The Perfect Mediator
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Text: Hebrews 7:20-28
- Consider the role of the Priest as a Mediator. -
Mediator - a person who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement; a go-between.
Moses was a Mediator for the people of Israel. He mediated the first covenant between the People of Israel and Jehovah. He built a society, culture, religious, and legal system for the purpose of a unique people with a unique relationship with God.
He was literally the go between for the people of God and God the Father.
Aaron was a Mediator of the people of God. He was the very first Priest for the house of Israel. He was the one that would take the lamb offering before the Lord and this sacrifice would cover the sin of the people before the eyes of God. This would establish a peaceful relationship between God and his people for one more year.
The priest would also offer sacrifices for family sin and individual sin. His whole purpose was to go on behalf of the people into the presence of God.
By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. vs 22
The author tells us the difference between Moses/ Aaron and Jesus…
It wasn’t the people.
Israelites were sinners who could easily be side-tracked with sin and selfishness. They were sinners who could not hold up their end of the covenant. Even though it was made for them by God with Abraham and Mediated by Moses they had no shot because they kept bending toward sin.
By the Way the same is true for everyone in here today. You are not a unique life form. Many of us like to look down on the sin of the OT and shake our heads. We are guilty of “Waking up on third base and thinking we hit a triple.” We have been given much because we could learn form the shame and regret of Bible characters and we enjoy a culture that has been largely shaped by the principles that were foreign to them. But do not think that you are unique by your nature. Far from it.
It wasn’t the expectation of God.
God is the same yesterday today and forever. God hasn’t changed he expected sinlessness then and he expects it now. If you are going to have peace with God it will be because of Sinlessness.
The difference is the Mediator
Scripture says he was made surety for us. He himself is the collateral of a broken covenant. Moses could attempt mediation, but could never himself be the arbiter of it because he also was a sinner. Aaron attempted to cover with the blood of lambs the sin of the people, but could never himself remove the sinfulness because he was also a sinner.
The question then on our mind is can Christ handle what Moses and Aaron never could? That is can he negotiate a peaceful relationship with God for you and me. If he can then we should run to Him that we might have peace with God.
I submit to you that he is a greater yeah and even overwhelmingly superior mediator.
What is it that Makes Jesus the only Mediator that can provide Peace with God?
We have an unchanging mediator.
A sick person has a family doctor, familiar with his case and his entire medical history, having attended him since birth. But the doctor dies, or retires the patient must start all over again with a new doctor. An employee has worked for a company for 25 years and then one day it is announced that they company is being bought out and the management will change on every level. This has a way of taking a bearable workplace and putting it on its head. A country has a republican form of government. Every few years the entire leadership is disrupted and changed so that the actual running of national affairs becomes the business of bureaucrats and petty officials. Leadership is thrust into new and inexperienced hands.
John Phillips imagines this scenario…
A sinner has deep and continuing needs. Under the Levitical system, he can come to the altar and find there a priest to help him in his hour of need. But the priest to whom he comes, the priest who knows him, understands him, sympathizes with him, and cares for him has died, so the sinner, with all his secret faults, must find another one, someone who is a stranger to him. He must start all over again.
Phillips, J. (2009). Exploring Hebrews: An Expository Commentary (Heb 7:23–8:5). Kregel Publications; WORDsearch Corp.
In contrast, Jesus has an unchangeable priesthood. Jesus will never die and has a permanent priesthood. We don’t need to worry about a “bad priest” replacing Him.
We have a capable Mediator.
Imagine from those same scenarios…
What a headache it would be to have to put the affairs of your life that matter to you into the hands of a inept foolish doctor that seems to never have an answer and when he does your pretty sure you could have gotten better answers on WebMD.
Or if you had to place your job stability into the hands of a employer that can’t make decisions, when he does it is for personal gain and is better at covering himself better than taking care of his team.
Again consider what it would be like to have to trust the care of the freest nation on the face of the planet into the inept, hands of the lousiest collection of dishonest, crooked, dunder-heads ever collected into one cabinet. Just use your imagination and contemplate what that would look like if you possibly can.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. vs 25
Let those words sink in for a minute. He is able.
The salvation He gives is unchanging, permanent, and secure. Most people read this verse as if it says Jesus is able to save from the uttermost. But it really says Jesus is able to save to the uttermost. Because He is our High Priest forever, He can save forever.
The evangelist Billy Sunday had a great sermon, speaking passionately about how God saved him “from the gutter-most,” because he was a gutter-drunk when God saved him. This was a great line from a great preacher, but it was not true to what the Bible says—we are saved not from but to the uttermost.
Guzik, D. (2013). Hebrews (Heb 7:23–25). Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik.
Jesus Mediation is Consecrated. A consecrated Mediator means a worthy Salvation.
For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. vs 26-27
No other priest ever had a testimony like that!
Before the eyes of God
Holy, fully satisfying all the righteous claims of a holy God.
Before the eyes of man
He was guileless, free from all malice and craftiness and duplicity.
In his own heart,
He was undefiled, without any taint of sin.
His whole life was consecrated to the ministry for which He had come into the world and for which He has now ascended higher than the heavens. He mingled with sinners, but he was separate from them. Now He is enthroned, never again to be assailed by evil men.
Here is the crux of the message to audience of this text.
Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.
You and I have a Mediator that goes between us and the Father because no other Mediator could give himself as the perfect sacrifice. This is point of this whole weekend.
Jesus is both perfectly God therefore sinnless
Yet Jesus is perfectly man. Therefore he can stand between both God and man.
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.
What is the point of all this mediator/ priest talk. Simple it is the worship of God.
And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.
Heb 7 opens with the priestly line of Melchizedek. So Jesus is a priest. For the purpose of bringing men to God so that they may praise his name.
This is what is commemorated in the gift of the Frankincense that he magi brought to Jesus.
Time and again we see the connection between this aroma of frankincense and the worship of God.
1. The priests had instruction for the production of the oil.
Exodus 30.34-38
2. It was a part of the grain offering.
Leviticus 2.1-2
3. It was in the ingredients of Shewbread.
Leviticus 24.7
4. Ultimately the prophecy of Isaiah 60.6 was fulfilled
The multitude of camels shall cover thee,
The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
All they from Sheba shall come:
They shall bring gold and incense;
And they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.
So we are grateful for the mediation of Jesus but if we desire not to worship God he is a wasted mediator.
Let us run again and find the grace of God to come right into his presence and worship him as though nothing but the kind mediation of his Son stands between us.
Jesus gave his life as a daily ministry to others.
Jesus gave himself on Calvary.
Jesus today is willing to take repentant sinners and make peace between you and God.
