A Superior Priest

Now if perfection came through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the law), what further need was there for another priest to appear, said to be according to the order of Melchizedek and not according to the order of Aaron? For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must be a change of law as well. For the one these things are spoken about belonged to a different tribe. No one from it has served at the altar. Now it is evident that our Lord came from Judah, and Moses said nothing about that tribe concerning priests.

And this becomes clearer if another priest like Melchizedek appears, who did not become a priest based on a legal regulation about physical descent but based on the power of an indestructible life. For it has been testified:

You are a priest foreveraccording to the order of Melchizedek.

This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Today’s passage in Hebrews 7 gets deeper into why the author is so intent on comparing the mysterious Melchizedek from Genesis 14 to Jesus. In previous passages of this book, the author has quoted from Psalm 110 where it says, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” He does so again in this passage today.

The author mentions Jesus as part of this priesthood of Melchizedek in chapters 5 & ^6 because God appointed him to this priesthood, and because Jesus enters into the Holy of Holies in heaven to intercede for us.

However, there is an issue with calling Jesus a priest of God. As we saw last week, Jesus was not born as a Levite. He was not a descendant of Aaron as the Mosaic Law commanded. He was born into the tribe of Judah. For Jews who are diligent about following the law set forth by Moses at Mount Sinai, seeing Jesus as a priest is a problem.

Our passage today shows that Jesus is not only a priest, but that Scripture states his priesthood is superior to the Levitical priesthood of the Mosaic Law.

Big Idea: Christ is our superior priest.

Hebrews 7:11

So, the author has now turned to the law and the priesthood to show how Christ is superior to them. He tells his readers that perfection was not possible through the Mosaic Law and priesthood.

One thing we must remember with the word “perfect” throughout this book is that it does not necessarily mean morally pure, or without any blemish or fault. In past passages of Hebrews, we have seen the author talk about Christ being “perfected.” Jesus, as God, the second person of the Trinity, does not need to be perfected morally. He is already morally perfect.

What the author of Hebrews meant by Jesus being “perfected” is that he completed, or finished, the work that was set before him. Christ performed all of the necessary work to be the Savior of humanity.

When the author tells us that perfection was not attainable through the Law, he is, again, talking about completion. The Law, having been given by God, is morally perfect. There is nothing wrong with the Law of God in that sense. But the law was not meant to bring complete freedom from sin. The law cannot give us eternal communion with the Father. We can understand this when we see what the purpose of the Mosaic law was.

Romans 3:20

For no one will be justified in (God’s) sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.

The purpose of the law is not to make anything perfect. Remember that the priests had to offer sacrifices for sin EVERY YEAR! The purpose of the law is to show humanity just how sinful we are. The law is the mirror that reflects our sinful rebellion against the Lord. It shows us how we fall short of God’s gloriously high standard. But another purpose of the law is to show us the beautiful promises of God to us!

Jesus was asked by the religious leaders what the greatest commandment, or law, was. We see his answer in Matthew 22:37-40

Matthew 22:37-40

He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

While we can have an overarching knowledge that the entire Old Testament, which is what Jesus is referring to when he says the Law and the Prophets, shows that we are to love God and love our neighbors, we can see the Ten Commandments for this. In these commandments, we have four that specifically relate to our posture toward God:

The Commandments Relating to God:

You shall have no other gods before Me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

The way that we show our love for God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is by obeying these commands.

The Commandments Relating to Men:

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet.

If you do not want these things happening to you, the way you show love to your neighbor is by not doing those things to your neighbor. You treat your neighbor as you want to be treated.

Why did God give these specific commands? Looking at the commandments about God, it is because our sinfulness wants to worship anything but the true God. We make idols for ourselves all the time. The Reformer John Calvin said:

“The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.”

John Calvin

Humanity has so little respect for God and his name that we use it in vain all the time. We overwork ourselves and don’t rest on the Sabbath as God has commanded.

Or, if we look at the commands about our relationship to man, we are told not to steal, covet, or commit adultery because our sinful hearts want things that don’t belong to us. Again, the law shows us how sinful we are.

But the law also shows us the promises of God!

We do not need to make idols or worship other gods because:

When we serve the true God, he promises to love us, care for us, and provide for us!

Separate slide.

We do not need to murder, steal, covet, or lie because we are trusting that:

Vengeance belongs to the Lord.

God will provide for all of our needs.

Truth will always prevail in the end.

But even if we did our best to follow all of these outward observances, if we mentally knew what the law required and gave every effort to follow the rules, that does not mean there is any heart change.

One of my favorite cartoonists, Scott Adams, passed away this last week from cancer. In his last letter to his fans and to the world he made an interesting statement that, I believe, showed more of an intellectual acknowledgement of the possibility of God than a true change of heart.

“I'm not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation for doing so looks attractive. So, here I go: I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior.”

Scott Adams

Just saying the words, “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior,” while calling it a risk/reward calculation, is not heart change.

The way one commentator put it, which I agree with said this:

“It didn’t seem to me that he was convinced, as the thief was on the cross, but was buying fire insurance at the last possible moment.

Only God knows his heart. I do not.

True Christianity isn’t the religion presented to us via media today; it is a fundamental spiritual realignment of self to life as it was designed to be. This is only possible by surrendering of yourself daily and learning more about how to live as Jesus taught, not by saying the right words at the end of your life.”

I pray as many others do that between the time he wrote that on January 1st and his death 12 days later, that there was a change in his heart, and that he is with the Lord now.

In John 5, Jesus is responding to the religious leaders who are persecuting him and wanting to kill him because Jesus is doing crazy things like healing a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years on the Sabbath. Healing is considered work for these religious leaders. The scribes and Pharisees were so intent on keeping the laws that they were missing the reason for the law.

John 5:39-40

“You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.”

The Scriptures, the Word of God printed out for us in this book, the Law of Moses that these Pharisees and scribes were so intent on keeping and obeying, point to Christ. The Pharisees rightly believed that eternal life could be found in Scripture. Still, they thought that life came through obeying the various laws, rather than recognizing that these laws pointed to the Redeemer, the Savior of the world, who was standing right in front of them.

How many times have you heard someone say that Jesus seems like a great moral teacher, but that is it?

But eternal life does not come through obeying the Law. That perfection, or completion, of being in perfect communion with God cannot come through simple obedience to the Mosaic Law. Paul said this in writing to the Galatians. They were Gentile believers who had fallen for the teachings of the Judaizers, who told them they had to obey the Jewish laws and commands to be part of the Christian church.

Galatians 2:21

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

The author of Hebrews states that if perfection were attainable through the Levitical priesthood, through the Law of Moses and the sacrifices for sin that the Levitical priests offered every year, there would be no reason for another priest to come, especially after the order of Melchizedek, and not after Aaron.

But a new priest has come.

Hebrews 7:12-14

For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must be a change of law as well. For the one these things are spoken about belonged to a different tribe. No one from it has served at the altar. Now it is evident that our Lord came from Judah, and Moses said nothing about that tribe concerning priests.

So, the author is stating that a change in the priestly line would require a change in the Law. The Mosaic Law required that the priests were Levites and descended from the line of Aaron. None of the other tribes were allowed to serve in the tabernacle or temple.

But as we look at the genealogies of Jesus that are listed in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, Jesus came from the tribe of Judah and not from the tribe of Levi. For Jesus to be an earthly priest, he would have needed to be a descendant of the tribe of Levi, and more specifically, a descendant of Aaron. For that to change, the law would then need to change.

We could say the same thing about the laws in this country. If any president wanted to call himself a king instead of the president, there is a very particular process of proposing an amendment that must be gone through to make that change to the Constitution. Until that happens, the commander and chief of the United States will be called the President.

In many ways, that is what Christ did when he offered himself as the sacrifice for our sins and rose again from the dead. Right after Paul told the Romans in 3:20 that we cannot receive any righteousness by observing the Law, because the law simply points out our sins and makes us aware of our rebellion against God, he then goes on to encourage his Roman readers by telling them that the righteousness of God is now available to us.

Romans 3:21-24

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Why can we have this righteousness apart from following the letter of the law? The answer is Jesus. You see, the law showed how sinful we are. We could not gain righteousness through the law because we cannot keep every aspect of the law. No matter how hard we try, the curse of sin prevents us from being able to fully obey every aspect of the law. Earlier in Romans 3, Paul quoted from Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah about humanity’s sinfulness. He said, “No one is righteous, not one!”

But God…

Jesus, being fully God, actually could obey the law of God. It was the law he established together with the Father and the Holy Spirit in eternity past. As I have said before, it very well could have been the pre-incarnate Jesus giving the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Jesus lived the perfect life, completely obeying every aspect of the law. He is the only one who could earn the righteousness of God through obedience to the law. He did that, making himself the equivalent of the “perfect, spotless lamb” used during the Passover. And as Hebrews calls Jesus our priest forever, he offered that perfect sacrifice in himself to pay for the sins of all who call out to him for salvation.

Jesus did this even though he was from the tribe of Judah instead of Levi. However, this was prophesied in the Old Testament. The prophet Micah declares in Micah 5:2

Micah 5:2

Bethlehem Ephrathah,you are small among the clans of Judah;one will come from youto be ruler over Israel for me.His origin is from antiquity,from ancient times.

This prophecy from Micah points to Jesus, the one born in Bethlehem. He is the one from ancient times, having existed from eternity past with the Father and Holy Spirit.

Now, when this change in the law came, when Christ fulfilled all of the requirements of the Mosaic Law, that does not mean that we don’t need to obey anything in the Old Testament anymore. When I hear someone say, “I’m a New Testament Christian. I don’t need the Old Testament,” I feel like Indigo Montoya in The Princess Bride and want to say, “I don't think that means what you think it means.”

You cannot divorce the Old Testament and its laws from the New Testament. Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish or get rid of the law, but instead came to fulfill it.

Matthew 5:17-19

Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

When Jesus says whoever breaks the “least of these,” he is talking about the different commands of the Law. Jesus did not teach that we did not have to do all the things commanded in the Mosaic Law anymore. Instead, he was trying to show people the heart of the law.

Throughout Jesus’ teaching, he tells his readers to honor God, to get rid of idols, and he explains what honoring the Sabbath means. He teaches us that murder is wrong by saying that if we even have anger toward our brother, we will be judged by God for that. He teaches against lying by telling us to let our “yes be yes and our no be no.”

Some of the cultural aspects of the law are no longer over us, like not having clothes made of two different types of fabric, not eating any pork or shellfish, etc. But the moral aspects of the law, we are to obey those.

Hebrews 7:15-17

You are a priest foreveraccording to the order of Melchizedek.

Melchizedek was a priest to God before the Mosaic Law had declared that only the sons of Aaron were to serve as priests. It was not the law that declared Melchizedek a priest, but God himself.

This is why the author of Hebrews points to Melchizedek as being a representative of Christ. Jesus was not born of the tribe of Levi, but from the tribe of Judah. It was not his human genealogy that made him fit to serve as a priest of God’s people. Instead, God instituted Jesus as our great high priest in the same way that God chose Melchizedek to be a priest before the law was given.

Now, according to one of my commentaries, there are four things that we can understand about Jesus and his priesthood, being from the order of Melchizedek, from what we have learned in this chapter over the past few weeks.

The Order of Melchizedek

Superior to Levitical Priesthood

The first is that the order of Melchizedek involves superiority to the Levitical priests. Abraham, the patriarch of Israel, paid tithes to Melchizedek. The one from whom the nation of Israel, specifically the Levitical priests, came gave to the mysterious priest. Remember last week, how we saw the author say

“...the inferior is blessed by the superior.”

Melchizedek was superior to Abraham, but he represented someone even greater than himself in Christ.

This priesthood is also superior to the Levites in that it is a spiritual and universal priesthood, not one based on the material, like being a descendant of Aaron, or being only for a local people like the Israelites. Christ is not just a human priest. He is our forever priest in heaven, a priest for the Jew and Gentile alike.

The Order of Melchizedek

Superior to Levitical Priesthood

Directly appointed by God

The second thing we see about the order of Melchizedek is that it involves direct appointment by God. Melchizedek had no ancestry or descendants listed in Scripture. He did not inherit his post as a priest before God. He was appointed by God himself.

We see the same thing with Jesus. He was not born of a Levitical line, but was from the tribe of Judah. And yet, we see that God had specifically chosen to work his plan through Christ coming to this earth.

Matthew 3:16-17

When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”

This is God establishing Jesus as God’s messenger to the world.

The Order of Melchizedek

Superior to Levitical Priesthood

Directly appointed by God

A “forever” priesthood

The third thing we see about this priesthood is that it is a “forever” priesthood. When the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 110 saying that Jesus is a “priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,” this is referring to the fact that Melchizedek had no listed ancestors or descendants. There is no account of his priesthood beginning, nor of it ending.

In the same way, Christ’s priesthood will never end. His indestructible life allows him to be a priest forever. The human priesthood only lasted as long as that man lived. When he died, his priesthood was over. Christ’s death was not the end of his reign, but was the precursor to his triumphant enthronement over sin and death through his resurrection.

Romans 6:9-10

…because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

The Order of Melchizedek

Superior to Levitical Priesthood

Directly appointed by God

A “forever” priesthood

Combines offices of Priest and King

And fourth, the priesthood of Melchizedek brings together the two Old Testament offices of King and Priest. Melchizedek was not only a priest of God, but he was also a king. Remember, his name means “king of righteousness.” What better way to describe the one whom Melchizedek represents? Through Jesus’ perfect life on this earth, he earned the righteousness from God that we could not. He then gives that righteousness, which covers our sins, when we submit to him as the Lord of our lives.

Melchizedek was also called the “king of peace.” That righteousness from God that Jesus earned clears us from the guilt and shame of our sin. In doing so, we have peace with the Father, whose wrath burns against disobedience and rebellion toward his law.

Romans 5:1

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you have that peace with God today? Do you know that your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ, who gave his own life as the priestly sacrifice for your sins? Have you called upon the Lord, asking him to work in your heart and mind, giving you the righteousness he earned, and wiping away the guilt of your sins? If not, there is no better day than today. There is no better time than now.

When the great preacher, Charles Spurgeon, was 15 years old, he walked into a church from a terrible snowstorm on a Sunday. Cold, wet, and tired, he heard the man in the pulpit preach from Isaiah 45:22, which in our translation says:

Isaiah 45:22

Turn to me and be saved,all the ends of the earth.For I am God,and there is no other.

And as the story goes:

The preacher kept repeating the text in vivid language, speaking as if Christ Himself said: “Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood… hangin’ on the cross… risen… ascended… sitting at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me!”

Seeing how burdened the young visitor looked, he suddenly pointed at Spurgeon and cried: “Young man, you look very miserable… Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!”

Don’t worry, I am not going to start pointing directly at people this morning.

Spurgeon later said that in that instant “the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away,” and he saw the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work for him personally.

He went home rejoicing, with his family immediately noticing the change, and he often summarized his conversion in words like: “I looked to Jesus, and he looked on me; and we were one forever.”

That knowledge is available for you today. Look to Christ.

Next Step: I will repent and submit my life to Christ.

Let us pray.

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