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the priest who "standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifices which can never take away sins", and Christ, "Who, after He had offered
one sacrifice (in contrast with the "offering oftentimes") for sins (in contrast with
those sacrifices which could never take away sins)" "sat down for a continuance"
(instead of repeatedly going over the same ritual, "standing daily").
Things that make for perfection.
If we take note of these opening and closing sections therefore, it becomes evident that
"perfection" cannot possibly be attained under the ministry of priests who themselves
needed an offering for their own sins, who were made after the law of a commandment
which respected their mortal condition, and whose service stood in meats and drinks and
baptisms, "carnal ordinances", that really indicated that the way into the Holiest of all had
not as then been opened. Such ordinances and sacrifices failing to touch the conscience,
failed altogether, and were only "shadows" and "not the very image" of the good things
to come.
To believers who were never brought up under the law, who never boasted in "the
glory and the covenant, and the giving of the law, and the service of God", the turning
from the shadow of Aaron, his tabernacle, his priesthood and his sacrifices, to the reality
Christ, heaven itself, the one great Sacrifice and the abiding Priesthood, seems a simple
act of reasonable faith. To the Hebrew, cradled in the thought that of all nations the
nation of Israel alone had the oracles of God, such a turning would be a wrench, a
rupture, a counting "gain" as "loss" and as so much "refuse" (Phil. 3: 8). Therefore God
in His kindness and His condescension reasons with them step by step, until the last
ground of boasting in the law is destroyed and Christ is seen as all in all.
We commence therefore the new section with an argument:
"If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people
received the law,) what further need was there that another Priest should rise after the
order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?" (Heb. 7: 11).
In David's time the service of God's house was raised to its greatest height. If David
himself did not actually build the Temple, the complete revelation was made to him of
that house, exceeding magnifical with its golden vessels, its courses of priests, its
wonderful psalms. Yet it is David and no other who gives us Psa. 110: saying:
"The Lord said unto my LORD, Sit thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies
Thy footstool . . . . . The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for ever
after the order of Melchisedec" (verses 1 and 4).
The Apostle, therefore, asks a pointed question, what further need for another Priest,
of another order, if perfection were attainable under the Levitical priesthood? Of all the
reasons that are most trenchant that which is given in parenthesis is the one, viz., "For
under it the people received the law" (verse 11).