In this section the writer first stated (vv. 1-2) and then explained (vv. 3-5) Jesus Christ's better ministry. It is superior in three respects. He serves as a seated priest having finished His work of offering a final sacrifice for sins (v. 1). He is an enthroned priest having taken His place at the right hand of God the Father (v. 1), and He is a heavenly priest having entered the true sanctuary where He now ministers (vv. 1-2).
8:1-2 "What has been said"(v. 1) refers to chapter 7. This is a transitional statement. The writer now moved on to explain Jesus Christ's ministry more fully. Chapter 7 was in a sense introductory and foundational to what follows.
". . . the doctrine of Christ's high priesthood and the pilgrimage of God's people dominate the expository and paraenetic [i.e., exhortation] sections [of the epistle]. The theme of Christ as High Priest, however, is central to the epistle as a whole."239
The writer again referred to the heavens where God abides and where Jesus Christ now serves as the real tabernacle, the only one that does not imitate something better than itself. In particular the holy of holies is in view. These verses summarize what follows in chapter 8.240
"The throne He occupies and from which He ministers is not David's throne, which He will one day occupy here on earth as the promised Messiah (Matt. 25:31). Rather, He was identified with the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.' The authority assigned to the One so enthroned was to be a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle' (Heb. 8:2). Thus He was not appointed to be a king in an earthly domain, but rather He was appointed to function as a High priest in a new sanctuary. And the appointment as High Priest, according to Psalm 110:4, follows the enthronement of Christ at His Father's right hand."241
We not only have a high priest who has taken His seat at the Father's right hand (v. 1), but we have one who now ministers as a priest in the heavenly sanctuary (v. 2; cf. Ps. 110:1).
"There are other sons beside the Son (2:10), but no other priests subordinated to Christ as high priest."242
8:3-5 Verse 4 sounds as though the Jewish priests were presenting offerings in Herod's Temple when the writer wrote. This understanding of the text has led some students of the book to date its writing before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70. However it is more likely that we should take these present tenses as timeless.243The writer was describing what had been done in Judaism as though it was still going on for the sake of vividness (cf. 7:27-28; 9:7-8, 25; 10:1-3, 8; 13:10-11). Nevertheless it seems likely that the epistle does date from before A.D. 70.244
God had explained the fact that the tabernacle was a prototype of another temple, the heavenly one, to Moses when God gave him the directions for the construction of the tabernacle (Exod. 25:40; cf. Rev. 4:5-6; 6:9-11; 8:3-5; 11:19; 21:22). Moses may have received a vision of God's heavenly dwelling place then (cf. 1 Chron. 28:19).
"Probably the conception of the tabhanith, the model' (Exodus 25:9), also goes back ultimately to the idea that the earthly sanctuary is the counterpart of the heavenly dwelling of a deity [in ancient Near Eastern thought]."245
The writer's point was that Jesus' priesthood was not an earthly priesthood but one that operated in the realm of heaven. Jesus could have functioned as a priest on earth after the order of Melchizedek, but His real priestly ministry of sacrifice and intercession began when He entered heaven.
"The contrast developed is not simply between an earthly copy and a heavenly archetype but between a historical situation in the past and one that succeeded it in time. During the former situation, marked by the ministry of the Levitical priests, there was no entrance into the real, heavenly presence of God; full entrance into the eternal presence of God was made possible only with the life and redemptive accomplishment of Jesus."246
"In 8:1-5 the primitive Christian confession of Jesus as the one who has taken his seat at God's right hand is reinterpreted in the light of the theme of heavenly sanctuary and liturgy. The development of this theme, which dominates the argument in 8:1-9:28, is clearly the central and most distinctive aspect of the writer's interpretation of the saving work of Christ. . . . By means of a typological interpretation of the OT, the writer asserts that Christ has achieved what the sacrificial action of the high priest on the great Day of Atonement only foreshadowed. His entrance into the heavenly sanctuary, which is the true tabernacle where he has unrestricted access to the eternal presence of God, demonstrates the eschatological superiority of his priestly service to the ministry of the Levitical high priests. The priestly ministry of Christ in the celestial sanctuary is of capital importance in the thought of Hebrews."247
