Hebrews 8:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Further, so that you may know that the word "liturgical minister" is used with reference to Christ's humanity, see how he explains this further.

"Every high priest," he says, "is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; therefore it was necessary that this One also have something to offer."

When you hear that Christ sits, do not think that He has been unjustly called High Priest. The first, namely sitting, is a sign of divine dignity. The latter is a sign of great love for mankind and care for us.

For this reason the Apostle enlarges on the latter and speaks of it in greater detail, fearing lest he diminish the former. Therefore he now directs his discourse to this very point.

"Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; therefore it was necessary that this One also have something to offer." Since he said, "He sat down" (Heb 8:1), he adds this so that you will not think he falsely called Him priest.

Although He sat down, He did not for that reason cease to be High Priest. Everything proper to high priests He possesses. As they offer sacrifices, so He offered Himself in sacrifice.

To sit at the right hand belongs to His dignity. The high priesthood is the work of His great love for mankind.

Moreover, since some were asking why He died if He truly was Son and eternal, he resolves this difficulty. He says that since He was Priest, and a priest is not without sacrifice, it was necessary that this One also have something to offer.

I also marveled that they dared even to think that the Word became man according to the natural order. If this were so, the commemoration of Mary would be honored in vain. Nature knows no virgin giving birth without a husband.

Therefore He, true God and by nature the Father's Word and the Father's Wisdom, became man bodily by the good pleasure of the Father for our salvation.

He did this so that, having something to offer for us, He might save all of us who through fear of death were subject to bondage throughout life (Heb 2:15).

No mere man delivered himself up for us, for every man is liable to death. It was said in the person of Adam to all, "You are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen 3:19).

For every high priest is appointed "to offer gifts and sacrifices." Therefore it was necessary for this One also to have something to offer, so that He might correspond to His own mystical types. For this reason He too offered, not a sacrifice from animals, but Himself.

It belongs to a high priest to "offer gifts" to the God of all. Therefore the Only-begotten, having become man and assumed our nature, offered that very nature for us.

If the duty of priests is to offer gifts and sacrifices to God, then Christ too, as High Priest, had to have something that He could offer to God the Father as a sacrificial offering. Therefore He assumed flesh, and this flesh He offered in sacrifice.

The priestly ministry of Jesus Christ in heaven is compared with the priestly ministry of the Levitical priests at the tabernacle of Moses. The final destiny of the imperfect Old Covenant, with its inadequate priesthood, is also shown.

Heb 8:3. "For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; therefore it was necessary that this One also have something to offer" in heaven.

What, then, does Christ offer in sacrifice in heaven? This heavenly offering consists in Christ's ceaseless intercession for us before His heavenly Father. He appeals to that single and great sacrifice which He offered on earth, when He was slain on the cross.

That Christ had to become minister of the archetypal sanctuary is proved by the Apostle from this point: Christ could not be a priest on earth.

Here the most important duty of priests, the offering of sacrifices, was already being performed by priests appointed according to the law from the line of Aaron.

At the same time, the Apostle makes clear that one should not regret that Christ did not become minister of the earthly tabernacle. That tabernacle, he says, is only a shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, τῶν ἐπουρανίων; compare τῶν ἁγίων.

But what is this heavenly sanctuary, the pattern, τύπος, which Moses saw on Mount Sinai and which the Apostle now has in mind?