ath somewhat to offer," in the
sense that He has for ever the grand sacerdotal qualification of being
an Offerer who, having executed that function, now bears to all eternity
its _character_. But He is not therefore always executing the function.
Otherwise He must descend from His throne. But His enthronement, His
session, is a fact of His present position as important and
characteristic as possible in this whole Epistle.

Aaron was not always offering. But he was always an offerer. On the
morrow of the Atonement Day he was as much an offerer as on the day
itself. All through the year, even until the next Atonement, he was
still an offerer. He exercised his priestly functions at all times
because, in principle, he "had somewhat to offer" in its proper time.
_Our_ High Priest knows only one Atonement Day, and it is over for ever.
And His Israel have it for their privilege and glory not to be "serving
unto an example and shadow" of even His work and office, but to be going
always, daily and hourly, direct to Him in His perfect Priesthood, in
which they always "have" Him, and to be always abiding, in virtue of
Him, "boldly," "with confidence," in the very presence of the Lord.

Then the chapter moves forward (verses 6 and following) to consider the
relation between our High Priest and _the Covenant_ of which He is the
Mediator. Here begins one of the great themes of the Epistle. It will
recur again and again, till at last we read (xiii. 20) of "the blood of
the Covenant eternal."

This pregnant subject is introduced by a solemn reference to the
"promises upon which has been legislated," legally instituted, [Greek:
nenomothetetai], this new compact between God and man. The reference is
to the thirtieth chapter of Jeremiah, from which an extract is here made
at length. There the prophet, in the name of his God, explicitly
foretells the advent of what we may reverently call a new departure in
the revealed relations between Jehovah and His people. At Sinai He had
engaged to bless them, yet under conditions which left them to discover
the total inability of their own sin-stricken wills to meet His holy
while benignant will. They failed, they broke the pact, and judgment
followed them of course. But now another order is to be taken. Their
King and Lawgiver, without for one moment ceasing to be such, will also
undertake another function, wholly new, as regards the method of
covenant. He will place Himself so upon their side as