Thematic Bible




Thematic Bible





For if he were on earth, he could not be a priest; because there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: and these serve the copy and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: See now, says he, that you make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mount. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is the mediator of a better covenant, which is established with reference to better promises. read more.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second. For, finding fault with them, he says: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will ratify a new covenant for the house of Israel, and for the house of Judah: not like the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt: because they continued not in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, says the Lord; putting my laws into their understanding, I will also write them upon their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not teach, every one his citizen, and every one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest; because I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more. In saying, A new covenant, he has regarded the first as out of use. Now, that which is out of use, and has become old, is ready to disappear.

For you have not come to a mountain that may be touched, and that burns with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and to the sound of a trumpet, and to the utterance of words, the hearing of which utterance caused the people to entreat that the word might not be spoken to them again; for they could not endure that which was commanded, And if even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned: read more.
and so terrible was the sight, that even Moses said, I exceedingly fear and tremble. But you have come to Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels; to the general assembly and church of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than the blood of Abel.



If, then, there had been a perfect expiation by means of the Levitical priesthood, (for with reference to it, the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should be raised up after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? It is evident that, when the priest hood is changed, there is of necessity a change also of the law. For he of whom these things are said, belongs to another tribe, from which no one attended upon the altar. read more.
For it is very clear that our Lord sprung from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident, if, after the likeness of Melchisedec, there arises another priest, who is made, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life; for he testifies, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.

For if he were on earth, he could not be a priest; because there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: and these serve the copy and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: See now, says he, that you make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mount.