Hebrews Chapter Eight, Shadows

 

Hebrews 8:4 For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law: [5] who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

 

The author makes the differentiation that if Christ were on earth He would not be part of the priesthood. Why? The priests who served the tabernacle erected by Moses served under the Law, and also served the shadow of the heavenly things they were patterned after, Exodus 25:40.

The earthly priesthood, given under the dispensation of the Law by the hand of Moses, was several things.

 

#1: It was temporal. Hebrews 8:13 establishes the fact that the Sinaitic covenant, in which Israel received the Law, was not meant to endure forever.

 

#2: It was concerned with ceremonial, or fleshly ordinances. The Law and the tabernacle made the penitent ceremonially clean, but not spiritually clean, Hebrews 9:10, 10:1.

 

#3: The Law itself was weak and unprofitable to Israel (and by extension, anyone else who seeks to be saved by it). The Law only exposed man’s faults, Hebrews 8:8. The Law was an indivisible unit, 613 different laws given to Israel by God. If someone broke one of those laws just one time, they were guilty of the breaking all of the Law, James 2:10.

 

#4: The Law did not, and still cannot, save you. Rather, the Law condemns, or curses the one who attempts to be justified by it, Galatians 3:10-12. The adherent of the Law, which is more than just the Decalogue, must uphold without fail all 613 laws written in, “the book of the law.” That is a blatant reference to the five books of Moses, or the Torah.

 

#5: The priesthood perpetuated sacrifice to remind Israel that they were still guilty before God, Hebrews 10:3. The blood of bulls and goats indicated that death releases one from the debt of sin. It also taught that vicarious atonement could be made to transfer sin’s debt from the guilty party to an innocent. The symbolism was meant to direct the Jewish mind to the Coming One, Messiah, who would do just that for them, Isaiah 53:6, 10.

 

If the Aaronic priesthood served the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, then it stands to reason that the Levitical priesthood was itself a copy and shadow of the true and eternal priesthood in Heaven, after the order of Melchizedek. For their part their duty was to perpetuate the sacrifice of the lamb on Jewish altars to foreshadow the One who would take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. If the Aaronic priesthood—being temporal, ceremonial and weak—was a shadow of Christ’s true priesthood, then Melchizedek’s priesthood was (and is) a Heavenly one.

 

But as the earthly priesthood foreshadowed a singular event to come, the divine priesthood, of which Christ is High Priest and sacrifice, was the substance. Melchizedek and his order were attested to be eternal, without beginning or end, and Jesus was the inheritor of the mantle. Unlike the earthly priesthood, whose priests were prevented by death from continuing (Hebrews 7:23), Christ sits as an accomplished High Priest forever. That being said, it seems that Jesus always possessed the prerogative of the mantle, waiting until He incarnated as the Son of God to receive it, being a Heavenly and eternal priesthood.

 

This may shed more light on Melchizedek’s person, too. Unlike Aaron’s priesthood, which was as temporal as the men who served under it, the former order, first noted in Genesis 14:18, was already established and without end, Psalm 110:4. It does appear a distinct possibility that Melchizedek, who was originally priest of God Most High in Abraham’s time, and Christ, who is priest forever according to his order, are one and the same. The mantle need not pass on to another when one lives by the power of an endless life, Hebrews 7:3, 8, 15-16.

 

Make no mistake, however. The Law and the tabernacle, which was the Law’s beating heart, were divinely appointed. “Moses was divinely instructed,” it is written. The word “pattern” in the Greek is, “tupos,” and can mean, “by implication: a stamp or scar, by analogy: a shape, style, resemblance or model (for imitation).” Although, or perhaps rather because the tabernacle was patterned after divine revelation of Heavenly things, it was to be held in the utmost reverence and the sternest punishments were meted out for misuse.

 

The tabernacle was a teaching tool. Like a schoolteacher uses a model of the solar system to give students an inkling of the placement and motions of the celestial bodies far beyond earth’s outer limits. The tabernacle was a place of divine contemplation. It was intended to bring the conscientious sinner into a proper mindset to consider, or meditate upon, the things of God. The model of the solar system hardly does the reality justice, but it suffices in invoking through imitation the grandiose reality invisible to the naked eye far beyond earth’s reaches. So too was the Law a vehicle of God’s revelatory purposes to guide them to Him, who shows mercy.