Heb 8:2

“Let men therefore learn and understand why the Most High God, when He sent His ambassador and messenger to instruct mortals with the precepts of His righteousness, willed that He should be clothed with mortal flesh, and be afflicted with torture, and be sentenced to death. For since there was no righteousness on earth, He sent a teacher, as it were a living law, to found a new name and temple, that by His words and example He might spread throughout the earth a true and holy worship. But, however, that it might be certain that He was sent by God, it was befitting that He should not be born as man is born, composed of a mortal on both sides; but that it might appear that He was heavenly even in the form of man, He was born without the office of a father. For He had a spiritual Father, God; and as God was the Father of His spirit without a mother, so a virgin was the mother of His body without a father. He was therefore both God and man, being placed in the middle between God and man. From which the Greeks call Him Mesites, that He might be able to lead man to God-that is, to immortality.”

“Just as the earthly high priests served when entering the Holy of Holies, so too He is truly the minister of the holy, true, heavenly sanctuaries. It would seem that Paul here contradicts himself. For in the beginning he said: "To which of the Angels did God ever say: 'Sit at My right hand…'? Are they not all ministering spirits…?" (Heb. 1:13–14), as if giving to understand that a minister ought not to sit. But now, having said "sat down at the right hand of the throne," he again presents Him as a minister. So how does he say this, if not out of complete condescension toward his listeners, mixing the lowly with the exalted? And some understood "minister of the saints" as meaning minister of those people sanctified by Him. For, he says (the Apostle Paul), He is our High Priest. Here he encourages the Jews who had believed. For since they were probably perplexed, saying: we do not have such a tabernacle, behold, he says, a greater and true tabernacle – heaven itself. For the Old Testament tabernacle was a figure of this one: and that one was pitched by man, either Bezaleel (Exod. 31:2) or Moses, but this one – by God. And here note, according to Saint John Chrysostom, that heaven neither moves nor is spherical: for the expression "pitched" excludes both the one and the other.”

“382. – Then when he says, a minister of the holies, he shows the dignity of his office. He says, minister of the sanctuary [holies], i.e., of the holy precincts, namely, of the sanctuary. For the ministers of old received the ministry of guarding sacred things and serving the tabernacle. But Christ had this in a more excellent manner, because He is a minister, not inasmuch as He is God, for then He is the author, but inasmuch as He is man: 'And passing he will minister until them' (Lk. 12:37). For the humanity of Christ is an organ of the divinity. Therefore, He is the minister of the holies, because He administers the sacraments of grace in the present life and of glory in the future. He is also the minister of the true tent [tabernacle] that cannot be removed' (Is. 33:20); 'Lord, who shall dwell in your tabernacle?' (Ps. 14:1). But the man Christ is a minister because all the goods of glory are dispensed by Him. But he says, of the true, for two reasons: first, because of its difference from the Old, which was a figure of it: 'Now all these things happened to them in figure' (1 Cor. 10:11). The New, therefore, is the truth of the former. Therefore, it is true, i.e., containing the truth in relations to the figure. Secondly, because the former was made by a man, but the other, namely, of grace and of glory by God alone: 'The Lord will give grace and glory' (Ps. 83:12); 'The grace of God, life everlasting' (Rom. 6:23). Hence, he says, which is set up not by man but by the Lord: 'We know, if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God not made with hands, eternal in heaven' (2 Cor. 5:1).”

“A minister of the holies. Literally, of the holy places, and of the true tabernacle: he adds true, to signify that though he speaks with an allusion to the sanctuary, and the priests of the former law, yet that Christ hath now entered into the true holy of holies; that is, into heaven, of which the Jewish sanctuary was only a type or figure. — Which the Lord hath pitched, and not man; i.e. all the parts of the Jewish sanctuary was the work of men’s hands; but heaven, the habitation prepared for the saints, is the work of God. (Witham) — The Old Testament was a figure of the New; but the tabernacle of Moses, and the temple of Solomon, were in particular an image and figure of the Christian Church, ver. 5. The Church triumphant in heaven is the true sanctuary; the Church militant on earth is the true tabernacle; and Jesus Christ is the sovereign priest of both the one and the other, and exercises his priesthood both in heaven and upon earth.”

“minister--The Greek term implies priestly ministry in the temple. the sanctuary--Greek, "the holy places"; the Holy of Holies. Here the heavenly sanctuary is meant. the true--the archetypal and antitypical, as contrasted with the typical and symbolical (Heb 9:24). Greek "alethinos" (used here) is opposed to that which does not fulfil its idea, as for instance, a type; "alethes," to that which is untrue and unreal, as a lie. The measure of alethes is reality; that of alethinos, ideality. In alethes the idea corresponds to the thing; in alethinos, the thing to the idea [KALMIS in ALFORD]. tabernacle-- (Heb 9:11). His body. Through His glorified body as the tabernacle, Christ passes into the heavenly "Holy of Holies," the immediate immaterial presence of God, where He intercedes for us. This tabernacle in which God dwells, is where God in Christ meets us who are "members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." This tabernacle answers to the heavenly Jerusalem, where God's visible presence is to be manifested to His perfected saints and angels, who are united in Christ the Head; in contradistinction to His personal invisible presence in the Holy of Holies unapproachable save to Christ. Joh 1:14, "Word . . . dwelt among us," Greek, "tabernacled." pitched--Greek, "fixed" firmly. not man--as Moses (Heb 8:5).”

“"a minister of the sanctuary." The High Priest, he says, is of men who have been sanctified by him. For he is our High Priest. If he sat at the right hand of the Father, how is he a minister? For it is proper for ministers to stand and serve; but to sit is the role of God to whom the ministry is rendered. But, as has been said, the humble mingles with the awe-inspiring, so that by sitting he may show divinity, and by ministering the guardianship and humanity concerning us.”

“"and of the true tabernacle." Here, he refers to the heavens as the tabernacle. For they were saying, perhaps, the believers from Judea: If he is a high priest, where is the tabernacle in which he performs his priestly duties? He indicates that there is also a tabernacle, and the difference of it compared to the Jewish tabernacle, wanting to show that it was established by the Lord and not by man.”