Hebrews 8:3

Wherefore - Why?; for what reason?; for what cause?

Every high priest is ordained - Καθισταται, Is set apart, for this especial work.

Gifts and sacrifices - Δωρα τε και θυσιας· Eucharistic offerings, and sacrifices for sin. By the former, God's government of the universe, and his benevolence to his creatures in providing for their support, were acknowledged. By the latter, the destructive and ruinous nature of sin, and the necessity of an atonement, were confessed.

Wherefore - of necessity - If Christ be a high priest, and it be essential to the office of a high priest to offer atoning sacrifices to God, Jesus must offer such. Now it is manifest that, as he is the public minister, officiating in the true tabernacle as high priest, he must make an atonement; and his being at the right hand of the throne shows that he has offered, and continues to offer, such an atonement.

For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices - This is a general statement about the functions of the high priest. It was the uniqueness of the office; it constituted its essence, that some gift or sacrifice was to be presented. This was indisputable in regard to the Jewish high priest, and this is involved in the nature of the priestly office everywhere. A "priest" is one who offers sacrifice, mainly in behalf of others. The principles involved in the office are:

(1) that there is need that some offering or atonement should be made for sin; and,

(2) that there is a fitness or propriety that some one should be designated to do it.

If this idea that a priest must offer sacrifice be correct, then it follows that the name priest should not be given to any one who is not appointed to offer sacrifice. It should not therefore be given to the ministers of the gospel, for it is no part of their work to offer sacrifice - the great sacrifice for sin having been once offered by the Lord Jesus, and not being again to be repeated. Accordingly the writers in the New Testament are perfectly uniform and consistent on this point. The name priest is never once given to the ministers of the gospel there. They are called ministers, ambassadors, pastors, bishops, overseers, etc., but never priests. Nor should they be so called in the Christian church. The name priest as applied to Christian ministers, has been derived from the "papists." They hold that the priest does offer as a sacrifice the real body and blood of Christ in the mass, and holding this, the name priest is given to the minister who does it "consistently." It is not indeed "right or Scriptural" - for the whole doctrine on which it is based is absurd and false, but while that doctrine is held the name is consistent. But with what show of consistency or propriety can the name be given to a Protestant minister of the gospel?

Wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer - That the Lord Jesus should make an offering. That is, since he is declared to be a priest, and since it is essential to the office that a priest should make an offering, it is indispensable that he should bring a sacrifice to God. He could not be a priest on the acknowledged principles on which that office is held, unless he did it. What the offering was which the Lord Jesus made, the apostle specifies more fully in Hebrews 9:11-14, Hebrews 9:25-26.