Hebrews 8 – Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Hebrews 8:1-6

1Now the main point of what we are saying is this: we do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.

3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’ 6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.

A. Find Out:

1. Where does our high priest sit? v.1
2. Where does he serve? v.2
3. What does every priest do? v.3
4. Why wouldn’t Jesus be a priest on earth? v.4
5. What is the existing earthly sanctuary (temple)? v.5
6. Why is Jesus’ ministry superior? v.6

B. Think:

1. What is the writer saying about the place of Jesus’ ministry?
2. How is the old earthly ministry described?
3. So, again, what is the writer trying to show?

C. Comment:

     The writer continues to compare old and new priesthoods to show that Jesus’ priestly ministry is so much superior to the old Levitical priestly ministry. He now focuses on the place of Jesus’ ministry, comparing it to the old.

     The place of Jesus’ priestly ministry is in heaven. We’ve seen already that he intercedes on our behalf with the Father (7:25 & 1 Jn 2:1). Where does he do that? In heaven. He’s seated next to the Father, on the throne where he rules. While he rules, he also speaks to God on our behalf. In this sense he is not only king of kings, but he’s also our high priest.

      Now the writer also compares that to the earthly priesthood set up under the Law given to Moses. When Moses was on Sinai for forty days with God, the writer maintains that Moses was given a glimpse of heaven itself, where he saw the inner sanctuary in heaven. He was then told to build a tabernacle (or tent) to be a copy of what he had seen, so the earthly priesthood is just a shadow of the reality in heaven. As much as the earthly priesthood was utterly real and of value to the people of the old covenant, it was only a picture of the reality that was to come. Jesus is now the real and eternal high priest.

D. Application:

1. The old sacrificial system was a shadow of what was to come.
2. Jesus is now the priest interceding for us in heaven.

Passage: Hebrews 8:7-9

7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said[i]: ‘The days are coming, declares the Lord,
    when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
    and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.

A. Find Out:

1. What wouldn’t have happened if nothing was wrong with what? v.7
2. Yet what did God do? v.8a
3. So what had the Lord said He would do? v.8b
4. What wouldn’t it be like? v.9a
5. Why? v.9b

B. Think:

1. What had gone wrong in the past?
2. So what was required?
3. How does this fit into the writer’s main argument?

C. Comment:

     The writer has just been showing how Jesus’ priestly ministry from heaven was so much greater than the earthly priestly ministry. He now moves his argument on a stage further to show the need for the new ministry.

     His reasoning is quite simple: if the old ministry and the old covenant had been adequate then a new ministry and a new covenant would not have been necessary, yet God had declared the necessity of a new covenant. Using a lengthy quote from Jer 31, the writer reminds us that the Lord had declared that He would establish a new covenant with Israel (the people of God), that was unlike the old one. The old one established at Sinai (see Ex 19) required the people to follow God, and He would then be their God. Tragically Israel did not keep their side of the covenant and were unfaithful to God and turned to idols.

    After years and years of calling to them to repent and come back, the Lord gave, first the northern kingdom of Israel and then the southern kingdom of Judah over to exile. Israel had proved that simply keeping the rules was beyond them. A new covenant was needed that would be better than that, that would enable them to maintain a relationship with God and not be continually falling away. That is the wonder of the new relationship that Jesus established for us with God.

D. Application:

1. Rule keeping by sinners merely results in broken rules.
2. The hearts of sinners need changing. Jesus has done that in us.

Passage: Hebrews 8:10-13

10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
    after that time, declares 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 No longer will they teach their neighbours,
    or say to one another, “Know the Lord,”
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.’

13 By calling this covenant ‘new’, he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

A. Find Out:

1. What did the Lord say He would do? v.10
2. What would no longer need to happen? v.11a
3. Why? v.11b
4. What also would the Lord do? v.12
5. What effect does all this have? v.13

B. Think:

1. Read Jer 31:31-34 When was that written?
2. What was going to be so different from the old covenant?
3. So how are we so different from Jews of say Jeremiah’s time?

C. Comment:

    The writer has been arguing that the old Levitical priesthood and the old covenant were being replaced by one that was so much better that the Jewish Christians wouldn’t, if they realised how wonderful the new was, ever want to go back to the old. He has been quoting from Jeremiah’s prophecy that promised a new covenant. Now he reminds us further what Jeremiah said would be the nature of that new covenant promised by God.

  In this new covenant, instead of having the law written on tablets of stone, it would be within our very hearts. Somehow God would put a sense of the law actually within us. It would no longer need one person teaching another what the law said, because each and every one would know instinctively what was right before God. No longer would you need to have teachers saying this is what you need to do to have a relationship with God, because each person would already have that relationship.

     How did this actually happen? It happened when God placed His Holy Spirit within each one of us when we were born again. The law is within us because God Himself is within us (see 1 Cor 3:16, 6:19). Jesus bought our forgiveness so that God no longer focuses on our sins. Instead He focuses on the fact that we are now His children.

D. Application:

1. You KNOW what is right, because the Spirit is within you.
2. As we let the Spirit teach and lead us we fulfil the law.