New Testament
Hebrews 8
Overview
Having established that Jesus is a priest like Melchizedek (chapter 7), the writer now states the "main point" (8:1): we have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, ministering in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man. Because every high priest must have something to offer, Christ too must have a ministry, but a more excellent one, since He serves a heavenly sanctuary of which the earthly was only a copy and shadow (8:5, citing Exodus 25:40). The writer then grounds the superiority of Christ's ministry in the superiority of His covenant, quoting at length the longest Old Testament citation in the New Testament: the new covenant promise of Jeremiah 31:31-34. In that covenant God writes His law on the heart, grants knowledge of Himself to all, and remembers sin no more. The chapter closes with the decisive verdict (8:13): by saying "new," God has made the first covenant obsolete, and what is obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
1Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;
2A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
3For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.
4For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:
5Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
6But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
7For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
8For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13In that he saith, A new covenant , he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.