Christ Our Priest: The One Who Stands in the Gap

Call to Worship

Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Prayer of Adoration

O Holy and Eternal God, You are high and lifted up, the Creator of heaven and earth, glorious in holiness and perfect in all Your ways.

You dwell in unapproachable light, and yet You are not distant from Your people. You have spoken. You have revealed Yourself. You have drawn near in grace.

We praise You for Your wisdom, that from the beginning You were unfolding a plan of redemption. We praise You for Your faithfulness, that every promise You made has been kept. We praise You for Jesus Christ, the eternal Son made flesh, our great High Priest who brings us into Your presence.

Because of Him, we are not strangers or outsiders, but welcomed children who may draw near with confidence.

Receive our praise this morning. Set our hearts on Your glory. Fix our eyes on Christ.

We worship You in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Gracious Father, we come to You with gratitude and need, because You have invited us to come.

We thank You for Your Word—true, living, and sufficient. We thank You for the gospel, for the finished work of Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest who has opened the way into Your presence.

We thank You that we are not left to stand at a distance, that we are not required to climb our way to You, that we do not approach by merit or performance, but by grace through Christ.

And yet, Father, we confess that we often live like the veil is still standing. We are slow to draw near. We are quick to trust ourselves. We carry burdens we were never meant to carry alone.

So we ask You now: open our eyes as Your Word is preached. Strengthen weak faith. Comfort weary hearts. Convict where repentance is needed. Encourage those who are discouraged. Help us to see Christ clearly— not as distant or intimidating, but as our faithful Priest who knows us and loves us.

Give help where it is needed. Give mercy where there is guilt. Give grace in our time of need.

We ask all of this not because we are worthy, but because Jesus Christ lives and intercedes for us.

And it is in His strong and saving name we pray. Amen.

Sermon

INTRODUCTION

Scripture reading

Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Cold Open

Most of you know that over the summer we join the First Fridays Festival in downtown Steubenville.

We hand out cold water, set out gospel resources, and—because I want to get people talking to us more and I’m apparently a glutton for punishment—we tape up a big sign on our canopy that reads, “Ask a Baptist Anything.”

It’s an invitation for conversation and it’s been doing exactly that. We meet curious folks, confused folks, and occasionally the folks who want to pick a fight.

One conversation has stayed with me, partly because it happened recently, and partly because I got more emotionally involved than usual. A group of eight to twelve students from Franciscan University—smart, earnest, and deeply committed to their Roman Catholic tradition—gathered around our booth. Naturally, as it always does, the conversation turned to the role of Mary in salvation.

They told me something I’ve heard before, but never quite so bluntly: “We go to Mary, because sometimes you feel like you can’t go directly to Jesus. He’s God. He’s too holy… too intimidating. Mary is more approachable, more motherly.

She understands. She can talk to Jesus on my behalf.”

This is not some fringe idea of Catholicism. It’s not a misunderstanding. This is an official Roman teaching. Mary is honored as a Mediatrix—someone who intercedes, or mediates, because Christ is exalted and majestic, too overwhelming for sinful humans to approach directly.

In their understanding, Jesus was the blazing sun, too big, too holy for them to come before his presence in their sin,

and Mary was the soft, safe moonlight they could look at and be comforted by without being burned.

In that moment, I was so moved with grief over the deep tragedy of that understanding of Christ and Mary that I nearly wept.

However, as those who were there can attest, I instead got a little intense because Scripture shouts the opposite of what they were saying:

Christ is not the One we hide from.

Christ is the One who tears the veil that separates us from God.

Christ is the One who brings sinners home.

He is the sympathetic High Priest who welcomes the weary, the fearful, the ashamed, the sinful.

The gospel is that God Himself has come near—not to scare us away because of how perfectly holy he is, but to draw us close because of how good he is.

There’s an odd little detail about humanity that shows up everywhere you look throughout all of time.

You can find it painted on cave walls, carved into stone altars, whispered in forests, sung around fires, and recorded in ancient liturgies.

You can find it on every continent, in every century, among people who never met and never compared notes.

It’s the sense—deep in the bones—that human beings can’t just walk up to God on our own. We try, of course. We always try.

But somewhere in us is the ache that says, “Someone needs to go for me. Someone clean. Someone strong. Someone close to heaven.” And so the world has always produced priests.

Long before Aaron, long before Israel had laws or sacrifices, humanity already knew it needed a mediator. Scripture starts with a priest long before Israel—Melchizedek. By the time Moses is born, the world has already been waiting for a priest who could succeed where all others fail.

Advent is a season soaked in waiting—waiting for light, for rescue, for God to draw near. Behind all that waiting is something deeper: the world has been waiting for a priest. Waiting for someone who can bridge the gap—not symbolically, or temporarily, but eternally.

Into that waiting steps Jesus Christ. Hebrews 4 says something astonishing: We have that Priest now. Not a shadow. Not a placeholder. Not a sinner who will die and be replaced. We have a Great High Priest who has passed through the heavens.

Today we’re going to trace the world’s ancient longing for a priest, look at the priests God gave Israel in Aaron and his sons, watch their constant failures, and then stand in awe at the One Priest who finally brings sinners all the way into the presence of God.

By the time we reach the end of Hebrews 4:16, you’ll see why the Advent invitation—“let us draw near with confidence”—might be the most shocking line in the entire letter.

I. MELCHIZEDEK: THE FIRST GREAT POINTER TO JESUS (GENESIS 14; HEBREWS 7)

The book of Hebrews gives us some of the most beautiful theological thought in the New Testament and it spends quite a bit of time explaining Jesus as our great high priest.

That idea does run through the priesthood of Israel, the offspring of Aaron (AKA Levites), but Hebrews actually shows why that priesthood could never fulfill what humanity needs most. What we need is not a Levitical priest, but a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Now, this idea is difficult for us. It sounds strange and difficult and we don’t know what to do with it. But the answer is actually found in the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 14:17-24, with the first named priest of Yahweh is given. And his name is Melchizedek.

Genesis 14:17–24 ESV

17 After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. 21 And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.” 22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, 23 that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ 24 I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.”

He appears abruptly, blesses Abraham, receives tithes, and then disappears. No birth record, no genealogy, no tribe. Just a priest of “God Most High” (Gen. 14:18–20)—El Elyon, the same God who will later reveal Himself to Moses as I AM (Ex. 3:14).

This is not an accident. God is using this shadowy king-priest to set the pattern for the Priest we actually need.

First, Melchizedek is both king and priest.

Genesis 14:18 says he is “king of Salem” and “priest of God Most High.” Israel will never combine those offices—God forbids it. King Uzziah was struck with leprosy for trying (2 Chron. 26:16–21). But Melchizedek holds both roles legitimately.

Why does that matter? Because we need more than a priest who can pray for us—we need a priest who can rule the chaos in us, over us, and around us. A priest with kingly authority. Psalm 110 makes the connection explicit: the Messiah will sit at God’s right hand and be “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 110:1, 4).

Second, Melchizedek is greater than Abraham.

Genesis emphasizes this by showing Abraham giving a tithe to Melchizedek and receiving blessing from him (Gen. 14:19–20).

Hebrews drills down: “It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior” (Heb. 7:7). In other words, the father of Israel bows—willingly—before this priest-king.

This is Scripture whispering: When the true Priest comes, He won’t arise from Aaron’s line. He will come from a higher order. Something that is far bigger than the Hebrew history and the nation of Israel.

Third, Melchizedek’s priesthood has no recorded beginning and no succession.

Genesis gives no genealogy. Hebrews notices this and draws a theological line from it: Melchizedek is made to resemble “the Son of God” and “continues a priest forever” (Heb. 7:3). Not eternally existent—but eternally patterning.

He is a silhouette of the coming Christ.

And that’s exactly where the New Testament lands with force: “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” (Ps. 110:4; Heb. 5:6; 7:17).

No priest from Aaron’s line could ever be that. Every Levitical priest stood in the temple offering repeated sacrifices because their work was never finished and they were never finished men (Heb. 10:11). But Jesus offers Himself once for all (Heb. 7:27) and then sits down at the right hand of God (Heb. 10:12)—a posture no earthly priest ever took.

This is why God gives us Melchizedek at the dawn of redemptive history. To show us that even before Israel is born, before the law is written, before sacrifices are instituted—the priesthood that would save us is already foreshadowed.

Melchizedek is the divine hint that: Aaron’s line is temporary. Levi’s priesthood is provisional. Human mediators are insufficient. A better Priest must come.

And He has come.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about Israel’s priests: their calling, their labor, and their failure.

Melchizedek shows the shape and type of the Priest we need. And Aaron shows the limits of every priest we ever had.

II. THE AARONIC PRIESTHOOD: NECESSARY, GOD-GIVEN, AND FATALLY INADEQUATE

After Melchizedek’s little cameo in Genesis 14, God does something in his grace toward the earthiness of humans—He gives Israel a priesthood they can see. God doesn’t despise the instinct for mediation, the middle-man as representative. He shapes it. He disciplines it. He teaches His people through it.

And so the Aaronic priesthood emerges, not as Plan B, not as a divine sigh of resignation to the frailty and stupidity of humans, but as a God-given gift meant to tutor Israel into the holiness and nearness of God.

But it is also a gift with an expiration date written all over it.

Let’s walk through this carefully and honestly.

A. The God-given purpose of Israel’s priests

In Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, God assigns Aaron and his sons two great tasks—representing and atoning.

Intercession means the priest goes before God on behalf of the people. Oblation (sacrificial offering) means the priest goes before the people on behalf of God.

The priest carries the names of Israel—literally—on his shoulders and over his heart on stones that have been sewn into the priestly clothes when he enters the holy place (Ex. 28:9–12, 29–30).

He then offers sacrifices and offerings on behalf of the people for the purpose of maintaining covenant fellowship (Lev. 1–7). Every garment, every gesture, every sacrifice is a walking sermon proclaiming: “God is holy, you are sinful, and only the blood of a spotless lamb can make you clean and draw you near.”

The priesthood is a gift. But it is a gift that intentionally exposes its own limits.

B. The High Priest’s unique role

And there is a unique role in that priesthood for the High priest. And once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), this high priest must take two goats for a special purpose.

One goat is presented before the high priest (Aaron), who is to confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. He is to take the sins off of Israel and to place them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

The other goat is killed and prepared as a blood sacrifice for the High Priest to bring before Yahweh.

One man enters one room with one sacrifice.

He walks through the veil into the Holy of Holies—a place no one else ever sees—and sprinkles blood on the mercy seat to make a wrath-bearing sacrifice for Israel. The innocent blood of the goat is spilled as a substitute for the blood of the people who deserve death for their sinful rebellion against God.

One goat bears the sins of the people and carries them away to be forgotten, the other goat gives the people a substitutionary righteousness by covering them with his blood. Sins are not only covered, they are also carried away.

It is the most dramatic moment in Israel’s calendar. But it is also the most temporary.

The veil stays closed. The people stay outside. The conscience stays troubled. And the next year it is all done over again.

The system gives us a form of access to God without ever fully granting it.

C. Immediate failure baked into the story

And the sad truth is that the priesthood collapses almost as soon as it begins.

The Bible doesn’t hide it at all. It actually highlights it.

1. Aaron builds the golden calf (Exodus 32). The first High Priest becomes the architect of the greatest liturgical disaster in Israel’s early history. He doesn’t guard holiness—he instead makes an idol in the culturally accepted form and calls one the people to worship it.

2. Nadab and Abihu offer unauthorized fire (Leviticus 10). His sons, Nadab and Abihu, aren’t any better. In Leviticus 10 the newly ordained priests walk into the sanctuary with arrogance, thinking they could offer a sacrifice different from what God has declared, and die under the flame of God for their sinful presumption. It is a horrifying moment meant to show that sinful priests cannot survive the unmediated holiness of God.

3. Eli’s sons corrupt worship (1 Samuel 2). Instead of guarding the house of God, they exploit its women and steal its offerings. They are predatory, greedy, violent—and they are priests.

4. Centuries of priestly corruption. From Ahaz’s altar redesign (2 Kings 16) to Manasseh’s idolatry (2 Kings 21) to the cynical priests of Malachi’s day (Mal. 1–2), the priesthood becomes a revolving door of compromise. The very men meant to bring Israel near to God often drag them into darkness.

Scripture wants you to feel this weight and truth: Even the best priests were sinners. And the system itself couldn’t fix them.

D. The sacrificial system’s structural weakness

Hebrews pulls back the curtain and gives the theological autopsy.

The system is endless. Sacrifices cycle day after day, year after year, a waterfall of blood that never fills the cup.

The system is external. It purifies the flesh, but it cannot cleanse the conscience (Heb. 9:9–14; 10:1–4).

The system is mortal. Priests die. Every generation must replace its mediators (Heb. 7:23).

The system is shadows, not substance. It points forward, but it cannot perfect (Heb. 10:1).

This is not cynicism. This is God’s design. The priesthood is scaffolding. Not the building. A signpost, not the destination. A shadow cast by Someone walking toward Israel from the future.

E. The Advent implication

Advent is a season of holy longing, and the entire priestly system is Israel’s longing made visible. Every sacrifice cries out for a better sacrifice. Every intercessor cries out for a sinless intercessor. Every dying priest cries out for a priest who cannot die.

The story of Aaron is meant to make you ache for Christ. The failures of Israel’s priests are meant to make the triumph of Christ thunder.

Which brings us right into Hebrews 4. Right at the point where the system proves it cannot bring us all the way to God, the epistle declares:

“We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God” (Heb. 4:14).

Not a shadow. Not a stand-in. Not a sinner. Not a dying man.

The Priest we always needed has finally arrived.

III. JESUS CHRIST: THE GREAT HIGH PRIEST (HEBREWS 4–7)

Hebrews 4–7 is not coy or vague. It preaches Christ with a kind of thunder. Listen to how the text stacks its claims.

A. His identity: the Priest who “passed through the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14)

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God…”

No priest in Israel ever did that. Aaron passed through a curtain. Jesus passes through creation.

Aaron entered a copy (Heb. 9:24). Jesus enters the original. Aaron brought the blood of animals. Jesus brings His own.

The point is simple: Jesus actually reaches God because He is God. The One standing for you in heaven has the right to stand there. The High Priest is not merely a representative of God—He is God come to represent you.

And that transforms the entire nature of our access to God. You do not send your prayers upward through a chain of intermediaries. You do not approach God through saints or Mary or earthly priests. You have a Priest who walks boldly straight into the throne room because it's His throne room.

B. His sympathy: the Priest who understands us (Hebrews 4:15)

And the claims continue in verse 15

“We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses…”

Sympathy here means more than compassion; it means shared experience. He knows tears. He knows hunger. He knows exhaustion that makes your bones ache. He knows loneliness in a crowd. He knows grief that knots the stomach. He knows temptation—not in theory, but in bruising, lived reality.

The only difference is He never sinned.

And because He never sinned, He knows the full weight of temptation more deeply than any sinner ever will. Temptation stops pressing when a person gives in. Jesus never gave in. He endured the full pressure.

So when you come to Him in your weaknesses, He does not frown. He does not sigh. He does not cross His arms and wait for you to pull yourself together.

Your Priest has scars that ache with yours.

C. His appointment: the Priest made so by divine oath (Hebrews 5:5–6; 7:20–22)

Every priest under Aaron came in by genealogy. If you had the right bloodline, you got the job. If you didn’t, you were out.

But Christ is appointed by a better authority—by God’s sworn oath.

“You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”

Hebrews 7 says God declared this with an oath, and the oath makes Christ the guarantor of a better covenant (7:20–22).

In other words: God Himself staked His own name, His own truthfulness, His own divine honor on the priesthood of His Son.

The ministry of Christ is not a human invention. It is not a historical accident. It is not something the church dreamed up.

God put Him there to guarantee the covenant of His Grace.

And that means you can trust Him fully. Your salvation rests on a promise God made to God.

D. His sacrifice: the Priest who offers Himself (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12–14)

This is where the story turns from beautiful to staggering.

Every earthly priest offers something else—a goat, a bull, a lamb. Christ offers Himself.

He doesn’t walk in carrying a sacrifice. He walks in as the sacrifice.

He doesn’t enter year after year. He enters once for all (7:27).

He doesn’t clean the outside—He cleans the conscience (9:14).

The blood of animals could never reach that deep. They purified the flesh, but they never touched the soul.

But the blood of Christ, the spotless Lamb, reaches all the way into the hidden places of shame and fear and guilt and speaks a better word: “You are forgiven. You are clean.”

So, if the Old Testament sacrifices were shadows flickering on the wall, Jesus is the blazing sun that casts the shadow.

E. His permanence: the undying Priest (Hebrews 7:16, 24–25)

Hebrews continues by declaring that Jesus is Priest “by the power of an indestructible life.”

That’s the kind of phrase that deserves to be shouted.

Other priests died—every single one. The grave eventually silenced them.

But Christ rose. Christ lives. Christ remains forever.

Because He lives forever, His priesthood lives forever. Because His priesthood lives forever, His salvation is eternal. Because His salvation is eternal, He saves “to the uttermost” (7:25).

Not partially. Not conditionally. Not temporarily.

Utterly. Completely. Permanently.

If Christ could die again, you could lose your salvation. But Christ cannot die again because death has no dominion over him (Romans 6:9).

He is eternally our priest and eternally our sacrifice that covers our sin with his blood and bears our sin out into the wilderness to be removed and forgotten.

Our life is hidden in Christ who is alive in the heavens eternally!

He cannot die! Therefore your hope cannot die either.

F. His ongoing ministry: eternal intercession (Hebrews 7:25)

“...He always lives to make intercession for them.”

This is the present reality of Advent. This is why we aren’t just looking backward to Bethlehem or forward to the Second Coming. Right now—this very moment—Jesus Christ is praying for you.

Your Advocate never sleeps. Your Priest never grows weary. Your Mediator never clocks out. Your Savior never abandons His post.

When you sin, He intercedes. When you stumble, He intercedes. When you are weak, He intercedes. When you feel ashamed, He intercedes. When you doubt your salvation, He intercedes.

He doesn’t intercede reluctantly. He intercedes joyfully, because He purchased you with His own blood and He will not lose what He bought.

CONCLUSION — THE ADVENT INVITATION: DRAW NEAR TO THE PRIEST WHO CAME FOR YOU

This is where Hebrews 4:16 finally lands with its full, breathtaking weight:

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace…”

That sentence should stop us cold.

For centuries, God’s people stood at a distance. They watched smoke rise. They listened to bells on a priest’s garment disappear behind a veil. They hoped—never knowing if the sacrifice was enough.

But now, Hebrews says, draw near.

Not cautiously. Not nervously. Not with crossed fingers.

With confidence.

This is the heart of Advent. The God before whom Israel trembled now welcomes sinners to draw near with confidence. The throne that once meant judgment is now a throne of grace. The presence that once consumed sinners now invites them in.

And notice what the text does not say.

It does not say draw near by ritual, or pedigree, or by moral performance.

It says draw near because of Christ.

The baby laid in a manger is the Priest who now stands in heaven on your behalf. He knows your weakness. He has atoned for your sin. He carries your name on His heart into the Holy of Holies. He intercedes when your prayers fall apart. He holds you fast when your grip is slipping.

You do not come because you are strong. You come because He is. You do not come because you are worthy. You come because He is faithful.

So come to Him.

Come weary. Come ashamed. Come doubting. Come broken. Come tired of trying to be your own priest.

And come often.

Because Advent does not end in a manger. It ends in a promise.

The Priest who came once will come again. And when He does, He will not open the way into God’s presence— He will bring His people all the way home into it.

Forever.

Amen.

Let’s Pray

Confession and Repentance

Merciful Father, we come before You now because You have told us we may draw near. And we confess that too often we have not believed that invitation.

We confess that we have tried to be our own priests— carrying our own guilt, managing our own shame, attempting to justify ourselves by effort, silence, or distraction.

We confess that we have doubted Your welcome, imagined You as distant or displeased, and hesitated to come to You in our weakness.

We confess that we have trusted in our performance more than in Christ’s finished work, that we have hidden sin rather than bringing it into the light, that we have lived as though the veil were still standing.

Father, forgive us.

Forgive us for forgetting that we have a High Priest who sympathizes with our weakness, who offered Himself once for all, and who even now lives to intercede for us.

We repent of our self-reliance. We repent of our fear. We repent of our unbelief.

And we thank You that our forgiveness does not rest on the strength of our repentance, but on the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice.

Cleanse our consciences by His blood. Restore our joy. Teach us to draw near with confidence, not because we are worthy, but because Jesus Christ is faithful.

We place our hope once again in our Great High Priest, who has opened the way into Your presence.

And it is in His gracious and powerful name we pray. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon

Hear the good news of the gospel:

“Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God… let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

In Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven. You are welcomed into the presence of God. The throne you approach is a throne of grace.

Thanks be to God.

Benediction

May the God of peace assure your hearts through Jesus Christ, our great High Priest.

Go with confidence, knowing that He sympathizes with your weakness, has offered Himself once for all, and even now lives to intercede for you.

Draw near to the throne of grace, receive mercy and help, and walk in the peace of knowing your sins are forgiven.

Amen.