NOTES for Heb 8:1-6

The chief difference between Christ as High Priest and any high priest from among the Levites lies in the nature of His ministry. Indeed, all priests were servants of the altar — above all, an earthly altar. Of course, this is not merely a matter of symbols and symbolic service: God was truly present at those altars whose sites He Himself had chosen.

God’s presence was a necessary condition of every Yahwist sacrifice, every sacred rite and act of worship. Without God’s direct and immediate participation, it is impossible to serve Him. Yet any earthly altar is only a kind of spiritual projection of the reality revealed to Israel’s prophets in the image of the Throne of Glory, such as the one revealed to Isaiah of Jerusalem in his vision in the Temple.

God reveals Himself in fullness only there, at the Throne, at that boundary where God’s will meets the created world, forming at their point of contact the world’s focal point and spiritual centre. It is precisely through the Throne that the world becomes the Kingdom. There, at the Throne, service to God takes place: the world stands before its Creator, and the Creator sanctifies, by His direct action, the world He Himself has created. And human beings take the most immediate part in this process — every person living the full life of the Kingdom of which, in accordance with God’s intention for them, they are destined to become a citizen.

Unlike the rest of creation, a human being need not be bodily present at the Throne: it is enough for their will to abide there and for them to be aware of it. Then they themselves will be sanctified, and through them the world will begin to be sanctified. But the One who holds the foremost place at the Throne, the King of the world as Kingdom, is He who has received into Himself all the fullness of God, wholly and without remainder. He is the true High Priest, abiding at that one Throne compared with which any earthly altar is only a shadow.