Authority to Forgive

Theme: Knowing that Jesus, our Great High Priest, has forgiven us, we will be strengthened to endure any trial.

Introduction

I want to believe, that if you had the opportunity, you would point someone in desperate need of help in the right direction. True?

It was true for Alexander Graham Bell.

Bell was a famous inventor. If you remember your elementary history class you’ll remember that he invented the phone. One thing that I found out he invented was the metal detector. Something else I didn’t know about Alexander Graham Bell is that his real life’s work was to teach, establish schools, and to invent acoustic tools to help the deaf communicate.

Enter Helen Keller

Someone else you know of from history, is the women named Helen Keller.

Helen, because of illness, became deaf and blind at 19 months old. Her mother, Kate Keller, refused to believe that her daughter couldn’t be helped.

After a visit to a hospital in Baltimore, she was referred to Alexander Bell for help.

Bell, recognizing that he could not do what needed to be done in Helen Keller’s life, pointed her in the right direction, to the person who could help her, Anne Sullivan.

The Illustration

Bell didn’t perform a miracle, He didn’t ease the pain of the Keller family, but he knew the right person for the job.

The author of Hebrews is doing just that. He is explaining in Heb 4:14-5:10, that Aaron, the high priest of the Old Testament wasn’t the one with the authority to forgive, but that he simply points us to the one with the authority to forgive.

Why it Matters

It is essential that you know, that the Lord Jesus is the only One who has the authority to forgive.

It is also essential that you know, that the Lord Jesus, if He has forgiven you, He has forgiven you completely.

If you do not know, if you do not have confidence in the ministry and the work of the Lord Jesus on the Cross, you will become discouraged, you will become afraid, and worst of all, you’ll never be able to point others in the right direction during their time of need.

How can we know that Jesus has the authority to forgive?

I. His Position

Hebrews 4:14 NKJV

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

The Bible tells us that Jesus is the great High Priest.

The high priest is considered the holiest person in Israel. Only the high priest was allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies, the inner room of God’s temple, to make sacrifices there.

The reason that he offered sacrifices there in that inner room is so that the people of Israel could be forgiven.

A. Heavenly Position

Hebrews 4:14 NKJV

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens,

Context

The tabernacle is where God would meet with the people through the high priest. The high priest in Israel would go into the tabernacle tent of the Old Testament. He would pass through the open area of the tabernacle called the court. He would pass through the Holy Place, and he would go into the Holy of Holies. There in the Holy of Holies, the high priest would be in the presence of God called the Shekinah Glory.

But Jesus did not just have the position of high priest, He holds the position of great High Priest, and his position is Heavenly.

He passed through the Heavens.

Point

While every other high priest prayed for the people from earth, Jesus is, at this very moment, praying and interceding for you, pleading for your forgiveness in Heaven. He has a heavenly position.

B. Royal Position

Hebrews 4:14 NKJV

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God

1. Context

The high priest was not voted in. Most of the time, the priestly ministry passed from father to son throughout the generations. When a man would die, it would pass to the next in the line of the Levites. The Levite Tribe is a Tribe of Israel that was given no land in Israel because they were dedicated to the priestly ministry. The only person that could be a priest was someone from the line of Levi.

Jesus was not from the tribe of Levi, but He was from the tribe of Judah.

This didn’t matter, because the lineage of Jesus was greater than the lineage of any other priest. Jesus comes from a Royal lineage, He is the Son of God.

2. Introducing Melchizedek

Not only do we see Him as the Son of God, we see that the Lord Jesus came from the line of a man named Melchizedek.

Hebrews 5:5–6 NKJV

So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” As He also says in another place: “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek”;

Melchizedek is found in the Old Testament and is called the King of Salem (Peace). He is a picture of Jesus, he is royalty. Not only was Melchizedek royalty, he was a priest!

Hebrews 7:1–4 NKJV

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated “king of righteousness,” and then also king of Salem, meaning “king of peace,” without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.

Hebrews 7:9 NKJV

Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham.

This is speaking of genealogy. That Levi and the tribe of Levi are all sons of Abraham. That through Abraham, all those in the line of Levi paid tithes to one that was greater than them, one who was royal, the King of Salem, Melchizedek.

3. Jesus is From the Line of Melchizedek

So, in v. 6, the Bible says that the Lord Jesus is a Priest by descent, according to the line of Melchizedek, to whom those in the tribe of Levi paid tithes to.

He wanted the readers to understand that the appointment of Jesus as High Priest is greater than an earthly lineage of Levi, but that it is a Heavenly and Royal High Priesthood.

C. Beneficial Position

Hebrews 4:14 NKJV

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

1. Hold Fast

Means to cling to, to make your foundation, to grab onto for salvation.

2. Confession

To confess something means to be in total agreement with it. When we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are agreeing with what God says about His Son.

But we also confess to Him about our personal sins and failures. And when we pray to Jesus, we can know that He has the authority to forgive.

1 John 1:9 NKJV

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

3. Encouragement

So, the author writes to say, “Since we have a great High Priest who is in Heaven pleading our case, who is the Son of God and Royal in every regard, we must cling to His ability to bring to overcome every failure.”

We hold to this truth, that the Lord Jesus has the authority to forgive. That the Lord Jesus is the One Who can help us in our time of need. That when we were blind, and when we were deaf, He didn’t just help us communicate, but He gave us sight and He gave us the ability to hear His voice.

Knowing that Jesus holds a position with the authority to forgive us and to save us, it gives us something to cling to when disaster is all around.

Why was He appointed to so great a position?

II. His Perfection

Hebrews 4:15 NKJV

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Our High Priest does not have a prideful perfection…

A. Compassionate Perfection

The Bible says that He can sympathize with our weakness.

Ebenezer Scrooge: A Christmas Carol

in 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the story of Ebenezer Scrooge. Ebenezer had a lot of money, but he wasn’t concerned about the suffering of other people. He thought that all of these people were free loaders and con artists trying to get his money.

In this story, he is asked to donate to charity and he tells those guys, “Are there no prisons?...are there no Union workhouses?…Those who are badly off must go there!”

But something happens in the life of Ebenezer Scrooge. He is visited on Christmas Eve the ghost of his old business partner, and of the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas Present, and the ghost of Christmas yet to come.

Through all of those revelations, Scrooge becomes compassionate when he experiences first hand the sufferings of the people.

If there is one thing that I have experienced in life, it is that too many people are like Ebenezer Scrooge and they have no compassion or sympathy for those that are struggling.

The Lord can never use you until you realize just how unworthy you are. If He uses you while you still consider yourself worthy to be used, then you won’t have any compassion, you won’t have any understanding, you won’t show any grace or mercy…but when you understand the struggles and the pain of the weak, then you are ready to be used.

Jesus is perfect, but He has a compassionate perfection, and He can understand the curse of sin.

1. He Became Flesh

John 1:14 NKJV

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is not a High Priest that is praying for us from the high and lofty places of the world. He is a High Priest Who became flesh, to live as we lived, so that He might have compassion on us.

2. He Forgave

On the day that Jesus was unjustly placed on that cross to bear the sin of the world, what was His prayer?

“Father, forgive them!”

Even in His perfection, He had compassion.

3. He Became Sin

There on the cross, sin entered in, and ripped Him from fellowship with the Father. There on that cross, Jesus became sin for us, and Jesus felt the power of death, and Jesus descended into the depths of the earth.

The Lord Jesus has such a great compassion for us because He became the very thing that He rescues us from.

B. True Perfection

The reason that people refuse to submit their life to the Lord Jesus is because they believe that they already have perfection. With their mouth, they will deny it, but with their heart, they will confirm it, because they refuse to believe on the Lord Jesus for salvation.

This is called “self-righteousness”. The only person that they answer to is self, and they tell themselves, “Don’t worry about it, you’re good enough, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

But the Bible says that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, but that He was without sin.

Hebrews 4:15 NKJV

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Even though people believe that they are perfect, the Bible says that the only way for us to obtain this true perfection that comes from the High Priest is to confess that we have sinned.

1 John 1:8–9 NKJV

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There is that confession of sin that leads to salvation from sin.

We must also confess Jesus is the Lord and the only Truly Perfect savior.

Romans 10:9 NKJV

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Jesus is the position of Heavenly and Royal High Priest. He was appointed to that position because of His compassionate and true perfection…we know that He was given the Position, due to His perfection, because He was accepted as the Propitiation.

III. His Propitiation

Hebrews 2:17 NKJV

Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

Propitiation means to appease someone’s wrath or anger through an offering.

What this means for us is that God’s wrath against sin is turned away because of what Jesus did on the cross. When we confess Jesus as the Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we become satisfying to God just as Jesus was.

A. Lawful Propitiation

Hebrews 5:1–3 NKJV

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins.

In order for a high priest to offer sacrifices for the sins of the people, he had to abide by the law.

In Leviticus 16:

The Bible tells us that a priest had to bathe his entire body in a designated place.

The priest had to have on white linen garments.

Seven days before, the high priest had to be quarantined along with a substitute incase he died or became unclean.

He had to be sprinkled twice with ashes of a red heifer

and stay away from and perform all other kinds of duties to ensure that he was still lawfully able to make propitiation by way of sacrifice.

Hebrews 7:25–27 NKJV

Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

This means that Jesus is lawfully clean, and lawfully acceptable to forgive us of sin.

Why is it important for it to be lawful?

God is a God of justice. God doesn’t break the rules, He follows them perfectly. No lawbreakers are able to appease God. So, what we needed was someone Who also followed the laws perfectly, and His name is the Lord Jesus, and He is our great High Priest.

B. Sufficient Propitiation

Hebrews 7:27 NKJV

who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

IV. Provision

Hebrews 5:9 NKJV

And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,

A. Authored Provision

God is the One who thought of salvation, Jesus is the One Who bought salvation. He has given us everything we need.

B. Finished Provision

Not only did He think of it, He finished it, and He will finish us.

Philippians 1:6 NKJV

being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

Conclusion

In Christ, we have forgivenness. In Christ, we have access to the authority of Heaven. With all of the authority of Heaven in us, we can walk with confidence.