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Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

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478 <strong>Hebrews</strong> VIII. 6.<br />

that those heavenly thing.-?, which in the Mosaic tabernacle were delineated<br />

in a faint shadow-sketch, did not themselves, according <strong>to</strong><br />

our author's view, consist of a locality, a tabernacle with<br />

skins, curtains,<br />

fure-courts, holy place, and holy of holies.<br />

Thus, then, the force of the reasoning in ver. 5 lies in reality only<br />

in the negative circumstance, that the tabernacle was not an independent<br />

original, but was built according <strong>to</strong> a pattern given by God, the<br />

object of which, therefore must have been symbolicalhj <strong>to</strong> represent<br />

Divine ideas.<br />

In ver, 6 the thesis, contained in ver. 2 and repeated in a modified<br />

form in the beginning of ver. 5, is once more repeated, and this<br />

time in a form still more complete ; so, namely, that not merely<br />

the two ideas contained in ver. 2 and ver. 5 are united, but a third<br />

is added. In ver. 2 it was said positively : Christ is minister in the<br />

true tabernacle, in ver. 5 negatively : the Levitical high priests<br />

served in a tabernacle which was only an image and shadow.<br />

Now,<br />

in ver. 6 it is said : the ministry of Christ is more glorious {than<br />

that of the Levitical high priests), and in so much more glorious as<br />

the new covenant is more glorious (than the old). Here, therefore,<br />

not merely are the two XeiTovpylai. compared with each other, but<br />

they are, moreover, placed parallel with the two 6iaO/jKaic. Thus<br />

ver. 6 forms the proper thesis of the entire fourth part, and vers.<br />

1-5 serves only as a prepara<strong>to</strong>ry introduction <strong>to</strong> this thesis. As<br />

the author in ver. 6 not merely combines the ideas in vers. 1-5,<br />

but, at the same time, also passes <strong>to</strong> a nciv idea, <strong>to</strong> the comparison<br />

of the services with the covenants, he has therefore connected ver. 6<br />

with ver. 5, not by a particle of inference, but by a particle of frogression<br />

{ywl 6£).<br />

In respect of form, ver. 6 has the greatest resemblance <strong>to</strong> chap.<br />

i. 4. Here, as there, the comparatives Kpei-ruv and dia(pnp(orepog are<br />

used in the comjiarison of what belongs <strong>to</strong> the Old Testament with<br />

what belongs <strong>to</strong> the New. Instead of XeiTovpyia the author might,<br />

by all means, have put ah-7]vi], but, as has been already observed at<br />

ver. 5, he henceforth industriously avoids placing a heavenly tabernacle<br />

in opposition <strong>to</strong> the Mosaic tabernacle.<br />

<strong>The</strong> ground-idea of Ver. 6 then is this, that the ministry of the<br />

Levitical priests in the Mosaic tabernacle stands related <strong>to</strong> the ministry<br />

of Christ in the heavenly things, precisely as the old covenant<br />

does <strong>to</strong> the new. In lohat the old covenant is excelled by the new,<br />

we are infurmed in the relative clause 7/Tif, which finds farther explanation<br />

in vers. 7-12. This explanation, at the same time,<br />

already contains the idea, that the old covenant was destined <strong>to</strong><br />

vanish and <strong>to</strong> be replaced by the new. This idea is tlii^n in ver. 13<br />

formally exi)ressed as an inference. Does the Levitical priestly<br />

service in the temple bear the same relation <strong>to</strong> the ministry of

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