Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

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Hebrews VIII. 5. 475
tabernacle. Christ being not an Aaronite could not offer tbeie. B,
But be must offer (somewhere and something), because every high
priest must offer sacrifice. Consequently he needed another tabernacle
than that of MoseSj (the only one that existed on earth). The
author now, however (just as at chap. vii. 15-17), passes forthwith
from the thesis to the second and more remote member of the proof
(B), and then brings in after it the first member of the proof, in
the form of an explanation (of how far there lies in B an argument
in proof of the thesis). The idea, therefore, takes this form : Thesis
Christ is minister in the true (namely heavenly) tabernacle. Argument
: For every high priest must offer sacrifice ; therefore, Christ
also must offer. (Supple. : from this follows, however, the above
thesis, that Christ needed another tabernacle); /or, had he been
priest in that earthly tabernacle, he would then have been no priest,
as there were already priests there, who brought their offerings in
conformity with the law.
The words in detail have no difficulty. Awpa re koI Bvoiai as a
general designation of the offerings, we had already at chap. v. 2.
The author does not, of course, say of Christ that it was necessary
for him to bring dC^pd re ical dvoiai, different kinds of offerings, but
only that he must have somewhat to offer.
Ver. 5.—Although grammatically connected with ver. 4 by a
olnveg (which, however, may be well enough rendered by " and
these"), ver. 5 contains an independent idea, a new argument for the
thesis ver. 2, so stated as that this thesis itself, only in a more definite
form, is fii'st repeated (the tabernacle in which the Levitical
priests served is called an image and shadow of the heavenly things),
and then the passage Ex. xxv. 40 is adduced as a new argument for
the inferiority of the Mosaic tabernacle.
Aarpeveiv with the dative of the person whom one serves is frequent
; it more rarely occurs with the dative of the thing in which
one serves (besides this passage comp. chap. xiii. 10). To take the
dative in an instrumental signification would yield no sense. The
Levitical high priests served in a tabernacle which was an emblem
and shadow of the heavenly things. "Ayca is not (with Bleek and
others) to be supplied at rd enovpdvm ; the author has evidently
rather, on purpose and with good reason, avoided placing a heavenly
tabernacle in opposition to the earthly. True, in ver. 2, where in
stating the thesis he wished to make an evident antithesis, he spoke
of a "true tabernacle," a "true sanctuary;" from that place onwards,
however, he avoids with intentional care every expression
which might have led to the conception of a local sanctuary in
heaven. Also in chap, ix., he again sets in opposition to the " holy
places made with hands" only " the heavenly things" and " the
things in the heavens," ver. 23. And, moreover, the whole reason-