\\INTRODUCTION TO HEBREWS 8\\

The apostle observing that the priesthood of Christ is the sum of
what he had treated of in the preceding chapter, proceeds to show the
superior excellency of it in other instances, particularly in the
place where Christ now officiates, which is in heaven; he being set
down at the right hand of God there, and so was a minister of the
sanctuary, and true tabernacle pitched by God, and not man; whereas
the priests of Aaron's line only ministered on earth, and in the
typical sanctuary and tabernacle, \\#Heb 8:1,2\\ and after he had
observed that Christ must have something to offer, meaning his body, to
answer to the gifts and sacrifices priests were ordained to offer,
\\#Heb 8:3\\ he proves the necessity of his ministering in heaven,
because if he was on earth he would not be a priest, a complete one,
and would have been useless and needless, \\#Heb 8:4\\ and besides,
it was proper that he should go up to heaven, and minister there, as
the antitype of the priests, who, to the example and shadow of
heavenly things, served in the tabernacle which was made by Moses, by
the order of God, and according to the pattern showed him in the
Mount, \\#Heb 8:5\\ and that the ministry of Christ in the true
sanctuary is much more excellent than the ministry of the priests in
the shadowy one, is evident from his being the Mediator of a better
covenant, \\#Heb 8:6\\ and that the covenant he is the Mediator of is
the better covenant, appears froth the better promises of which it
consists, and from the faultiness of the former covenant,
\\#Heb 8:6,7\\ and that that was faulty, and succeeded by another, he
proves from a passage in \\#Jer 31:31-34\\ in which mention is made of
a new covenant, and as distinct from that made with the Jewish fathers,
and violated by them; and several of the promises of this new and second
covenant are rehearsed, and which manifestly appear to be better than
what were in the former, \\#Heb 8:8-12\\ from all which the apostle
concludes, that a new covenant being made, the old one must be
antiquated; and that whereas it was decaying and waxing old, it was
just ready to vanish away, \\#Heb 8:13\\.