William Burkitt Notes and Observations - Hebrews 7:11 - 7:11

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William Burkitt Notes and Observations - Hebrews 7:11 - 7:11


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In perfection, that is, a perfect expiation and remission of sin, could have been made by the sacrifice which the legal priests offered, there should then have been no need that God should institute a priest of another and more excellent order, namely, his own Son, to be a priest after Melchizedek's order, and not after the order of Aaron.

Where note, That perfection is denied in the Levitical pristhood, and ascribed to the priesthood of Christ. To perfect sinful man, is to free him from the guilt of sin, and from the direful and dismal consequences of sin, and to make him righteous and holy, capable of communion with God, both here and here after. Now this the Levitical pristhood could not do. "But Jesus Christ has by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Heb_10:14.

Thus the apostle infers the necessity of changing the pristhood: And next he tells us, Ver. . That the Change of the Levitical priesthood necessarily draweth along with it a change of the Levitical law, and the legal dispensation of the covenant of grace; for the Levitical priesthood and the Levitical law do both stand and fall together: The priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. By the changing of the priesthood, understand the abolition of it; by the change of the law, understand the abrogation of it; by the word necessity, understand that the change was not casual and contingent, but absolutely needful, in regard of the imperfection and inability of the Levitical priesthood to effect any such thing.

Learn hence, That the promulgation of the gospel, and the instution of Christianity, did abrogate the Levitical law, and make it of no farce. This might be the reason why God did not only be the Death and Sacrifice of Christ, the great High Priest, abolish the Levitical Priesthood, but also destroyed the Temple itself, where he had put his name, and never suffered it to be rebuilt; denoting thereby the utter abolition of the Levitical Presthood, and the total abrogation of the ceremonial law.