point of what has been said is this: we
have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at
the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,a
2a minister of the sanctuary* and of the true tabernacle
that the Lord, not man, set up.b 3Now every high priest
is appointed to o er gifts and sacri ces; thus the
necessity for this one also to have something to o er.c
4If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest,
since there are those who o er gifts according to the
law.d 5They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”e 6Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.f
The Cruci xion, anonymous Flemish painting from the 15th or 16th century
8:13
Is the rst covenant “obsolete”? The Letter to the Hebrews makes it clear that we cannot understand Christ without the Old Testament, and we know that the covenant God made with the chosen people is still in place (Galatians 3:29). Above all, we believe that God remains true to the divine promises. “God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues” (On the Relation of the Church to non-Christian Religions, 4).
CHAPTER 7
a. [8:1] 1:3; 4:14; 7:26–28.
b. [8:2] 9:11; Ex 33:7; Nm 24:6 LXX.
c. [8:3] 5:1.
d. [8:4] 7:13.
e. [8:5] 9:23; Ex 25:40; Acts 7:44;
Col 2:17.
f. [8:6] 7:22; 9:15.
CHAPTER 8
m. [7:26] 4:14, 15.
n. [7:27] 5:3; 9:12, 25–28; 10:11–14;
Ex 29:38–39; Lv 16:6, 11, 15–17;
Nm 28:3–4; Is 53:10; Rom 6:10.
o. [7:28] 5:1, 2, 9.
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* [7:26] This verse with its list of attributes is reminiscent of Heb 7:3 and is perhaps a hymnic counterpart to it, contrasting the exalted Jesus with Melchizedek.
* [7:26–28] Jesus is precisely the high priest whom the human race requires, holy and sinless, installed far above humanity (Heb 7:26); one having no need to o er sacri ce daily for sins but making a single o ering of himself (Heb 7:27) once for all. The law could only appoint high priests with human limitations, but the ful llment of God’s oath regarding the priesthood of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4) makes the Son of God the perfect priest forever (Heb 7:28).
* [7:27] Such daily sacri ce is nowhere mentioned in the Mosaic law; only on the Day of Atonement is it prescribed that the high priest must o er sacri ce. . .for his own sins and then for those of the people (Lv 16:11–19). Once for all: this translates the Greek words ephapax/hapax that occur eleven times in Hebrews.
* [8:1–6] The Christian community has in Jesus the kind of high priest described in Heb 7:26–28. In virtue of his ascension Jesus has taken his place at God’s right hand in accordance with Ps 110:1 (Heb 8:1), where he presides over the heavenly sanctuary established by God himself (Heb 8:2). Like every high priest, he has his o ering to make (Heb 8:3; cf. Heb 9:12, 14), but it di ers from that of the levitical priesthood in which he had no share (Heb 8:4) and which was in any case but a shadowy re ection of the true o ering in the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 8:5). But Jesus’ ministry in the heavenly sanctuary is that of mediator of a superior covenant that accomplishes what it signi es (Heb 8:6).
* [8:2] The sanctuary: the Greek term could also mean “holy things” but bears the meaning “sanctuary” elsewhere in Hebrews (Heb 9:8, 12, 24, 25; 10:19; 13:11). The true tabernacle: the heavenly tabernacle that the Lord. . .set up is contrasted with the earthly tabernacle that Moses set up in the desert. True means “real” in contradistinction to a mere “copy and shadow” (Heb 8:5); compare the Johannine usage (e.g., Jn 1:9; 6:32; 15:1). The idea that the earthly sanctuary is a re ection of a heavenly model may be based upon Ex 25:9, but probably also derives from the Platonic concept of a real world of which our observable world is merely a shadow.
* [8:7–13] Since the rst covenant was de cient in accomplishing what it signi ed, it had to be replaced (Heb 8:7), as Jeremiah (Jer 31:31–34) had prophesied (Heb 8:8–12). Even in the time of Jeremiah, the rst covenant was antiquated (Heb 8:13). In Heb 7:22–24, the superiority of the new covenant was seen in the permanence of its priesthood; here the superiority is based on better promises, made explicit in the citation of Jer 31:31–34 (LXX: 38), namely, in the immediacy of the people’s knowledge of God (Heb 8:11) and in the forgiveness of sin (Heb 8:12).