A Necessary Change

His name was Kyle MacDonald and it started and it started with a red paperclip. Out with the Old and in with the New.

Acts 3:19–20 ESV

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,

I. The Old Levitical Priesthood was partial and passing.

A. It could not perfect.

The question at hand is this… What does the author mean by perfection. The word means wholeness or completion. It is to bring to a state of what we were created to be. The Author after building the foundation of the Superiority of the Melchizedek now seeks to prove that Christ whose preisthood is from that same and different order.

Hebrews 9:9 ESV

(which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,

Admittedly the Author speakes here in Hebrews 7 of the Ceremonial law. The establishment and requirements of the preisthood but one cannot disconnect the moral law from the ceremonial law. After all the reason the priesthood is even necessary is that we have broken the commandments that is primarily the decaloague in the first place. The phrase here in parenthesis “for under it, the people received the law” is interpreted to mean that the law is associated with the preisthood, the law was given on the basis of the preisthood. Why would therebe need of preist if there was no transgression of the commandment.

Infact Paul argues in Romans that the primary purpose of the law is to make sin increase.

Romans 7:7–13 ESV

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

Under the old Code,the old law is not a source of life and justification but rather a source of death and condemnation. Not even the Levitical priesthood could do that. They offered inferior sacrifices, no animal could ever provide an adequate substitute for sin. And priests because the are weak like you and I, have their ministry interrupted by their own sin. That is why they must first offer sacrifice for thier own sin. THEREFORE under this system the worshipper is kept at bay and cannot offer the sincere and uninterupted worship that God requires. AND IN THIS WAY THE OLD IS INADEQUATE.

What exactly is this change in the law? It is the law of God written not on tablets of stone but on the hearts of the saints. It is the the power of the Gospel of Christ in us that makes it possible for us to fulfil the law of love and obedience. The greatest of the commandments is to the love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, only made possible in Christ.

B. It was based on parentage.

The priesthood was based on the lineage. You were a priest because you come from a line of preists, you were priest because your father was one and his father before Him and his father and so on. But Jesus was not from the tribe of Levi. He is from the line of Kings, he is a descendant of David. The Old Testament says nothing of a priest from the line of Judah.

The writing from the dead sea scrolls indicate to us that there was a sect of Judiasm that looked for 2 different Messianic figures. One the “messiah of Aaron” a preist. The other the “messiah of Israel” a king. One of the ironic things is that the temple and thier preisthood of Judiasm was destroyed and done away with in 70 a.d with the destruction of the temple by the Romans. Currently the Jews do not have a high preist. They have for almost 2000 years remained seperated from God unable to approach, but we do have a high preist His name is Jesus and he lives forever always interceeding for us.

II. Christ’s New Mechizedekian priesthood is perfect and perpetual.

A. He is able to perfect.

Hebrews 10:14 ESV

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

This is the once for allness of sacrifice of Christ. The unrepeatable nature of Christ’s sacrifice. This is what makes the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Mass so heinous. Through the doctrine of transubstantiation the priest offers in most cases on a daily basis the body and blood of Christ to the people. The mass is a re-sacrifice of Christ albeit a bloodless sacrifice. This is incompatible with the once for all sacrifice presented in Hebrews. On this point Rome has more in common with the Levitical sacrificial priesthood than they do with Christianity.

Hebrews 10:1 ESV

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Hebrews 7:25 ESV

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

When Christ came into the world, and suffered and died He tore the veil between God and man in half. He gives us direct and uninterrupted access to the Father. We are able to approach the throne of God with boldness, because our high Priest stands and lives and acts permanently on our behalf. Judiasm had a line of preists that could not fully exhaust thier mediatorial function they were prevented so by death, but Jesus lives and now is able to bring us to God the way we were intended from the beginning.

B. It is based on promise.

The oath came later. It came after the establishement of the Levitical Preisthood. It came in Psalm 110:4 The Law was weak and could not useless in perfecting the worshipper. Remember we spoke earlier that the law could only condemn but it cannot save.

Superior basis for hope. Because it is based on an oath sworn by God that cannot be undone. What this means is that though the Old was inadequate and temporary, the new is perfect and permantent. There will not and cannot be another priesthood. There will not be another testament or Savior that we will look to in the present or the future. Not Mohammed with the Koran, not Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, only Christ will do.

Christs relationship to God and His relationship to His covenant people will extend into all of eternity. His is not based on an earthly descent, the tabernacle that is true and lasting is not of this earth but in heaven.

Things go in and out of style. When I was a kid in the 90’s our clothes were big and baggy. Now people wear skinny jeans. When I go to the gym I can tell who is over 30 and who is under. Anyone over 30 is wearing ankle socks with their tennis shoes, anyone under 30 is wearing calf socks.

All that is not eternal, is eternally out of date. C.S. Lewis

Worship of God will never go out of style.

Think about the context and its significance on this passage. These were Jewish Christians who came out of the Old Covenant. They were convinced at one point that Christ was the Messiah the fulfillement of the promises. It would however be insanity to think that going back to the Old way, going back to Judiasm would produce a different result this time.

The saying goes that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. But isnt this the natural bent of our hearts, to long for the yesteryear to the think back and admire the golden age when things weren't as difficult and the pressure that we now face were not infront of us. Perhaps not exactly tempted towards Judiasm, but we have out past as well. We once worshipped things far inferior, and if we are not careful we might be tempted to turn back.