earthly temple. For if He were on earth, He would not be a
Priest at all, seeing there are men ordained by the Law to offer the
appointed gifts on earth.[145] The Jewish priests have satisfied and
exhausted the idea of an earthly priesthood. Even Melchizedek could not
found an order. If he may be regarded as an attempt to acclimatise on
earth the priesthood of personal greatness, the attempt was a failure.
It always fails, though it is always renewed. On earth there can be no
order of goodness. When a great saint appears among men, he is but a
bird of passage, and is not to be found, because God has translated him.
If it is so of His saints, what of Christ? Christ on earth through the
ages? Impossible! And what is impossible to-day will be equally
inconceivable at any point of time in the future. A correct conception
of Christ's priestly intercession is inconsistent with the dream of a
reign of Christ on earth. It may, or may not, be consistent with His
kingly office. But His priesthood forbids. We infer that Christ has
transformed the heaven of glory into the holiest place of a temple, and
the throne of God into a shrine before which He, as High-priest,
presents His sacrifice.

The Jewish priesthood itself teaches the existence of a heavenly
sanctuary.[146] All the arrangements of tabernacle and ritual were made
after a pattern shown to Moses on Mount Sinai. The priests, in the
tabernacle and through their ritual, ministered to the holiest place, as
the visible image and outline of the real holiest place--that is,
heaven--which the Lord pitched, not man.

Now Christ's more excellent ministry as High-priest in heaven carries in
its bosom all that the Apostle contends for,--the establishment of a new
covenant which has set aside for ever the covenant of the Law. "He has
obtained a ministry the more excellent by how much He is the Mediator
of a better covenant."[147] These words contain in a nutshell the entire
argument, or series of arguments, that extends from the sixth verse of
the eighth chapter to the eighteenth verse of the tenth. The course of
thought may be divided as follows:--

1. That the Lord intends to establish a new covenant is first of all
shown by a citation from the prophet Jeremiah (viii. 7-13).

2. A description of the tabernacle and of the entrance of the priests
and high-priests into it teaches that the way into the holiest place was
not yet open to men. This is contrasted with the entering of Chr