Hebrews; Chapter 8

UNDERSTANDING OUR HIGH PRIEST!

Part I

{Verses 1-13}

[10-10-10]

Hebrews 8:1-2) [GNB] The whole point of what we are saying is that we have such a High Priest, who sits at the right of the throne of the Divine Majesty in heaven.

2) [GNB] He serves as high priest in the Most Holy Place, that is, in the real tent which was put up by the Lord, not by human hands.

QUESTION: What 2 other ways show the Priesthood of Christ superior to Aaron?

ANSWER: 1) Jesus is sitting next to the Father He prays to for us. 2) He serves in the real “Most Holy Place,” the one in Heaven.

Hebrews 8:3-4) [GNB] Every high priest is appointed to present offerings and animal sacrifices to God, and so our High Priest must also have something to offer.

4) [GNB] If he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer the gifts required by the Jewish Law.

QUESTION: What else shows this Priesthood to be different from that of Aaron?

ANSWER: Aaron offered gifts that the Law demanded, gifts that merely pointed to the one that Jesus would offer.

Hebrews 8:5) [GNB] The work they do as priests is really only a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven. It is the same as it was with Moses. When he was about to build the Sacred Tent, God told him, “Be sure to make everything according to the pattern you were shown on the mountain.”

QUESTION: What else shows Aaron’s priesthood to be inferior of this Priesthood?

ANSWER: Everything Aaron and his descendents did was merely “a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven.” What Jesus did, and does, is the real, the eternal. What they did was the copy, the shadow, the temporary.

Hebrews 8:6) [GNB] But now, Jesus has been given priestly work which is superior to theirs, just as the covenant which he arranged between God and his people is a better one, because it is based on promises of better things.

[GW] Jesus has been given a priestly work that is superior to the Levitical priests’ work. He also brings a better promise from God that is based on better guarantees.

QUESTION: What else, besides the Priesthood of Christ, is superior to Aaron?

ANSWER: The covenant that Jesus represents is superior to the covenant that Aaron represented.

QUESTION: In what way is this covenant superior?

ANSWER: This covenant is based on “a better promise from God that is based on better guarantees.”

NOTE: The fault of the first covenant is that it couldn’t guarantee us righteousness, or eternal life. Why? It couldn’t make these guarantees because it depended on our conduct, and we failed. The new covenant makes these guarantees because it depended on, and continues to depend on, the conduct of Jesus; and He’s perfect.

Hebrews 8:7-9) [GNB] If there had been nothing wrong with the first covenant, there would have been no need for a second one.

8) [GNB] But God finds fault with his people when he says, “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will draw up a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

Hebrews 8:9) [GNB] It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They were not faithful to the covenant I made with them, and so I paid no attention to them.

QUESTION: God gave Israel the first covenant. What could possibly be wrong with it?

ANSWER: It couldn’t free the Israelites from the guilt their sins brought upon them.

Romans 8:3) [GNB] What the Law could not do, because human nature was weak, God did. He condemned sin in human nature by sending his own Son, who came with a nature like our sinful nature, to do away with sin.

QUESTION: What was the weakness of the first covenant?

ANSWER: We, the human family, couldn’t keep it.

Hebrews 8:10-12) [GNB] Now, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel in the days to come, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

11) [GNB] None of them will have to teach their friends or tell their neighbors, ‘Know the Lord.’ For they will all know me, from the least to the greatest.

12) [GNB] I will forgive their sins and will no longer remember their wrongs.”

QUESTION: What’s different about the new covenant?

ANSWER: It’s not written on tablets of stone, but on the minds and hearts of those who follow it.

QUESTION: How does this one work that makes it superior to the first?

ANSWER: This one gives God the right to not remember our sins.

2 Corinthians 5:19) To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

“Actually, the verb logízomai means to put together with one’s mind, to count, to occupy oneself with reckonings or calculations” [Word Study].

Hebrews 8:13) [GNB] By speaking of a new covenant, God has made the first one old; and anything that becomes old and worn out will soon disappear.