8 For finding fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, when 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 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 regarded them not, saith the LORD.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD; "After those days." These words may mean simply, “After a time." They may be understood, also, as after those great days, when the Word made flesh will have walked on the earth, and been rejected, and crucified, and have risen. Or they may mean, after the day of Pentecost; for of course the writing of GOD'S law in the heart is the work of the SPIRIT, Who on that day was given.

I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a GoD, and they shall be to Me a people :

11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest.

12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no

more.

13 In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

This being the testimony of the Prophet, the Jews themselves, S. Paul implies, ought to have been prepared for the removal of their ceremonial law and priesthood, as of something old and worn out, now that the promised "seed" had come.

CHAPTER IX.

1 Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.

Sanctuary here means a place wherein to worship GoD: "Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them."1 The HOLY SPIRIT calls this tabernacle a worldly sanctuary, because it was built of the materials of this world, and to distinguish it from the spiritual tabernacle, the Church in which CHRIST now dwells.

2 For there was a tabernacle made; the first,

That is, the outer portion of the tabernacle, that which was a sort of porch for the inner, the Holy of Holies.

wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread; which is called the sanctuary.

See Exodus xxv. 23, 31.

3 And after the second veil,

For there was a veil, at the entrance to the outer portion of the tabernacle: it was this second veil which 66 was rent in twain" when our Redeemer died.

the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all;

4 Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold,

The ark is called the ark of the covenant because it was made to receive the two tables of the covenant which GOD gave Moses. See Exodus xxv.

wherein was the golden pot that had manna.

See Exodus xvi. 33.

1 Exod. xxv. 8.

and Aaron's rod that budded,

See Numbers xvii. 10.

and the tables of the covenant;

5 And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat:

See Exodus xxv. 18-21.

of which we cannot now speak particularly.

That is, of the full meaning of which things we cannot now speak at length.

6 Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.

7 But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:

8 The HOLY GHOST this signifying, That the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:

9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience :

10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.

"The Holiest of all" represented heaven itself, the very immediate presence of GOD: so long as it was lawful for only one human being to enter that place, and that only on one day of the year, and then only with the blood of victims slain in sacrifice, so long was there a figure of a closed heaven-a heaven not opened, because He Who is "the way" had not yet come. And this figure was very consonant, the Apostle continues, with that time when the law of Moses was God's only law, when the sacrifices

commanded by that law could make man only externally pure, that is, could not make him pure in heart and before GOD; and that because they were all external themselves, had no inward and spiritual grace, and were meant to be in force only until CHRIST should come and fulfil the law, and bring with Him, yea, and in Himself, "grace and truth.”

11 But CHRIST being come an high Priest of good things to come,

Of "good things" prefigured by the law, but given by the Gospel, such things as real purity of soul here, and the everlasting home hereafter.

by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

By means of His own Body, Which indeed was not of ordinary creation, for that He “ was conceived by the HOLY GHOST,” and not by man.

12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own Blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

As our LORD JESUS, when He came a High Priest into the world, came not as men ordinarily come, but by a miraculous conception and birth, so neither has He entered, as did the Jewish High Priest, into a figurative, but into the true Holy of Holies, that is, heaven; and this, not as they did with the blood of others, but by His own Blood, and this again, not as they did once every year, but once for all, because the redemption which He purchased was eternal, that is, would for ever avail to the cleansing away of sin and winning mercy and love for man.

O LORD JESU CHRIST, Thou only Redeemer of mankind, grant me, that being cleansed through Thy most precious blood from all dead works, I may evermore live to Thee, the living and true God, and serve Thee in spirit and in truth, Who livest and reignest with the FATHER and the HOLY GHOST, One GOD, for ever.

13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh;

14 How much more shall the blood of CHRIST, Who through the eternal Spirit

For it was by the operation of the HOLY GHOST that our Blessed Redeemer was made man; and from that Spirit it was that His human nature had its sanctity; and by that Spirit moving Him, He sanctified Himself; yet was and is that Spirit wholly One with Him as GOD.

offered Himself without spot to GOD, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living GOD?

He made Him to be sin for us Who Himself knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of GOD in Him, that He might purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.

15 And for this cause

Because, having died and risen again, He has entered into the true sanctuary not made with hands, that is, into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of GOD for us.

He is the Mediator of the New Testament,

That is, of a testament or covenant which is new, that promised by Jeremiah. He has taken the place of Moses, who was the mediator by whose hand the Angels gave from GOD the Old Testament.1

that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

He hath done what neither the old law nor the old mediator could do. He by dying hath opened "the fountain for sin and for uncleanness,' ," wherein we may be cleansed "from all sin :" in Him and through Him, they whom He calls, that is by Baptism, may, if they will but persevere in loving obedience, obtain an eternal inheritance, the "many mansions" of His FATHER'S house.

This was the end and object of Thy coming, most loving Master: 1 Gal. iii. 19.