Daily Devotion in Hebrews 8

Daily Nugget:
In Hebrews 8, Paul gives the Hebrew believers five more reasons Christ is the better High Priest:

1. Christ, our High Priest is sitting. No Levitical priest ever sat because their work was never done. There were no chairs in the tabernacle or temple. Here, our Priest’s one-time sacrifice is complete, and Jesus is seated (Hebrews 8:1). Jesus’ earthly ministry is finished!
2. Christ, our High Priest, is at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 8:1). No Old Testament priest ever saw God, let alone sat next to Him, as does Jesus.
3. Christ is the minister of the “sanctuary and the true tabernacle” (Hebrews 8:2-4). All the Levitical priests ministered in a God-ordered but man-made tabernacle and later a man-made temple. The tabernacle was not perfect, although created as God relayed its design to Moses.
4. All the earlier Levitical priests presented a “shadow,” or picture, of heavenly things to come (Hebrews 8:5). Christ’s ministry is not a picture of anything to come. It is the real thing!
5. Christ’s ministry is a “more excellent ministry” than any earthly priest ever had. The Old Testament priests represented all people. They mediated with God for all the people, however, few had a direct audience with the priest. We, as Christians, have an audience with the perfect High Priest, no matter who we are.

Christ’s ministry is “more excellent” because it comes with a “better covenant,” a better agreement between God and man. Although Paul sites the old covenant as faulted (Hebrews 8:7), it does not imply that God made a mistake with the old agreement. That agreement was good for that time and met its purpose — to show man could not make a worthy sacrifice himself. The sacrifice had to be made by His perfect Son, Jesus!

This explanation of the past priests and our current Priest can help today’s believers understand more of what Jesus did for him and who He is. He is the most “excellent” priest (Hebrews 8:6), with a ministry many throughout past ages have awaited.

Today’s Thought: 
“There are only two choices for salvation: do or done. The Bible says, ‘It is finished!’”

Words to Understand:
Covenant: an agreement
Waxeth: to increase; to grow; to change states or conditions one is in

Today’s Reading:
Hebrews 8
1 Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;
2 A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
3 For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.
4 For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:
5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
6 ¶ But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9 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 continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.