A Better High Priest
Every high priest is selected from among men and is
appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and
sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and
are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has
to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.
No one takes this honor upon himself; he must be called
by God, just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory
of becoming a high priest. But God said to him,
“You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”
And he says in
another place, “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”
During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up
prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him
from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he
was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was
designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
You can often tell how serious something is by seeing how
other people react to it. A student
might think his misbehavior is not a big deal, but when he sees the principal
march in to pull him out of class, he starts to understand that his offense was
actually pretty serious. When the
authorities shut down a highway, you can assume that there has been a serious
accident or that the weather conditions are seriously dangerous. And when Adam and Eve first sinned, God
reacted by putting a curse all of creation and kicking them out of
paradise. That’s serious.
So how about the way we treat sin here, when we gather
together, especially during the season of Lent?
The calls for repentance. The
somber hymns. The cries of “Lord, have
mercy!” The repeated confession of
sins. Every week we confess them. See, this is more than just tradition and
ritual. Sin is serious.
It’s so serious that it needs a serious solution. In fact, it requires a death. Yet your death or my death can’t fix the
problem. Your good intentions or my good
intentions can’t make up for sin. Sin
requires A Better Savior than we can
provide. These Wednesdays in Lent we
contemplate our sin and then turn to our better Savior by meditating on
descriptions of him from the book of Hebrews.
The book of Hebrews was written because there were Jewish
Christians in the first generation after Christ who were starting to slip back
into Judaism. They were abandoning their
new Christian faith because they wanted to go back to the old ceremonies and
laws. The author of this letter—we don’t
know who it was—wrote to show how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament
laws and ceremonies. For example, today
we see how Jesus is better than the Old Testament high priests. These high priests were selected and
appointed to represent the people “in
matters related to God,” and their main duty as that representative was
“to offer gifts and sacrifices for
sins.” This would happen most
importantly once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This day was the heart of the Old Testament
law. It was the only day anyone was
allowed in the Holy of Holies, where God was present above the ark of the
covenant. Only the high priest could
enter, and only on this day.
On this day the high priest would first put on plain-looking
robes and sprinkle the blood of sacrifices throughout the sanctuary of the
tabernacle to cleanse the place of worship and the people who served at
worship. The high priest then
ceremonially carried the sins of all the people and transferred them to a
goat—the scapegoat—by confessing those sins over it, acting as if those sins
were his. The goat was then sent out and
released into the desert, so far away that it could never return. There it would die with all those sins. Finally, the high priest would change into
the elaborate high priestly robes and offer burnt offerings on the altar to
atone for the sins of the nation.
All of these actions—a full day of ceremonies—underscored
the fact that sin is serious. This
serious day was necessary to atone for sin.
And the high priest was the one who performed these actions on behalf of
the people. So the high priest was not
like an emergency contact—someone who is there just in case you might happen to
need him. No, he was the lifeline for
the people. He was the way each person
could remain in good standing with God and in good standing within the
community. The scapegoat was sent out to
the desert so the people could remain in.
The blood of animals was shed to atone for sin, so that the blood of the
people would be spared. And the high
priest is the one who did these things for the people.
We don’t have that kind of high priest. Things have changed. But we have a better high priest. That’s important, because the seriousness of
sin has not changed, even if the world’s view of sin has.
The world tends to minimize sin. In fact, the world thinks it is doing people
a favor by teaching us to be proud of who we are, diminishing anything that
might be called sin. But they’re looking
at the wrong things to find pride.
Professionals are expected to promote themselves and speak highly of
themselves in order to get a job or advance in a career. Weaknesses are spun to sound like strengths,
so instead of admitting that you’re lazy you say that you’re good at knowing
when to take breaks to recharge the batteries.
Children are taught to be happy with whoever they are and to accept sinful
attitudes and actions as what makes them unique. Promoting self-esteem includes the
encouragement to do what’s in your heart.
But do we really want that? The
Lord has said, “The heart is
deceitful above all things and beyond cure,” (Jer. 17:9) and “Out of the heart com evil thoughts,
murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”
(Matt. 15:19) All evil actions are a
result of doing what’s in our heart!
See, this sin is serious. It
infects each one of us, every heart.
It’s so easy to try to diminish our own sins in our own minds. For example, when we hear the parable of the
Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple, we like to think we are
the tax collector because we know he was doing the right thing. We like to think we are humble. But soon enough we start thinking, “I hope
people notice and appreciate how humble I am.” And just like that we’ve become the Pharisee.
How serious is your sin?
Look at how God reacts to it.
Eternal humiliation in hell for the sin that infects each heart. But God is just as serious about providing a
solution for sin—a high priest, foreshadowed by the Old Testament high priest,
but better.
On the Day of Atonement, the Old Testament high priest put
on plain clothes to show he was representing the people to God, then he changed
into the elaborate high priestly robes to show that he was representing God to
the people. But our better high priest
didn’t just put on clothes; Jesus put on human flesh and blood while remaining
God, not just representing us but becoming one of us, taking our place under
God’s law and God’s judgment. The Old
Testament high priest offered up earthly gifts and sacrifices. Jesus, our great high priest, offered up
divine prayers and supplications for us, and then offered up himself as the
ultimate sacrifice. The Old Testament
high priest symbolically bore the sins of the people and transferred them to
the scapegoat. Jesus, our great high
priest, literally felt the burden of our sins.
He himself was the scapegoat, taking our blame and our punishment and
finally burying our sin in a place that is so far away from us that it can
never come back to condemn us or accuse us.
And while Aaron, the first high priest, needed to be replaced by one of
his sons, and he by one of his sons, and on down the line, our high priest
serves for us in that position forever.
Forever and ever he holds before his Father his all sufficient sacrifice
for our salvation. Forever and ever the
Father accepts and is pleased with his priestly Son, and therefore on his
account he is pleased with and accepts us.
This is why the writer of this letter quoted Psalm 110, “You are a priest forever, in the order
of Melchizedek.” Jesus is better
than Aaron the high priest. He’s more
like Melchizedek the priest. Melchizedek
is a mysterious figure in the Bible. He
lived during the time of Abraham. In
Genesis 14 we hear how Abraham’s nephew Lot was caught in the middle of a war
and carried off by a conquering king.
Abraham gathered 318 of his men, defeated that army, and rescued
Lot. On his way back home, with no
introduction, out of the blue we read, “Then
Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most
High, and he blessed Abram, saying, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator
of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies
into your hand.’ Then Abram gave him a
tenth of everything.” (Gen. 14:18-20)
That’s it. Just a mysterious king
and priest. No background. No more explanation. And then he’s gone. In fact, the only other mention of
Melchizedek in the Old Testament is when David, by inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, compared the Messiah to Melchizedek in Psalm 110.
The inspired writer of this letter to the Hebrews pulls it
all together for us in a different chapter.
Melchizedek is greater than Aaron and all the high priests. “First,
his name means ‘king of righteousness’; then also, ‘king of Salem’ means ‘king
of peace.’ Without father or mother,
without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of
God he remains a priest forever.” (Hebrews 7:2-3) It’s as if Melchizedek is eternal. At least, he appears that way in the pages of
Scripture. And he was so great that Abraham
even gave him a tenth of all his possessions.
And yet, our high priest is even better than Melchizedek. Jesus, our great high priest, doesn’t just
appear eternal. He is eternal. He doesn’t just have a name that means king
of righteousness and king of peace. He
is our king who gives us his righteousness and a peace that we will find
nowhere else.
This is God’s serious solution to our serious sin. He gives us a greater high priest, who
cleanses your heart from the sin that infects you. Jesus is not our emergency contact, there
just in case we need him. No, he’s your
lifeline, there at all times, in every need, at every moment, living in
eternity just to atone for you and intercede for you. Sin is serious. But our high priest shows that God is just as
serious about taking your sin away from you.
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