Our Risen High Priest

Introduction

Today, my goal is to answer two questions relating to the wonderful event we celebrate today on Easter Sunday and answer them from the Letter to the Hebrews. The first question is, what does it mean for us to have a risen Saviour? The second is, what does it mean for us to have an ascended high priest?

What Does it Mean to Have a Risen Saviour?

Of course, this question seems most relavent as Easter is about the resurrection, and yet the resurrection and the ascention are both part of the same victorious conclusion of the cross. Jesus rose, ultimately, to ascend bodily into heaven, so having a risen Saviour and an ascended High Priest are very related.

The resurrection is more than a happy conclusion to the story of Jesus. It means something for us, and the author of this glorious letter tells us what it is. What does the resurrection mean for you today?

It means we have a perfect Saviour (2:10)

“It was fitting” meaning it was appropriate, good, and right.

What was fitting? According to the text, it was appropriate that the God who made all things should make our Saviour perfect through suffering.

Righteous vs. Perfect - Christ was always pure, righteous, and holy. Perfection refers to the completion of a process. Although Adam and Eve were created righteous, they were not made perfect. When they were tested by temptation, they were unable to attain perfection through the process of temptation. Jesus, on the other hand, “suffered when tempted” and through that suffering was perfected.

Death is the fruit of sin, and suffering is the death rattle that reminds us it is coming. Our need in a Saviour was for someone to take that death in our place, as verse 9 says, “so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Since Christ’s experience of death was on our behalf, so that we might live, and since death is the culmination of a life of suffering, it makes sense that Christ should be perfected by suffering, ending in his death, to deliver us from the sins that births them and make us ready for joy and immortality.

It means the power of death is defeated (2:14-15)

Since Jesus was perfected through suffering, it is no surprise that he overcame the power of death. Although he took death on our behalf, death could not hold him since his righteousness is infinate and our sin, as great as it is, is finite. Death could not hold him, and so when he raised from the dead it didn’t just mean he would no longer die, but that death itself had been defeated. The keys to death and hades was siezed and so he is able to deliver those who through fear of death were subject to a life of slavery to their inevitable end.

With the power of death defeated through our resurrected Saviour, eternal life is not only possible but assured for those joined to Christ in a covenant of faith.

It means propitiation has been accomplished (2:17)

The word propitiation means something that appeases divine wrath. It is an unpopular word today because, for many, the idea of God’s wrath having to be appeased seems outdated and even savage. It’s important to remember that God’s wrath is not a passionate wrath, that is, it is not some emotional reaction that may or may not be justified, like our wrath often is. Instead, God’s wrath describes his hatred of evil and his just, measured response to it. Since God is a God of order, righteousness, justice, and peace, his wrath goes out against all that sets itself against those things. So rather than some divine “temper tantrum” as it is often pictured, God’s wrath is the controlled, measured, and dolled out destruction and punishment of evil.

Christ’s death was offered up to and accepted by God the Father as a sacrifice for sins, with the just punishment of sin falling upon Jesus, the willing sacrifice, instead of on us. This paves the way for God’s mercy to be shown upon us while God remains a righteous judge. Or, in the words of Paul in Romans 3:26

Romans 3:26 ESV

It was to show (God’s) righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

A perfect Saviour must provide a perfect substitution whose blood can cover our sins. Jesus did this in his own bodily death.

It Means He is a High Priest Who Is Able to Help (2:18)

This we looked into with great detail last week. Christ is a perfect Saviour because he is our perfect high priest. This high priest is not only able to offer a sacrifice of propitiation for sins in his own blood, but is also able to help us overcome the power of sin through his sympathetic compassion on us.

We saw last week that this great high priest ascended into the heavens. This was the conclusion of Christ’s resurrection; his being raised up by God in power and authority in every way. In his ascension, Jesus took on the role, first of our great high priest, and then of the enthroned King of all kings.

This leads us to our second question this morning:

What Does It Mean to Have an Ascended High Priest?

Jesus is many things to us; a Risen Saviour and an ascended, Great High Priest are among the most lofty and sweet. We have seen that Christ is our perfect Risen Saviour and what that means for us according to the Author of Hebrews. Now, as we have seen that Christ is also our ascended high priest, let us look beyond this passage to see what that means for us.

It means we have one in heaven who sympathizes with our needs (4:15)

We looked at this last week in more detail, so we will only speak of it for a moment, but we can never be reminded too often that Christ entered heaven to intercede as a high priest before the Father on our behalf. From that position, his attitude towards us is not one of impatience, judgement, or anger, but rather he looks upon his children with sympathetic concern for our needs. Specifically, our needs as weak people in the face of temptation, prone to fall into sin. Jesus became a human being, in part, to know from experience the difficulty and anguish that accompanies temptation in this world. He know what it was like to be tempted in a weakened state, though he never gave into that sin. He knew what it was like to suffer the consequences of our sins on the cross, and now, risen and ascended as our high priest in heaven, Jesus looks upon us in our weakened state with pity.

Think of how great a comfort this is for us. We have someone in heaven, the Son of God himself, who is sitting at the right hand of God the Father, who has all authority in all creation, who will one day judge the living and the dead, and he looks upon his people with pity, compassion, and sympathy even in their moments of sin and failing. If you have put your faith in the risen saviour, you also have an ascended high priest who is ready of give you the grace for help when you need it; when temptation is too strong for you to resist alone and you are humbled by your weakness to temptation. His sympathy ensures that you can come to him freely and know that his love for you endures. This is how a Christian overcomes sin; not with feelings of dread and shame, as if Jesus is sitting up there impatient and upset with you because of how weak you are and how easily you fall. Instead, we overcome sin with the help which we recieve by coming boldly to him who knows, understands, and sympathizes with our weaknesses.

It means he is a perfect High Priest for us (7:11)

Here we jump a little forward in this letter to chapter 7 where the Author shows us that Jesus is a better high priest than any who could come from the OT priestly system with the Levites. This is, in part, because Jesus is part of a higher, more foundational priesthood established by the mysterious figure of Melchizedek in Genesis 14 whom Abraham acknowledged through tithes. Since Abraham represented all his children, he represented the Levitical priesthood and so shows that this priestly order of Melchizedek, which the prophet in Psalm 110 acknowledges Christ to be ordained to, is of a higher order.

This is good for us, because the OT priesthood of the Levites wasn’t good enough to save and help us. Hebrews 7:11

Hebrews 7:11 ESV

Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?

Perfection could not be obtained through the law, and so the priests who were priests by the law could not ever be perfect priests.

But Jesus is a perfect priest. Heb 7:28

Hebrews 7:28 ESV

For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

We already saw that Jesus’ was made perfect through his suffering, ending in death, and that perfection was vindicated and seen accomplished in his bodily resurrection. Death cannot hold him who is perfect. So, being made perfect through suffering and rising as our Saviour, Christ was appointed our great high priest in the heavenly Temple to serve, not in the shadow of an earthly temple, but in the reality of a heavenly one.

This makes Jesus’ service the best it could possibly be for us:

Hebrews 7:26 ESV

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

This high priest is holy, being unstained by any sin, either his or ours. For he himself never sinned, and our sins which he took upon himself are cleansed in the heavenly offering of his blood. He is innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens, making his death an appropriate atonement for our sins and making himself the most appropriate priest to offer such an offering. He can therefore stand in the heavenly Temple and effectively bring us to God.

This means we have a perfect covenant relationship with God (8:6)

Hebrews 8:6 ESV

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

Because Christ’s ministry, that is his office as our great, heavenly high priest, is perfect and better than any other priest could be, he also brings us to God in a perfect covenant.

A covenant is a formalized relationship where two previously estranged parties form family ties through oaths, promises, and even curses should they fail to keep the terms of covenant.

The Covenant that God made with Abraham was one in which the promises were a promised land, a nation to come from his children, and blessings for all nations through them. Through Moses, God established a covenant with Abraham’s descendants after delivering them from Egypt. In this covenant, faith and obedience (defined in what is often called the Ten Commandments, as well as the rest of OT law) was expected as the covenant obligation of the people. In other words, the relationship God was making was defined as being between a nation of priests who were to act as obedient and trusting children towards God. God’s role was that he would dwell with them, protect and provide for them, like a loving Father to his children.

This covenant did not end up succeeding because, although there was a sacrificial system to deal with the guilt of sins, the priests themselves were not sinless and so had to offer these sacrifices over and over again. In fact, these offerings, which were the flesh and blood of animals, could never really take away sin, but rather pointed to a future covenant. Carrying out these rituals was a way that OT saints displayed faith in a coming perfect high priest, a perfect sacrifice, offered in a perfect Temple in the context of a perfect covenant.

Now, since we have a perfect sacrifice and a perfect priest to offer it, that ministry of Christ is perfect, and so the covenant which he mediates and offers to us must also be perfect. This means that, because of our resurrected and ascended High Priest, we have the best possible relationship with God, with promises sealed in his blood. You could not imagine or wish to be in a better position before than in Christ, even if you yourself were sinless and righteous. Those who believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ with a living faith have the best relationship with God that is possible, since it is mediated through God’s own Son.

Lastly, it means we have someone to bring us to the Father with a perfect sacrifice for sins (9:11-12)

Hebrews 9:11–12 ESV

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

When we say that Jesus mediates this covenant, we mean that his ministry as a high priest is able to bring us to God so that the covenant is able to be established. The cup at the Lord’s Table is called the cup of the new covenant because it represents the blood in which the covenant is founded. This blood plays two roles, one is the atonement from sins and the other is the establishment of a new relationship with God. OT covenants were always established with blood (Gen 15:9-10; Ex 24:6-8) as a sign of faithfulness to the covenant, establishing a curse should the covenant be broken, and to display a familial bond being formed. Christ’s blood, shed on the cross, took on the curse of the old covenants, which were broken by us in our sin, and became the foundation for a New Covenant which bring about a perfect relationship with God.

God is holy and righteous, and just as a good and just judge cannot let a violent criminal go free, he cannot have fellowship with sinful beings. In his love, he provided an atonement for sins, a cleansing. Now, Christ as our ascended high priest has offered his own shed blood once for all. The penalty for sin has been paid. But the fact that a perfect sacrifice for sins died does not apply that death to us for atonement. We need a perfect high priest to present that sacrifice to God the Father.

Christ is that high priest, and since he is ascended in heaven he is able to present us to God where he dwells. This is how we can know and dwell with God. Because Jesus is in heaven as our Great High Priest, we are welcomed into that same space through his ministry. This opens the way to the Throne of Grace where we recieve help in our need in this life, and which forever will be the place where we behold the Beatific Vision; seeing the very face of God with resurrected bodies prepared for such a purpose.

Salvation is all about dwelling with God and being restored to be the image bearers we were created to be. Thanks to our Perfect High Priest who has passed through the Heavens, we can have our sins forgiven and so be ushered into the presence of God and enjoy the life we were made to live.

Conclusion

Because we have a risen Saviour and an ascended High Priest, we have every reason to hold to our faith to the very end.

At Easter, we remember the resurrection which justifies our faith. It means our sins have been forgiven. It means we do have a great high priests who sympathizes with our weaknesses. It means we have access to boldly enter the Throneroom of God. It means we will live forever seeing his face. It means that, despite the suffering, trials, temptations, and evils we face in this world, our victory in Christ is assured if we persevere in the faith.

How can you approach an infinately righteous God when you are so full of sin, guilt, and shame? Look to the risen Saviour, the ascended high priest who offers his own blood for your sins; who was dead, and behold he is alive forevermore. He has the keys to death, and his heart is one of mercy for sinners in search of help, forgiveness, and freedom from the evil of their own hearts. The OT priests couldn’t do it. A religious experience won’t do it. The motions of a Christian life won’t do it. Christian institutions and empty sacraments won’t do it. How can you have deliverance? How can you have a true freedom from guilt and shame? Where can you get the grace for the help you need to rid your life of sin and evil? How can you enter the presence of God and experience his love in joy for all time? Where can you find life and find it abundantly? Look to the Saviour who was risen from a death he died for you. Look to the High Priest who welcomes you into a heavenly Throneroom. Look to Jesus Christ, the author of perfector of our faith!