For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses was warned by God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, “See, you shall make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.” But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
For finding fault with them, he said, “Behold, the days come”, says the Lord, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
They will not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from their least to their greatest.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.”
In that he says, “A new covenant”, he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 4. For if he were on earth, etc. It…
4. For if he were on earth, etc. It is now beyond dispute that Christ is a high priest; but as the office of a judge does not exist without laws and statutes, so the office of sacrificing must be connected with Christ as a priest: yet he has no earthly or visible sacrifice; he cannot then be a priest on earth. We must always hold this truth that when the Apostle speaks of the death of Christ, he regards not the external action, but the spiritual benefit. He suffered death as men do, but as a priest he atoned for the sins of the world in a divine manner; there was an external shedding of blood, but there was also an internal and spiritual purgation; in a word, he died on earth, but the virtue and efficacy of his death proceeded from heaven.
What immediately follows some render thus, “He could not be a priest of the number of those who offer gifts according to the Law.” But the words of the Apostle mean another thing; and therefore I prefer this rendering, “He could not be a priest as long as there are priests who,” etc. For he intends to show one of these two things, either that Christ is no priest, while the priesthood of the Law continued, as he had no sacrifice, or that the sacrifices of the law ceased as soon as Christ appeared. The first of these is against all reason, for it is an act of impiety to deprive Christ of his priesthood. It then remains for us to confess, that the Levitical order is now abolished.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4, 6, 7, 8, 13 He giveth a reason why he said that our…
He giveth a reason why he said that our high Priest is in the heavenly sanctuary and not in the earthly: because, saith he, if he were now on the earth, he could not minister in the earthly sanctuary, seeing there are yet Levitical Priests, which are appointed for him, that is to say, to be patterns of that perfect example. And to what purpose should the patterns serve when the true and original example is present.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv4–13 4 For if he were on earth, he should…
4 For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:
Ver. 4. He should not be a priest] Because not of the tribe of Levi, whose priesthood lasted so long as Christ lived on earth, and was done away by his death.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv4–13 For if he were on earth, he should not…
For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest: this gives the reason why the Levitical gifts and offerings were inconsistent with Christ’s priesthood: for if he were earthly for person or office, or was existing on earth, or in an earthly sanctuary or tabernacle proper to the law, he could not by Divine ordination be an offering priest, being not of Aaron’s family, nor of the tribe of Levi, nor such a priest as he was made by God’s oath after Melchisedec’s order, if he were for temper, office, or place of ministry earthly.
Seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: this earthly office, state, and work, was by the law settled on Aaron’s family, and none could legally offer sacrifices or gifts in God’s earthly tabernacle or temple, but his sons alone. Christ, as he was not of that tribe, so he never was either in the court of the priests, or in the holy place in the temple, neither did minister in them as a priest at all; this was proper and peculiar only to his types.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 Our apostle, in these words, proves the excellency of…
Our apostle, in these words, proves the excellency of Christ’s ministry of priesthood above that of Aaron and his sons, from the excellency of the new covenant (or the new dispensation of the covenant of grace) above the old, of which he was the mediator. Now the more excellent the covenant the more excellent the ministry.
Learn hence, 1. That the gospel-covenant, or the new covenant, was the best covenant that ever God made with man; not but that the old and new covenant were the same for substance, though not for clearness; indeed temporal things were types and shadows of better things, even of heavenly things; And accordingly believers under the Old Testament were saved by a covenant of grace as well as we.
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Learn, 2. That the gospel covenant is therefore a better covenant, because established upon better promises; their promises of old were chiefly temporal, though not only temporal promises. Ours are chiefly spiritual, yet are temporal things promised us also; but more rarely, and with the exception of the cross, or rather they are thrown in as additions to spiritual promises, Mat 6:33. But the promises of the covenant of grace are therefore better, because strength and assistance is engaged for, and graciously offered, in order to enable us to perform the conditions of them: The law required sinless obedience; the gospel accepts sincere obedience, and offers grace to perform it.
Learn, 3. That Jesus Christ is the mediator of this better covenant: As there was a covenant made between God and man, so there was need of a mediator that the covenant might be effectual: for a mediator is necessary, both where there is a controversy and difference, and also where there is an imparity and distance between persons: In both respects Christ is mediator; and his mediation was needful, that he might bring us to God.
God stood upon terms before he would pardon sin. Justice must be satisfied, and that by blood, and that blood of infinite value; therefore Christ is first a sponsor before a mediator; he first satisfies for a breach, before he goes about to make up the breach between God and the sinner: Thus was he the mediator of a better covenant.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v6 In this part of the chapter, the apostle illustrates…
In this part of the chapter, the apostle illustrates and confirms the superior excellency of the priesthood of Christ above that of Aaron, from the excellency of that covenant, or that dispensation of the covenant of grace, of which Christ was the Mediator (Heb 8:6): his ministry is more excellent, by how much he is the Mediator of a better covenant. The body and soul too of all divinity (as some observe) consist very much in rightly distinguishing between the two covenants - the covenant of works and the covenant of grace; and between the two dispensations of the covenant of grace - that under the Old Testament and that under the New. Now observe,
I. What is here said of the old covenant, or rather of the old dispensation of the covenant of grace: of this it is said, 1. That it was made with the fathers of the Jewish nation at mount Sinai (Heb 8:9), and Moses was the Mediator of that covenant, when God took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt, which intimates the great affection, condescension, and tender care of God towards them. 2. That this covenant was not found faultless (Heb 8:7, Heb 8:8); it was a dispensation of darkness and dread, tending to bondage, and only a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; it was perfect in its kind, and fitted to answer its end, but very imperfect in comparison of the gospel. 3. That it was not sure or stedfast; for the Jews continued not in that covenant, and the Lord regarded them not, Heb 8:9. They dealt ungratefully with their God, and cruelly with themselves, and fell under God's displeasure. God will regard those who remain in his covenant, but will reject those who cast away his yoke from them. 4. That it is decayed, grown old, and vanisheth away, Heb 8:13. It is antiquated, canceled, out of date, of no more use in gospel times than candles are when the sun has risen. Some think the covenant of peculiarity did not quite decay till the destruction of Jerusalem, though it was forfeited at the death of Christ, and was made old, and was now to vanish and perish, and the Levitical priesthood vanished with it.
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II. What is here said of the New Testament dispensation, to prove the superior excellency of Christ's ministry. It is said,
1. That it is a better covenant (Heb 8:6), a more clear and comfortable dispensation and discovery of the grace of God to sinners, bringing in holy light and liberty to the soul. It is without fault, well ordered in all things. It requires nothing but what it promises grace to perform. It accepts of godly sincerity, accounting it gospel perfection. Every transgression does not turn us out of covenant; all is put into a good and safe hand.
2. That it is established upon better promises, more clear and express, more spiritual, more absolute. The promises of spiritual and eternal blessings are in this covenant positive and absolute; the promises of temporal blessings are with a wise and kind proviso, as far as shall be for God's glory and his people's good. This covenant contains in it promises of assistance and acceptance in duty, promises of progress and perseverance in grace and holiness, of bliss and glory in heaven, which were more obscurely shadowed forth by the promises of the land of Canaan, a type of heaven.
3. It is a new covenant, even that new covenant that God long ago declared he would make with the house of Israel, that is, all the Israel of God; this was promised in Jer 31:31, Jer 31:32, and accomplished in Christ. This will always be a new covenant, in which all who truly take hold of it shall be always found preserved by the power of God. It is God's covenant; his mercy, love, and grace moved for it; his wisdom devised it; his Son purchased it; his wisdom devised it; his Son purchased it; his Spirit brings souls into it, and builds them up in it.
4. The articles of this covenant are very extraordinary, which are sealed between God and his people by baptism and the Lord's supper; whereby they bind themselves to their part, and God assures them he will do his part; and his is the main and principal part, on which his people depend for grace and strength to do theirs. Here,
(1.) God articles with his people that he will put his laws into their minds and write them in their hearts, Heb 8:10. He once wrote his laws to them, now he will write his laws in them; that is, he will give them understanding to know and to believe his law; he will give them memories to retain them; he will give them hearts to love them and consciences to recognize them; he will give them courage to profess them and power to put them in practice; the whole habit and frame of their souls shall be a table and transcript of the law of God. This is the foundation of the covenant; and, when this is laid, duty will be done wisely, sincerely, readily, easily, resolutely, constantly, and comfortably.
(2.) He articles with them to take them into a near and very honourable relation to himself. [1.] He will be to them a God; that is, he will be all that to them, and do all that for them, that God can be and do. Nothing more can be said in a thousand volumes than is comprehended in these few words: I will be a God to them. [2.] They shall be to him a people, to love, honour, observe, and obey him in all things; complying with his cautions, conforming to his commands, comporting with his providences, copying out his example, taking complacency in his favour. This those must do and will do who have God for their God; this they are bound to do as their part of the contract; this they shall do, for God will enable them to do it, as an evidence that he is their God and that they are his people; for it is God himself who first founds the relation, and then fills it up with grace suitable and sufficient, and helps them in their measure to fill it up with love and duty; so that God engages both for himself and them.
(3.) He articles with them that they shall grow more and more acquainted with their God (Heb 8:11): They shall all know me from the least to the greatest, insomuch that there shall not be so much need of one neighbour teaching another the knowledge of God. Here observe, [1.] In the want of better instruction, one neighbour should be teaching another to know the Lord, as they have ability and opportunity for it. [2.] This private instruction shall not be so necessary under the New Testament as it was under the Old. The old dispensation was shadowy, dark, ritual, and less understood; their priests preached but seldom, and but a few at a time, and the Spirit of God was more sparingly given out. But under the new dispensation there shall be such abundance of public qualified preachers of the gospel, and dispensers of ordinances statedly in the solemn assemblies, and so great a flocking to them, as doves to their windows, and such a plentiful effusion of the Spirit of God to make the ministration of the gospel effectual, that there shall be a mighty increase and spreading of Christian knowledge in persons of all sorts, of each sex, and of all ages. O that this promise might be fulfilled in our days, that the hand of God may be with his ministers, that a great number may believe and be turned to the Lord!
(4.) God articles with them about the pardon of their sins, as what always accompanies the true knowledge of God (Heb 8:12): For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, etc. Observe, [1.] The freeness of this pardon. It does not result from merit in man, but from mercy in God; he pardons for his own name's sake. [2.] The fullness of this pardon; it extends to their unrighteousness, sins, and iniquities; to all kinds of sin, to sins highly aggravated. [3.] The fixedness of this pardon. It is so final and so fixed that God will remember their sins no more; he will not recall his pardon; he will not only forgive their sins, but forget them, treat them as if he had forgotten them. This pardoning mercy is connected with all other spiritual mercies. Unpardoned sin prevents mercy, and pulls down judgments; but the pardon of sin prevents judgment, and opens a wide door to all spiritual blessings; it is the effect of that mercy that is from everlasting, and the earnest of that mercy that shall be to everlasting. This is the excellency of the new dispensation, and these are the articles of it; and therefore we have no reason to repine, but great reason to rejoice that the former dispensation is antiquated and has vanished away.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv4–13 For if he were on earth, he should not…
For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest,.... The Socinians from hence attempt to prove that Christ was not a priest, and did not offer sacrifice on earth; whereas his coming into the world, and his appearance in human nature, was in the character of a priest, and to qualify himself for one; his death was his sacrifice, which was on earth; and he never offered but one sacrifice; and it was after he had offered himself that he went to heaven; so the sacrifices under the law were first offered, before their blood was carried within: but the meaning is, either if "that" was on earth, namely, what it was necessary he should have to offer; if his human nature had been earthly, had been of men, had come by ordinary generation, he had not been properly, only typically a priest, at most; and had been no better than the typical ones; yea, he would have been needless, nay, might not have offered, not being of Levi's tribe, and could not have existed as a priest with the sons of Aaron; but he had his human nature in another way, through the power of the Holy Ghost from above, and therefore is said to come from above, from heaven, and to be the Lord from heaven: or the sense is, if he was on earth, and had not died, he had not been a priest; and if he had died and remained under the power of death, he had been a priest of no account and use; and had he rose again and remained on earth, without going to heaven, with his blood and sacrifice, he had not been a perfect priest; if Christ had remained on earth, the Levitical priesthood had remained, and so he would have been no priest, since two priesthoods could not have subsisted together. The Levitical priesthood was in force while Christ was on earth; Christ's priesthood was not perfected on earth; the Levitical priesthood remaining while he was on earth, proves he was not then a perfect priest, or had not completed his priesthood; had he been so, that would not have subsisted; it was necessary therefore that Christ should enter into the holy place, to put an end to the Levitical priesthood: moreover, if he had remained on earth, he had been needless;
seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law; there were priests when Christ was upon earth; their work was to offer gifts the people brought, and sacrifices for sin, and that according to the law of Moses, which till the death of Christ was in full force.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv4–13 But if he were on earth - If his…
But if he were on earth - If his priesthood terminated here. He could not be a priest - At all, consistently with the Jewish institutions. There being other priests - To whom alone this office is allotted.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv4–13 Verse 4. For if he were on earth] As…
Verse 4. For if he were on earth] As the Jewish temple was standing when this epistle was written, the whole temple service continued to be performed by the legal priests, descendants of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi; therefore if Christ had been then on earth, he could not have performed the office of a priest, being of the tribe of Judah, to which tribe the office of the priesthood did not appertain.
There are priests that offer gifts] This is an additional proof that this epistle was written before the destruction of Jerusalem. As the word θυσιαι, sacrifices, is not added here as it is in Heb 8:3, is it any evidence that bloody sacrifices had then ceased to be offered? Or, are both kinds included in the word δωρα, gifts? But is δωρον, a gift, ever used to express a bloody sacrifice? I believe the Septuagint never used it for זבח zebach, which signifies an animal offered to God in sacrifice.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13 Heb 8:5. Who serve — Which priests, according to…
Heb 8:5. Who serve — Which priests, according to the Jewish institutions, serve in the temple, which was not yet destroyed; unto, or, after, the example, or, pattern, and shadow of heavenly things — Of gospel mysteries, even of Christ himself, with all that he did and suffered, and still continues to do, including spiritual, evangelical worship, and everlasting glory. In other words, The whole ministry of the Jewish priests was about such things as had only a resemblance and obscure representation of things of the gospel. The word υποδειγμα, rendered example, or pattern, means somewhat expressed by the strokes pencilled out upon a piece of fine linen, which exhibit the figures of leaves and flowers, but have not yet received their splendid colours and curious shades; and σκια, the word rendered shadow, is that shadowy representation which gives some dim and imperfect idea of the body; but not the fine features, not the distinguishing air, none of those living graces, which adorn the real person. Yet both the pattern and shadow lead our minds to something nobler than themselves; the pattern to those spiritual and eternal blessings which complete it, the shadow to that which occasions it. Of the shadow, see on Heb 10:1. As Moses was admonished of God — Κεχρηματισται, an expression which sometimes signifies to receive an oracle, or a revelation, or divine direction: as Heb 11:7, By faith Noah, χρηματισθεις, being directed by a revelation. Sometimes it denotes a direction from an angel, as Act 10:22, Cornelius, χρηματισθεις υπο αγγελου αγιου, being warned by a holy angel. In the active voice it signifies to deliver an oracle, asAct_Heb 10:25, If they did not escape who refused, τον χρηματιζοντα, him delivering oracles on earth. Here the expression means that Moses was divinely instructed, when he was about to make the tabernacle, concerning every part of it, by a model which was shown him in the mount, and which exhibited the form, fashion, dimensions, and all the utensils of it. For see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern, &c. — “The strictness of this charge implying that the tabernacle and its services were intended to be representations of heavenly things, may we not suppose that this purpose was discovered to Moses as the reason of the exactness required, and that the knowledge thereof was preserved among the Jews by tradition. God’s direction to Moses to make all according to the pattern showed him, is here appealed to by the apostle with great propriety, as a proof that the priests worshipped God in the tabernacle with a representation and shadow of heavenly things. For, since by this admonition Moses was required not only to make the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry, exactly according to the pattern showed him in the mount, but also, and indeed chiefly, to appoint the services of the priests in the tabernacles according to that pattern, the strictness of the injunction implied that there was some important reason for this exactness. Now what could that reason be, unless the one assigned by the apostle; namely, that the tabernacle was intended to be a shadow of the heavenly holy place, and the services of the tabernacles to be representations of the ministrations of Messiah as a priest in heaven?” Accordingly the tabernacles are called, Act 10:23, τα υποδειγματα, the patterns, or representations, of the holy places in the heavens. And Act 10:24, the holy places made with hands are called αντιτυπα, antitypes of the true. The ministry of the priests in the earthly tabernacles is represented as typical of the ministrations of Christ in heaven, Act 10:7; and by the absolute exclusion of the priests and people from the most holy place, the representation of heaven, (Act 10:8,) the Holy Ghost signified that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was yet standing; and (Act 10:9) that the outward tabernacle with its services was a figure for the time then present, by which figure the Jews were taught the inefficacy of all the atonements made by men on earth for cleansing the conscience. To which add, that (Act 10:11-12) Christ is called a High-Priest of good things to come, is said to have entered once into the holy place, and to have obtained eternal redemption for us. “These things show that the ministrations of the Levitical high-priests in the inward tabernacle on earth, were typical of the ministrations of Christ in the true tabernacle, that is, in heaven.” — Macknight.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv4–13 For if he were on earth, he should not…
For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest - He could not perform that office. The design of this is, to show a reason why he was removed to heaven. The reason was, that on earth there were those who were set apart to that office, and that he, not being of the same tribe with them, could not officiate as priest. There was an order of people here on earth consecrated already to that office, and hence, it was necessary that the Lord Jesus, in performing the functions of the office, should be removed to another sphere.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 If then he were on earth, he would not…
If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest. He speaks of a priest according to the custom of the Jews, where none were priests but of the tribe of Levi, and Jesus Christ was of the tribe of Juda: and if the law of Moses was to continue, there would not be wanting priests to offer sacrifices according to their worship, though such priests were only employed about things that were types[2] and shadows of heavenly things in the new law after Christ’s coming, and of the sacrifices by which he offered himself on the cross. And this God doubtless revealed to Moses, when he said to him: take heed "thou make all things according to the pattern which was shewn thee on the mount." (Witham) --- Earth, &c. That is, if he were not of a higher condition than the Levitical order of earthly priests, and had not another kind of sacrifice to offer, he should be excluded by them from the priesthood, and its functions, which by the law were appropriated to their tribe. (Challoner)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Exemplari et umbræ deserviunt, Greek: upodeigmati, kai skia latreuousi. It signifies, that they served God by those things that were types and figures of more perfect and heavenly things.
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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v6 Christ’s priestly service is by so much the more…
II
Christ’s priestly service is by so much the more excellent, as the covenant of which He is Mediator, rests upon better promises than the old covenant, which, according to its own testimony, is destined to destruction.
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Heb_8:6-13
6 But now [as it is] hath he obtained5 a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was [hath been] established upon better promises. 7For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should [would] no place 8have been [be] sought for the second. For [while] 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 10[disregarded them], saith the Lord. For [Because] this is the6 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 will write [inscribe] them in [on] their hearts: and I will be to them a God, 11and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, [fellow-citizen, πολίτην],7 and every man his brother, saying, Know ye the Lord: for all shall [will] know me, from the least8 unto the greatest. 12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities9 will I remember no more. 13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now [But] that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
[Heb_8:6.—νυνὶ δέ, but now, as it is, as the case actually stands, contrasted with the case supposed Heb_8:4,—ἥτις, as one which, characteristic, νενομεθέτηται, has been enacted, instituted as matter of legislation, the word suggested by the legal character of the old covenant.
Heb_8:7.—οὐκ ἂν ἐζητεῖτο, would not be sought.
Heb_8:8.—μεμφόμενος, blaming, finding fault, either with it or them, or both; here, I think, mainly the former.
Heb_8:9.—ε͂ν ἡμέρᾳ ἐπιλαβομένου μου, in the day of my taking hold of them for succor, see Heb_2:16—αὐτοί and κἀγώ placed in contrast. God divides, in His tenderness, the blame between the people and himself.
Heb_8:10.—διδούς giving either with ο͂ιαθήσομαὶ understood from the preceding verse, or irregularly connected by καί with the following finite verb.—ἐπιγράψω, I will write upon, inscribe.
Heb_8:11.—οὐ μὴ διδάξωσιν, a familiar emphatic construction: There is no fear lest they may teach=they shall by no means teach,—τὸν πολίτην=συμπολίτην, fellow-citizen.—εἰδήσω, old Ionic Fut. for εἴσομαι, which thence past over to the later Attic.—ἀπὸ μικροῦ ἔως μεγάλου, from small unto great of them.
Heb_8:12.—ἵλεως, propitious, gracious.—οὑ μὴ μνησθῶ ἔτι. I will no longer make mention.
Heb_8:13.—ἐν τῷ λέγεῖν καινήν, in saying “new.”—πεπαλαίωκε, he hath rendered antiquated.—παλαιούμενον καὶ γηράσκον, becoming antiquated and growing old.—K.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Heb_8:6. But now, etc.—In. contrast with the supposition made in Heb_8:4, Heb_8:7 exhibits the actual state of the case, and reminds us that the priestly service of Christ, although there is no place for it in the Mosaic sanctuary, has still not less value than the so highly revered Levitical worship; nay rather by so much surpasses it as the New Covenant of which Christ is Mediator surpasses the Old Covenant, which, though also founded on Divine promises, yet, even by these themselves is reminded of its yet imperfect nature and transitory significance. The νυνὶ δέ is thus to be taken not temporally but logically, not, however, deducing, but contrasting, [as is uniformly the case in its logical use].
Heb_8:6. Establish.—The expression νενομοθέτηται shows that the author regards the New Covenant partly as a fact which has been historically accomplished, partly as an economy of salvation and of life established by God, and for this reason not merely of binding authority, but also working according to fixed laws, as does also Paul, Rom_3:27; Rom_8:2; Rom_9:31.
Heb_8:7. There would no place be sought.—Bleek finds the idea expressed that God would have had no need to seek in the hearts of men for a better place for His covenant than was furnished by the tables of stone; but, although the statement that the first covenant was not faultless refers to the outward and ceremonial character of the Old Testament institutions, still the author, if Bleek’s idea had been in his mind, could hardly have omitted the words ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις. Moreover the emphasis certainly not upon τόπος but upon δευτέρας. The translation “would have been sought” (Erasm., Calv., Bez., etc.), is erroneous, as it would have demanded the pluperfect. The following passage of Scripture which contains the promise of a new covenant, would seem, according to Del., to show that God in His counsel already had a place for such a covenant, and hence sought, in the history of the world, the place for its actualization. Thol. takes the τόπον ζητεῖν here as=τόπον λαμβάνειν, Act_25:16, i.e., to take occasion. Ebr. and Lün. assume a blending of the two clauses οὐκ ἄν ἦν τόπος δευτέρας=there would have been no place for a second, and οὐκ ἂν ἐζητεῖτο δευτέρα=no second would be sought.
Heb_8:8. For finding fault he saith to them.—Lachmann reads after A. D*. K., 17, 39, αὐτοῖς,. This reference to the Israelites is, however, possible even with the better attested reading αὐτοῖς, since μέμφεσθαι, is constructed alike with the Acc. and the Dat. In this construction the Peshito is followed by the Vulg., Chrys., Luth., Calv., Bisp., Del., and the majority. It is a more elegant and delicate construction, however, to leave the object of the fault-finding undetermined (De W., Ebr.), and with Faber Stapul., Piscat., Schlicht., Grot., Bl., Lün., Reiche, etc., to connect αὐτοῖς with λέγει. We must not, however, exactly supply αὐτήν, and regard μεμφ. as corresponding directly with the preceding ἄμεμπτος. This corresponds not with the citation from Jer_31:31-34, in which the positive censure falls upon the people, and strikes but indirectly the covenant which was unable to secure right conduct in the nation. The designation of it here is=not blameless (ἄμεμπτος): and it is certainly inadmissible to regard the negative expression as on a level, with a positive one. On the other hand Del. goes too far in regarding the suppression of the object of the blame, as an ambiguity. The construction rather intimates the two-fold applicability of the censure, and this is entirely consonant with the facts of the case. In the citation itself which adduces the Scripture proof of the preceding statement, the author puts συντελέσω for διαθήσομαι and ἐποίησα for διεθέμην, with the evident design of indicating even in the very words of the New Testament as on the part of God accomplished.
Heb_8:10. I will give.—Διδούς, giving, stands not instead of δώσω, I will give (Beng., etc.), nor is either this now to be supplied (Heinr., Steng., etc.), although the Cod. Vat. of the LXX. reads διδοὺς δώσω, or εἰμί or ἔσομαι. If we supply any thing, it could be only διαθήσομαι (Del.), with which preceding word we can also with Lün. construct the Part. (I will make a covenant, viz., in giving), unless we prefer with Winer the not unfamiliar construction which makes a transition from the Part, to the finite verb. It is grammatically possible also (with Böhme and Paulus) to connect διδούς with the following ἐπιγράψω, in which case καί=also.
Heb_8:13. In that he saith a new covenant, etc.—From the above cited passage our author, by emphasizing the καινή, new, draws the conclusion that the Mosaic economy is even in its very origin declared as the old covenant which appears as languishing and waxing old without hope of rejuvenation. Παλαιοῦν means originally not to render antiquated=to do away as old and useless, to abrogate, (Bez., Erasm., etc.) but, to render ancient, or old, to deliver over to the past, and to place in contrast with the new, with that which is hitherto non-existent. This transitive signification it has also, Job_9:5; Job_32:15; Lam_3:5; which, at Dan_7:25, passes over into the sense of set aside as antiquated. For what is consigned to the past, naturally grows old (vetus), and this in the case of the living is called senescere. The intransitive signification, grow old is found only at Isa_65:22. The word belongs to later Greek, and in extra biblical literature is in use only in the Mid. or Pass. The Perf. in our passage points to the completed act.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. From the elevation of the Priest, the author at Heb_7:22, reasons to the elevation of the covenant guaranteed by Him in His everlasting existence; since those mortal priests who are appointed by command of the Law can sustain no comparison with the Royal Priest promised by the oath of God, potent in virtue of His indestructible life, the eternally perfected Son. There arises thus not a mere inversion of the relation, much less an argument in a circle, if here the author reasons from the superiority of the covenant founded on better promises, to the superiority of His priestly functions, who is not merely the surety, but also the Mediator, i.e., the founder, supporter, quickener of this covenant.
2. The New Covenant also has its institutions and arrangements, established by the revelation of the Divine will, whose foundations are laid in the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. Among them particularly stands forth in the relation here adverted to the prophecy, Jer_31:31-34 (whose parallel we find in Eze_36:25-27) which, within the limits of the O. Test. itself, expresses most clearly the contrast so strongly emphasized by Paul (2Co_3:6-9) between the economies of law and gospel, and the purely disciplinary and educational, and hence transitory nature of the Mosaic institutions.
3. In this prophecy there is promised a new Covenant, which Jehovah will make with Israel and with Judah, i.e., with the collective people, whose restoration and reunion on the soil of the Promised Land is also promised by the prophet, a Covenant which shall have a different fate from that which was formed after the nation’s deliverance from Egypt. The all holy God, in His righteousness, does away with the old relation to the covenant-breaking people; but in His grace will institute a system of salvation by a new Covenant, for which He already lays the foundation by better promises.
4. The superiority of these promises consists in the fact that the Divine will is no longer as a bare command to come into mere outward contact with the people, but is to live and work in its heart; that in consequence of this a living knowledge of God is to be the common blessing of all the members of the Covenant, and the distinction between prophets and non-prophets, priests and non-priests, to fall away; and that finally the ground of this will be the forgiveness of sins wrought without any human merits by the grace of God. Precisely for this reason could Jer_3:16-17 even predict that the entire legal economy, nay, the very ark of the Covenant itself, would no more be an object of longing to the people. Intimations of this state of things are found, Joe_3:1 ff.; Isa_11:9; Isa_54:13; Eze_11:19.
5. From the disparagement of sacrificial worship which comes out frequently and strongly within the limits of the O. Test. itself (1Sa_15:22 ff.; Psa_40:7 ff; Psalms 50; Psa_51:18 ff.; Hos_6:6; Jer_7:21-23; Pro_21:3), we may not, however, conclude that the idea of the death of Jesus Christ as an expiatory offering is a relapse into Judaism—a sentiment in accordance with which Holdheim (on the Ceremonial Law in the Kingdom of the Messiah, 1845) says: “The Rabbinical doctrine stands in this near relation to Christianity that they both rest on the common conviction that the principle of expiation contained in the Mosaic law is to be maintained as of perpetual truth and validity. Christianity bases on this the fact that by a single great sacrifice the work of expiation has been once for all accomplished for all who believe in it, while Rabbinical Judaism, holding the same fundamental idea, regards the sacrificial ritual as only temporarily done away, and looks forward to its restoration.” This modern Judaism is as far removed from faith in the Old Testament as from faith in the gospel, and hence is equally incapable of comprehending both the one and the other. An arbitrary, self-willed and self-seeking separation from the legal worship is sharply rebuked by those same prophets who, turning away from the external character of the legal ceremonial and its meritorious works, demand and predict the fulfilment of that Divine will which is revealed in the law. But God, in the law, gave, on the one hand, not merely moral precepts, but also such as were intended to regulate the collective social relations of His people, and on the other, ordained, in a way which was unconditionally binding on the Israelites, the means for the fulfilment of these precepts, and for expiating their transgressions of His law. To these means belonged preëminently the system of worship whose central point is the sacrificial service. But in the position which God gave to the O. Test. in the economy of salvation, all its arrangements have a partly educational or disciplinary, partly a typical and symbolical character. It is hence equally erroneous to deny, on the one hand, the reality of the idea which at this stage could be expressed only in type and figure, and in the period of fulfilment, to turn back, on the other, to the types and symbols of that earlier period, whether this be done by Rabbins, who look forward to a simple restitution of the Mosaic ritual, or by Mormons, who have recently proposed the introduction of animal sacrifices into the Christian worship. Until the arrival of the period of perfection, it is true that even Christianity itself cannot dispense with symbols, and still bears a character which represents in the temporal and earthly the eternal and the heavenly. But its symbols have no longer the appearance of any independent value, and its type is the type of the completion of revelation.
6. The circumstance is of special importance that not without, but within the Old Covenant itself, and indeed only by undoubted words of God, was declared that capital defect of the Covenant mediated by Moses, which consisted in its want of provisions for effecting a real forgiveness of sin, and genuine communion with God, and that by the promise of a new Covenant the existing Covenant was already in the time of Jeremiah stamped as an institution no longer satisfactory, and destined to pass away. To Christians, then, the mere continued outward existence of Judaism can have no such import as to engender doubts of that abrogation of the Old Covenant which has historically taken place. Decay and superannuation clear to utter extinction are the inevitable destiny of that Covenant, allotted to it by the decision of God on the ground of its intrinsic nature.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The Old Covenant was not broken up from without, but was dissolved internally, and by God Himself given over to extinction.—The infidelity of the covenant-people might induce the judgments of God, and occasion the abrogation of the former covenant; but could not bring to naught God’s purpose of salvation.—To the New Covenant belongs a new heart and a new spirit.—Forgiveness of sin is the foundation of all renewal; and this comes from grace by means of the New Covenant.—How the promises of the Old Covenant are fulfilled by the Mediator of the New.
Starke:—How blessed are we in the New Covenant! We have so great a Mediator, such glorious promises, such glorious possessions! Is it not our shame that we still remain under the dominion of sin?—The Levitical law is to be sure in itself full of Divine goodness and wisdom, yet not adequate to our happiness; but only a shadow in comparison with the substance of the Messianic priesthood and kingdom.—God adheres faithfully to His covenant and promise; men are covenant-breakers. Woe unto them!—So tender is still God’s love toward His people, that He brings them into danger and need as a father his child, then takes them by the hand and brings them into security.—On contempt of the Divine words follows the Divine punishment.—Put to thyself the question: Perceivest thou that the law of God has been traced by the pen of the Holy Spirit upon thy mind and heart? Recognizest thou also the Lord thy Saviour in living faith and obedience?—Believers, as God’s covenant-people, are a blessed people.—The forgiveness of sins is the greatest treasure; without it the rich man has nothing, and with it the poorest man has all things.—Man, take God at these His words and sigh: Lord be gracious to my transgressions!—Thou seeker after vengeance, art thou not ashamed to say, “I will remember it of him!” when God says, “I will not remember it?”—Ceremonies which are not superstitious and sinful, can perhaps be endured for a season, although they have no special utility.
Rieger:—The function of a high-priest in heaven is for himself more dignified and noble, and better and more blessed for those in whom he is to execute the promises.—Those who were under the Old Testament said: We will! and did not know that they could not. Now that the grace of the New Testament has made it possible, many shield themselves under the pretext of a cannot, while yet there is a real will not.
Heubner:—God most honors and distinguishes Himself when He associates and deals with us not as a constraining Lord and Ruler, but as a Father with children. How are we put to shame by that announcement and awaiting of the New Covenant, which we linger so far behind!—The Old Covenant is past. Would to God that the old spirit of slavish service were gone with it, and the new spirit of willingness and love reigned in all!
Footnotes:
[5]Heb_8:6.—The Attic form τετύχηκε instead of the Rec. τέτευχε is found in the Minusc, 47, 72, 73, 74. The form τέτυχεν however, is best supported on the authority of A. D*. K. L., 80, 116, 117. The Sin. has τέτυχε, but a second hand has put τέτευχε.
[6]Heb_8:10.—A. D. E. add μου which is also found in many Codd. of the LXX. But it is wanting in the cod. Alex. of the LXX. and the Sin.
[7]Heb_8:11.—Instead of τὸν πλησίον, according to all authority, should be read τὸν πολίτην.
[8]Heb_8:11.—Αὐτῶν after ἀπὸ μικροῦ is to be erased after Sin. A. B. D*. E*. K. 17, 31, 61, 73, 80.
[9]Heb_8:12.—The retaining of the words καὶ τῶν άνομιῶν αὐτῶν is sustained by A. D. E. K. L. The Sin., however, has them only from the later hand. In B. 17, 23, Vulg. and other versions they are wanting.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4–13 Implying that Christ's priestly office is exercised in heaven,…
Implying that Christ's priestly office is exercised in heaven, not in earth; in the power of His resurrection life, not of His earthly life.
For--The oldest manuscripts read, "accordingly then."
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if, &c.--"if He were on earth, He would not even (so the Greek) be a priest" (compare Heb 7:13-14); therefore, certainly, He could not exercise the high priestly function in the earthly Holy of Holies.
seeing that, &c.--"since there are" already, and exist now (the temple service not yet being set aside, as it was on the destruction of Jerusalem), "those (the oldest manuscripts omit 'priests') who offer the (appointed) gifts according to (the) law." Therefore, His sacerdotal "ministry" must be "in the heavens," not on earth (Heb 8:1). "If His priesthood terminated on the earth, He would not even be a priest at all" [BENGEL]. I conceive that the denial here of Christ's priesthood on earth does not extend to the sacrifice on the cross which He offered as a priest on earth; but applies only to the crowning work of His priesthood, the bringing of the blood into the Holy of Holies, which He could not have done in the earthly Holy of Holies, as not being an Aaronic priest. The place (the heavenly Holy of Holies) was as essential to the atonement being made as the oblation (the blood). The body was burnt without the gate; but the sanctification was effected by the presentation of the blood within the sanctuary by the high priest. If on earth, He would not be a priest in the sense of the law of Moses ("according to the law" is emphatic).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv4–13 4. For—It is as yet an unexplained somewhat; for…
4. For—It is as yet an unexplained somewhat; for so entirely is this high priest out of the order of earthly high priests, that, if he were on earth, (were being here emphatic,) he would not be a priest at all. Our writer seems about to explain this somewhat, but the current of his thought is veered (after the Pauline style, note on Eph_3:1; Eph_3:14) by a view opening upon him of Christ’s elevation to the mediatorship of the new covenant, and he defers considering the somewhat… to offer to Heb_10:5-17.
Priests… law—The priesthood on earth are a regular line, offering gifts, and by regular law. And in this line, and with these gifts, and according to this law, Christ would be no priest. For he was not descended from Levi; he never performed any sacrifices, and the law forbade him to be a priest. Yet the Being who on earth gazed upon the offerers of sacrifice, unadmitted to perform the rite, was sole original of all—was both sole priest and victim.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv4–13 4. For if he were] Rather, “now if He…
4. For if he were] Rather, “now if He were still on earth.”
if he were on earth] His sanctuary must be a heavenly one, for in the earthly one He had no standpoint.
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he should not be a priest] He would not even be so much as a Priest at all; still less a High Priest; for He was of the Tribe of Judah (Heb_7:14), and the Law had distinctly ordained that “no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before the Lord” (Num_16:40).
seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law] Rather (omitting “priests” with the best mss.), since “there are (already) those who offer their gifts according to the Law.” The writer could not possibly have used these present tenses if the Epistle had been written after the Fall of Jerusalem. Jewish institutions are, indeed, spoken of in the present tense, after the fall of Jerusalem, by Barnabas and Clement of Rome; but they are merely using an everyday figure of speech. In case of the Epistle to the Hebrews the argument would have gained such indefinite force and weight in passages like this by appealing to a fact so startling as the annulment of the Mosaic system by God Himself, working by the unmistakeable demonstrations of history, that no writer similarly circumstanced could possibly have passed over such a point in silence.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv4–13 (4) For if he were . . .—The oldest…
(4) For if he were . . .—The oldest Greek MSS. and two important versions read, “If then He were”; and two other changes in the text of this verse also rest on high authority. In its correct form the verse will stand thus: If then He were on earth, He would not even be a priest (that is, He would not be a priest at all), seeing there are those who according to law offer the gifts. The argument somewhat resembles that of Heb_7:13-14; there, however, the impediment is that of tribe; here the thought is that the place is preoccupied by men who by express command are bringing the gifts unto God.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13 Who (i.e. being such as do so; oitinev) serve…
Who (i.e. being such as do so; oitinev) serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things (upodeigma here, as in Heb_9:23, means" representation," in the way of copy, not of pattern. "Shadow" (skia) is opposed in Heb_10:1 to eikwn , which denotes the reality, and in Col_2:17 to swma), even as Moses is admonished of God when about to make the tabernacle (literally, to complete ; but net in the sense of finishing a thing begun, but of carrying out a design to entire completion); for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount. For the sense of kecrhmatistai , according to Hellenistic usage, cf. Mat_2:22, "Being warned of God in a dream (crhmatisyei kat onar)." The reference here is to Exo_25:40; the words which "the LORD spake unto Moses." Rabbinical writers, holding the view of an actual heavenly tabernacle, the prototype of the earthly one, have concluded from the passage in Exodus that Moses had a vision of it, or that a visible representation of it was exhibited to him on the mount. All that is necessarily implied is that he was divinely admonished to make the tabernacle after the fashion conveyed, in whatever way, to his apprehension when on the mount, so that it might be a true representation of some heavenly reality. (cf. Act_7:44)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 8, 10 According to the pattern shewed to thee
Heb_8:5
According to the pattern shewed to thee
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Plan and pattern and purpose
Moses, when he went down from God on Sinai, knew what he was going to build, and how he was going to build it.
The thought of a thing, the conception of it, is its first and largest half. It is easier to pour in the molten iron than to make in the sand the mould into which it is to be poured. I want, first, to say something generally about plan and pattern and purpose. As I look through Scripture I discover that the men who did the best work and the most of it first wrought out in thought what they were afterwards going to work out in act and word. The Creator Himself wrought out first His creative designs. In that sense the world is as old as God. When at the end of the first week He said All very good, He meant that things had now become in fact what they had first and for ever been in idea. Nothing, perhaps, comes nearer Gods workmanship in this respect than art; hence our ha it of speaking of the creations of art. The modern architect, like the one on Sinai, sees the building he is going to construct before the timber has been cut or the ground broken. Gerard von Rile, six hundred years ago, saw the cathedral which has just been completed at Cologne. Slowly since the year 1200, German artisans have been copying into stone Von Riles thought, working from his plan, and the cathedral is perfect to-day because it was perfect then. All that God does is in prosecution of a plan, an eternal idea come to utterance. The tree ripens to the grade of a purpose that was ripe before the tree, and before the third day. It is all one whether we say that the plan is deposited in the seed, or that God builds the plant each moment against the pattern of His thought, as the mason lays bricks close to the plumb-line. It all sums up into the same result. With such examples of pattern and purpose before us, I want to go on and say that there are at least three advantages that come from having a plan in our life and work, and working and living from that plan.
1. One is, that in an open field and with a long prospect our purposes will lay themselves out in a larger and wiser proportion than when framed at close quarters and at the dictation of momentary impulse. The captain brings his ship to Liverpool in less time by having the whole course settled at the outset than by settling a little of it every day. A mans longest purposes will be his best purposes. Immediate results are meagre results. The men who are doing most for their own day are such as are working toward an aim that is a score or a century of years away. In the days of American slavery the poor fugitive reached liberty by walking towards the stars.
2. Not only shall we think wiser and grander purposes when we mature them in advance; there is also a solidifying and invigorating power in a long purpose clearly defined. You can generally tell from a mans gait whether he has a purpose. Plan intensities. Pursuance of a purpose makes our life solid and consecutive. Plan concentrates energies as a burning-glass does sunbeams. We cannot do to-morrows work to-day, but we can have to-days work shaped and but ressed by what we are intending to do to-morrow. In a life which has meaning in it, past and future sustain each other.
3. Then, in the next place, knowing with definiteness what we are attempting to do is a moral safeguard. Purposelessness is the fruitful toothier of crime. When men live only in conference with circumstances lying next them, they lose their bearings. A drifting boat always drifts down-stream. Young aimlessness is the seminary of old iniquity. Out of 904 convicts received at the Michigan State in the three years ending 1880. 822 (91 per cent.) were unskilled labourers--prison had never been taught how to work. Such facts challenge the attention of the Church as well as of the political economists. Character, purpose, and apprenticeship will never get far apart from each other, whether among immigrants or native population. But Moses not only approached his work with a purpose and a pattern, but brought down his pattern from on high. This teaches that there are celestial ways of doing earthly, things, and that human success consists in getting into the secrecies of Gods mind and working in the direction o! His method. Human success is a quotation from overhead. Men are enriched with presentiments of the way God would work if placed in our stead. These presentiments we call ideals. We discover, not invent, them. In the mount we reach after them and ascend to them. They are a continuous firmament that overarches us, but a clouded firmament that yields itself to us only in broken hints. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
Character-building according to pattern
All of us are builders--builders for time and for eternity. The building of the sacred edifice of character, which is to be a holy temple for God to dwell in; the raising of the stately structure of a lifework which shall be enduring as the years of God; the laying of secure foundations for that heavenly home in which we all hope to dwell--these are the high and heaven-appointed employments of our earthly years.
I. THE DIVINE PATTERN IS GIVEN TO US ALL. Not blindly nor ignorantly do we pursue our life vocation. Up into the mount of privilege God calls each of us, and there reveals the heavenly pattern of our life work. The yearning of all true hearts to hear the voice of God and to know His thought and will concerning us is fully met in these Divine revealings. What are these holy heights where God reveals to you the heavenly plan according to which you are to build?
1. The mount of Divine illumination, where cons, fence sits enthroned, and utters her authoritative voice as she summons you to her tribunal. That voice of warning and restraint, of persuasion and guidance, is often heard above the Babel of earthly voices that press their urgent pleas. That voice, sanctioning the right, condemning the wrong, is Gods own call to a life of fidelity to Him.
2. There is also the mount of Divine revelation through the inspired word. In the pages of Bonier and Virgil, of Shakespeare and Milton, you are invited to the mount of communion with these illustrious men. Great, indeed, is that privilege. You live in their immediate presence; you breathe the atmosphere which surrounded them; you listen to their voices; you think their thoughts, and learn the priceless lessons garnered from their lives. In the Bible you are permitted to commune with the eternal God, to hear His voice as certainly as Moses heard it on the quaking mount. And here God reveals to each of us His own plan for all our earthly building and work. The plan reveal d is set before us with sufficient distinctness, completeness, and fulness of detail. It is given to us not only in doctrine and in precept, but it is clearly illustrated in the histories and biographies with which the sacred book abound, and which, as their subjects follow or disregard the Divine direction, always secure or miss lifes highest good; and thus, in a peculiar sense, they serve as guides or guards to us who are favoured with the inspired record of their successes and failures.
3. But in a preeminent sense is the pattern revealed to us on ,he mount of Divine manifestation. Moses saw only in vision the plan of the tabernacle which be was to build, but we, more privileged than was he, are permitted to behold the glorious pattern which we are to follow, clothed in concrete and tangible form, taking on our own humanity, standing before our ravished eyes incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. Looking at this incarnation of truth, purity, duly, sacrifice, and love, we hear the heavenly voice calling to us, See that thou make all things according to this pattern showed to thee in this most sacred mount of Divine manifestation.
4. There are also given to us all seasons of special revelation, times when the height to which we are lifted is greater, and earth with its blinding atmosphere seems farther removed--its strife and clamour more faint and ineffectual--while Gods voice sounds clearer, and the heavenly vision is brighter. There are times when the soul seems more susceptible of good influences, and the powers of evil relax their grasp, and tender memories steal in upon the mind, and the thoughts of anothers love, and a lathers prayers, and a teachers counsels, and a Saviours sympathy, and the Spirits gentle wooings, hold the entire being for one supreme hour under their hallowing spell. Cherish these favoured seasons. As travellers in mountainous regions, climbing to some high eminence where the glories of the entrancing view ravish the soul, carry the glorious vision with them, through all the future years of life; so take with you these clearest visions of the heavenly pattern, these best thoughts and holiest purposes and lofty ideals, down into the lowest valley of temptation and strife.
II. THE DIVINE PATTERN MUST BE FOLLOWED IN ORDER TO A TRUE AND SUCCESSFUL LIFE.
1. Let it be kept in mind that this is Gods plan for your life-work. Gods ideal life for you. Whether a life-pattern coming to us from such a source is worth our acceptance, whether it can be rejected or neglected without wreck of all worthy hopes, none but a madman can ever pause to question. Once let the thought that Gods ideal of your life has been really revealed to you actually possess the mind, with all its legitimate force, and nothing can prevent your yielding to its sway. Henceforth, your fife has a significance in it which belongs to nothing merely human; it is a Divine thing; it is Gods propose and Gods thought taking on a human form incarnated in you. You think Gods thoughts, you utter His words, you crystallize His will into actual deeds; you project into this needy and sinful world of humanity a life that is heaven planned and heaven-inspired, the copy of a Divine ideal given to you by the Almighty World-Builder.
2. All the lessons from analogy teach us the majesty of Divine law--the penalty of violating, and the profit of obeying, its behests. See everywhere in nature a perfect adjustment of part to complementary part, an adaptation of means to ends. Everything shows purpose and plan. Law reigns; order and harmony are the universal resultants. Attempt to disregard one of the laws which God has ordained, and you pay the penalty. Despise or forget the law of gravitation; step from the roof of a house or the edge of a precipice as though the air were like the solid pavement for your feet, and, quickly dashed to the ground below, your mutilated body attests the foolhardiness of your lawless act. What have you done but violated Gods order--set aside His laws? Can you, then, disregard no single part of His plan, in nature, without peril, and yet expect to set at naught His entire plan for the government of your life with immunity from evil consequences?
3. And this Divine pattern must be followed in its completeness and comprehensiveness, with all its particularity of detail. Three perils lie in ambush, even for those who, with more or less strength of purpose, regard themselves as accepting the revealed plan for their life-building. The first is the peril of accepting it in part, but not in its completeness; the second is that of accepting it theoretically, but rejecting it practically; the third is the peril of accepting it for a time, but abandoning it before the life-work is completed. (C. H. Payne, D. D.)
Our hours of vision
I. There comes to us all TIMES OF EXCEPTIONAL INSIGHT, of moral elevation, yes, of inspiration, when in a special way our spirits are touched by the spirit of truth and goodness--times when we are, so to speak, upon the mount, and see heavenly only things clearly, and a higher pattern of life is shown to us. These hours of vision may be associated with the utmost variety of circumstances giving occasion to them. It may be simply interruption of our ordinary work. We have been going on from day to day in the regular customary routine. Each day has been so filled with its multiplicity or engagements, its interests, its distraction, its pleasures, its annoyances, as to leave little leisure and less inclination for that quiet and serious thought in which we seek to see life steadily, and see it whole. We need to stand a little back from it, as an artist has to do to judge of the effect of the picture he is painting. And sometimes God compels a man to stand aside and look upon his life and his work from a little distance. He takes him apart from the multitude that He may open his ears to voices that cannot be heard amid the bustle of the crowd. In the confinement of his chamber his spirit chafes at first as he thinks of the great tide of men with eager interests which flows every morning citywards and ebbs at evening, and of all the busy life from which he is excluded; by-and-by a change has come over his spirit--the roar of that loud stunning ride sounds faint and far off; his interest in it has become strangely weakened; other visions are opening out before his mind; he is seeing deeper than the surface stir and bustle of life, its ambitions and its rivalries, into the meaning of life itself, its possibilities and its purpose. He is learning to see things in their true proportions, and is waking up to the discovery that he has been exaggerating terribly certain aspects of them. A diviner pattern of life is being shown to him--an ideal higher in its aims, its methods, and its motives; and when he comes back to take up again among men his daily tasks, surely it is with an earnest purpose to make all things according to the nobler pattern that has been shown him. But there are experiences tending towards similar results that enter much more frequently into life than such as that. To all men, and most of all to those who have youth and hope on their side, a period of leisure and recreation and contact with nature is not more a rest than an inspiration, a time of sanguine and earnest forecasting of the future, a time of forming of plans and contemplating ideals, of storing up impulse and stimulus, of girding up the loins of the mind with strenuous self-denying purpose. There are other times-sadder times--which have worked to the same effect: hours, not of elevation, but of deep depression, when we saw things after the pattern of the heavenly. It may have been an hour of stern self-rebuke, of humiliation and shame, when conscience justly scourged and spared not, or when you felt yourself baffled and helpless in the presence of a great perplexity; or the day you came back from standing beside a new-filled grave, and realised that the world was emptier and poorer than it had been a week before. Men looking up from deep places, it is said, see stars at noon-day; and sometimes it is when it is sighing its De Profundis that the soul catches its vision of God. There are countless hours of vision which we need not stay to classify. We wake up one day to feel as if all our previous knowledge of God had been but hearsay: we feel, I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ears, but now mine eye seeth Thee. Life seems to begin anew from times like that. We have accepted truth upon the authority of others; the time comes when we say, We see. The entrance of Gods Word gives light, and so certifies itself. Our own hold of truth is never satisfactory until we thus see. The man who is to influence others must first himself see heavenly things upon the mount.
II. These times of vision leave behind them RESPONSIBILITIES. We cannot command those higher moments--at least not directly--not otherwise than by habitual obedience to the laws of Christs spiritual kingdom. To him that hath shall be given. The seeing may be special times; the acting out what we have seen belongs to our common life. That is the only possible way of keeping the vision clear--of retaining it as our lasting possession. For
Tis the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
It is so very easy to be a seer as well as a hearer, and not a doer, to be like the man who beholdeth his natural face in a glass, to whom there comes a bright perception of truth, which reveals him to himself, with all his blots and stains and flaws, and who assents to it, and goeth his way, and forgetteth what manner of man he is. It is possible to do even worse: to use that kind of experience--even visions and revelations of the Lord--for our own self-deception. It is one of the great dangers of what may be called the religious temperament, to care a great deal more about what it can see and feel upon the mount than about faithfulness in commonplace duty on the ordinary levels of life. It is a frequent temptation after we have been touched by admiration for some aspects of duty, and mate to thrill at the thought of seeing ourselves doing it--especially if we have been led to speak warmly about it--to indulge in a soft, self-complacent, feeling, as if we had really done it or were doing it, although we may not have touched it with one of our fingers. Is not this the difference between the man of mere emotion and the man of principle--between the man of feeling and the man of faith--that the one can be thrilled with high ideals, and can proceed to work them out while the glory is upon him, and continue only so long as the excitement or emotion lasts; while the other, who has hid in his heart that which he has seen, will toil on steadily along the dull, flat levels, keeping to the path of duty when the brightness has faded from the sky? It is a great thing, an unspeakable privilege, to have seen the beauty of the Lord that our heart and conscience have said to Jesus, My Lord and my God; and yet it is His word, Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven--not be that seeth and even prophesieth in My name, but he that maketh his life according to the pattern that hath been showed to him. (A. O. Johnston, M. A.)
The pattern in the mount
As the old Tabernacle, before it was built, existed in the mind of God, so all the unborn things of life, the things which are to make the future, are already living in their perfect ideas in Him, and when the future comes, its task will be to match those Divine ideas with their material realities, to translate into the visible and tangible shapes of terrestrial life the facts which already have existence in the perfect mind. Surely in the very statement of such a thought of life there is something which ennobles and dignifies our living. A child is born into the world thus morning. Its lessons are unlearned, its tasks untried, its discoveries unmade, its loves unloved, its growth entirely ungrown, as the little newborn problem lies unsolved on this the first day of its life. Is that all? Is there nowhere in the universe any picture of what that childs life ought to be, and may he? Surely there is. If God is that childs Father, then in the Fathers mind, in Gods mind, there must surely be a picture of what that child with his peculiar faculties and nature may become in the completeness of his life. Years hence, when that baby of today has grown to be the man of forty, the real question of his life will be, what? Not the questions which his fellow-citizens of that remote day will be asking, What reputation has he won? What money has he earned? Not even, What learning has he gained? But, How far has he been able to translate into the visible and tangible realities of a life that idea which was in Gods mind on that day in the old year when he was born? How does the tabernacle which he has built correspond with the pattern which is in the mount? All this is true not merely of a whole life as a whole, but of each single act or enterprise of life. We have not thought richly or deeply enough about any undertaking unless we have thought of it as an attempt to put into the form of action that which already has existence in the idea of God. You start upon your profession, and your professional career in its perfect conception shines already in Gods sight. You set yourself down to some hard struggle with temptation, and already in the fields of Gods knowledge you are walking as possible victor, clothed in white, and with the crown of victory upon your head. You build your house, and found your home. It is an attempt to realise the picture of purity, domestic peace, mutual inspiration and mutual comfort, which God sees already. The distinction between ideas and forms is one which all men need to know, which many men so often seem to miss. The idea takes shape in the form, the form expresses the idea. The form, without the idea behind it, is thin and hard. The form, continually conscious of its idea, becomes rich deep, and elastic. If all that I have said be true, then it would seem as if there ought to be in the world three kinds of men--the men of forms; the men of limited ideals, or of ideals which are not the highest; and the men of unlimited ideals, or the highest ideas, which, are the ideals of God. And three such kinds, f men there are, very distinct and easy of discovery. First, there are the men of forms, the men whom all their self-questionings about what they ought to do, and in all their judgments about what they have done, never get beyond the purely formal standards which proceed either from the necessity of their conditions or from the accepted precedents of other people. They never get into the regions of ideas at all. How many such men there are! To them the question of their business life never comes up so high as to mean, What is the best and loftiest way in which it is possible for this business of mine to be done? It never gets higher than to mean, How can I best support myself by my business? or else, What are the ways and rules of business which are most accepted in the business world? To such men the question of religion never becomes: What are the intrinsic and eternal relations between the Father God and man the child? but only, By what religious observances can a man get into heaven? or else, What is the most current religion of my fellow-men? It would be sad, indeed, to think that there is any man here to-day who has not at least sometimes in his life got a glimpse into a richer and fuller and more interesting sort of life than this. There is a second sort of man who does distinctly ask himself whether his deed is what it ought to be. He is not satisfied with asking whether it works its visible result or not, whether other men praise it or not. There is another question still, Does it conform to what he knew before he undertook it that it ought to be? If it does not, however it may seem successful, however men may praise it, the doer of the deed turns off from it in discontent. If it does, no matter how it seems to fail, no matter how men blame it, he thanks God for it and is glad. Here is a true idealism; here is a man with an unseen pattern and standard for his work. He lives a loftier, and likewise a more unquiet life. He goes his way with his vision before his eyes. I know something of what this piece of work ought to have been, he says, therefore I cannot be satisfied with it as it is. What is the detect of such an idealism as that? It is, that as yet the idea comes only from the mans own self. Therefore, although it lies farther back, than the mere form, it does not lie entirely at the back of everything. It is not final; it shares the incompleteness of the man from whom it springs. Therefore it is that something more is needed, and that only the third mans life is wholly satisfactory. Literally and truly he believes that the life he is to live, the act he is to do, lies now, a true reality, already existent and present, in the mind of God; and his object, his privilege, is not simply to see how he can live his life in the way which will look best or produce the most brilliant visible result, not simply to see how he can best carry out his own personal idea of what is highest and best, but how he can most truly reproduce on earth that image of this special life or action which is in the perfect mind. This is the way in which he is to make all things according to the pattern which is in the mount. What quiet independence, what healthy humility, what confident hope there must be in this man who thus goes up to God to get the pattern of his living. To-morrow morning to that man there comes a great overwhelming sorrow. What shall he do, what shall he be in this new terrible life, terrible not least because of its awful newness, which has burst upon him? Where shall he find the pal tern for his new necessity? Of course he may look about and copy the forms with which the world at large greets and denotes its sorrow, the decent dreadful conventionalities of grief. That does not satisfy him. The world acknowledges that he has borne his grief most properly, but he is not satisfied. Then behind all that, he may reason it over with himself, think out what death moans, make his philosophy, decide how a man ought to behave in the terrible shipwreck of his hopes. That is a better thing by air means than the other. But this man does something more. The pattern of his new life is not in the world. It is not in himself. It is in God. To get up, then, into God, and find that image of his grieved and sorrowing life, and then come back and shape his life after it patiently and cheerfully, that is the struggle of the Christian idealist in his sorrow, of the man who tries to make all things according to the pattern which is in the mount. Can we not see what quiet independence, what healthy humility, what confident hope there must be in that mans struggle to live out through his sorrow the new life which his sorrow has made possible? But now it is quite time for us to ask another question. Suppose that all which we have said is true; suppose that there is such a pattern of the truest life, and of each truest act of every man lying in Gods mind, how shall the man know what that pattern is? Is not Christ the mountain up into which the believer goes, and in which he finds the Divine ideal of himself? As a mountain seems to be the meeting-place of earth and heaven, the place where the bending skies meet the aspiring planet, the place where the sunshine and the cloud keep closest company with the granite and the grass: so Christ is the melting-place of divinity and humanity; He is at once the condescension of divinity and the exaltation it humanity; and man wanting to know Gods idea of man, any man wanting to know Gods idea of him, must go up into Christ, and he will find it there. All kinds of men have found their ideals in Jesus. Entering into Him, the timid soul has seen a vision of itself all clothed in bravery, and known in an instant that to be brave and not to be cowardly was its proper life. The missionary toiling in the savage island, and thinking his whole life a failure, has gone apart some night into his hut and climbed up into Christ, and seen with perfect sureness, though with most complete amazement, that God counted his life a great success, and so has gone out once more singing to his glorious work. Martyrs on the night before their agony; reformers hesitating at their tasks; scholars wondering whether the long self-denial would be worth their while; fathers and mothers, teachers and preachers whose work had grown monotonous and wearisome, all of these going to Christ have found themselves in Him, have seen the nobleness and privilege of their hard tires, and have come out from their communion with Him to live their lives as they had seen those lives in Him, glorious with the perpetual sense of the privilege of duty, and worthy of the best and most faithful work which they could give. This, then, is the great truth of Christ. The treasury of life your life and mine, the life of every man and every woman, however different they are from one another, they are all in Him. In Him there is the perfectness of every occupation: the perfect trading, the perfect housekeeping, the perfect handicraft, the perfect school teaching, they are all in Him. To go to Him and get the perfect idea of his, and of every action of life, and then to go forth, and by His strength fulfil it, that is the New Testament conception of a strong successful life. How simple and glorious it is! We are like Moses, then--only our privilege is so much more than his We are like a Moses who at any moment, whenever the building of the tabernacle flagged and hesitated, was able to turn and go up into the mountain and look once more the pattern in the face, and come down strong, ambitious for the best, and full of hope. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)
Heavenly visions
As we read the story with which this passage has to deal, we feel how great are the tasks which are committed to great souls. None but a great soul could have mounded a horde of slaves into a nation, could have inspired them with national ideals, or could have kept the ideal of their future clear and bright before his own soul. Never was heavier task committed to man; and broad must have been the heart and constant the fidelity which sustained the load through the greater part of a hundred years. Great tasks like these are either easy or impossible--easy, while the deer is sustained by the inspiration which pricked and goaded his heart to perform it; impossible, when he labours in his native strength, or leans for support upon anything short of the Eternal. The Divine power which called Moses to this work, and which originated in him the genius to conceive it, m st sustain him in every turn and juncture of its execution. All great ideas like his widen and expand with the expanding visions of the growing soul. The grand outlines of such a vision, indeed, come to the soul in a flash of inspiration, but the details are filled in as the soul broods over the great revelation. Hence the worlds great teachers, its prophets and seers, have been ever given to solitude, to self-communion, and to prayer, that in silence they might hear that Voice which speaks only to the listening ear. On a certain day, says Plato, in one of his deepest books, all the gods mount to the topmost heaven, and gaze upon the reams of pure truth, and all noble souls that can do so follow in their train and gaze upon the fair outlook; then they sink to earth, and all the worthiest part of their lives thenceforward is but the endeavour to reproduce what they have seen: their highest moral achievements are wrought by the power of remembered truth. This wonderful passage is an intuition of one of the foundational truths of our highest life, and one of the greatest truths of revelation. Once or twice only does Moses gain an insight into the life of things. and then only when his eyes are purged of their grossness; but these rare occasions are sufficient to inspire him, and his noblest work is wrought out in obedience to his vision. As he moved about the camp, or when consulted by captains and artificers as to the manner of their labour, daily he would hear the Divine imperative admonishing him to shape it thus and thus; to remember what he had seen; to make his vision take actual shape in gold, or precious stones, or carved work. For him, too, there would be shining the seven lamps of architecture--the lamp of sacrifice and the lamp of truth, of power, beauty, life, and obedience, and, not the least, the lamp of memory. Great tasks, we say, are committed to great souls; but is it not true that great tasks are committed to us also, whether we be small or great? Is not the shaping of our scattered and sundered life into a habitation for God to dwell in a task as sacred and as imperative as that which was committed to Moses? And do we not see that the first thing which we need for this work is that which Moses had--a great ideal? Do we not know by experience what a difference there is between living and working with such a pattern and without one? There are no Mount Sinais now, we say, scaling which we might gain such a vision as Moses had to equip him for his work. We have no Mount Sinai, but there still stands Mount Calvary, from which a brighter glory streams and a rarer loveliness, and from which, too, a Voice still reaches us, saying: See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount. That utterly surrendered life gives us indeed the pattern which we need, the ideal to which our own life should be conformed. We know how flawless it was, and how significant; how He did those things which He had seen with His Father. This was the secret of the perfect unity of His life, of His patience, dignity, and peace. Shall we not confess, then, that we, too, have received our heavenly vision? We have, indeed, confessed it to be most beautiful and Divine, but we have allowed it to fade from our memory. Yes, and the finer our sensibility and the quicker our imagination, the greater will be the temptation to allow it to fade out into mist for all strong emotion avenges itself by exhaustion. Thus Moses, before he had well reached the camp, descending the rugged slopes of Sinai, half-blinded by the splendours he had gazed upon, dashed down in anger the tables of stone written by the finger of God. So a man may cast away in sorrowful anger the very records which he has received with fear and trembling. Sometimes in anger and sometimes in disgust, when surrounded by a herd of howling idolaters who do not enter into his thought, or through indolence, or the pressure of sordid care, a man is tempted to let his vision go, and account it but as such stuff as dreams are made of. It is a temptation especially besetting men who work in the things of the imagination and the things of the Spirit. Many men lower their ideal--as they will tell you frankly--for the sake of their wives and children. How bitter it will be hereafter if these same children grow up to be sweet, and pure, and unworldly, and despise the crooked means which have been employed for their elevation, and to be filled with sad pity for the founder of their fortune, who, like Lot, chose the well-watered country, and for the sake of it disowned every noble ambition! Thus, are we severally tempted to disobey the admonishing Voice which bids us make all things according to the pattern which has been revealed to us. But who will be left to rear Gods tabernacle if they fail who have had vision of its ideal beauty and hope of its foundation among men? It is in such an hour of temptation that we need to renew the old impressions, to revive the faded tints of the picture, and to trace the lost meaning of the vanishing lines of the pattern of heavenly things, once so clear to us. And do we ask, How can our lost impressions be renewed? Then the store before us supplies us with the suggestion. And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables which thou breakest. Yes; He who first gave us the great conception of noble life can renew it when it fades away if with all our hearts we truly seek Him; it may not be with all the early glow of our first inspiration, nor with such glad announcements of its coming to our bosoms: but what we gain the second time more painfully may be cherished more religiously, watched over more prayerfully, and kept with diligence even to the end. (G. Littlemore.)
The pattern in the mount
I shall consider, in the first place, the fact that all men have ideals--have some kind of spiritual conceptions; and in the second place, I shall urge the results of consistent action upon those conceptions.
I. Consider, for a moment, and you will see that this is the great characteristic of the man--THAT HE IS THE CONSTRUCTOR OF THINGS FASHIONED AFTER AN INWARD IDEAL OR PATTERN, and thus he transforms the outward world according to his mental and spiritual conceptions. Here, on one part, stands vast, unshaped matter--rock, wood, stream, fluent, air: on the other part is the human agent who is to work upon this world of matter. You may say that the beaver or the bee works upon matter. The one proceeds with the utmost accuracy to build its neat, and the other to construct its dam; but there is a point at which each of them stops. They do not go a jot beyond the line of instinct; they do nothing more wonderful, nothing different from what has been done for six thousand years. But see, out of this same world of matter, man makes houses, weapons, ships, printing presses, steam engines, and telegraphs. He makes implements, and produces combinations that did not exist in nature, but that stood first as shadows on the horizon of his own thought--patterns that were shown him in the mount of intellectual and spiritual elevation. But if this power which man has of working from inward conceptions is expressed in the ways in which he pours his thought into matter, it is still more apparent in the ways in which his thought, so to speak, overrides matter--as he appears not merely in inventions, but in creations. The work of art, for instance--the great work of genius--whence comes that? Something that you do not see in nature, something that can nut be interpreted as a mere combination of matter--a mere putting together of the elements of the physical world; but something that has flowed out of the ideal springs of a mans own soul, until we have the splendours of the sunset sky woven in the fibres of the canvas, and the stones of the quarry heaved up in an architectural ant m of grandeur and aspiration. But the main conclusion to which I would lead your thought is this: than a most every man has conceptions higher and better than he realises, or than he even endeavours to make real. Before every man there hovers a high conception--or one more or less high--certainly above the level of his present conduct--of virtue, of moral action, of duty, of righteousness, of truth; and the more h-looks at that, the more vivid it becomes to him. Although he may, at the same time, not move a jot or a hair toward it, nor even endeavour, for a single instant, to come up to it, yet it stands before him, and he sees it clear and bright, kindling upon his thought, and ready to move hi heart. And you see this fact revealed m this remarkable manner by every man. If he does ever so bad an act, he tries to justify it in some way--tries to reconcile it to some ideal of virtue. So that from his own showing, his own confession, there is an ideal standard in his mind higher than that from which he has acted. What better advice, then, could be given to any man than just this? Work out your highest conceptions--the noblest standard of truth and duty that comes to you. It may not be the highest possible, nor the highest conceivable by other men, but that which seems to you the highest possible or conceivable, work up to, and live up to, and endeavour to make it the rule. And so especially it is in regard to the matter of faith about which many are much troubled and perplexed. They say they cannot believe that the Bible is divinely inspired; they are not fully convinced about the immortality of the soul, and they even sometimes incline to doubt the existence of a God. What then are you to do, my be low-men? To throw aside all faith and live outside of its circle, merely as an animal, in a coarse, material existence? No--no; some shred of faith you have. Every man has some. Some conceptions of spiritual things dawn upon every mind; live up to the faith you have. Have you a faith that it is good to do good? Live up to that. Have you a faith that charity is a blessed thing? Live up to that. Work out to the extreme limit of your conception here, and just so sure as you do it, the wider will your circle open before you.
II. In the next place, let us proceed to see WHAT WILL RESULT IF A MAN ACTUALLY ATTEMPTS THUS TO WORK UP TO HIS HIGHEST AND BEST SPIRITUAL CONCEPTIONS. In the first lace, I think he will acquire some comprehension of the worth and certainty of spiritual being, and of the reality of his own soul. Let a man think, when he endeavours to carry out the best conception of duty, how much that is all-controlling and supreme in his life, let him think that the highest claim in his life is from within; hst him think how mind will after all control and master the body. The moment you think of this power to control and master material things, you fall back upon the consciousness theft you have a soul, and that there is more evidence than you have supposed of its existence. In fact, there is more proof of a soul than of a body. When a man asks me what proof I have of a soul, I reply by asking him, What proof have you of a body? You have more logical difficulty to prove an outward world than a soul. Spiritual consciousness, mounting aspiration, ideal influences have controlled you all through life. But more than this; not only will a man, as he begins to work from his best spiritual conceptions upward, begin to comprehend the worth of spiritual things and of the soul, but he will begin to acquire right standards of action. I hardly need say that in the calculations of men, very generally they do not start from the ground of the soul. If you look at a great many of the social fallacies of our time, at a great many of the social faults and errors of men in business, in politics, and in life generally, you will find that the fallacy or error consists in the fact that they do not start from the ground of the soul as a standard, but from outward things. They estimate all outward things by their bulk or glitter. Let a man take up the subject of immortality--of the spirit of man enshrined in time, and working through sense, as destined to live beyond the stars, when banks and warehouses, cities and continents, shall have melted with fervent heat, and crumbled to ashes; when this world shall be dashed from its orbit as a speck of dust from a flying wheel--let him take the grand calculus of the immortality of the soul, and start with that, and then worldly good and gain will take their proper attitude, temporary expediency will sink down, and right will assert its proper place; then he will have a true standard by which to estimate all things. In the next place, if a man really endeavours to work according to his highest a-d best inward conception, he will come to perceive the need of Christ and the worth of Christianity. Working from his best and highest, he gains a better and a higher still, until at length he will come to feel that spiritual aspirations are boundless. And when, from the yearnings of his educated soul, he wants a perfect ideal, he will ask, Where is the excellence that will answer my highest ideal? where is that which will begin to fill up this boundless thirst of the soul, which has only been increased by drinking from narrow cisterns? And Jesus Christ comes out upon the horizon of history, and stands before him in the gospel, and answers that inquiry. He says virtually to man, I am the ideal for which you aspire; in Me behold a perfect reflection of that which you now must seek; in Me behold that which continually fills up your yearning want, and makes that want the deeper, that it may fill it with more. Here stands man on one side, with a sense of imperfection and sin, asking, What is there that will help me in, what is there that will deliver me from the power of sin? No mere man, no mere teacher, like Plato or Seneca, can do it. Man needs some spirit of Divine goodness to enter into him, to cure him of his sin and Jesus Christ embodies that Divine spirit. He comes before man to assure him of mercy, with the encouragement that the vilest sin may be cast off, and that man may throw himself upon the Divine mercy which He represents, and be lightened of his load. And here, on the other hand, are limitless wants and desires; and how does Jesus Christ gratify them? By exhibiting perfect Father; by showing an ideal to us that we never can compass, but can always aspire to. (E. H. Chapin, D. D.)
Of the right manner of doing duty
1. The same Lord who enjoins the matter, prescribes the manner.
2. As great respect is manifested to God in the manner of doing what He requires, as in matter. In this was David commended 2Ki_3:6). This was it that Hezekiah pleaded before God 2Ki_20:3).
3. Herein lieth a main difference between the upright and the hypocrite, instance the difference between Abels and Cains offering (Gen_4:4-5).
4. That which is good is altered and perverted by failing in the manner. Good is thereby turned into evil, and duty into sin.
5. Failing in the manner makes God reject that which in the matter He requireth (Isa_1:11).
6. God detests things commanded by Himself when they are done in an ill manner (Isa_66:3).
7. In this case he that doth the work of the Lord is accursed Jer_48:10).
1. This giveth just cause of examining ourselves even about the good things that we do. This use is the rather to be observed because every one best knoweth his own failings in the manner of what he doth (1Co_2:11).
2. Upon due examination we cannot but be deeply humbled ever for our failings in the manner of doing good things. The glory of our reading, hearing, praying, singing, partaking of the sacrament, alms-deeds, and other duties, is hereby taken away, which if profane men knew, they would insult over professors.
3. This giveth just occasion of abnegation, and of renouncing all confidence even in our best works, for we must fail therein (1Sa_3:2). Did justiciaries well understand this, it would make them cast down their gay peacocks feathers. They would not be so conceited of themselves, as the proud Pharisee, but rather as the humble publican (Luk_18:11-13). There is nothing of such force to work in us This lesson of denying ourselves as a consideration of the manner of doing the good things we do. This consideration would soon put an end to all conceits of fulfilling the law, of meriting, of doing works of supererogation, and undry other proud apprehensions.
4. Upon the aforesaid ground be exhorted to learn as well as to do, what we enterprise, as what we do. God loves adverbs. We were as go d be ignorant of the duty itself as of the manner of performing it. To know what ought to be done, and not to know how it ought to be done, will be a great aggravation of sin.
6. For well-doing that which, is good observe these few rules;
(1) Exercise thyself in Gods Word, diligently read it, hear it, and meditate upon it. This is an excellent help and the best that I can prescribe. For Gods Word doth expressly and distinctly declare both what is to be done and how it is to be done (Psa_119:105).
(2) Think on duty before hand, and endeavour to prepare thyself thereto. Sudden, rash, unprepared enterprising a sacred duty is one occasion of failing in the manner of doing it (Ecc_5:2).
(3) Consider with whom thou hast to do in all things; even with Him who is the searcher of the heart. This will make thee circumspect in every circumstance. Conceits that we have to do with man alone, make us look only to the outward duty (2Co_2:17).
(4) In penitent confessions, acknowledge thy failing in the manner of doing duty.
(5) Pray for ability even about the manner of doing duty (2Co_3:5). The work of the Spirit is herein specially manifested; we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But none can do good in a right manner except the regenerating Spirit be in him and help him.
6. For comfort in this case we must have our eye upon our Surety in whom was no failing at all (Heb_6:26). (W. Gouge.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv4–13 4. On earth, he should not be a priest.…
4. On earth, he should not be a priest. The law required all the priests who served in the temple to be of the tribe of Levi, but he was not of the tribe of Levi, or of the priests appointed to serve at the altar, hence could not serve at an earthly altar, or in an earthly sanctuary. The law was in force as long as he was on earth and that excluded him.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v7 Heb_8:7. Faultless.—Not merely “free from defect,” but “incomplete,” unable…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Heb_8:7. Faultless.—Not merely “free from defect,” but “incomplete,” unable fully to meet man’s case. The old system was complete enough for its limited sphere and purpose: fault was found with its limitations. No place have been sought.—There would have been no occasion for introducing another. The ground would have been covered. It may be said, Why then did not God make Judaism fully efficient? The answer may be given in the words of St. Paul, “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” The spiritual always has to be prepared for.
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Heb_8:8. He saith.—See Jer_31:31-34. I will make.—Lit. “I will cut”; cutting a covenant was a familiar phrase, referring to the custom of slaying victims at the sealing of a covenant.
Heb_8:9. Not according to.—But different from; having a different central idea. The proved infirmity of men called for some alteration of the covenant terms. They needed to be dealt with in another way.
Heb_8:10. Covenant, etc.—This is the term of the new covenant; in it God undertook to inspire hearts, and not merely to guide conduct. Into their mind.—Deeply infix. This is fulfilled in Christ. His love is the best of all persuasions to righteousness. Contrast “law” and “love” as motive-powers; or obedience rendered from “fear” or from “affection.” Notice how fully the writer brings out the moral value of the Redeemer’s work.
Heb_8:11. Not teach, etc.—This describes generally the contrast between the time when a difficult law covered conduct, and the time when the love of Christ constrained. We need not press this beyond the proprieties of the figure. See Isa_54:13.
Heb_8:13. A new.—The writer fixes attention on this word. It involved the former covenant taking its place among things old and done with. If the new has come, and it is manifestly a fuller display of the Divine love and power, then the old is superseded. It is ready to vanish like a shadow. Let it go. Ready to vanish away.—Lit. “Now that which is becoming antiquated, and waxing aged, is near obliteration.” R.V. “But that which is becoming old, and waxeth aged, is nigh unto vanishing away.” “What is very old is near dissolution.” Observe that this writer could not have thus expressed himself after the final Roman siege of Jerusalem, which resulted in the sweeping away of the formal Mosaic system.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_8:7-13
The Spirituality of the New Covenant.—Here is an important fact, which the Jewish Christians are called to face. They boasted of the old covenant. They clung to it tenaciously. They were even tempted by the bigoted party to return to their older form of allegiance to it; and yet their own Scriptures declared that God was dissatisfied with it, and with what had been accomplished by means of it, and had promised to establish with His people a new and better covenant. Already this writer had spoken of the older covenant as “weak, unprofitable, and earthly” (Heb_7:18). It is a great addition to his argument to be able to add, that Scripture declares God Himself to have been dissatisfied with its working. In support of his position the passage Jer_31:31-34 is quoted. There is an important difference between the way in which the old system is dealt with in this epistle and in the recognised Pauline epistles. “To St. Paul the contrast between the law and the gospel was that between the letter and the spirit, between bondage and freedom, between works and faith, between command and promise, between threatening and mercy. All these polemical elements disappear almost entirely from the epistle to the Hebrews, which regards the two dispensations as furnishing a contrast between type and reality. This was the more possible to Apollos (if he was the writer), because he regards Judaism not so much in the light of a law as in the light of a priesthood, and a system of worship.” In three respects, according to the promise given to Jeremiah, the new covenant would be better than the old. And each respect is an advantage on the spiritual side.
I. The laws of the new covenant were to be written on men’s hearts.—The laws of the old covenant were engraven on stone slabs, or written in books, to be read by men’s eyes; and a thousand things would blind them to, or hinder them from, reading and obeying. And the obedience offered to outward and written law need only be formal and perfunctory. In the new covenant God’s laws get into man’s will through man’s love. The persuasion of “I ought” is changed into the sweet constraint of “I wish to.” Christ, the ministrant of the new covenant, gets His power in men’s hearts, and sways motives and will to an obedience which is a holy joy.
II. The privileges of the new covenant will be universally enjoyed.—A covenant that is spiritual is free from all local, national, or race restrictions. It is something for man as a spiritual being, and therefore something for universal man. Exclusiveness was characteristic of the Mosaic dispensation; it was a necessary feature, because the covenant was formal, and the terms purely material privilege. All barriers between Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female, are removed when God graciously makes spiritual covenant with spiritual beings.
III. The working of the new covenant involves free forgiveness of the sins of the older covenant.—This difficulty might come to the minds of those who were called to enter into the new and spiritual covenant—What is to be done with the penalties which rest on us because of the breaking of the old? The promise of Jehovah through Jeremiah is, that when men come into the new covenant, their sins and inquities shall be remembered no more. When men are brought into right relations with God, their past can be dealt with in a way of free forgiveness. Their sins can be blotted out. As the application of his point the writer urges, that to call the former covenant old implies that it had done its work, had become effete, and was ready to be put aside. The old covenant did not match the new times. Nobody need regret the putting aside of that old covenant, if they would enter fully into all the high spiritual privileges of the new. “What is very old is near dissolution.” “If ‘nigh unto vanishing’ at the time when Jeremiah wrote, well might it now be believed to have passed away.” Accept fully the new covenant, which pledges on your part the obedience of love.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Heb_8:10. God’s Side in the New Covenant.—“Called of God a high priest.” One of the grave perils of the evangelical setting of the redemption truths lies in the misapprehension of its teaching which men only too readily make. Fixing such exclusive attention on what Christ suffered and did, many persons are found to cherish the notion that the Atonement is something which Christ devised and carried through, if not in opposition to God, yet in some way to get over difficulties which, for some inscrutable reason, God could not surmount Himself. Notions of appeasing wrath, and uncareful settings of the idea of propitiating, tend to nourish such untrue and unworthy notions. It is the absolutely primary and essential truth of Christianity that the Redemption is God’s redemption, the Atonement is God’s own providing, and the Sacrifice is God Himself in sacrifice. There is no ground whatever for separating God from Christ in the work of the Atonement, either in the Scriptures, or in the doctrine of the Church. What has to be dealt with is the cherished sentiment of many persons, and the evil influence of undisciplined and enthusiastic teachers. It may therefore be shown—
1. That throughout our Lord’s life, and as a marked characteristic of all His teachings, He put Himself in the second place, and the Father-God first. His supreme idea was to get men to think well of God. It is to dishonour Christ to attempt to put Him in a place which He wholly refused to occupy. This kind of thing He asserted continually: “The Father’s who sent Me”; “Thou hast sent Me.”
2. The apostles, in their teaching, carefully keep Christ in the ministerial and mediatorial place, and ascribe all the glory of the world’s redemption to God. One passage may guide the Bible student to many. St. Peter, speaking of Christ, says, “Who by Him do believe in God, who raised Him up from the dead.”
3. A redemption for man could not be satisfactory unless it were God’s devising. This may be shown by the figure of a covenant. It were of little account to us if God were forced, by something Christ did, to enter into covenant with us. The persuasion is on us to enter into covenant, because God so graciously offers it, and provides the Person for negotiating it.
Heb_8:12. The Considerateness of the New Covenant.—“For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more.” This is part of the anticipative description of the covenant that was to be made in the latter days; and it gives the supreme point of interest in that covenant. In a sense the old covenant of works had in it no considerateness. It demanded an absolute and perfect formal obedience to formal rules, and took no account whatever of human frailties. Its terms concerned conduct; every man was assumed to be able to order his conduct; and he must order it so as to secure a perfect obedience, or he must endure the punishment that must come on the disobedient. How inconsiderate of human infirmity the old covenant of works was comes into full view when the Pharisees try to translate that covenant for their day, and exaggerate its characteristics. They elaborated its demands until they put men’s lives into prison bonds. They allowed no excuses for failure, and so bound grievous burdens on men’s shoulders beyond their power to bear. The sin of Rabbinism lies in its exaggeration of the inconsiderateness of the formal covenant of works. Or the weakness of the old covenant, and the superiority of the new, may be seen from another point of view. It dealt with men’s legal offences, not with their moral conditions. It dealt with their sins against rules, but not with their sins against God. It did not take into its consideration the iniquities which burdened men’s consciences, but did not find expression in acts which disturbed relations. The considerateness of the new covenant is seen in its contrast with the old in both these respects. It does take account of men’s frailties. It seeks a response of good-will from men, and is pitiful and compassionate when the good-will is thwarted from adequate expression by human infirmities. Nay, in view of human frailty, it proposes to be a power in men. “The method of the kingdom is to have the law written on the heart. Thereby the keeping of all that is essential is effectually provided for.” And the covenant does deal with men’s iniquities, with men’s sins before God, assuring a full Divine forgiveness for the things which burden the conscience and oppress the heart.
Heb_8:13, taken with Heb_10:9. The True Sacrifice.—Simply a theological expression of the unvarying and unvaried process of all things pertaining to human life. From the embryo to the decaying time of life, all constitutions of men everywhere obey this law. As soon as life comes, it begins to grow, grows to greatness, and then passes on to decay. The writer distinctly states that these “tables of stone,” “written by the finger of God,” the goat’s hair, and the rams’ skins dyed red, and the badgers’ skins, and all these things, said to be ordered by God, are worn out. “Finding fault” with them, he tells us that they are no longer of any possible utility; that though asserted to be of Divine origin, yet they were human in their conditions, and when they got down to earth they were subject to moth, rust, and decay. And, holding up the old covenant as a worn-out vesture, he says, “it is ready to vanish away.” Necessity has ordered it so, that all things shall seem Divine to men which are accepted as such by the wisest men of the time; and, on the other hand, nothing ought to be Divine to any man except the soul of the wisest sees it to be so. Do we really believe that God instituted these sacrifices? The conception of God which led to sacrifice was like most of our thoughts about God. It was born in the human heart. It was of humanity. It is impossible that man can conceive of any God except in his own likeness. The thought of sacrifice proceeds out of sinful hearts, addresses itself to sinful souls, and it belongs to the morning-time of the world, when men were unable to think of a restoration to favour without a material guarantee. Those who are weak require the crutch of Forms. Man grows slowly out of the childish trappings of a time when only through these outward things could be made visible the unseen. The prophets arose, and cast scorn upon the useless system of sacrifices. The people still clung to it, because they thought that all this outward business was a very good substitute for inward repentance and purity; but their wise men knew that there can be no sacrifice of any avail without a penitent soul and a sad heart. Now in this manner of religion you can have habits and forms without any true religion at all; skeletons without any life; substitutes for thought. And the mere observances of such outward forms, things that are done from mere habit, are done at the expense of the soul. Men come to fast without caring or fearing, to bow without reverence, to sing without enthusiasm. Isaiah scorned the Sodom-apple of outward purity when there was no heart of reality within. At last these forms came to be looked upon as dead. Then began the bloodless religion. Wheresoever Paul went, there the knife was sheathed, the fire died down, the beast ceased to be offered up. Wheresoever Christ was preached, and the religion of Christ was introduced, this wonderful effect always followed—the ascending smoke of the sacrifice on the altar was for ever done away with. Even in the Romish Church, they do not offer sacrifice, but only a bloodless offering, in memory of a sacrifice. The orthodox belief touching the death of Jesus Christ is the sublimest progress that man has ever made, up to the time when, through the very sublimity of this progress, it became necessary to go much further. What a wonderful difference there is in the spiritual conception of sacrifice! When the beast died, he died unwillingly; but when the Divine sacrifice was made, it was the sacrifice of Christ’s own will. To come forth freely to save the people is one thing, but to be the unwilling victim of the sacrificing priest is quite another. Therefore the whole thought of the death of Christ, as a free-will offering laid down by Himself in the midst of perfect power to refuse, is an amazing gain, a wonderful improvement in spiritual conception. If we look at it from the other side of it, what a gain! In the old times man supplied the victim; in the new times, God. In the old days the sinner found the sacrificial lamb; in the new days the God against whom man had sinned found “the Lamb of God.” This was the greatest gain that ever theology made, and so complete was it that man dare not afterwards offer his little pitiful sacrifices. God had sent a sacrifice, and it was impossible after that to be offering rams and lambs and bulls. When a man has been sacrificed, when for sinning man the only begotten Son, the beloved of God, has been sacrificed, when He has died, man sees at once that all other sacrifices now are dust and ashes. After the Son of God had been given, what could come? After this great High Priest had sacrificed His own life, after this Son of man had entered into the “Holy of Holies” and sacrificed Himself, the knife must be sheathed for ever, and the altar become cold. “There remaineth now no more sacrifice for sin.” Doth God require any sacrifice before He can forgive? There is the life of Christ, and there is the death of Christ. That throws light upon the old Jewish history. He is perfect manhood filled with Divineness, who laid down His own will in order that the will of God might be all in all. From what direction shall we gather the light in which we are to view the death of Christ? Shall the light be borrowed from Paganism, Judaism, and the old world, or developed from the whole life and spirit of Christ Himself? The Atonement is the reconcilement in a man of the Divine and the human so perfectly, that men following its laws are necessarily redeemed? In them the hostility between heaven and earth has ceased; the will of God has been perfectly done; and therefore all the ends at which religion has ever aimed have been attained, and the supreme victory won at last—the victory of the Spirit over the flesh, of duty over pleasure, of the will of God over the weak wishes and desires of man.—George Dawson, M.A.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8
Heb_8:11. From the Least to the Greatest.—Why this order, “from the least to the greatest”? We might have expected the gospel to come into the world as the sun begins to shine, first tipping with gold the summits of the loftiest hills, and thence finding its way down to the depths of the valleys. No, it is “from the least to the greatest,” as if that were the natural way for Christianity to work. And so it is—it is God’s way. He chooses the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings perfects His praise.” And this, by the way, affords an answer to an objection which may be made to our Sabbath-school operations abroad. It may be said, What good can your little work do there? This is the old objection—“Master, we have here five barley loaves, and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?” Yes, what are they in man’s hands? We know what they were in the hands of our Lord. “From the least even to the greatest,” that is the history of Christianity. It is the little grain of mustard seed dropped into the ground, which indeed is the least of seeds, but afterwards becomes a tree affording shelter for the birds of the air: it is like the pebble from the brook, which once felled the Philistine giant; it is like the stone cut from the mountain, which destroyed the great image, and filled the whole earth.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v7 Pursuant to the great double experimental salvation of the…
ARGUMENT 6
THE TWO COVENANTS
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Pursuant to the great double experimental salvation of the gracious economy, everything in the Bible is double. Suntheekee means a covenant of man with man. Diatheekee means a covenant of God with man. This latter word is injudiciously translated testament. Instead of calling God’s book the Old and New Testament, we should say the Old and New Covenant, as that is the correct meaning of both the Hebrew and the Greek. The Mosaic is the old covenant, and being the most conspicuous transaction of the former dispensation, it gave name to God’s book. Hence we call it the Old Testament or, as we should say, the Old Covenant. The covenant of redemption made by the divinity and humanity of Christ is the great transaction of the New Testament. Hence it gives name to that wonderful book which should be called the New Covenant. These two covenants are unanswerable confirmations of the two works of grace wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost, in the consummation of experimental salvation. Since the new covenant is the plan of salvation, of course it was inaugurated in heaven, about the time of the fall, when the Son of God espoused the lost cause. Abel and all of the antediluvian saints, as well as the postdiluvian patriarchs, were saved under the new covenant. It is called new in contradistinction to the covenant of probation which collapsed in Eden on Satan’s invasion. The adjective “new” has a further and deeper signification in the purely and transcendently gracious character of that covenant. “Old” conveys the idea of decay, dilapidation and evanescence. God, angels and redeemed spirits are eternally new. The grace of God is always new, bright, vital and heavenly. Hence when we receive the glorious experience of Christian perfection, pursuant to the wonderful provisions of the new covenant, our experience is no longer stale and old, but ever fresh, bright and buoyant. It is an effectual fortification against old age. Sanctified old people have the spiritual freshness and vigor of youth. The Mosaic covenant is called old, because it is a reminiscence of the primary probationary covenant, forfeited by Adam and Eve in the fall. Again it is called old because of its destined decay and transiency consequent upon its imperfection. The Edenic covenant once forfeited could never he regained. Under the omnipotent intervention of the new covenant, through the vicarious atonement of the eternal Son, the Edenic state is regained in the human soul in entire sanctification, and in the world in the millennium. Hence, as Paul says, the old covenant, or the law, is a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. The great signification of the law dispensation through its copious bloody rites and ceremonies, is to teach the world the great work of Christ, through the atoning and cleansing blood, and that of the Holy Ghost in regeneration and sanctification, emblematized by water, blood, fire and oil. The old covenant gives great prominence to the material phases of religion, i.e. the robed priest officiating and interceding, and bleeding birds and beasts, purifying ablutions and paying tithes, while the new covenant in its transcendent prominence of spiritualities throws all materialities into eternal eclipse.
7. This verse declares the imperfection of the Mosaic covenant, i.e., the justified experience.
8-10. These verses indisputably settle the question confirming the identity of the old covenant with the Mosaic, and at the same time certifying its insufficiency. Where your English says, “I will make a new covenant,” the Greek says, “I will complete a new covenant.” Hence the idea that the new covenant was a de novo transaction in the days of Christ on the earth, is untrue and untenable. When Christ came He perfected the new covenant of redemption, projected in heaven when He espoused the rescue of this fallen world, the same covenant He sealed with His blood when He died on the cross.
10. “This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; putting my laws in their mind, truly I will write them on their heart: and I will be unto them a God, and they shall be unto me a people.” Here God clearly defines and lucidly expounds the differentia of the new covenant. It is peculiarized by His putting His laws in our minds, and writing them in our hearts, so we have nothing to do but read them, the Holy Spirit giving us all the help we need to discern and understand them.
11. “And they may not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know ye the Lord because all shall know me from their small even unto the greatest.’” These verses clearly and unequivocally define the character and privilege of the new covenant. When we enter that covenant the Holy Spirit writes the laws of God in our minds, and superscribes them in our hearts, so that all, great and small, have a personal acquaintance with God, so clear, full and satisfactory, as to preclude the necessity of human teaching. The illiterate Hottentot, when fully saved, and filled with the Spirit, knows his duty to God each fleeting moment, and has at his command all the grace requisite to do God’s will. Hence you see the citizens of the new covenant are neither subject to, nor dependent on, human leaders and teachers. The Holy Ghost has become the Teacher and Leader of all, great and small, educated and illiterate. Unconverted people follow Satan only. Unsanctified Christians follow the Lord in a measure, but very largely do they follow human leaders. People who are sanctified wholly follow the Lord alone, enjoying the perfect freedom of God himself, which is full liberty to do everything good and nothing bad. This is the glorious freedom of God, angels and redeemed saints, which makes heaven so sweet. The new covenant was gloriously inaugurated by the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire on the day of Pentecost, consuming all the debris of original sin out of the heart, and sweeping away all the rubbish of Levitical rites and ceremonies. No wonder the carnal clergy in all ages have fought Christian perfection, because it interferes with their plan of ruling the people. Sanctified Moses was delighted when God raised tip seventy elders to share with him the labor and responsibility of leading Israel. When his and-holiness friends interposed and asked him to shut their mouths, lest they supersede him in his official majesty, in the chagrin of his righteous soul he shouted aloud, “Would to God that every man in Israel did prophesy!” Sanctified preachers are delighted with the relief from care and responsibility which legitimately supervenes upon the sanctification of their members. The poor deluded pastors fret and chafe, paralyze their nerves, get old prematurely and die before their time, because the care, labor and responsibility of leading their people is more than they can bear. If they were only sanctified they would let Jesus the Omnipotent Sanctifier bear all their burdens, cares, labors and responsibilities. How sad to see the Gospel Church in all lands toiling and sweating in legal bondage. They have not only resumed the laws of Moses, but they have made a thousand more and added to their burdens, already intolerable. The people work night and day and still fall far short of their duty, incurring the galling yoke of a guilty conscience in addition to insuperable toils of legal bondage. All this was apologetical during the dispensation of Moses. But since the Omnipotent Christ has forever superseded Moses and Aaron, triumphantly fulfilling the law by paying its full penalty, it is lamentable to see the ecclesiastical world again staggering under the law dispensation. This has postponed the millennium eighteen hundred years.
“Truly I say unto you that there are certain ones of those standing here who may not taste death till they may see the Son of man coining in His kingdom.” (Mat 16:28)
We see clearly from this declaration of the Savior the glorious possibility of getting the world ready for the Lord to ride down on His millennial throne before the death of the Pentecostal generation. The Greek subjunctive shows the human contingency involved, which verily came to pass, i.e., the apostasy from the Pentecostal experience postponed the coming kingdom, by defeating the evangelization of the world. Consequently, the Lord is still waiting for sanctification to furnish a sufficiency of charter members to set up His kingdom. The glory of the millennial reign obtains largely in the fact that every subject, great and small, rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, will have the laws of God written in his heart and superscribed in his understanding. This will be the secret of universal harmony. It is true now with all who are wholly and really sanctified. Regardless of race, color, nationality, country, language, costume, sect or creed, they are a perfect unit and a universal brotherhood. What unutterable relief from the perplexity, ambiguity, incertitude and consummate bewilderment of human creeds, sectarian jargon, and autocratic despotism, to have the laws of God inscribed in our minds and written in our hearts, so we know our duty every moment of our existence, have all the grace we need to perform it, and are so delighted in doing the sweet will of God that we actually enjoy a heaven in which to go to heaven. What delectable relief from legal bondage! No wonder two hundred millions of martyrs died rather than surrender this glorious freedom. Reader, are you in the new covenant of glorious spiritual light and liberty, or plodding along in the old covenant, two thousand years behind the age, your necked galled with the yoke of legal bondage?
12. Truly the glorious liberty of the new covenant settles the sin problem and keeps it settled forever. Omnipotent grace manages that vexed question.
13. We see from this verse that God’s plan was for the old covenant to vanish eternally before the splendors of Pentecostal glory and the triumphs of the millennial reign. Oh, how sad the apostasy of the Apostolic Church back into the law dispensation Humanity has always been a failure. It failed in Eden. It failed in the antediluvian dispensation. It failed in postdiluvian patriarchy. It failed in the Mosaical and prophetical ages. But the saddest failure of all is the collapse from the Pentecostal victories and glories of the new covenant, and the glorious privileges of the Melchisedec priesthood back into the burdensome drudgery of the moonlit dispensation.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv5, 10, 11, 12
Hebrews
THE TRUE IDEAL
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Heb 8:5
I DO not intend to deal with the original bearing of these words, nor with the use made of them by the writer of Hebrews. Primarily they refer to the directions as to the Tabernacle and its furniture, which are given at such length, and with such minuteness, in Leviticus, and are there said to have been received by Moses on Sinai. The author of this Epistle attaches an even loftier significance to them, as supporting his contention that the whole ceremonial worship, as well as the Temple and its equipment, was a copy of heavenly realities, the heavenly sanctuary and its altar and priest. I wish to take a much humbler view of the injunction, and to apply it, with permissible violence, as a maxim for conduct and the great rule for the ordering of our lives. ‘See that thou,’ in thy shop and office, and wherever thou mayst be, ‘make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.’ A far-reaching, high-soaring commandment, not to be obeyed without much effort, and able to revolutionise the lives of most of us. There are three points in it: the pattern, its universal applicability, and the place where we get to see it.
I. The pattern.
The difference between noble and ignoble lives is very largely that the one has - and seeks, however partially and interruptedly, to follow - an ideal and the other has not. Or, to put it into plainer words, the one man regulates his life according to momentary inclinations and the obvious calls of sense, business and the like, and the other man has, far ahead and high up, a great light burning, to which he is ever striving to attain. The one has an aim to which he can only approximate, and the other largely lives from hand to mouth, as circumstances and sense, and the recurring calls of material necessities, or temptations that are put in his way every day, may dictate. And so, the one turns out a poor creature, and the other - God helping him - may turn out a saint. Which are you? Which we are depends very largely on the clearness with which we keep before us - like some great mountain summit rising above the mists, and stirring the ambition of every climber to reach the peak, where foot has never trod - the ideal, to use modern language, or to fall back upon the good old- fashioned Bible words, ‘the pattern shewed to us.’
You know that in mountain districts the mists are apt to gather their white folds round the summits, and that often for many days the dwellers in the plains have to plod along on their low levels, without a glimpse of the calm peak. And so it is with our highest ideal. Earth-born mists from the undrained swamps in our own hearts hide it too often from our eyes, and even when that is not the case, we are like many a mountaineer, who never lifts an eye to the sacred summit overhead, nor looks higher than his own fields and cattle-sheds. So it needs an effort to keep clear before us the pattern that is high above us, and to make very plain to ourselves, and very substantial in our thoughts, the unattained and untrodden heights. ‘Not in vain the distance’ should ‘beckon.’ ‘Forward, forward, let us range,’ should always be our word. ‘See that thou make all things after the pattern,’ and do not rule your lives according to whim, or fancy, or inclination, or the temptations of sense and circumstances.
To aim at the unreached is the secret of perpetual youth. No man is old as long as he aspires. It is the secret of perpetual growth. No man stagnates till he has ceased to see, or to believe in great dim possibilities for character, as yet unrealised. It is the secret of perpetual blessedness. No man can be desolate who has for his companion the unreached self that he may become. And so artist, poet, painter, all live nobler lives than they otherwise would, because they live, not so much with the commonplace realities round them, as with noble ideals, be they of melody or of beauty, or of musical words and great thoughts. There should be the same life with, and directed towards, attaining the unstrained in the moralist, and above all in the Christian.
But then, do not let us forget that we are not here in our text, as I am using it in this sermon, relegated to a pattern which takes its origin, after all, in our own thoughts and imaginations The poet’s ideal, the painter’s ideal, varies according to his genius. Ours has taken solidity and substance and a human form, and stands before us, and says: ‘If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.’ ‘See that thou make all things according to the pattern,’ and be thankful that we are not left to our own thoughts, or to our brethren’s teachings, or to abstract ideas of the true and the beautiful and the good for our pattern and mould of life, but that we have the law embodied in a Person, and the ideal made actual, in our Brother and our Saviour. There is the joy and the blessedness of the Christian aim after Christian perfection. There is something unsubstantial, misty, shadowy, in an ideal which is embodied nowhere. It is ghost-like, and has little power to move or to attract. But for Christians the pattern is all gathered into the one sweet, heart. compelling form of Jesus, and whatever is remote and sometimes cold in the thought of an unattained aim, changes when we make it our supreme purpose to be like Jesus Christ. Our goal is no cold, solitary mountain top. It is the warm, loving heart, and companionable purity and perfectness of our Brother, and when we can, even in a measure, reach that sweet resting-place, we are wrapped in the soft atmosphere of His love.
We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is; we grow like Him here, in the measure in which we do see Him, even darkly. We reach Him most surely by loving Him, and we become like Him most surely by loving Him, for love breeds likeness, and they who live near the light are drenched with the light, and become lights in their turn.
There is another point here that I would suggest, and that is
II. The universal applicability of the pattern - ‘See that thou make all things.’
Let us go back to Leviticus There you will find page after page that reads like an architect’s specification. The words that I have taken as my text are given in immediate connection with the directions for making the seven-branched candlestick, which are so minute and specific and detailed, that any brass-founder in Europe could make one to-day ‘after the pattern.’ So many bowls, so many knops, so many branches; such and such a distance between each of them; and all the rest of it - there it is, in most prosaic minuteness. Similarly, we read how many threads and fringes, and how many bells on the high priest’s robe. Verse after verse is full of these details; and then, on the back of them all, comes, ‘See that thou make all things according to the pattern.’ Which things are a parable - and just come to this, that the minutest pieces of daily life, the most commonplace and trivial incidents, may all be moulded after that great example, the life of Jesus Christ.
It is one of the miracles of revelation that it should be so. The life of Jesus Christ, in the fragmentary records of it in these four Gospels, although it only covered a few years, and is very imperfectly recorded, and in outward form was passed under conditions most remote from the strange complex conditions of our civilisation, yet fits as closely as a glove does to the hand, to all the necessities of our daily lives. Men and women, young men and maidens, old men and children, professional men and students, women in their houses, men of business, merchants, and they that sail the sea and they that dig in the mine; they may all find directions for everything that they have to do, in that one life.
And here is the centre and secret of it. ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.’ Therefore that which is the law for Jesus is the law for us, and the next verse goes on; ‘he that loveth hie life shall lose it,’ and the next verse hammers the nail farther in: ‘If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.’ - Take that injunction and apply it, in all the details of daily life, and you will be on the road to reproduce the pattern. But remember the ‘all things.’ It is for us, if we are Christian people, to bring the greatest principles to bear on the smallest duties, ‘Small duties?’ ‘ Great’ and ‘small’ are adjectives that ought never to be tacked on to ‘ duty.’ For all duties are of one size, and while we may speak, and often do speak, very mistakenly about things which we vulgarly consider ‘great,’ or superciliously treat as ‘small,’ the fact is that no man can tell what is a great thing, and what is a small one. For the most important crises in a man’s life have a strange knack of leaping up out of the smallest incidents; just as a whisper may start an avalanche, and so nobody can tell what are the great things and what the small ones. The tiniest pin in a machine drops out, and all the great wheels stop. The small things are the things that for the most part make up life. You can apply Christ’s example to the least of them, and there is very small chance of your applying it to the great things if you have not been in the way of applying it to the small ones. For the small things make the habits which the great ones test and require.
So ‘thorough’ is the word. ‘See that thou make all things according to the pattern.’
I remember once going up to the roof of Milan Cathedral, and finding there stowed away behind a buttress - where I suppose one man in fifty years might notice it, a little statuette, as completely chiselled, as perfectly polished, as if it had been of giant size, and set in the facade for all the people in the piazza to see. That is the sort of way in which Christian men should carve out their lives. Finish off the unseen bits perfectly, and then you may be quite sure that the seen bits will take care of themselves. ‘See that thou make all things’ - and begin with the small ones - ‘according to the pattern.’
Lastly,
III. Where we are to see the pattern. - ‘Shewed to thee in the mount.’
Ay, that is where we have to go if we are to see it. The difference between Christian men’s convictions of duty depends largely on the difference in the distance that they have climbed up the hill. The higher you go, the better you see the He of the land. The higher you go, the purer and more wholesome the atmosphere. And many a thing which a Christian man on the low levels thought to be perfectly in accordance with ‘the pattern,’ when he goes up a little higher, he finds to be hopelessly at variance with it. It is of no use to lay down a multitude of minute, red-tape regulations as to what Christian morality requires from people in given circumstances. Go up the hill, and you will see for yourselves.
Our elevation determines our range of vision. And the nearer, and the closer, and the deeper is our habitual fellowship with God in Christ, the more lofty will be our conceptions of what we ought to be and do. The reason for inconsistent lives is imperfect communion, mad the higher we go on the mountain of vision, the dearer will be our vision. On the other hand, whilst we see ‘the pattern’ in the mount, we have to come down into the valley to ‘make’ the ‘things.’ The clay and the potter’s wheels are down in Hinnom, and the mountain top is above. You have to carry your pattern- book down, and set to work with it before you. Therefore, whilst the way to see the pattern is to climb, the way to copy it is to descend. And having faithfully copied what you saw on the Mount of Vision, you will see more the next time you go back; for ‘to him that hath shall be given.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv8, 10, 11, 12 The New Covenant, Summary:
The New Covenant, Summary:
(1) "Better" than the Mosaic covenant not morally, but efficaciously Heb 7:19; Rom 8:3; Rom 8:4.
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(2) Established on "better" (i.e. unconditional) promises. In the Mosaic Covenant God said, "If ye will" Exo 19:5, in the New Covenant He says, "I will" Heb 8:10; Heb 8:12.
(3) Under the Mosaic Covenant obedience sprang from fear Heb 2:2; Heb 12:25-27 under the New from a willing heart and mind Heb 8:10.
(4) The New Covenant secures the personal revelation of the Lord to every believer Heb 8:11.
(5) the complete oblivion of sins Heb 8:12; Heb 10:17; Heb 10:3.
(6) rests upon an accomplished redemption Mat 26:27; Mat 26:28; 1Co 11:25; Heb 9:11; Heb 9:12; Heb 9:18-23.
(7) and secures the perpetuity, future conversion, and blessing of Israel. Jer 31:31-40. See also "Kingdom (O.T.)," and 2Sa 7:8-17.
The New Covenant is the eighth, thus speaking of resurrection and of eternal completeness.
Covenant
I. The Eight Covenants, Summary:
(1) The Edenic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 1:26") conditioned the life of man in innocency.
(2) The Adamic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 3:14") conditions the life of fallen man and gives promise of a Redeemer.
(3) The Noahic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 9:1"). establishes the principle of human government.
(4) The Abrahamic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 15:18") founds the nation of Israel, and confirms, with specific additions, the Adamic promise of redemption.
(5) The Mosaic Covenant (See Scofield "Exo 19:25"). condemns all men, "for that all have sinned."
(6) The Palestinian Covenant (See Scofield "Deu 30:3") secures the final restoration and conversion of Israel.
(7) The Davidic Covenant (See Scofield "2Sa 7:16") establishes the perpetuity of the Davidic family (fulfilled in Christ), Mat 1:1; Luk 1:31-33,; Rom 1:3 and of the Davidic kingdom, over Israel, and over the whole earth; to be fulfilled in and by Christ; 2Sa 7:8-17; Zec 12:8; Luk 1:31-33; Act 15:14-17; 1Co 15:24.
(8) The New covenant rests upon the sacrifice of Christ, and secures the eternal blessedness, under the Abrahamic Covenant Gal 3:13-29 of all who believe. It is absolutely unconditional, and, since no responsibility is by it committed to man, it is final and irreversible.
II. The relation of Christ to the eight covenants is as follows:
(1) To the Edenic Covenant, Christ, as the "second Man," the "last Adam" 1Co 15:45-47 takes the place over all things which the first Adam lost; Col 2:10; Heb 2:7-8.
(2) He is the "Seed of the woman" of the Adamic Covenant Gen 3:15; Joh 12:31; 1Jn 3:8; Gal 4:4; Rev 20:10 and fulfilled its conditions of toil Mar 6:3 and obedience.
(3) As the greatest son of Shem, in Him was fulfilled supremely the promise to Shem in the Noahic Covenant. (See Scofield "Gen 9:1") Col 2:9.
(4) He is the "Seed to whom the promises were made" in the Abrahamic Covenant; the son of Abraham obedient unto death Gen 22:18; Gal 3:16; Php 2:8.
(5) He lived sinlessly under the Mosaic covenant and bore for us its curse. Gal 3:10-13.
(6) He lived obediently as a Jew in the land under the Palestinian Covenant, and will yet perform it gracious promises Deu 28:1 to Deu 30:9.
(7) He is the "Seed," "Heir," and "King" under the Davidic Covenant Mat 1:1; Luk 1:31-33.
(8) His sacrifice is the foundation of the New Covenant Mat 26:28; 1Co 11:25.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v6 The proof that Christ’s ministry has fully replaced that…
The proof that Christ’s ministry has fully replaced that of the Levitical priesthood:
v. 6. (But 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.
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v. 7. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
v. 8. For, 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;
v. 9. not 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.
v. 10. For 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;
v. 11. and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest.
v. 12. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
v. 13. In that He saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
The truth that we have a more excellent High Priest is established not only by the fact of His occupying the place of honor at the right hand of the Majesty, but also by the fact of His being our Mediator: But as it is, He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which is established upon better promises. As it is now, since Christ is not on earth, the greater superiority of His ministry appears at once, because that which is heavenly and real is more excellent than that which is here on earth and merely figurative. His office is so much more excellent in the same degree as His mediatorship refers to a better covenant, deals with matters that have been established or enacted, that rest upon a more solid foundation. The promises of the Gospel are better, more excellent, than the demands of the Law; the offer to impart salvation full and free is better than the absolute insistence upon perfection of works. Note: Christ is our Mediator; He represents not only the fulfillment of the work of Aaron, but He is also the true antitype of Moses, the mediator of the Old Testament, Exo 20:19; Gal 3:19. He stands between God and men, 1Ti 2:5, mediating between these two parties, having brought about the reconciliation between them by His sacrifice on the cross.
That the New Testament covenant is based upon better promises than that of the Old appears from a simple historical fact: For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place be sought for a second. If the ancient covenant of the Law, as made upon Sinai, had been fully sufficient, had met with all demands for the salvation of men, if there had not been a single flaw in this demand for perfection in restoring the right relation between God and man, then there would have been neither need nor occasion for a second covenant, and God would naturally not have made provision for proclaiming a new covenant. Note that the demand for a covenant which would bring about the restoration of the true spiritual fellowship with God and make it permanent did not originate with man, but with God, who alone is the Author of our salvation.
This fact is now established by reference to a long passage in the Old Testament Scripture, namely, Jer 31:31-34: For, finding fault with them [the people of the first covenant], God says, Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will conclude upon the house of Israel and upon the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they remained not in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. There is here a fine change of object, the blame, instead of striking the covenant with its imperfections, falling upon those whose imperfections and sinfulness made it impossible for them to be saved by means of this covenant. The old covenant was insufficient because it did not provide for enabling the people to live up to its terms, and the people are blameworthy because they are willful transgressors of the Law. But the words of the prophecy, although addressed to Judah and Israel according to the flesh, in their real import concern the spiritual Judah and Israel only. Upon these the Lord wants to conclude a new covenant, one which would be fully sufficient for all needs of mankind. One covenant the Lord had made with their fathers at the time when He led them out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, with a strong arm. It was in the third month after the beginning of the journey that the Lord made known to them His holy will in a body of precepts which included not only the Moral Law, but the Ceremonial and Civil Law as well. The loving care which the Lord showed toward His people in those days is well expressed in the words that He took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, an exhibition of tender solicitude which should have kept them faithful to their God. But the people did not remain in His covenant; in insolent disobedience they transgressed His holy Lam and repudiated the Lord of their salvation. And therefore the Lord disregarded and rejected them, giving them at first into the hands of their enemies and finally permitting them to be dragged into shameful captivity. So much for the covenant of the Old Testament.
But now comes the comforting prophecy: For this is the covenant which I will covenant with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: Giving My laws into their mind and I will write them upon their heart, and I will be to them for God, and they will be to Me for a people; and they shall not teach, every man his fellow-citizen and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will acknowledge Me, from the smallest to the largest of them; for merciful will I be to their iniquities, and their sins will I no longer remember. The true spiritual house of Israel, the congregation of believers as it was found in the midst of God’s people at all times, received this promise as the covenant of the Lord in their interest Three points stand out in this covenant which the Lord published among His people at the time of the Gospel proclamation. "It is inward or spiritual; it is individual and therefore universal; it is gracious and provides forgiveness. " (Dods.) He wanted to give this new commandment, the Gospel-message, into their mind, so that they would be sure to understand it; He wanted to write it upon their heart, so that they would be sure to keep it in loving memory. The Christian religion is in no way a matter of outward forms and ceremonies, but of the spirit and desires of man. Man’s mill is so influenced by the Gospel proclamation that it conforms to that of God, and thus God is acknowledged by him as the true God, He, in turn, acknowledging and accepting the believers as His people. It is true that this was also the aim of the Old Testament covenant, but it was impossible for the Law to bring about this relation between God and man. Another feature of the new covenant is that it is not a matter of a people or race as a body politic, instructed by special scribes and priests whose instructions were necessary as mediatory actions. The fact made it imperative for every man to instruct his neighbor and brother as best he could. Now, however, that the Gospel-message has gone forth, there is such a wide distribution of divine light that intermediate services are no longer required, and all the people, from the least to the greatest, may know and accept the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. But the fundamental fact, which also gives the true value to the entire covenant, is this, that God’s grace and mercy, the forgiveness of sins, is the essential topic of the Gospel; for the sake of Christ He is merciful to our iniquities and remembers our sins no more. The quoting of the entire passage from the prophet makes the force of the argument all the greater.
The writer, therefore, is right in drawing the conclusion: By saying "a new covenant," He antiquates the first; but that which is antiquated and aged is on the verge of disappearance. Since God expressly mentions a new covenant which He intends to make, He brands the first or former, that which was in force in the Old Testament, as old. Even in the time of Jeremiah the fact that a new covenant was required showed that the old was antiquated, had outlived its usefulness, could not possibly bring men to perfection. But as it is true of other matters, so it is true of this, that things which are antiquated and old cannot expect a much longer life; they must expect to be discarded and to be replaced with something new. Note: The covenant of God’s grace and mercy in the Gospel is the comfort of all believers. Instead of the Law with its threats and condemnations we have the Gospel with its offer of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Through this glorious truth we have the right knowledge of God and are God’s people.
Summary
The writer finds a further proof for the more excellent ministry of Christ in the fact that His work is now being done in heaven and shows that Christ as the Mediator of men has fully replaced and superseded every priest of the Old Testament.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv6, 8, 10, 11, 13 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
This section begins to show that the new covenant is better than the old covenant with Israel and Judah.
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Christ has received
"God has given Christ"
mediator of a better covenant
This means Christ caused a better covenant between God and humans to exist.
covenant, which is based on better promises
This can be stated in active form. AT: "covenant. It was this covenant that God made based on better promises" or "covenant. God promised better things when he made this covenant" (See: Active or Passive)
first covenant ... second covenant
The words "first" and "second" are ordinal numbers. AT: "old covenant ... new covenant" (See: Ordinal Numbers)
had been faultless
"had been perfect"
translationWords
Christ
to minister
mediator
covenant
promise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4–13 8:4 If he were here on earth: Under the…
8:4 If he were here on earth: Under the old order Jesus would not even be a priest, as previously discussed (see 7:13-14). But Jesus is in heaven, which makes his priestly service distinct from and superior to that of the priests of the old covenant (8:5; 9:11, 24; 10:12).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.