Hebrews 7:12 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 7:12

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The aside in verse 11 – ‘(for under it the people received the law)’ – prepares the way for the argument of verse 12. The writer links the law itself to the same imperfect priesthood. If the priesthood needed to change, then what about the law which was given under that priesthood? The priesthood could not result in a law that was any better, any more perfect, than itself. The same weaknesses that attach to the priesthood also attach to the law. Therefore if the priesthood changed, so too must the law.Now here we have to distinguish between two parts of the law. There are that actually three parts of the law, but two will be sufficient for clarification here: the moral law of the Ten Commandments, and the ceremonial law of worship given to the Jews. That ceremonial law was done away with and changed, not the moral law. The moral law expressed in the Ten Commandments abides forever. We are to keep the moral law on earth, and according to our resurrection status we will keep it in an appropriate form in heaven. The writer here is referring not to the Ten Commandments, but to the ceremonial law attached to the Ten Commandments. That ceremonial law set up the Levitical priesthood. It was made to teach particular lessons, established for a particular situation, for a particular people, at a particular time. The ceremonial law gave Israel a form of worship, which was never intended to be permanent. Under it, God gave them the tabernacle, the sacrificial system, holy days to be observed, and the priesthood. All of these were designed to teach the people and were not an end in themselves. They were the shadow which pointed to Christ and his work of redemption. It is the shadow that has passed away with the changing of the priesthood. The law, as the writer has said, was given under the Levitical priesthood, and the Levitical priesthood was an intrinsic part of the law. If the priesthood is changed by God, then the ceremonial law must also change. All the worship details, all the sacrifices, all the ceremonial law. They came together under Moses and they must be changed together.The ceremonial law was given by God, and it can only be changed by God. It was given to Israel alone and was intended to last only until New Testament times. What caused it to be set aside was New Testament revelation ‘which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the holy Ghost, according to his own will’ (Hebrews 2:3-4). ‘For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law’ – there is a new covenant in the New Testament.

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There is a sense in which the ceremonial law never passes away, for what it pointed to is abiding. We can still go back and study it even today; we can study its detail, but the reason we do so is to learn about Christ, not about the law itself. We can learn wonderful things from it, but the point is that now that Christ has come, we are no longer satisfied with the types and shadows. In Old Testament times, they were all that the people had and so they were of immense value. Now that we have Christ himself, we have, as it were, a new law. We worship him in a new way, in spirit and truth, and outwardly our worship is very much simplified. The detailed requirements of the ceremonial still live on, but not in their old form; now they exist in a new spiritual form: they are fulfilled in Christ and in what he has done to redeem us on Calvary.

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Hebrews 7:12 Commentary and Bible Study