The more I read Hebrews 8 the more I think I understand about how the shadows have passed away (v. 5) and how a lot of the modern Church is not reading this text or Jeremiah 31 correctly. There is a Priesthood that is being extinguished here and one that is being exalted. We no longer need the shadows or Levitical Priesthood to mediate or teach Covenant Members as mediators since Christ (the substance) has become the High Priest and removed the shadows. The Substance is here and we can approach God directly through Christ by His Holy Spirit. The veil was torn from top to bottom. As the text repeated from Jeremiah 31 states, we all shall know God from the least to the greatest. His Law will be placed in all of our hearts without the need for a Levitical Priest to mediate His word to us. That is the part that is being missed. This is about the transference of priesthood from the shadows and types to Christ our High Priest and antitype. The Old Covenant was given a Priesthood as a type that would show us the way to the real thing. We have a better Covenant with a better Priest who is in heaven now. Christ is the minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. We no longer will tell our neighbor to go seek out the local Priest to mediate God’s word for us. For it has now been fulfilled as it was written and is mediated differently since Christ our High Priest has come..
(1 Timothy 2:5,6) For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Rom 3:29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:
Rom 3:30 Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Rom 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Rom 3:29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:
Rom 3:30 Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Rom 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
My point about this is that I read the text saying that the New Covenant is about a regenerate Church membership when the text isn’t about that but about how the Word of God is mediated and about how we have a better High Priest and Covenant now that the shadows are done away with. Does that make sense?
Puritan Covenanter 
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