THE LAST PRIEST
Notes
Transcript
There is a remarkable revelation of who Jesus is in the book of Hebrews. I want to focus in on part of that this morning. Almost all religions recognize the need of priests. This has not always played well. The Catholic church comes to mind, as does Judaism. Throughout history most priesthoods are riddled with corruption as are most human institutions that traffic in power. But we, as Christians, have the perfect, incorruptible, forever priest. I want to think this through with you. It is a wonderfully encouraging thought.
Yes, the old requirement about the priesthood was set aside because it was weak and useless. For the law never made anything perfect. But now we have confidence in a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
This new system was established with a solemn oath. Aaron’s descendants became priests without such an oath, but there was an oath regarding Jesus. For God said to him,
“The Lord has taken an oath and will not break his vow:
‘You are a priest forever.’ ”
Because of this oath, Jesus is the one who guarantees this better covenant with God.
There were many priests under the old system, for death prevented them from remaining in office. But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever. Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.
He is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has been set apart from sinners and has been given the highest place of honor in heaven. Unlike those other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices every day. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when he offered himself as the sacrifice for the people’s sins. The law appointed high priests who were limited by human weakness. But after the law was given, God appointed his Son with an oath, and his Son has been made the perfect High Priest forever.
A PRIEST FOREVER
A PRIEST FOREVER
The Old Priesthood’s Weakness
The Old Priesthood’s Weakness
Let’s very quickly think about the relevance of a priest in our lives.
one authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God
Whatever the means of authorization in human terms, the priest was recognized as the mediator between humans and God. He is the one who offers sacrifice, brings reconciliation, and ends hostilities between God and man.
And you shall put the two stones on the shoulders of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. So Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders as a memorial.
Aaron represented all Israel before God.
Our text starts out with the acknowledgement that the old priesthood was weak and useless. This is not only self-evident based on the historic corruption that I mentioned a moment ago, but also in its very nature. How can a man make another man right with God?
Our text points out that the priest had to first offer for his own sins! He was a sinner offering for sinners. This is why religion will never work. Man’s loftiest ideas about God and highest attempts at propitiation are spoiled by his own sinfulness. They are always tainted by our debased minds and the filthiness of our so called righteousness.
So the priesthood is dead in the water before it gets started.
Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
Though God Himself instituted the priesthood, He knew from the beginning that it was inadequate. The entire sacrificial system, including the priesthood, was simply a placeholder.
For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
The inadequacy of religion, cultic practice, and the clergy class is remedied in Jesus Christ. Our text points out several qualifying realities about the priesthood of Jesus.
The Oath
The Oath
The first of these is the oath of God. None of the other priests, according to our text, were sealed with an oath.
An oath, as it pertains to God, is the highest, most binding, most indisputable imprimatur or ratification of a thing that can ever be applied.
For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,
Contextually the author is referring to the Abrahamic covenant but the principle of the oath is clearly laid out. And the oath of God is marked as absolute truth, the gold standard of certainty!
So when it comes to the priesthood of Christ, the access to God, the representation of men before God, the mediator, the go-between, the reconciler of man to God…Jesus has been irrefutably designated as our acceptable priest by the oath of God.
The Resurrection
The Resurrection
Another certification of Christ as priest is His resurrection/eternal life.
The priest’s office was terminated by his death. No priest could remain a priest because they all had the bad habit of dying. So there were many priests. Some good, some not so good, some evil! Regardless of how well or how badly they fulfilled their office, they were doomed from the start to fail as man’s representative before God.
But Jesus is High Priest forever by virtue of the fact that He will never die! He is the last High Priest, the last priestly representation of men before God.
I understand that we are all priests by our service and our worship, but none of us stand in a place of salvation and reconciliation of men to God. Jesus is our forever priest!
THE PERFECT PRIEST
THE PERFECT PRIEST
Sinless
Sinless
Beyond that He is our perfect priest! I like the way the NLT introduces this idea: He is the kind of priest we need!!!
As mentioned the High Priest had to offer sacrifice for himself! A sinner approaching God for sinners. It would be like a thief representing a thief in court. Oh yeah, that’s the way our legal system works. No wonder it doesn’t work!!
But what a sinner needs is a sinless representation! We need someone sinless to stand in our place. When God considers us/considers our case, we don’t speak for ourselves…Jesus, our sinless representative speaks for us!
Heb 7:28..and his Son has been made the perfect High Priest forever.
Blameless…unstained…perfect God the Father, the perfect judge, looks at our High Priest and says: I don’t see a mark on him. No stain, no blame. Sinless!!!
Once For All
Once For All
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.
The old covenant was inadequate not only because of the flawed priesthood, but because that flawed nature required ongoing sacrifices. No sooner was atonement made for sin, then the high priest sinned again. Israel sinned again. There goes another cow!!! Dang…would you knock it off…we’re running out of heifers!
But our sacrifice is a once for all deal! Jesus has addressed our problem once for all.
not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
We have the advantage of the Holy Spirit resident in us and our sin nature is in decline. Unlike the Jews, Jesus in our lives brings a growing dominion over sin…but we still sin.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
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.
And so, because our flawless high priest has offered a flawless sin offering, our on-going struggle with our sin nature has been dealt with. Jesus our perfect High Priest has offered the perfect sacrifice for us…once for all.
THE SAVING INTERCESSOR
THE SAVING INTERCESSOR
He is Able To Save
He is Able To Save
Therefore, our text is able to say without qualification: He is able to save to the uttermost.
Pantelos = Completely, fully, wholly…eis pantelos = into forever.
The AMP = Hebrews 7:25 (AMP)
25 Therefore He is able also to save to the uttermost (completely, perfectly, finally, and for all time and eternity)...
There is nothing more to be done. The perfect priest has offered the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins perfectly!
Your works, your sanctification, your transformation add nothing to your salvation. They do not make you acceptable. Only the High Priest can make you acceptable and He has done that!
Can you backslide? Can you walk away from that priest? I suppose you can but I don’t know why you would want to. That’s a whole different sermon…but for us who are saved to the uttermost, that is not the issue. The issue is the amazing Priest that we have in Jesus and what he has accomplished for us as sinners saved by His gracious mediation..
He Lives to Intercede
He Lives to Intercede
And here is the ongoing covering that the High Priest provides for us…He lives to intercede.
We tend to think of His intercession as Jesus praying for our needs and desires to be met by God and I don’t doubt that this may be true on one level…but contextually, that isn’t what is being promised here. What is being promised is His priestly intercession, His sinless representation of our sinful nature. He lives to do this. He is resurrected to do this! He constantly interposes Himself between us and the perfectly Holy righteous and just God so that we are seen by God as perfectly holy and righteous in Christ!
This is born out in :
Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
His intercession is against he who condemns. Vss 33-34 use judicial language. The picture is in a court room. Who brings charges? Who condemns? God justifies. Jesus intercedes!
Isaiah 53:12 (NKJV)
12 ...Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
His intercession is the ongoing ministry of His death and resurrection. He LIVES to make intercession.
Death is the wage of sin. Jesus died, but not by His sin, but by ours. So death could not be the final play. Every death-dealing sin we commit is addressed by His life. The former priests could not do this! They did not outlive death. They had nothing to reverse the death of sin.
Sinless, blameless, perfect Jesus on the other hand could not die. We might say His very life is our intercession. It reverses our condemnation.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And so Jesus is our last high priest. No more are needed. They must find employment elsewhere, perhaps as butchers. Or maybe they can join us in the new priesthood:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
That would be us…praising Jesus who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light!
