Our High Priest, Seated

One sentence carries it: our high priest has sat down. What he serves is not a copy but the real sanctuary, and the covenant he mediates is the one Jeremiah promised, with laws written on minds and hearts, sins remembered no more, and everyone knowing our Father.

Chapter 8.

The point of this: we have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven. A minister of the holy places and the true tabernacle, set up by the Father, not man. Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; so this one too must have something to offer. If he were on earth, he wouldn't even be a priest, since others offer the gifts under the law.

They serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was warned when about to complete the tabernacle: "See," he said, "make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."

But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant he mediates is better, established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second.

For finding fault with them, he says: "Look, the days are coming, declares our Father, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not remain in my covenant, and so I disregarded them, declares our Father. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares our Father I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their Father, and they will be my children. And no longer will each one teach his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, "Know our Father," for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their wrongdoing, and I will remember their sins no more."

Speaking of a new covenant, he has made the first outdated. What's outdated and aging is nearing its end.