Jesus is Better

Is it possible for you to be so close to God that you will only want to do what is right and good? To have your conscience purified? Can we put away sin once for all? This is the goal of religion. Has religion accomplished this? Is there a better way? This whole section of Hebrews is a reflection on two passages from the Hebrew Bible (Psalm 110, Jeremiah 31) that promise that after religion fails to complete a more perfect humanity, God offers something better. He offers us His Son, who can change us, much deeper than external religion, in our heart’s desires.

Better than Your Dad

Religion is something handed down to us by our forefathers, our parents. Hebrew culture holds a particular reverence for those who passed down the faith.

Spiritual Levels:

God

Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Angels (speak with God face to face)

High Priest

People of Israel

Gentiles

The writer of Hebrews has been using the Hebrew scriptures to help paint a picture of the superiority of the Messiah to all of their heroes. We’ve already seen how Jesus Christ is superior to Moses and the angels, through whom God spoke to Israel at Mount Sinai. Now the writer uses Melchizedek to demonstrate from the Hebrew Bible that there is another person on a level above Abraham (tithes go up and blessings go down), and Messiah is on his level.

In our culture, we have a complicated relationship with our parents and religion. But we all still have heroes of the faith. And often our religion consists of learning from them. But Jesus promised that we would all be taught by God Himself (John 6:45; Isaiah 54:13). Is your relationship with God based on the teachings of other people in the faith? There is something better. You can learn directly from God.

Better than Your Priest

But if it’s just God and me, isn’t this where people go off the rails? We have a long history of people who have come up with a whole new religion because God “taught” them something no one else had ever known. Isn’t there a place for spiritual leaders who help us to know and learn from God through His word?

So God provided the people of Israel priests. He instituted their office with stipulations and regulations in the covenant law of Moses. The Levitical priests mediated the covenant to the people of Israel. This covenant was God’s agreement that if the people of Israel would walk in God’s ways according to His words, they would experience His blessings through the Levitical priests. They could draw near to Him to offer their gifts and to ask Him for help. This is the whole goal of religion.

But the writer points out that the Levitical priesthood did not accomplish the goal.

The covenant was dependent on the obedience of the people. We all know how that goes. So the writer says the covenant of the law of Moses had an inherent weakness (7:18).

Every priest, no matter how good, godly, and well-intentioned, also had weaknesses. For one thing, they all die (7:23). For another, their all sinners, just like the rest of the people. They have to offer daily sacrifices not just for the sins of the people, but their own as well (7:27). Not a very efficient religion.

Their ministry takes place in a tent of meeting, a holy place on earth that was intended to connect heaven and earth. But it was an imperfect representation of the true tent of meeting that exists in heaven (Moses was shown the real one on Mount Sinai, and he designed the tabernacle as a copy).

So, what if there was a better priest? What if there was a priest who could mediate a better, more lasting covenant? What if that priest lived forever, and wasn’t weighed down with sin? What if He was “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens (7:26)”?

Our passage last week told us that Jesus was like us in every way but was truly sinless. So, rather than daily sacrifices for his own sin, and those of the people, He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, once for all (7:27; 9:26). So His sacrifice didn’t just cover over the sins of today. His sacrifice of His own blood “put away sin” (cancel/annul/do away with) (9:26). Because He wasn’t ministering in an imperfect copy of the meeting place with God, but in the presence of God Himself.

And Jesus lives forever. In verses 11-28 of Hebrews 7, it says 6 times that the Son of God lives forever. As the writer of Hebrews puts it in 7:16, He has become a priest, “not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.” Melchizedek is the model for the Messiah. A king-priest who is in office not because of who his dad was, but because of God’s oath. In the Hebrew text, we are never told that Melchizedek dies. But Jesus is even better. His eternal life is not just a literary device.

His resurrection begins a new era. It’s a time of reformation (9:10). The covenant law of Moses has been superceded, (not replaced), by a better covenant. God had made an eternal covenant with the Son of God to “(7:25) save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” You can try other ways, but this is the one way that comes with this promise. Jesus, the Son of God, lives to pray for you, and "appears in the presence of God on our behalf (9:24)”. This is a “better hope, through which we draw near to God (7:19).” “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant (7:22).” Who else does this?

The law of Moses could not perfect anyone, including the priests that were helping others draw near to God in worship. It was an imperfect system, dependent on weak, imperfect people, and it failed. The religious system built on that law wasn’t helping anyone (except maybe the honest and pure in heart).

Better than Your Best Sacrifices

The religious system was a conditional covenant. If the people perfectly obeyed, God would bless them and allow them to draw near to Him for help. But laws, regulations, and commandments don’t fix the human heart. So, God promised a new covenant. 8:7-12 quote this promise, also found in the Hebrew Scriptures... the externals of religion would be overtaken by people who would do God’s will from their heart, because they would love and internalize His laws and they would really know Him.

Religion offers regulations for worship (9:1). Jesus offers us a pure conscience (9:14). The external regulations could not perfect the conscience of the worshipper (9:9). But Jesus is a high priest who is “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens (7:26).” He offers Himself.

Jesus is now the meeting place of heaven and earth, uniting God and humans. Religion is hopeless, but abiding in Jesus changes everything. “The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, [purifies] our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (9:14).” “Therefore He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance (9:15)”, eternal redemption (9:12), pure consciences (9:14), a better hope (7:18), a better covenant (7:22), better promises (8:6), based on better sacrifices (9:23), offered by the perfect Son of God (7:28), in the greater and more perfect tent (9:11).

There are many religious people that do not know God at all. Religion can make you appear pure in the externals. God doesn’t need you to bring a spotless religious record. In fact, this is exactly what the text calls “dead works” (9:14). Only Jesus can give you a new heart and a pure conscience and make you a complete human being.

Can we be purified right down to the level of desire, so we don’t just avoid external sins, but truly desire to serve the living God from the heart? Can we become more complete humans by being less religious? Jesus is better than religion.

If you examine your spiritual life, how much of your activity is shaping externals like church attendance, Bible knowledge, and doing what others are doing to fit in? How much of your activity is focused on truly drawing near to God through Jesus, not just knowing your Bible, but using God’s word to know God?

Questions for discussion

Is there anything you were able to apply from last week’s passage that you can share with us?

What does this week’s passage teach us about Jesus?

What makes Jesus the perfect priest? What makes knowing Jesus better than religion?

What are some ways we can draw near to God through Jesus?

What does this passage teach us about people in general, or ourselves in particular?

What are some ways we have made our spiritual life more religious without being changed in the inner life?

What is one way you will apply what you’ve learned from this passage this week?