Hebrews 8
Big idea: The letter stops to tell you where you are: 'the main point is this' — and the main point is a posture. We have a high priest who SAT DOWN. Then the argument's centre of gravity: the earthly sanctuary was a copy, and Moses was told to build to a pattern he had been shown, which makes the tent a scale model rather than the original. And then Jeremiah 31 quoted in full — the longest Old Testament quotation in the New Testament — promising a covenant written on hearts and sins remembered no more.
Chapter 8 announces a better covenant and quotes its terms. Chapter 9 explains why the first one needed blood, and what changed when the second arrived.
8:1–13 — I will remember their sins no more
The writer names his own thesis — 'THE MAIN POINT' — and it is not a doctrine but a seated priest. From there two moves. The earthly tabernacle is reclassified as 'A COPY AND SHADOW', on the strength of God's own instruction to Moses to build according to a pattern; and Jeremiah is quoted at length to show that the replacement was announced from inside the old covenant's own Scriptures.
1 Now in the things which we are saying, the main point is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a servant of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. 4 For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, 5 who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses was warned by God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, “See, you shall make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.” 6 But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 For finding fault with them, he said, “Behold, the days are coming”, says the Lord, “that 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 that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord. 10 “For this 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; I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 They will not teach every man his fellow citizen and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from their least to their greatest. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.” 13 In that he says, “A new covenant”, he has made the first obsolete. But that which is becoming obsolete and grows aged is near to vanishing away.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).