We Have Such a High Priest

Hebrews 8:1–13 – Jesus Is Better
First Sunday of Lent – February 22nd, 2026 (am)     

Let’s pause for a moment and remember what ground we’ve covered in our trek through Hebrews. We began with the assertion that God has now moved beyond His old pattern of [speaking] to His people through the prophets and has now spoken to [them] by His Son (1:1-2) Who is a far better Word from heaven because 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…. As messengers go, He’s also superior to angels (1:3b-2:18) even though they [delivered the old covenant law] to Moses on the mountain (2:2). And He’s superior to Moses himself, worthy of as much more glory as a son is over a servant (3:1-6). Next, He’s superior to the old covenant priesthood of Levi and high priesthood of Aaron (4:14-7:28), having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (6:20).

Interspersed through these movements are three of the four warning passages in this letter, urging the readers not to [turn their backs] on this great salvation (2:1-4), not to tolerate a hardened heart of unbelief that falls away from [God] (3:12-14), and not to become dull of hearing His word of righteousness revealed in Christ (5:11-6:12).

What we’re learning all along is the greatness of God’s glory displayed in the greatness of His Son Who provided a great salvation, Himself eclipsing the old covenant, with its humanly flawed priesthood, animal sacrifices, and good but impotent law, and inaugurating the promised new covenant with its holy and unstained priesthood and once for all sacrifice that is actually able, as we’ll see today, to regenerate the hearts and minds of all who believe, instilling the law of God deep within them.

That’s the nature of the better covenant Jesus guarantees (7:22). It makes its recipients new from the inside out—a new heart and a new mind, like we’re born all over again but this time born of the Spirit (cf. Joh.3:3-6), with spiritual life, not just physical life. We might wonder why our takeaway each week is so similar, essentially, rejoice in this great salvation! But once we see all it has required to provide this salvation, and how in need we are of it—once we see that sin-stained (cf. 7:26) human involvement at any step, on any level, compromises it to the point that it’s ineffective—we should begin to recognize that we don’t marvel nearly enough at our great salvation day by day, we don’t study it and meditate on it and ponder it and glory in it nearly as much as it deserves. So, toward that very end, let’s look into it again today, in two parts.

Our Better High Priest – 1-5

Last Sunday, Kipp, walked us through the glorious ministry of our new high priest, holy, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens (7:26), 7:27 [One Who] has no need… to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then also for [ours], since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. This was a deeply meaningful statement to first-century Jews who had trusted Christ as Savior. They knew first-hand the laborious burden of the old covenant sacrificial system with its various sacrifices that needed to be offered up incessantly in order to sustain relationship with God.

We, on the other hand, were born into these new covenant days, so we may have forgotten that we even need a high priest to facilitate our relationship with God. We’re so used to Jesus’ once for all offering (7:27) that we can take for granted the free access we have to God at any time of need (cf. 4:16).

So, the original readers are being called to see that there’s nothing to go back to in old covenant Judaism. Jesus is the One to Whom the law and sacrifices had pointed all along. The promised new covenant arrives in Him such that all that came before is empty and meaningless if it doesn’t find its meaning in Him. It’s obsolete, growing old, ready to vanish away (13). And we’re being urged not to forget all it took to maintain relationship with God under the law. Thus, we rejoice in the blessings of this new covenant we now enjoy.

1 [That’s] the point in what [the author has been] saying…: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, right where we’d most want our advocate (1Jo.2:1), our mediator  (6; 9:15; 12:24; 1Ti.2:5) to be seated! We need Him to be 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man, the place where eternal worship will offered, not just the temporary place of earthly worship (cf. 9:1), the only [place] which is not an imitation of something better (Bruce 182). But the nature of Jesus’ ministry there is the same as other high priests. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices (cf. 5:1); thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. We saw last Sunday that this high priest offered up himself (7:27), which isn’t just a fleeting idea (cf. 9:14). It’s the central-most expression of the uniqueness of His high priesthood. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not even be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law, and they’re descendants of Aaron or Levi (c.7). 5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things in a temporary place. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” It was a mere imitation.

His Better Covenant – 6-13

6 But it is… in no earthy replica… that Jesus ministers…, but in the heavenly dwelling-place itself; his ministry [is also then] far superior to any earthly ministry (Bruce 185). The introductory phrase here, 6 But as it is, [just presses home] the fundamental contrast between the ministry of [Jesus] and… the old order (Hughes 295-6) of priests. Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. And surely he’s talking here about the same distinction John spotlighted when he affirmed that as Joh.1:17 … the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (cf. Hughes 296). But we’ll get into the anatomy of these better promises in a few moments.

First, the author gives one more affirmation that the older covenant understood and announced its own temporary nature. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. But on a plurality of occasions the OT did announce a coming new covenant, or some essential component of it (Jer.31:31-34; Eze.36:25-28; Isa.53; 55:1-5; 61). And that’s where he begins our v.8. 8 For he finds fault with them when he says: I actually prefer the esv alternate reading here; it seems to express the meaning better (Hughes 298-9) even though it’s not the best handling of the translation (France 111). So: 8 [For finding fault with it he says to them:] and then he quotes my favorite promise of the new covenant in the old, Jeremiah 31:31-34. This is the longest quotation of the OT in the NT but, even so, the author doesn’t pause over any single phrase or draw out the meaning of any subtle point as he did, for instance, with Psalms 95 (3:7-4:14) and 110 (7:1-25). Instead, he draws only the broadest general conclusion in v.13, and it’s clearly this general point rather than the details of Jeremiah’s vision that he needs to establish his argument (France 110).

Even so, the details are important. 8 … “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, God Himself is speaking, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, reunited Israel, but more: this is the covenant through which He’d promised from the beginning to bless all the families of the earth (Gen.12:3). Still, this new covenant is 9 not like the [one] that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. How was it different? We’ll see in a moment. But first He addresses why it was needed. For they did not continue in my covenant, as we were reminded back in c.3, and so I showed no concern for them, I abandoned them (neb) (Hughes 300), declares the Lord.

Israel couldn’t keep the covenant requirements, so it just didn’t matter on the most practical of levels that God’s promises were unconditional; perfection wasn’t attainable through the Levitical priesthood or the law (7:11). 10 [So] this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord; here’s how it’ll be different: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. In the new covenant community, everyone will know the Lord! Everyone will have the law of God implanted in their minds and written on their hearts. Now we know how that will happen. The new covenant won’t be fundamentally rooted in a natural family line. It’ll be rooted in a spiritual family line. You’ll enter it not by natural birth but by spiritual birth. You’ll be born again of the Spirit (Joh.3:3-6)—by faith each one will be crucified with Christ such that it is no longer [s/he] who lives, but Christ [will] live in [him/her] (Gal.2:20). 8 [Thus, God says,] I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” The death of Christ will have paid their debt, allowing God to remain just even while He justifies [those] who have faith in Jesus (Rom.3:26).

Then comes our summary verse. 13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. This is the point the author wants us to take from Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Conclusion

But what is our big takeaway today? Our takeaway is to drink in this great salvation (2:3) our God has provided for us through Jesus. He’s taken us all the way from the fall in the garden (Gen.3) through the flood (Gen.6) to the calling of a human family through which Messiah would come and bless all the families of the earth (Gen.12), to the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and the giving of the law to establish His expectations from them in covenant relationship (Exo.1-20), to the establishment of an eternal office of prophet (Deu.18), priest (Psa.110), and king (2Sa.7), each of which will be filled by the promised Messiah Who, when He eventually comes, will also be a suffering Servant that’s despised and rejected by men, and yet He’ll [bear] our griefs and [carry] our sorrows—the Lord [will lay] on him the iniquity of us all and by his wounds [we’ll be] healed (Isa.53).

God has purposed to move through all these stages to provide for our salvation to the praise of His glory, proving beyond any conceivable doubt that if any part of this plan depends in any way on the involvement of His beloved but hopelessly fallen, image-bearing creatures, the whole plan will surely fail.

So, He’s taken His plan the full route of having His own Son come to fill the roles of prophet, priest, king, atoning sacrifice, and saving Lord such that all can see each prior stage of His salvation plan as preliminary, obsolete once it’s complete such that it grows old and vanishes away, just like everyone who was clinging to it alone for reconciliation to God. But in the end, once the promised new covenant arrives in all its fullness, it will save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through [faith in Jesus], since he always lives to make intercession for them (7:25). How can we not glory in this salvation?

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Resources

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Barclay, William. 1976. The Daily Study Bible Series. The Letter to the Hebrews, Revised Edition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.

Beale, G. K., & D. A. Carson, eds. 2007. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Hebrews, by George H. Guthrie, 919-995. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

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Clendenen, Ray E., gen. ed., David S. Dockery, NT ed. 2010. The New American Commentary. Vol. 35, Hebrews, by David L. Allen. Nashville: Broadman & Holman.

Dever, Mark. 2005. The Message of the New Testament. Ch. 19, The Message of Hebrews: Sticking with the Best, 413-425. Wheaton: Crossway.

Fee, Gordon D., gen. ed. 1990. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. The Epistle to the Hebrews, Revised Edition, by F. F. Bruce. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Grudem, Wayne, ed. 2008. ESV Study Bible. Study notes on Hebrews, by David W. Chapman. Wheaton: Crossway.

Guthrie, George. 1998. The NIV Application Commentary. Hebrews. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Hubbard, David A., & Glenn W. Barker, gen. eds. Ralph P. Martin, NT ed. 1991. Word Biblical Commentary. Vols. 47a, Hebrews 1-8; Vol.47b, Hebrews 9-13, by William L. Lane. Dallas: Word.

Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. 1979. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Longman III, Tremper, & David E. Garland, eds. 2006. Revised Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Vol. 13, Hebrews-Revelation. Hebrews, by R. T. France, 17-195. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Morris, Leon, gen. ed. 1983. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Vol. 15, Hebrews, by Donald Guthrie. Downers Grove: InterVarsity.

Owen, John. 1855. Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 7 Vols. Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter.

NEXT SUNDAY: Hebrews 9:1–14, Dave Patty