العبرانيين ٧:١٦

carnal . . . endless--mutually contrasted. As "form" and "power" are opposed, Ti2 3:5; so here "the law" and "power," compare Rom 8:3, "The law was weak through the flesh"; and Heb 7:18, "weakness." "The law" is here not the law in general, but the statute as to the priesthood. "Carnal," as being only outward and temporary, is contrasted with "endless," or, as Greek, "indissoluble." Commandments is contrasted with "life." The law can give a commandment, but it cannot give life (Heb 7:19). But our High Priest's inherent "power," now in heaven, has in Him "life for ever"; Heb 9:14, "through the eternal Spirit"; Heb 7:25, "able . . . ever liveth" (Joh 5:26). It is in the power of His resurrection life, not of His earthly life, that Christ officiates as a Priest.

The doctrine of the priestly office of Christ is so excellent in itself, and so essential a part of the Christian faith, that the apostle loves to dwell upon it. Nothing made the Jews so fond of the Levitical dispensation as the high esteem they had of their priesthood, and it was doubtless a sacred and most excellent institution; it was a very severe threatening denounced against the Jews (Hos 3:4), that the children of Israel should abide many days without a prince or priest, and without a sacrifice, and with an ephod, and without teraphim. Now the apostle assures them that by receiving the Lord Jesus they would have a much better high priest, a priesthood of a higher order, and consequently a better dispensation or covenant, a better law and testament; this he shows in this chapter, where, I. We have a more particular account of Melchisedec (Heb 7:1-3). II. The superiority of his priesthood to that of Aaron (Heb 7:4-10). III. An accommodation of all to Christ, to show the superior excellency of his person, office, and covenant (Heb 7:11 to the end).