CHAPTER VIII.
THE NEW COVENANT.
“Now in the things which we are saying the chief point is this: We have such a High-priest, Who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. For every high-priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is necessary that this High-priest also have somewhat to offer. Now if He were on earth, He would not be a Priest at all, seeing there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount. But now hath He obtained a ministry the more excellent, by how much also He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises.”—Heb. viii. 1–6 (R.V.).
The Apostle has interpreted the beautiful story of Melchizedek with wonderful felicity and force. The point of the whole Epistle, he now tells us, lies there. He has brought forth the headstone of the corner, the keystone of the arch.[142] It is, in short, that we have such a High-priest. Country, holy city, ark of the covenant, all are lost. But if we have the High-priest, all are restored to us in a better and more enduring form. Jesus is the High-priest and King. He has taken His seat once for all, as King, on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty, and, as Priest, is also Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. The indefinite and somewhat unusual term “minister” or “public servant”[143] is intentionally chosen, partly to emphasise the contrast between Christ’s kingly dignity and His priestly service, partly because the author wishes to explain at greater length in what Christ’s actual work as High-priest in heaven consists. For Christ’s heavenly glory is a life of service, not of selfish gratification. Every high-priest serves.[144] He is appointed for no other purpose than to offer gifts and sacrifices. The Apostle’s readers admitted that Christ was High-priest. But they were forgetting that, as such, He too must necessarily minister and have something which He can offer. Our theology is still in like danger. We are sometimes prone to regard Christ’s life in heaven as only a state of exaltation and power, and, consequently, to speak more of the saints’ happiness than of their service. It is the natural result of superficial theories of the Atonement that little practical use is made by many Christians of the truth of Christ’s priestly intercession. The debt has been paid, the debtor discharged, and the transaction ended. Christ’s present activity towards God is acknowledged and—neglected. Protestants are confirmed in this baneful worldliness of conception by their just desire to keep at a safe distance from the error in the opposite extreme: that Christ presents to God the Church’s sacrifices of the mass.
The truth lies midway between two errors. On the one hand, Christ’s intercession is not itself the making or constituting of a sacrifice; on the other, it is not mere pleading and prayer. The sacrifice was made and completed on the Cross, as the victims were slain in the outer court. But it was through the blood of those victims the high-priest had authority to enter the holiest place; and when he had entered, he must sprinkle the warm blood, and so present the sacrifice to God. Similarly Christ must enter a sanctuary in order to present the sacrifice slain on Calvary. The words of the Apostle John, “We have an Advocate with the Father,” express only one side of the truth. But he adds the other side of the conception in the same verse, “And He is the propitiation,” which is a very different thing from saying, “His death was the propitiation.” But what sanctuary shall He enter? He could not approach the holiest place in the earthly temple. For if He were on earth, He would not be a Priest at all, seeing there are men ordained by the Law to offer the appointed gifts on earth.[145] The Jewish priests have satisfied and exhausted the idea of an earthly priesthood. Even Melchizedek could not found an order. If he may be regarded as an attempt to acclimatise on earth the priesthood of personal greatness, the attempt was a failure. It always fails, though it is always renewed. On earth there can be no order of goodness. When a great saint appears among men, he is but a bird of passage, and is not to be found, because God has translated him. If it is so of His saints, what of Christ? Christ on earth through the ages? Impossible! And what is impossible to-day will be equally inconceivable at any point of time in the future. A correct conception of Christ’s priestly intercession is inconsistent with the dream of a reign of Christ on earth. It may, or may not, be consistent with His kingly office. But His priesthood forbids. We infer that Christ has transformed the heaven of glory into the holiest place of a temple, and the throne of God into a shrine before which He, as High-priest, presents His sacrifice.
The Jewish priesthood itself teaches the existence of a heavenly sanctuary.[146] All the arrangements of tabernacle and ritual were made after a pattern shown to Moses on Mount Sinai. The priests, in the tabernacle and through their ritual, ministered to the holiest place, as the visible image and outline of the real holiest place—that is, heaven—which the Lord pitched, not man.
Now Christ’s more excellent ministry as High-priest in heaven carries in its bosom all that the Apostle contends for,—the establishment of a new covenant which has set aside for ever the covenant of the Law. “He has obtained a ministry the more excellent by how much He is the Mediator of a better covenant.”[147] These words contain in a nutshell the entire argument, or series of arguments, that extends from the sixth verse of the eighth chapter to the eighteenth verse of the tenth. The course of thought may be divided as follows:—
1. That the Lord intends to establish a new covenant is first of all shown by a citation from the prophet Jeremiah (viii. 7–13).