The Biblical Illustrator
Hebrews 8:3
To offer gifts and sacrifices
Sacrifices
I. GOD’S ORDINATION OR APPOINTMENT GIVES RULES, MEASURES, AND ENDS UNTO ALL SACRED OFFICES AND EMPLOYMENTS. Whoever undertakes anything in religion or divine worship, without it, besides it, beyond it, is a transgressor, and therein worshippeth God in vain.
II. THERE IS NO APPROACH UNTO GOD WITHOUT CONTINUAL RESPECT UNTO SACRIFICE AND ATONEMENT. The principal end of sacrifices was to make atonement for sin. And so necessary was this to be done, that the office of the priesthood was appointed for it.
III. THERE WAS NO SALVATION TO BE HAD FOR US, NO NOT BY JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF, WITHOUT HIS SACRIFICE AND OBLATION. It was of necessity that He should have somewhat to offer, as well as those priests had of old according to the law.
IV. As GOD DESIGNED UNTO THE LORD CHRIST, THE WORK WHICH HE HAD TO DO, SO HE PROVIDED FOR HIM, AND FURNISHED HIM WITH, WHATEVER WAS NECESSARY THEREUNTO.
V. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST BEING TO SAVE THE CHURCH IN THE WAY OF OFFICE, HE WAS NOT TO BE SPARED IN ANYTHING NECESSARY THEREUNTO.
VI. WHATEVER STATE OR CONDITION WE ARE CALLED UNTO, WHAT IS NECESSARY UNTO THAT STATE IS INDISPENSABLY REQUIRED OF US. So is holiness and obedience required unto a state of reconciliation and peace with God. (John Owen, D. D.)
Somewhat to offer.
The great Offering
“Somewhat to offer” is a very happy rendering. What He offers is not meantime of importance, He has an offering. Neither is there any reference to the time when He offers, though the word perhaps implies that the offering is one that is made once for all. But of course it is implied by the connection that the place of the offering is in the true tabernacle, for this is just the gist of the whole passage. The author’s chief point is that the Melchisedec high priest is a ministering high priest in the heavenly sanctuary, and to support this point by saying that this priest must have an offering which he offers somewhere else would be peculiar reasoning. No doubt the high priest is described generally as appointed “to offer gifts and sacrifices,” but that “offering” of the high priest to which Christ’s corresponds is expressly defined to be “blood which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people” in the most holy place Hebrews 9:7). The “ somewhat to offer” which Christ has is somewhat which He offers in the sanctuary on high. (A. B. Davidson, LL. D.)
If He were on earth, Be should not be a priest
Jesus’ limitations, His power and glory
The fact which the writer of the Epistle here cites, bears witness to the truth that there will be earthly aspects of limitation to the character of Christ, and tells us how they are to be looked at, so as to lead to His ultimate elevation.
Jesus is always falling short of men’s ideal. There arose the ideal of the ascetic: that was the holiest, the best, the noblest life, to men’s minds; and that man whose life was open to all the influences of His fellow-men, that man who was reproached by the malicious distortions of enemies as a glutton and winebibber, could no more fit that character than He could that of the sacrificing priest of the ancient temple. The time of chivalry and of crusades exalted the warrior; and He who sent forth His disciples without sword, and healed the ear of Malchus, was no figure to vie with the bold knights in their valorous reputations, any more than the plain garments of the humble Galilean could shine beside the imposing vestments of Jewish priests. Or, some down to modern days, and take the standards of any class in life to-day. The scientific thinker asks for facts, for analysis, for knowledge of the structure of earth and heaven: and those beautiful parables and wonderful miracles enter into no such details; and Jesus in a scientific assembly to-day would be as completely out of place as He would have been beside the high priest in the holy of holies. And the business, the commercial, ideal of life, does not look for its leader to Him who said, “Lend, hoping for nothing again,” and “Take no thought for the morrow,” any more than priest and Levite consulted Christ as to the best mode of offering sacrifices. Polities and society would find it equally impossible to discover their ideal in Him who originated no new system of Government, and associated always with the lowly. The words of Isaiah’s prophecy have a real meaning: “And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” All this causes difficulty. We need not inveigh against the earnestness of pursuits which have erected such ideals, any more than this writer found it necessary to heap reproaches on the Jewish system of priesthood because it found no place for Christ within it. Would Jesus lead the life of the modern clergyman to-day? is the taunt which, from the outsider, may be thrown at the preaching of His gospel. Better than to answer it by asking whether He would find it possible to lead the life of the modern merchant, or statesman, or scholar, better is it for all of us to recognize that He would lead the life of no one of us. No forms or modes of action, which we find it necessary to observe, could hold the power of Divine life, any more than the life of an ordinary Jewish priest, God-ordained as he was, could be the measure of the life of the Saviour of the world. And as we say that, we reach the ground of the solution which is given to this difficulty. Jesus was not a priest of the old covenant, because He was the Mediator of a new and better covenant, He was not a priest in descent from Aaron, because He was a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. The limitations of Jesus are His glory; the fact that He does not claim any of these ideals of earthly greatness is because He sets up a greater ideal, to which they all belong. We can find an illustration in our common life. A king steps down among his people; he mingles with them, and sees them at their work. And there is not one of those workmen that cannot do something better than he can. If they should bring their difficulties of work to him, he could not answer one of them; he fulfils the ideal of no one of their positions. And yet all those interests are his, and are strong and healthy through his power and character. His kingly character remains untouched by the superiority of any one of those who are eminent in their departments, and the carelessness and scorn of some man who thinks a man no king who does not know his secrets, never moves his mien of royal dignity. The lifting-up of every one of those subjects to the higher conception of the nation over which he rules, is a work truly his as no mechanical knowledge or minute practice can ever be. Such was Christ’s position as king; and so He stands far above, though never apart from, every standard of human attainment. He helps every one of them, as He brings them all into connection with the very centre of life. He set forth for ever the truth, that the life of the lower is to be found in the higher. Low and compromised mortal life comes from narrow views; from fixing our minds on some immediate object, and making that the measure of all our existence. He who sees such an object only as a part of something greater is the man who will cease sacrificing nobleness of character and purity of life, which are treasures that will lash to eternity, for ends that must be limited and transient. Is not that precisely the kind of assistance which we need? We men must be priests in our own temples, and we are made to aspire to the highest places in the region of life where God has placed us. That earnestness, as it limits our sight, may be destroying our character and hope of eternal life. We plead as an excuse that we are doing our best, and cannot be expected to see the full Divine meaning of all our work. But when that is showed to us, when, through such a life as that of Jesus, we see that our little pursuit is not the end of our being, then with that revelation goodness stands forth as a real power in life, and we hold to it in spite of every sacrifice for which it may call, in the name and spirit of Him who has thus consecrated it for us. Our pursuit shall still be vigorous and successful; but, by connection with Him, character, too, shall be purified and elevated by it. That is one advantage of Christ’s position outside of our special pursuits. We find another in the way in which it draws us all together. He is for all, because no special pursuit causes Him to belong specially to any. Is not the way that Christian worship calls us together, men, women, and children, without distinction, a part of Christ’s greatest blessing in telling us of our manhood which is beneath all our pursuits and greater than them all? We all come from our different pursuits; but it is the same take of mingled joy and sorrow, success and discouragement, struggle and triumph, sin and holiness, which we bring. It is the same word of love, forgiveness, hope, and strength that we want to hear. The bands of life are strengthened in the presence of Him who belongs to us all. We feel the influence in deepened friendship, widened sympathy, enriched family feeling. It will be harder for our variety of pursuits to separate us when in truth we recognise our relation to Him who is the common Lord and Saviour of us all. (Arthur Brooks.)