Homily 14 — Hebrews, chapter 8

“Now of the things we have spoken this is the sum: we have such a high priest, who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” [a]

Paul mixes the lowly things with the lofty ones, always imitating his Teacher, so that the lowly things become the road to the lofty. Through the first we are led to the second, and when we are among the great things we learn that the lowly ones were a stooping down to meet us. That is what he does here too. After declaring that “he offered up himself,” and showing him to be a “high priest,” what does he say? “Now of the things we have spoken this is the sum: we have such a high priest, who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty.” And yet that is not the place of a priest, but of the one whom the priest is to serve.

“A minister of the sanctuary”: not simply a minister, but “a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” You see the stooping down. Did he not draw a dividing line a little earlier, saying, “Are they not all ministering spirits?” (above, Hebrews 1, verse 14)? And that, he says, is why it was not said to them, “Sit at my right hand” (above, Hebrews 1, verse 13), for the one who sits is not a minister. How is it, then, that here he is called “a minister,” and “a minister of the sanctuary”? For by the sanctuary he means the tabernacle here.

See how he lifted up the minds of the believing Jews. They would be inclined to imagine that we have no tabernacle like theirs, so he says: look, here is the priest, great — yes, much greater than the other — and he has offered a more wonderful sacrifice. But is all this not just talk? Is it not a boast, said only to win over our minds? That is why he established it first from the oath, and afterward from “the tabernacle” as well. For this difference too was plain to see; but the apostle has yet another in mind: “which,” he says, “the Lord pitched, and not man.” Where are those who say that the heaven whirls around? Where are those who declare that it is a sphere? Both of these notions are overturned here.

“Now,” he says, “of the things we have spoken this is the sum.” By “the sum” he always means what is most important. Again he brings his discussion down; having said what is lofty, from here on he speaks without fear.

Next, so that you may understand that he used the word “minister” of his humanity, notice how he points to it again: “For every high priest,” he says (verse 3), “is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this one also have something to offer.” [d]

Now, because you hear that he sits, do not suppose that his being called high priest is just empty talk. The first, his sitting, belongs to the dignity of his being God; but this belongs to his great love for humankind and his tender care for us. That is why he keeps pressing this very point and dwells on it more: he was afraid that the other truth would overturn it. So he brings his discussion down to this again, since some were asking why he died. He was a priest. But there is no priest without a sacrifice. So he too must have had a sacrifice.

And there is another way of putting it. Having said that he is on high, he affirms and proves that he is a priest on every ground: from Melchizedek, from the oath, from his offering sacrifice. From this he also builds another argument, one that follows of necessity. “For if,” he says, “he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law.” If, then, he is a priest, as he really is, we must look for some other place for him. “For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest.” How could he be? He offered no sacrifice; he did not serve in the priest’s office. And with good reason, for the priests were there. Moreover, he shows that it was impossible for him to be a priest on earth. How could he be? There was no rising up against the appointed priests — that is what he means.

Here we must pay close attention and consider the apostle’s wisdom, for once again he shows the difference between the priesthoods. [e]

“Who serve,” he says, “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” What heavenly things does he mean here? The spiritual things. For though they are done on earth, they are still worthy of heaven. When our Lord Jesus Christ lies slain as a sacrifice, when the Spirit is with us, when he who sits at the right hand of the Father is here, when sons are made by the washing, when they are fellow citizens of those in heaven, when we have a homeland, and a city, and a citizenship there, when we are strangers to the things here — how can all these be anything other than “heavenly things”?

And what of this? Are our hymns not heavenly? Do we who are below not sing, in concert with them, the same things that the divine choirs of the bodiless powers sing above? Is the altar not heavenly too? How so? It has nothing fleshly about it; the offerings are all spiritual things. The sacrifice does not scatter into ashes, or into smoke, or into a steamy aroma; it makes the things laid there bright and splendid. And again, how can the rites we celebrate be anything other than heavenly? When he says, “Whoever’s sins you retain, they are retained; whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven” (John 20, verse 23), when they hold the keys of heaven, how can it all be anything other than heavenly?

“Who serve,” he says, “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was instructed by God when he was about to make the tabernacle: ‘See,’ he says, ‘that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.’” Our hearing is slower to take things in than our sight — for what we hear we do not store up in our soul the way we store what we see with our own eyes — and so he showed him everything. Either, then, this is what he means by “the copy and shadow,” or else he is speaking of the temple. For he went on to say, “See” — those are his words — “that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.” Was it only the furnishings of the temple that he saw, then, or was it also what related to the sacrifices and all the rest? One would not be wrong in saying even this; for the church is heavenly, and is nothing other than heaven.

Verse 6: “But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant.” [g]

You see, he means, how much better the one service is than the other, if one is a copy and a type and the other is the truth, the reality itself. But this did not help his hearers or cheer them. So he says what cheered them most: “which was established on better promises.” Having lifted them up by speaking of the place, and the priest, and the sacrifice, he then sets out the wide difference between the covenants as well, having already said that the first was “weak and unprofitable” (see Hebrews 7, verse 18).

And notice what safeguards he lays down when he means to find fault with it. In the earlier place, after saying, “according to the power of an endless life” (Hebrews 7, verse 16), he then said that “there is a setting aside of the commandment that went before” (Hebrews 7, verse 18); and after that he put forward something great, saying, “by which we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7, verse 19). And in this place, after leading us up into heaven, and showing that instead of the temple we have heaven, and that those things were types of ours, and having by these means exalted the service of the new covenant, he then fittingly goes on to exalt the priesthood.

But, as I said, he sets down what cheers them most in the words, “which was established on better promises.” Where does this appear? In this: that the one was thrown out and the other brought in in its place. For it is in force for this very reason, that it is better. Just as he says, “If perfection were through it, what further need was there for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek?” (Hebrews 7, verse 11), so here too he used the same argument, saying (verse 7), “For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for the second” — that is, if it had made people “faultless.” It is because he is speaking of this that he did not say, “But finding fault with it,” but (verses 8 and 9), “But finding fault with them, he says, ‘Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when 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 when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my covenant, and I paid no attention to them, says the Lord.’”

Yes, indeed. And where does it appear that the first covenant came to an end? He showed it already from the priest, but now he shows more plainly, in so many words, that it has been thrown out.

But how is it “on better promises”? How, tell me, can earth and heaven be equal? But notice how he speaks of promises in that other covenant too, so that you will not bring this charge against it. There too he says, “a better hope, by which we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7, verse 19), showing that there was a hope there as well; and here he says “better promises,” hinting that there too God had made promises.

But because they were forever raising objections, he says, “Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” He is not speaking of some old covenant; so that they could not claim this, he fixed the time as well. He did not simply say, “according to the covenant that I made with their fathers,” in case you should say it was the one made with Abraham, or the one with Noah. He declares which covenant it was: “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers” at the exodus. That is why he also added, “in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my covenant, and I paid no attention to them, says the Lord.” You see that the evils begin with ourselves first — “they” first, he says, “did not continue” in the covenant — and the carelessness comes from us, but the good things come from him; I mean his generous gifts. Here he brings in, as it were, a defense, showing the reason why he abandons them.

Verse 10: “For this,” he says, “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, and write them on their hearts; and I will be a God to them, and they will be a people to me.” So he says this about the new covenant, since his words are, “not according to the covenant that I made.” [i]

But what other difference is there besides this? Now suppose someone should say: “The difference is not in this, but in its being put into their hearts. He makes no mention of any difference in the ordinances; he points out the way it is given. ‘No longer,’ he says, ‘will the covenant be in writing, but in hearts.’” In that case let the Jew show that this was ever carried out. But he cannot, for after the return from Babylon it was given in writing a second time. But I show that the apostles received nothing in writing; they received it in their hearts through the Holy Spirit. That is why Christ said, “When he comes, he will bring all things to your remembrance, and he will teach you” (John 14, verse 26).

Verses 11 and 12: “And they will not teach,” he says, “each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their wrongdoings I will remember no more.” Here is another sign as well. “From the least to the greatest of them,” he says, “they will know me, and they will not say, ‘Know the Lord.’” When has this been fulfilled, except now? For our religion is plain to see; but theirs, the Jews’, was not plain to see — it had been shut up in a corner. [j]

A covenant, then, is called “new” when it is different and shows some advantage over the old. But someone says: “No, surely, it is also new when part of it has been taken away and part has not. For instance, when an old house is about to fall down, if someone leaves the whole of it and patches up the foundation, we say at once that he has made it new, when he has taken some parts away and put others in their place. The heaven too is called ‘new’ in this way, when it is no longer ‘bronze’ but gives rain; and the earth likewise is new when it is not barren, not when it has been changed; and a house is new in the same way, when portions of it have been taken away and portions remain. And so he was right to call it ‘a new covenant.’”

What, then, if I show that that covenant had become “old” in this sense, that it bore no fruit? To know this exactly, read what Haggai says, what Zechariah says, what the Messenger says, when the return from captivity had not yet fully taken place; and what Ezra charges them with. How, then, did the people receive him? And how was it that no one inquired of the Lord, since the priests themselves also broke the law, and did not even know it themselves? Do you see how your interpretation is broken down, while I maintain my own: that this covenant must be called “new” in the proper sense of the word?

Besides, I do not grant that the words “the heaven will be new” (Isaiah 65, verse 17) were spoken about this. For when he says in Deuteronomy, “the heaven will be bronze,” why did he not set down the opposite in the matching passage: “but if you listen, it will be new”?

And further, this is why he says he will give “another covenant, because they did not continue in the first.” I show this from what he says: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh” (Romans 8, verse 3); and again, “Why do you put God to the test by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (Acts 15, verse 10). But “they did not continue in it,” he says.

Here he shows that God counts us worthy of greater and spiritual privileges. For it is said, “Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19, verse 5; Romans 10, verse 18). That is the meaning of “they will not say, each one to his neighbor, ‘Know the Lord.’” And again, “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as abundant water covers the seas” (Isaiah 11, verse 9).

“In saying ‘new,’” he says, “he has made the first old; and what is decaying and growing old is ready to vanish away.” See how he has laid open what was hidden, the very mind of the prophet! The prophet honored the law and was not willing to call it “old” in so many words; but nevertheless that is what he called it. For if the former had been new, he would not have called the one that came afterward “new” as well. So by granting something more and different, he declares that the first “had grown old.” Therefore it is done away with and is perishing, and no longer exists. [m]

Taking boldness from the prophet, Paul presses the attack on it more fittingly, showing that ours is now flourishing. That is, he showed that the other was old; then, taking up the word “old,” and adding on his own account another feature, the mark of old age, he took up what the others had left out and says, “ready to vanish away.” The new, then, did not simply make the old cease; it did so because the old had grown aged and was no longer useful. That is why he said, “because of its weakness and unprofitableness” (Hebrews 7, verse 18), and “the law made nothing perfect” (Hebrews 7, verse 19), and “if the first had been faultless, no place would have been sought for the second” (Hebrews 8, verse 7).

And “faultless” means useful — not as though the old covenant were open to any charge, but as not being sufficient. He used an everyday way of speaking. It is as if someone should say, “The house is not faultless,” meaning it has some defect, it is decayed; or, “The garment is not faultless,” meaning it is coming apart. So he does not speak of it here as evil, but only as having some fault and shortcoming.

So we too are new — or rather, we were made new, but now we have grown old; and so we are “near to vanishing away,” and to destruction. Let us scrape off this old age. It is no longer possible to do it by the washing, but it is possible by repentance, here in this life. If there is anything old in us, let us throw it off; if there is any “wrinkle,” any stain, any “spot,” let us wash it away and become beautiful (Ephesians 5, verse 27), so that “the King may desire our beauty” (Psalm 45, verse 11).

Even someone who has fallen into the most extreme ugliness can recover that beauty of which David says that the King will desire your beauty: “Listen, daughter, and consider; forget also your own people and your father’s house; so will the King greatly desire your beauty” (Psalm 45, verses 10 and 11). And yet forgetting does not produce beauty. Indeed it does, for this beauty is of the soul. What sort of forgetting? Forgetting sins. For he is speaking about the church gathered from the Gentiles, urging her not to remember the things of her fathers, that is, of those who sacrificed to idols; for it was from such people that she was gathered.

And he did not say, “Do not go after them,” but something more: do not even let them into your mind. He says this in another place too: “I will not mention their names with my lips” (Psalm 16, verse 4). And again, “That my mouth may not speak of the deeds of men” (Psalm 17, verses 3 and 4). That is not yet a great virtue — or rather, it is indeed great, but not as great as the one spoken of here. For what does he say there? He does not say, “Do not talk of the things of men, and do not speak of the things of your fathers,” but, do not even remember them, do not let them into your mind.

You see how far away he wants us to keep from wickedness. For whoever does not remember a thing will not think of it; whoever does not think of it will not speak of it; and whoever does not speak of it will not do it. Do you see by how many paths he has walled us off? How great a distance he has set between us and it — a very great distance indeed?

Let us, then, also “listen and forget” our own evils. I do not mean our sins — for, he says, “You remember first, and I will not remember” (Isaiah 43, verses 26 and 25, in the Greek Old Testament). I mean, for instance: let us no longer remember robbery, but let us even give back what we took before. This is forgetting wickedness: to cast out the thought of robbery and never let it in at any time, and also to wipe away the wrongs already done. [n]

Where can forgetfulness of wickedness come to us from? From remembering good things; from remembering God. If we remember God constantly, we cannot remember those other things too. For, he says, “When I remembered you on my bed, I thought of you at the dawn of morning” (Psalm 63, verse 6). We ought, then, to keep God always in remembrance, but especially when our thoughts are undisturbed, when through that remembrance a person can condemn himself, when he can hold things in memory. In the daytime, even if we do remember, other cares and troubles come in and drive the thought out again; but at night we can remember continually, when the soul is calm and at rest, when it is in harbor and under a clear sky. “What you say in your hearts, be sorry for on your beds,” he says (Psalm 4, verse 4, in the Greek Old Testament). It would indeed be right to keep this remembrance through the day as well. But since you are always full of cares and distracted among the things of this life, at least remember God on your bed; at the dawn of morning, meditate on him.

If we meditate on these things at dawn, we will go out to our business with great ease of mind. If we have first won God’s favor by prayer and petition, then going out like that we will have no enemy; or if you should have one, you will laugh him to scorn, with God on your side. There is war in the marketplace. The business of every day is a fight; it is a tempest and a storm. So we need weapons, and prayer is a great weapon. We need favorable winds; we need to learn everything, so as to get through the whole length of the day without shipwrecks and without wounds. For every single day the rocks are many, and often the boat strikes and goes down. That is why we especially need prayer early in the morning and at night.

Many of you have often watched the Olympic games — and not only watched them, but been eager supporters and admirers of the contestants, one of this one, one of that. You know, then, that both during the days of the contests and during those nights, all night long the herald thinks of nothing else and has no other worry than that the contestant should not disgrace himself when he goes out. Those who sit beside the trumpeter warn him not to talk to anyone, so that he will not waste his breath and be laughed at. [o]

If, then, someone who is about to compete before men takes such forethought, how much more fitting is it for us to be always thoughtful and careful, since our whole life is a contest! So let every night be a vigil, and let us take care that when we go out in the day we do not make ourselves ridiculous. And if only it were just a matter of making ourselves ridiculous! But as it is, the Judge of the contest is seated at the right hand of the Father, listening closely so that we do not utter any false note, anything out of tune. For he is the Judge not of actions only, but of words as well.

Let us keep our vigil, beloved. We too have those who are eager for our success, if we are willing. Angels are sitting near each one of us — and yet we snore the whole night through. And if only that were all! But many even do many shameless things: some go to the very brothels, and others turn their own houses into places of sexual immorality by bringing prostitutes there. Yes, most certainly. Is it not so? They take good care of their contest! Others get drunk and say what they should not; others make an uproar. Others keep an evil vigil all night, worse than those who sleep, weaving schemes of deceit; others calculating interest; others bruising themselves with worries, and doing anything rather than what suits the contest.

So I urge you: let us lay aside everything else and look to one thing only — how we may win the prize, how we may be crowned with the wreath. Let us do everything by which we will be able to attain the promised blessings. May we all attain them in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, might, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.