Chapter 8 continues the conversation we’ve been having over the last few chapters. All of this is to put into right perspective Jesus as the final, true and inevitable High Priest. This is indeed meat over milk, even for us. This priestly order of Melchizedek argument is part of our basic understanding of why we are no longer under the Law and while Jesus’ sacrifice is sufficient to pay for all that the sin we are responsible for. This is a question that most Christians shy away from, unable to answer or afraid that the Bible will not provide adequate answers and it will shake their faith. This journey is for us as all as the Hebrew readers.
Jesus as high priest is relegated to the holy of holies to be in the presence of God, He sits at the right hand of the Father. And he is in the true “tent” (think tabernacle, where God dwells) that was set up for him by God the Father. Since the Law of Moses and the sacrificial system that came with it is just a copy, a shadow of the heavenly things (think: it points us to the true things, helps us understand them), Jesus couldn’t have functioned within it, it wouldn’t make sense if he did!
Because, ultimately, what Jesus serves as High Priest under is a function that is better than what existed before; he is a better mediator and has better promises. Obviously, the first covenant was not sufficient, not able to satisfy the complete identity and full atonement necessary to reconcile the world back to its Creator.
The long scripture quote here is from Jeremiah 31. The point of that section of Jeremiah is pointing the restoration of God’s people and the creation of a new covenant, one where the laws are put into the minds and hearts of his people instead of kept through a sacrificial system and a Levitical priesthood. Not only should the Jewish people have been expecting that the Temple and the Law would be gone at some point, they should have actually been desiring it as it was coupled with the Messiah. This fulfillment of the Law wasn’t as jarring a thing as we sometimes see it. If we knew our old testament, we would know the promises that should have been guiding the Jews even in Jesus’ day. The Hebrews writer is taking pains to show that they would have known this had they not been satisfied with just milk.
I wonder, what kinds of things do we as Christians miss if we are satisfied with only milk? What big things is God up to that we don’t understand or don’t catch because our eyes are closed or our engagement with God’s story and people is lazy? Luckily, what we’re doing here, pouring through the Word of God so to be informed, encouraged, enlightened and edified – seems like the right work to find meat.