Albert Barnes Commentary Hebrews 8:3

"For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is necessary that this [high priest] also have somewhat to offer." — Hebrews 8:3 (ASV)

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 peculiarity 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 a need that some offering or atonement should be made for sin; and,
2. That there is a fitness or propriety that someone should be designated to do it.

If this idea that a priest must offer sacrifice is correct, then it follows that the name priest should not be given to anyone 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 is not to be repeated again.

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.