The first step then is a review, a summing up, a "look again" upon the true King of Righteousness and peace (verses 1, 2). "Such a High Priest _we have_." It is a wonderful affirmation, not only of His existence but of His relation to "us," His people. "_We have_" Him. He has taken His seat indeed "at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens." But this great exaltation has not removed Him for a moment out of our possession; we have Him. He is now the great Minister, the supreme sacerdotal Functionary, of the heavenly sanctuary, "the true tabernacle," [Greek: tês skênês tês alêthinês], the non-figurative reality of which the Mosaic structure was only the shadow; the true scene of unveiled Presence and immortal worship, "pitched" by Him whose face makes Heaven, and makes it all one temple. But this sublimity of our Priest's place and power does not make Him in the least less ours; we have Him.
The words invite us to a new and deliberate look upward, and then to a recollection deeper than ever that He is held spiritually in our very hands; that He is a possession, nearer to us than any other.
Then (verses 3 and following) the thought moves towards the sacrificial and offertorial qualifications of this great and most sacred Person. He is what He is, our High Priest, our Minister of the sanctuary above, on perfectly valid grounds. For He is, what every sacerdotal minister must be, an Offerer. And He is this in a sense, in a way, congruous to His heavenly position. He has no blood of goats and calves to present, like the priests on earth. Indeed, were He "on earth" (ver. 4), this greatest of all High Priests "would not even be a priest" ([Greek: oud an ên hiereus]), an ordinary priest. For that function, says the Writer, is already filled, "according to the law," by the Aaronic order, to which He never belonged and never could belong (see vii. 13, 14). It is in charge of the sacred servants ([Greek: latreuousin]) of the earthly sanctuary, the God-given type and shadow (ver. 5) of the realities of Heaven, but no more than their type and shadow, partial and transient. No, His sacerdotal qualification is of another sort and a greater. What it is which "He hath to offer" in the celestial Holiest is not yet explicitly said; that is reserved for the ninth chapter, to which this is but the vestibule. But already the Epistle emphasizes the truth that "He _hath somewhat_ to offer," so that we may fully realize the completeness of His high-priestly power.